1804-1865 Fitz Henry Lane was born on December 19, 1804, in Gloucester, Massachusetts. Lane was christened Nathaniel Rogers Lane on March 17, 1805, and would remain known as such until he was 27. It was not until March 13, 1832 that the state of Massachusetts would officially grant Lane??s own formal request (made in a letter dated December 26, 1831) to change his name from Nathaniel Rogers to Fitz Henry Lane. As with practically all aspects of Lane??s life, the subject of his name is one surrounded by much confusion??it was not until 2005 that historians discovered that they had been wrongly referring to the artist as Fitz Hugh, as opposed to his chosen Fitz Henry, and the reasons behind Lane??s decision to change his name, and for choosing the name he did, are still very unclear. From the time of his birth, Lane would be exposed to the sea and maritime life??a factor that obviously had a great impact his later choice of subject matter. Many circumstances of his young life ensured Lane??s constant interaction with various aspects of this maritime life, including the fact that Lane??s family lived ??upon the periphery of Gloucester Harbor??s working waterfront,?? , and that his father, Jonathan Dennison Lane, was a sailmaker, and quite possibly owned and ran a sail loft. It is often speculated that Lane would most likely have pursued some sea-faring career, or become a sail-maker like his father, instead of an artist, had it not been for a life-long handicap Lane developed as a child. Although the cause cannot be known with complete certainty, it is widely accepted most plausible that the ingestion of some part of the Peru-Apple??a poisonous weed also known as jimsonweed??by Lane at the age of eighteen months caused the paralysis of the legs from which Lane would never recover. It is suggested, and seems logical to assume, that because he could not play games as the other children did, he was forced to find some other means of amusement, and that in such a pursuit he discovered and was able to develop his talent for drawing. To go a step further, as a result of his having a busy sea-port as immediate surroundings, he was able to develop a special skill in depicting the goings-on inherent in such an environment. It is true that Lane could still have become a sail-maker, as such an occupation entailed much time spent sitting and sewing, and that Lane already had some experience sewing from his short-lived apprenticeship in shoe-making. However, as evidenced in this quote from Lane??s nephew Edward Lane??s ??Early Recollections,?? his interest in art held much sway in his deciding on a career: ??Before he became an artist he worked for a short time making shoes, but after a while, seeing that he could draw pictures better than he could make shoes he went to Boston and took lessons in drawing and painting and became a marine artist.?? Lane acquired such ??lessons?? by way of his employment at Pendleton??s lithography shop in Boston, which lasted from 1832 to 1847. With the refinement and development of his artistic skills acquired during his years working as a lithographer, Lane was able to successfully produce marine paintings of high quality, as evidenced in his being listed, officially, as a ??marine painter?? in the Boston Almanac of 1840. Lane continued to refine his painting style, and consequently, the demand for his marine paintings increased as well. Lane had visited Gloucester often while living in Boston, and in 1848, he returned permanently. In 1849, Lane began overseeing construction of a house/studio of his own design on Duncan??s Point??this house would remain his primary residence to the end of his life. Fitz Henry Lane continued to produce beautiful marine paintings and seascapes into his later years. He died in his home on Duncan??s Point on August 14, 1865, and is buried in Oak Grove Cemetery.  Related Paintings of Fitz Hugh Lane :. | New York Harbor | Off Mount Desert Island | Off Mount Desert Island | Boston Harbor | Castine Harbor |
Related Artists:
Sigrid Hjerten
Swedish, 1885-1948, was a Swedish modernist painter. Hjerten is considered a crucial figure in Swedish modernism. Periodically she was highly productive and she participated in a large number of exhibitions. She worked as an artist for 30 years before succumbing to complications from treatment for a psychiatric disorder. Sigrid Hjerten was born in Sundsvall in 1885. She studied at the College of Crafts and Design in Stockholm and graduated as a drawing teacher. At a studio party in 1909, Herten met her future husband, twenty-year old Isaac Grenewald, who had already studied one year with Henri Matisse in Paris. Grenewald convinced her that she would do herself more justice as a painter. Later that year she went to Matisse's art school as well. 1910s As she studied under Henri Matisse in Paris, she was impressed by the way he and Paul Cezanne dealt with colour. This shows in her painting in contrasting colour fields and simplified contours, her way of achieving the greatest possible expressiveness. Her aesthetic intentions had primarily to do with colour, and in her later works from the 1930s she spoke of colours in terms such as cold yellow. Hjerten strove to find forms and colours that could convey her emotions. In that respect her work is more closely related to the German Expressionists, such as Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, than to the French painters, with their graceful play of lines. After a year and a half she returned to Sweden. In 1912 Sigrid Hjerten participated in a group show in Stockholm. In the following ten years she took part in several exhibitions both in Sweden and abroad, among other places in Berlin in 1915, where she was well received. Sigrid Hjerten was also represented at the Expressionist Exhibition at the Liljevalch's konsthall in Stockholm in 1918, together with two other artists. However, most of the critics then were writing scathing reviews about her art. In Hjerten's art, where she greatly exposes herself, one notices different stages of development. The influence of Matisse is perhaps mostly discernible in the 1910s. During this decade, Hjerten created many paintings with indoor pictures and views from her home, first at Kornhamnstorg Square and later at Katarinavägen Street, in Stockholm. Her husband Isaac Grenewald and her son Iven, as well as Sigrid herself, are often depicted in scenes that embrace various sorts of conflicts. At this time Sigrid Hjerten got acquainted with and inspired by the art made by Ernst Josephson during his illness. Ateljeinteriör (Studio interior) from 1916 shows how radical Hjerten was for her time. The painting describes the roles she played as artist, woman, and mother: different identities in different worlds. Hjerten sits on the sofa between two artists - her husband, Isaac Grenewald, and Einar Jolin - who talk to each other over her head. Her large blue eyes stare into the distance. In the foreground a woman dressed in black-a sophisticated alter ego-leans against the artist Nils von Dardel. Her son Iven crawls out of the right-hand corner. In the background we glimpse one of Hjerten's paintings of the period, Zigenarkvinna (Gypsy woman). Studio Interior and Den röda rullgardinen (The red blind) from 1916, are daring paintings that have given rise in recent years to new interpretations based on contemporary gender studies and revealing information about the artist's life. For long periods Sigrid Hjerten lived alone with her son and a sister of her husband. Sigrid and Isaac seem to have been very attached to one another, but their marriage met with great problems. Sigrid apparently had difficulties with her identity as a woman and in combining her different roles as a mother, a wife and an artist. The conflicts of her life made a mark in her painting. 1920s Between 1920 and 1932, Sigrid Hjerten lived in Paris, and made many excursions to the French countryside and the Italian Riviera for painting. This was a relatively harmonious era in Hjerten's art, but her exhibits were very limited in this period. Her husband, Isaac, mostly lived in Stockholm where he had a brilliant career. In the late twenties Hjerten increasingly suffered from various psychosomatic ailments, and she complained of loneliness. As time passed, an increasing tension can be seen in her art that successively rises and reaches its height immediately before the disease forces Sigrid Hjerten to cease as an artist. In the late twenties, while she was very isolated in France, colder and darker colours began to show. Recurring diagonal strokes helped to give the paintings a tense impression. During the thirties Hjerten painted innovative paintings which are characterized by menacing tones, growing storm clouds, and feelings of abandonment. 1930s In 1932, Sigrid Hjerten decided to return to Stockholm. But during packing she collapsed. She got to Sweden and was temporarily taken to the psychiatric hospital of Beckomberga with symptoms of schizophrenia. She recovered periodically and in the two following years (1932 C1934) Hjerten's artistry culminated in a crescendo, where, like one possessed, she made pictures that expressed strongly loaded feelings. One gets the impression that she tried to master a threatening inner chaos with her creative work. She devoted herself to intensive painting, creating one picture a day, the picture-book of her life, according to an interview in the Swedish art magazine Paletten. Some paintings radiate horror while others give a warm and harmonious impression. During 1934, she traveled with her family in the south of Europe, where she painted. Sigrid Hjerten eventually made her name as an artist among the critics in 1935, when she exhibited with Isaac and Ivan in Gothenburg. Yet, most contemporary critics had a negative and even scornful attitude towards Sigrid Hjerten's works of art, and many of them wrote deeply offensive reviews. Among other things her paintings were called idiocy, humbug, horrors and products of handicap. She won public recognition only in 1936, when she had a well received solo exhibition at the Royal Swedish Academy of Arts in Stockholm. Isaac, who had many mistresses over the years, divorced Sigrid and remarried. (Both Isaac and his new wife later died in a flying accident in 1946). At that time, Sigrid suffered from escalating mental illness, diagnosed with schizophrenia, and was permanently hospitalised at Beckomberga Psychiatric Hospital in Stockholm, where she remained for the rest of her life. After 1938 her artistic output dwindled. Following a botched lobotomy, she died in Stockholm in 1948.
GAREMIJN, Jan Antoon
Flemish Baroque Era Painter, 1599-1641
CARRACCI, Agostino
Italian Baroque Era Painter, 1557-1602 Painter, engraver and draughtsman, cousin of Ludovico Carracci. He abandoned his profession as a tailor, which was also that of his father, Antonio, and began training as a painter. According to Faberi, he studied first in the workshop of the painter Prospero Fontana (like Ludovico), then trained under the engraver and architect Domenico Tibaldi and under the sculptor Alessandro Menganti (1531-c. 1594). However, it is likely that Faberi's account was influenced by his desire to present Agostino's career as an example of the versatile 'cursus studiorum' advocated by the Accademia degli Incamminati. Other sources (Mancini, Malvasia, Bellori) agree that it was his cousin Ludovico who was responsible for directing him towards painting.