1580-1666 Frans Hals Galleries In the field of group portraiture his work is equalled only by that of Rembrandt. Hals's portraits, both individual and group, have an immediacy and brilliance that bring his sitters to life in a way previously unknown in the Netherlands. This effect, achieved by strong Baroque designs and the innovative use of loose brushstrokes to depict light on form, was not to the taste of critics in the 18th century and the early 19th, when his work was characterized as lazy and unfinished. However, with the rise of Realism and, later, Impressionism, Hals was hailed as a modern painter before his time. Since then his works have always been popular.  Related Paintings of Frans Hals :. | Laughing Cavalier, | zigenarglickan | Portrait of woman with gloves | St Matthew. | Vincent Laurensz. van der Vinne. |
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Jost Amman
(June 13, 1539, Zerich - March 17, 1591, Nuremberg, Bavaria) was a Swiss artist, celebrated chiefly for his woodcuts, done mainly for book illustrations. Amman was born in Zurich, the son of a professor of Classics and Logic. He was himself well-educated. Little of his personal history is known beyond the fact that he moved to Nuremberg in 1560, where he continued to reside until his death in March 1591. He worked initially with Virgil Solis, then a leading producer of book illustrations. His productiveness was very remarkable, as may be gathered from the statement of one of his pupils, that the drawings he made during a period of four years would have filled a hay wagon. A large number of his original drawings are in the Berlin print room. About 1,500 prints are attributed to him. He was one of the last major producers of woodcuts for books, as during his career engravings were gradually taking over that role. Although like most artists for woodcut he normally let a specialist formschneider cut the block to his drawing, he sometimes included both a cutter's knife and a quill pen in his signature on prints, suggesting he sometimes cut his own blocks. A series of engravings by Amman of the kings of France, with short biographies, appeared in Frankfurt in 1576. He also executed many of the woodcut illustrations for the Bible published at Frankfurt by Sigismund Feierabend. Another serial work, the Panoplia Omnium Liberalium Mechanicarum et Seden-tariarum Artium Genera Continens, containing 115 plates, is of great value. Amman's drawing is correct and spirited, and his delineation of the details of costume is minute and accurate. Paintings in oil and on glass are attributed to him, but none have been identified.
James Stark
(November 19, 1794 - March 24, 1859) was an English landscape painter of the "Norwich School".Stark was born in Norwich, the youngest son of distinguished dyer Michael Stark (1748-1831, Scottish), and showed a talent for art from an early age. He was educated at the Grammar School where he was friends with John Berney Crome. He was then apprenticed for 3 years to John Berney's father, distinguished landscape artist John Crome, from 1811. In that same years he exhibited work at the Norwich Society of Artists (being elected a member in 1812,) and his work "A view on King Street river, Norwich" was shown by the Royal Academy, London. In 1814 he moved to London, exhibiting at the British Institution between 1814-18, winning a prize of £50 in 1818. In 1817 he entered the Royal Academy as a student, and eventually began to receive commissions for his work. Ill health forced Stark to return to Norwich after only 2 years study. There he devoted himself to painting the scenery around the city and executed a series of paintings of Norfolk rivers which were eventually engraved and published in 1834. In 1821 he married Elizabeth Younge Dinmore (d. 1834-35). In 1830, he again settled in London, taking up residence in Chelsea, and exhibited at the British Institution, Royal Academy and Society of British Artists. In 1839, he moved to Windsor, painting many pictures of the scenery of the Thames, but moved back to London in 1849 in order to further his son's education in art. Stark died at Mornington Place, Camden, London, in March 1859. Stark's only son, Arthur James Stark (1831-1902), born in Chelsea, London, became a landscapes and animal painter. On a few of his father's pictures he was employed to draw the cattle.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Frankfurt 1749-1832 Weimar,was a German writer and according to George Eliot, "Germany's greatest man of letters and the last true polymath to walk the earth." Goethe's works span the fields of poetry, drama, literature, theology, humanism and science. Goethe's magnum opus, lauded as one of the peaks of world literature, is the two-part drama Faust. Goethe's other well-known literary works include his numerous poems, the Bildungsroman Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship and the epistolary novel The Sorrows of Young Werther. Goethe was one of the key figures of German literature and the movement of Weimar Classicism in the late 18th and early 19th centuries; this movement coincides with Enlightenment, Sentimentality (Empfindsamkeit), Sturm und Drang and Romanticism. The author of the scientific text Theory of Colours, he influenced Darwin with his focus on plant morphology. He also served at length as the Privy Councilor ("Geheimrat") of the duchy of Weimar. Goethe is the originator of the concept of Weltliteratur ("world literature"), having taken great interest in the literatures of England, France, Italy, classical Greece, Persia, Arabic literature, amongst others. His influence on German philosophy is virtually immeasurable, having major effect especially on the generation of Hegel and Schelling, although Goethe himself expressly and decidedly refrained from practicing philosophy in the rarefied sense. Goethe's influence spread across Europe, and for the next century his works were a major source of inspiration in music, drama, poetry and philosophy. Goethe is considered by many to be the most important writer in the German language and one of the most important thinkers in Western culture as well.