French b.Aug. 30, 1748, Paris d.Dec. 29, 1825, Brussels Jacques-Louis David is famous for his huge, dramatic canvasses of Napoleon and other historical figures, including Oath of the Horatii (1784), Death of Marat (1793) and The Sabine Women (1799). Early in his career he was a leader in the neoclassical movement; later his subjects became more modern and political. David was himself active in the French Revolution as a supporter of Robespierre and is sometimes called the chief propagandist for the Revolution; after the Reign of Terror ended he was briefly imprisoned for his actions. When Napoleon took power David became his court painter and created several grand canvasses of the Emperor, including the heroic Napoleon Bonaparte Crossing the Alps (1801) and the enormous Coronation of Napoleon and Josephine (1807). David also painted Napoleon in His Study (1812), with its famous image of Napoleon with one hand tucked inside his vest. After Napoleon ouster David went in exile to Brussels, where he remained until his 1825 death  Related Paintings of Jacques-Louis David :. | Self portrait | Portrait of the Count de Turenne | Portrait of the Comtesse Vilain XIIII and her Daughter | Portrait of Madame Recamier | The Grief of Andromache |
Related Artists:
WEST, Benjamin
American Neoclassical Painter, 1738-1820 American historical painter who worked in England. He was born in Springfield, Pa., in a house that is now a memorial museum at Swarthmore College. After some instruction from a local artist named William Williams, he set up as a portrait painter in Philadelphia at 18, subsequently moving to New York City. In 1760 he went to Europe, where he remained for the rest of his life. For three years he studied in Italy. Working under the tutelage of Anton Mengs, he was also inspired by the classical research of Johann Winckelmann. He then settled in London, becoming a leader of the neoclassical movement. Under the patronage of George III, commissions came to him in great numbers, and in 1772 he was appointed historical painter to the king. A founder of the Royal Academy, he succeeded Sir Joshua Reynolds as its president in 1792. West executed more than 400 canvases, chiefly historical, mythological, and religious subjects painted on a heroic scale. He had many pupils and was a generous friend and adviser to younger artists, particularly American painters studying in England, among whom were Washington Allston, Samuel Morse, Charles Willson Peale, Gilbert Stuart, and John Singleton Copley. His influence on American painting of the period was predominant. Among West's best-known works are Death of General Wolfe (Grosvenor Gall., London) and Penn's Treaty with the Indians (Pa. Acad. of the Fine Arts). In these paintings he created a new departure in historical painting by clothing his figures in the costume of their period instead of the traditional classical garb.
PALMA GIOVANE
Italian Mannerist Painter, ca.1548-1628 Son of Antonio Palma. A greater artist than his father, his vast oeuvre represents the impact of central Italian Mannerism but principally of Jacopo Tintoretto on Venetian painting in the generation after Titian, Tintoretto and Paolo Veronese. He died in his late seventies and was occasionally referred to as 'il vecchio', but since the 17th century he has been known as 'il giovane' to distinguish him from his great uncle. He was virtually self-taught, apart from a presumed acquaintance with his father's workshop. In 1567 he came to the attention of Guidobaldo II della Rovere, Duke of Urbino, who was to support him for four years. A possible knowledge of Federico Barocci's art at the court of Urbino left little trace on his surviving early works. The Duke sent him to Rome for study, where he spent a few months apprenticed to an unknown artist. There his sympathy was with Taddeo Zuccaro and Federico Zuccaro, who influenced the graphic style of the drawing of Matteo da Lecce (1568; New York, Pierpont Morgan Lib.), his first dated work. His Roman sojourn, which lasted until c. 1573-4, made a direct impact on some of his Venetian works and indirectly made him receptive to Tintoretto's style. A tendency in Rome in the 1560s to retreat from the most artificial and decorative aspects of Mannerism in favour of naturalism was also to affect Palma's attitude to style in his mature works
Edward Beyer
painted The Peaks of Otter and the Town of Liberty in 1855