1821-1889 was an English Pre-Raphaelite painter and engraver, a follower of Dante Gabriel Rossetti.[1] Smetham was born in Pateley Bridge, Yorkshire, and attended school in Leeds; he was originally apprenticed to an architect before deciding on an artistic career. He studied at the Royal Academy, beginning in 1843. His modest early success as a portrait painter was stifled by the development of photography (a problem shared by other artists of the time). In 1851 Smetham took a teaching position att the Wesleyan Normal College in Westminster; in 1854 he married Sarah Goble, a fellow teacher at the school. They would eventually have six children. Smetham worked in a range of genres, including religious and literary themes as well as portraiture; but he is perhaps best known as a landscape painter. His "landscapes have a visionary quality" reminiscent of the work of William Blake, John Linnell, and Samuel Palmer.[2] Out of a lifetime output of some 430 paintings and 50 etchings, woodcuts, and book illustrations, his 1856 painting The Dream is perhaps his best-known work. He was also an essayist and art critic; an article on Blake (in the form of a review of Alexander Gilchrist's Life of William Blake), which appeared in the January 1869 issue of the Quarterly Review,[3] influenced and advanced recognition of Blake's artistic importance. Other Smetham articles for the Review were "Religious Art in England" (1861), "The Life and Times of Sir Joshua Reynolds" (1866), and "Alexander Smith" (1868). He also wrote some poetry. Smetham was a devout Methodist, and after a mental breakdown in 1857, the second half of his life was marked by a growing religious mania and eventual insanity. "In one of his notebooks he attempted to illustrate every verse in the Bible."[4] (Smetham habitually created miniature, postage-stamp-sized pen-and-ink drawings, in a process he called "squaring." He produced thousands of these in his lifetime.) He suffered a final breakdown in 1877 and lived in seclusion until his death. Smetham's letters, posthumously published by his widow,[5] throw light upon Rossetti, John Ruskin, and other contemporaries, and have been praised for their literary and spiritual qualities.   Related Paintings of James Smetham :. | St Augustine and St Gregory | Children at the Beach at Guernsey, | branning | Hals Frans Portrait Of A Man | Hounslow Heath |
Related Artists:
georges rouault
georges rouault(1871 to 1958),French painter, draughtsman and printmaker. Although he first came to prominence with works displayed in 1905 at the Salon d Automne in Paris, in the company of paintings by Henri Matisse and other initiators of Fauvism, he established a highly personal and emotive style. His technique and palette were also highly personal, and they ranged from watercolour blues to a rich, thick application of materials. These demonstrate, in their very complexity, not only originality but also the craft of the artist always in search of a greater form of expression. Even though he never stopped observing mankind, his deep religious feeling allowed him to imbue his work with great spirituality.
Joseph Marie Vien
French Neoclassical Painter, 1716-1809 French painter, draughtsman and engraver. He was one of the earliest French painters to work in the Neo-classical style, and although his own work veered uncertainly between that style and the Baroque, Vien was a decisive influence on some of the foremost artists of the heroic phase of Neo-classicism, notably Jacques-Louis David, Jean-Fran?ois-Pierre Peyron, Joseph-Benost Suve and Jean-Baptiste Regnault, all of whom he taught. Both his wife, Marie-Therese Reboul (1738-1805), and Joseph-Marie Vien fils (1762-1848) were artists: Marie-Therese exhibited at the Salon in 1757-67
Lionel Walden
(1861-1933) was born in Norwich, Connecticut in 1861. He first became interested in art in Minnesota, where the family moved when his father became rector of an Episcopal Church there. As a young man, Walden moved to Paris where he studied painting with Carolus-Duran. In around 1893-97, Walden was in England, living in Falmouth. Paintings of Cardiff in Wales are in museums in Cardiff and Paris. Walden received medals from the Paris Salon and was made a Knight of the French Legion of Honor. He visited to Hawaii in 1911 and several times thereafter. Walden died in Chantilly, France in 1933. According to David H. Forbes, author of Encounters with Paradise: Views of Hawaii and its People, 1778-1941, Lionel Walden "was the finest seascape painter to work in Hawaii". The Brooklyn Museum, the Henry Art Gallery (University of Washington, Seattle), the Honolulu Academy of Arts, the Isaacs Art Center (Waimea, Hawaii), and the Musee d'Orsay are among the public collections holding works by Lionel Walden.