Polish Painter, 1838-1893 He studied from 1852 to 1858 at the School of Fine Arts in Krakew and, during this time, started exhibiting historical paintings with the Society of Friends of the Fine Arts there (e.g. Sigismund I Bestowing Nobility on the Professors of the University of Krakew in 1535 (1858; Krakew, Jagiellonian U., Mus. F.A.). After studying in Munich (1859) under the history painter Hermann Anschetz (1802-80) and then briefly and less successfully in Vienna, Matejko returned to Krak?w, where he was based for the rest of his life. In 1860 Matejko issued an illustrated album, Ubiory w Polsce (later editions 1875 and 1901), a project reflecting his intense interest in historical records of all kinds and his desire to promote such interest among the Polish people in an effort to intensify their patriotic feelings. This role first became widely associated with Matejko with his painting of Stanczyk (1862; Warsaw, N. Mus.), the court jester to King Sigismund I (1437-1548), to whom Matejko gave his own features. The jester is presented as a symbol of the nation's conscience  Related Paintings of Jan Matejko :. | The Republic at Zenith of Power. Golden Liberty. Election A.D. 1573. | Gamrat i Stanczyk | Stanczyk by Jan Matejko | stanczyk | Battle of Varna |
Related Artists:
Jakob Alt
1789-1872 Austrian Jakob Wassermann was born on March 10, 1873, in Furth, the son of a Jewish merchant. After a childhood with many restrictions, he began his career as an office clerk, in Munich and then in Freiburg. In 1898 he moved to Vienna and eventually established himself as a writer. Derivative and imitative, Wassermanns novels showed from the outset a strong dependence upon Fyodor Dostoevsky - particularly in his fondness for the psychological probing of criminals and social outcasts - as well as the influence of the master of the romantic horror and detective story, E. T. A. Hoffmann. Wassermanns first significant work is Die Juden von Zirndorf (1897, The Jews of Zirndorf), in which his deep knowledge of his own community in F??rth and Nuremberg stands him in good stead. As in many of his other works, Wassermanns preoccupation with innocence and redemption is here interleaved with a somewhat crass depiction of depravity and superstition. Der Moloch (1902) pays tribute to the contemporary literary cult of the great city (here Vienna), seen as an all-devouring monster of sin and perversion. Caspar Hauser (1908) is probably the authors best novel; the book, based on fact, deals with the case of the mute youth who appeared one day in 1828 on the streets of Nuremberg. Resemblances to Dostoevskys The Idiot may also be noted in this tale of the rejection and contamination of innate purity by corrupt society. After Caspar Hauser Wassermanns novels and short stories become increasingly preoccupied with bizarre and perverse anecdotes and intrigue, often initially drawn from biography or the newspapers. Das Gansemannchen (1915; The Goose Man) illuminates the problem involved in simultaneous cohabitation with two wives. Christian Wahnschaffe (1919) exploits the theme of the rich mans son who rejects the world to turn toward Buddhism. Der Fall Maurizius (1928, The Mauritius Case) is a type of detective novel made colorful by excursions into hypnosis but also weighed down by a tedious mass of psychological dissection. Like Honor?? de Balzac, whom he imitated, Wassermann introduces the same characters into different novels; thus Etzel Andergast (1931) is a sequel to The Mauritius Case, and its hero, Joseph Kerkhoven, reappears in Joseph Kerkhovens dritte Existenz (1934, Joseph Kerkhovens Third Existence). Wassermann is a somewhat uneven and labored writer, and he cannot in any sense be considered a stylist. His novels are often marred by diffuseness and miasmic obscurity. At the same time his extensive output is of considerable historical interest and illuminates rather well the consequences of marriage between the new depth psychology and the popular novel of sensation and crime. He died on Jan. 1, 1934, in Alt-Aussee.
Elisabeth Warling
painted Strandvagen-Stockholm in 1874
Hendrik Willem Mesdag
Hendrik Willem Mesdag was born on February 23, 1831 in Groningen. His father, a merchant and banker, was an amateur painter who saw to it that his two sons were also educated in the art of painting. He was a Dutch marine painter. He was born in Groningen, the son of the banker Klaas Mesdag and his wife Johanna Wilhelmina van Giffen. Mesdag was encouraged by his father, an amateur painter, to study art. He married Sina van Houten in 1856, and when they inherited a fortune from her father, Mesdag retired from banking to pursue a career as a painter. He studied in Brussels with Willem Roelofs and in 1868 moved to The Hague to paint the sea. In 1870 he exhibited at the Paris Salon and won the gold medal for The Breakers of the North Sea. Preparations for departureIn 1880 he received a commission from a Belgian company to paint a panorama giving a view over the village of Scheveningen on the North Sea coast near The Hague .