Dutch Baroque Era Painter, ca.1625-1679
Daily life was Jan Steen's main pictorial theme. Many of the genre scenes he portrayed are lively to the point of chaos and lustfulness, even so much that a Jan Steen household, meaning a messy scene, became a Dutch proverb (een huishouden van Jan Steen). Subtle hints in his paintings seem to suggest that Steen meant to warn the viewer rather than invite him to copy this behaviour. Many of Steen's paintings bear references to old Dutch proverbs or literature. He often used members of his family as models. Jan Steen painted also quite a few self-portraits, in which he showed no tendency of vanity.
Steen did not shy from other themes: he painted historical, mythological and religious scenes, portraits, still lifes and natural scenes. His portraits of children are famous. He is also well known for his mastery of light and attention to detail, most notably in textiles. Steen was prolific, producing about 800 paintings, of which roughly 350 survive.
Steen's work was valued much by contemporaries and as a result he was reasonably well paid for his work. He did not have any students, but his work proved a source of inspiration for many painters. Related Paintings of Jan Steen :. | A terrace with a couple dancing to a pipe and fiddle | upp-och nedvanda varlden | Interior of a Tavern (mk25 | The Tric-trac players | Scholar at his Desk | Related Artists:
August Ludwig Erhard Bollpainted Blick auf den Genfer See in 1852
Johann Christian ReinhartGerman , 1761-1847
He revealed an interest in art while still at school and, though he began to study theology in Leipzig in 1778, he soon transferred to the private art academy of Adam Friedrich Oeser (1717-99). Here he made copies of the work of his teacher and drew after plaster casts of antique statues. The Liber Veritatis, a collection of 200 drawings by Claude Lorrain, was also used as a model and had an important influence on him. In 1783 he went to Dresden where he was especially attracted to the Dutch landscape paintings in the Gem?ldegalerie. In 1785 Reinhart returned to Leipzig where he made the acquaintance of the German poet Friedrich Schiller, with whom he had a lifelong friendship, and to whom he later dedicated an etching of a heroic landscape (1800). From 1786 to 1789, while resident at the court of the Duke of Sachsen-Meiningen, he explored the Thuringian countryside on foot, making sketches as he went.
Robert Braithwaite MartineauEnglish genre and portrait Painter, 1826-1869
was an English painter. He first trained as a lawyer and later entered the Royal Academy where he was awarded a silver medal. He studied under Pre-Raphaelite artist William Holman Hunt and once shared a studio with him. He died at the age of 43. He married Maria Wheeler and had two children with her. His most famous painting, "The Last Day in the Old Home" portrays a man who has brought ruin upon his family and can be seen at the Tate Gallery in London. Other paintings were bequeathed to the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford and Liverpool Art Gallery by his daughter Helen. Other less well known paintings include "Kit's First Writing Lesson" and "Picciola".