French Rococo Era Painter, 1732-1806 was a French painter and printmaker whose late Rococo manner was distinguished by remarkable facility, exuberance, and hedonism. One of the most prolific artists active in the last decades of the Ancien Regime, Fragonard produced more than 550 paintings , of which only five are dated. Among his most popular works are genre paintings conveying an atmosphere of intimacy and veiled eroticism. He was born at Grasse, Alpes-Maritimes, the son of François Fragonard, a glover, and Françoise Petit. He was articled to a Paris notary when his father's circumstances became strained through unsuccessful speculations, but showed such talent and inclination for art that he was taken at the age of eighteen to François Boucher, who, recognizing the youth's rare gifts but disinclined to waste his time with one so inexperienced, sent him to Chardin's atelier. Fragonard studied for six months under the great luminist, then returned more fully equipped to Boucher, whose style he soon acquired so completely that the master entrusted him with the execution of replicas of his paintings. Though not yet a pupil of the Academy, Fragonard gained the Prix de Rome in 1752 with a painting of "Jeroboam Sacrificing to the Golden Calf", but before proceeding to Rome he continued to study for three years under Charles-Andre van Loo. In the year preceding his departure he painted the "Christ washing the Feet of the Apostles" now at Grasse cathedral. On September 17, 1756, he took up his abode at the French Academy in Rome, then presided over by Charles-Joseph Natoire. While at Rome, Fragonard contracted a friendship with a fellow painter, Hubert Robert. In 1760, they toured Italy together, executing numerous sketches of local scenery. It was in these romantic gardens, with their fountains, grottos, temples and terraces, that Fragonard conceived the dreams which he was subsequently to render in his art. He also learned to admire the masters of the Dutch and Flemish schools (Rubens, Hals, Rembrandt, Ruisdael), imitating their loose and vigorous brushstrokes. Added to this influence was the deep impression made upon his mind by the florid sumptuousness of Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, whose works he had an opportunity to study in Venice before he returned to Paris in 1761. In 1765 his "Coresus et Callirhoe" secured his admission to the Academy. It was made the subject of a pompous (though not wholly serious) eulogy by Diderot, and was bought by the king, who had it reproduced at the Gobelins factory. Hitherto Fragonard had hesitated between religious, classic and other subjects; but now the demand of the wealthy art patrons of Louis XV's pleasure-loving and licentious court turned him definitely towards those scenes of love and voluptuousness with which his name will ever be associated, and which are only made acceptable by the tender beauty of his color and the virtuosity of his facile brushwork;   Related Paintings of Jean-Honore Fragonard :. | Madchen im Bett | The Lover Crowned | Psyche showing her Sisters her Gifts from Cupid | The Happy Accidents of the Swing | the bolt |
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david von krafft
David von Krafft, konstnär, målare, född 1655 i Hamburg, död 1724 i Stockholm. David von Krafft blev kallad till Sverige 1675 av hofkonterfejaren (hovmålaren) David Klöcker Ehrenstrahl, som dessutom var hans morbror och nu även blev hans lärare i den ädla konsten att måla. Senare studerade von Krafft vidare ett tiotal år i utlandet, särskilt i Italien, slutligen blev han Ehrenstrahls ersättare som hovmålare. Nu fick han en massa beställningar och uppdrag och han målade sakliga och säkert tecknade porträtt, som tyvärr dock är ganska entoniga och kalla i koloriten. Bland hans bästa arbeten är porträttet av Karl XII (finns i Lund) samt av Carl Gustaf Armfeldt d.ä. (Drottningholms slott). I Kalmar domkyrka har han målat altartavlan (dock efter en komposition av en italiensk konstnär). David von Krafft finns representerad vid Nationalmuseum, Malmö Museum, Göteborgs konstmuseum och på Gripsholm. Krafft hade ett stort antal lärjungar och bland dem Gustaf Lundberg och Olof Arenius.
John F.Francis
American Painter, 1808-1886 American painter. Beginning as an itinerant portrait painter in rural Pennsylvania, he produced works including flattering, colourful portraits of his sisters in the style of Thomas Sully, often incorporating small still-life details. He abandoned portraiture after 1850 to concentrate exclusively on still-life subjects in the tradition of the PEALE family.
Peter Hansen
Peter Marius Hansen (13 May 1868, Faaborg - 6 October 1928, Faaborg) was a Danish painter who became one of the Fynboerne or "Funen Painters" group living and working on the island of Funen. Hansen attended the Copenhagen Technical School before studying under Kristian Zahrtmann at the Kunstnernes Frie Studieskoler (1884 - 1890). His travels included the Netherlands (1892 and 1909), and several periods in Italy from 1899 where he was in Civita d'Antino with Zahrtmann (1904) and in Pompei with Theodor Philipsen (1919 - 21). He also travelled to Belgium and Paris in 1909. His eldest son, David Shane Hansen (1888-1909) would become one of the leading organizers of the 1909 general strike in Barcelona, Spain. He was killed by military forces July 27th 1909. Peter Hansen would comment that his son had become a great martyr in the rising Spanish Anarchist movement that was sweeping Spain. It was during this time that Peter's art began to reflect the pain he suffered at the loss of his son.