1776-1837 British John Constable Locations 1837). English painter and draughtsman. His range and aspirations were less extensive than those of his contemporary J. M. W. Turner, but these two artists have traditionally been linked as the giants of early 19th-century British landscape painting and isolated from the many other artists practising landscape at a time when it was unprecedentedly popular. Constable has often been defined as the great naturalist and deliberately presented himself thus in his correspondence, although his stylistic variety indicates an instability in his perception of what constituted nature. He has also been characterized as having painted only the places he knew intimately, which other artists tended to pass by. While the exclusivity of Constable approach is indisputable, his concern with local scenery was not unique, being shared by the contemporary Norwich artists. By beginning to sketch in oil from nature seriously in 1808, he also conformed with the practice of artists such as Thomas Christopher Hofland (1777-1843), William Alfred Delamotte, Turner and, particularly, the pupils of John Linnell. Turner shared his commitment to establishing landscape as the equal of history painting, despite widespread disbelief in this notion. Nevertheless, although Constable was less singular than he might have liked people to believe, his single-mindedness in portraying so limited a range of sites was unique, and the brilliance of his oil sketching unprecedented, while none of his contemporaries was producing pictures resembling The Haywain (1821; London, N.G.) or the Leaping Horse (1825; London, RA). This very singularity was characteristic of British artists at a time when members of most occupations were stressing their individuality in the context of a rapidly developing capitalist economy  Related Paintings of John Constable :. | Parham Mill at Gillingham | Golding Constable-s Kitchen Garden | Branch Hill Pond,Hampstead | Summer morning: Dedham from Langham | The edge of a heath by moonlight |
Related Artists:
BELLE-CHOSE, Henri
Flemish Gothic Era Painter, active ca.1415-1440 South Netherlandish painter. He was one of the artists who came from the South Netherlands to work for the French royal family. On 23 May 1415 he succeeded Jean Malouel as court painter and Valet de Chambre to John the Fearless, Duke of Burgundy, in Dijon, and he may already have been connected with Malouel's workshop. On 5 November 1415 Bellechose was paid for painting four small wooden pillars with angels, which were placed around the high altar of Notre-Dame, Dijon. On 19 May 1416 the duke authorized the purchase of materials for Bellechose to complete two panels, one of the Martyrdom of St Denis and another showing the Death of the Virgin, for the Charterhouse of Champmol. Bellechose also carried out decorative work, including painting banners for the Duke's castle of Talant near Dijon in 1416 and coats of arms for the funeral of John the Fearless in 1419. On 5 April 1420 Bellechose was appointed court painter to Philip the Good, successor to John the Fearless. His first known commissions were again of a decorative nature, including work for the funerals of Margaret of Bavaria, wife of John the Fearless, in 1423 and of Catherine of Burgundy, daughter of an earlier Duke of Burgundy, Philip the Bold, in 1425 and for the marriage of Philip the Good's sister Agnes of Burgundy in 1424. During these years he had eight assistants and two apprentices; travelling artists, including some from German territory, also worked in his shop on a temporary basis. Around this time he married Alixant Lebon, daughter of a Dijon notary. On 21 November 1425 Philip the Good ordered an altarpiece of the Virgin venerated by John the Fearless and Philip the Good, accompanied by SS John the Evangelist and Claude, for the chapel of the castle at Saulx-le-Duc in Burgundy. Bellechose painted three statues for the new entrance gate to the palace in Dijon in 1426. In August 1429 he received an important commission for St Michel, Dijon, to make an altarpiece with Christ and the Twelve Apostles and an antependium showing the Annunciation. Exactly a year later his name appears for the last time in the ducal accounts.
Rudolph Swoboda
Austrian, 1859 - 1914
HAMEN, Juan van der
Spanish painter (b. 1596, Madrid, d. 1631, Madrid). was a Spanish painter, a master of the still life paintings, also called bodegones. During his lifetime, he was prolific and versatile, painting allegories, landscapes, and large-scale works for churches and convents. However, today he is remembered mostly for his still lifes. In the 1620s, He popularized still life painting in Madrid. Juan van der Hamen y Leon was baptized on 8 April 1596 in Madrid, therefore, he must have been born there just days before that date. He was the son of Jehan van der Hamen, a Flemish courtier, who had moved to Madrid from Brussels before 1586, and Dorotea Whitman Gemez de Leon, a half-Flemish mother of noble Toledan ancestry . Van der Hamen and his two brothers Pedro and Lorenzo (both of whom were writers) emphasized their Spanish roots by using all or part of their maternal grandmother's family name, Gemez de Leon. The painter's father, Jan van der Hamen, had come to Spain, as an archer, to the court of Philip II were he settled, married, and his children were born. According to 18th-century sources, the artist's father had also been a painter, but there is no evidence for this. Juan van der Hamen inherited his father's honorary positions at court and also served as unsalaried painter of the king. Van der Hamen's artistic activity in the service of the crown is first recorded on 10 September 1619, when he was paid for painting a still-life for the country palace of El Pardo, to the north of Madrid. Noted for his versatility, Juan van der Hamen painted religious history paintings; allegories, landscapes, low-life subjects, portraits and still-lifes but the last two categories brought him the greatest fame. He served at the courts of Philip III and Philip IV and established the popularity of the new genre of still-life in Madrid in the 1620s. A prolific artist, van der Hamen painted all his works during the first decade of the reign of Philip IV. It is known that he painted more still lifes in 1622 than in any other period of his life. He also reached great personal fame as a portraitist, being this field, the one that provided him with greater personal success, since still life was considered a lesser genre. He executed a portrait of Philip IV and worked during the 1620s in a series of portraits of the principal intellectuals and writers of his time, including: Lope de Vega, Francisco de Quevedo, Luis de Gengora, Jose de Valdivieso, Juan Perez de Montalbon, Juan Ruiz de Alarcen and Francisco de Rioja. On van der Hamen's death, twenty of these portraits were inventoried as a single item among his belongings. The portrait of his older brother, Lorenzo van der Hamen, probably belonged to this series. The series itself was a focal point for philosophic speculation on the art of portraiture by some of the most distinguished minds of the time, who frequently praised Juan van der Hamen in verse and prose. Among Van der Hamen portraits, there is one of a dwarf, painted around 1623 in a powerful naturalistic style. This painting (Madrid, Museo del Prado) anticipated the later made by Velezquez. In 1626, van der Hamen painted cardinal Francesco Barberini, after a previous portrait by Velezquez had failed to please the sitter. Well satisfied with his work Cardinal Barberini acquired three further works from him. As a religious painter Juan van der Hamen worked for several religious institutions in and around Madrid and Toledo, like the Monastery of the Descalzas Reales, in Madrid, for which he painted altars. Few of these paintings are extant. The best surviving examples of his religious work are in the cloister of the Royal Convent of La Encarnacion in Madrid, painted in 1625 in a naturalistic tenebristic style. Juan van der Hamen was also a pioneer in the field of flower painting. Van der Hamen probably began painting floral arrangements in response to the flower pieces of Flemish artists, such as Jan Brueghel, who were regarded as exemplary masters in the field and whose works were much sought after in Spain. One good example of his work as a flower painter is his Offering to Flora , a visual poem that parallels the lyric verse of his time, in which he united his skills as portraitist and flower painter to produce one of the most beautiful paintings of the allegory of spring.