1835-1910 John La Farge (March 31, 1835 ?C November 14, 1910) was an American painter, stained glass window maker, decorator, and writer. Born in New York City, New York, his interest in art was aroused during his training at Mount St. Mary's University and St. John's College (now Fordham University). He had only the study of law in view until he returned from his first visit to Paris, France where he studied with Thomas Couture and enjoyed the most brilliant literary society of the day. Even his earliest drawings and landscapes, done in Newport, Rhode Island, after his marriage in 1861 to Margaret Mason Perry, sister-in-law of Lilla Cabot Perry, show marked originality, especially in the handling of color values, and also the influence of Japanese art, in the study of which he was a pioneer. La Farge's inquiring mind led him to experiment with color problems, especially in the medium of stained glass. He succeeded not only in rivaling the gorgeousness of the medieval windows, but in adding new resources by his invention of opalescent glass and his original methods of superimposing and welding his material. Among his many masterpieces are the "Battle Window" at Harvard and the cloisonn?? "Peacock Window" in the Worcester Art Museum. Two of his largest windows are located in Unity Church in North Easton, Massachusetts. The earliest of these, the "Angel of Help" was completed in 1887 while the "Figure of Wisdom" dates to 1901. Both of these windows were restored by "Victor Rothman for Stained Glass Inc" of Yonkers, New York in the 1990's. Between 1859 and 1870, he illustrated Tennyson's Enoch Arden and Robert Browning's Men and Women. Breadth of observation and structural conception, and a vivid imagination and sense of color are shown by his mural decorations. His first work in mural painting was done in Trinity Church, Boston, in 1873. Then followed his decorations in the Church of the Ascension (the large altarpiece) and St. Paul's Church, New York. For the State Capitol at St. Paul he executed, in his seventy-first year, four great lunettes representing the history of religion, and for the Supreme Court building at Baltimore, a similar series with Justice as the theme. In addition there are his vast numbers of other paintings and water colors, notably those recording his extensive travels in the Orient and South Pacific. His labors in almost every field of art won for him from the French Government the Cross of the Legion of Honor and membership in the principal artistic societies of America, as well as the presidency of the Society of Mural Painters. Enjoying an extraordinary knowledge of languages (ancient and modern), literature, and art, by his cultured personality and reflective conversation he greatly influenced all who knew him. Though naturally a questioner he venerated the traditions of religious art, and preserved always his Catholic faith and reverence. In 1904, he was one of the first seven chosen for membership in the American Academy of Arts and Letters. On his passing in 1910, John LaFarge was interred in the Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York. During his life, he maintained a studio at 51 West 10th Street, in Greenwich Village, which today is part of the site of Eugene Lang College  Related Paintings of John La Farge :. | Centauress | Flowers on a Japanese Tray on a Mahogany Table | Centauress | Halt of the Wise Men | Wreath of Flowers |
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Jean Restout
French Neoclassical Painter, 1692-1768,was a French Neoclassical painter. Jean Restout was born in Rouen, the son of Jean Restout, the first of that name, and of Marie M. Jouvenet, sister and pupil of the then well-known Jean Jouvenet. In 1717, the Royal Academy having elected him a member on his work for the Grand Prix, he remained in Paris, instead of proceeding to Italy, exhibited at all the salons, and filled successively every post of academical distinction. His works, chiefly altar-pieces (Louvre Museum), ceilings and designs for Gobelin tapestries, were engraved by Cochin, Drevet and others; his diploma picture may still be seen at St Cloud. His son, Jean Bernard Restout (1732 - 1797),
Jean Baptiste Simeon Chardin
1699-1779 French Jean Baptiste Simeon Chardin Locations Chardin was born in Paris, the son of a cabinetmaker, and rarely left the city. He lived on the Left Bank near Saint-Sulpice until 1757, when Louis XV granted him a studio and living quarters in the Louvre. Chardin entered into a marriage contract with Marguerite Saintard in 1723, whom he did not marry until 1731. He served apprenticeships with the history painters Pierre-Jacques Cazes and Noël-Nicholas Coypel, and in 1724 became a master in the Acad??mie de Saint-Luc. Upon presentation of The Ray in 1728, he was admitted to the Acad??mie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture. The following year he ceded his position in the Acad??mie de Saint-Luc. In November of 1731 his son Jean-Pierre was baptized, and a daughter, Marguerite-Agn??s, was baptized in 1733. In 1735 his wife Marguerite died, and within two years Marguerite-Agn??s had died as well. The Ray, 1728, Mus??e du Louvre, Paris.Beginning in 1737 Chardin exhibited regularly at the Salon. He would prove to be a dedicated academician, regularly attending meetings for fifty years, and functioning successively as counsellor, treasurer, and secretary, overseeing in 1761 the installation of Salon exhibitions. In 1744 he entered his second marriage, this time to Françoise-Marguerite Pouget. The following year a daughter, Ang??lique-Françoise, was born, but she died in 1746. In 1752 Chardin was granted a pension of 500 livres by Louis XV. At the Salon of 1759 he exhibited nine paintings; it was the first Salon to be commented upon by Denis Diderot, who would prove to be a great admirer and public champion of Chardin work. Beginning in 1761, his responsibilities on behalf of the Salon, simultaneously arranging the exhibitions and acting as treasurer, resulted in a diminution of productivity in painting, and the showing of replicas of previous works. In 1763 his services to the Acad??mie were acknowledged with an extra 200 livres in pension. In 1765 he was unanimously elected associate member of the Acad??mie des Sciences, Belles-Lettres et Arts of Rouen, but there is no evidence that he left Paris to accept the honor.[8] By 1770 Chardin was the Premiere peintre du roi, and his pension of 1,400 livres was the highest in the Academy. In 1772 Chardin son, also a painter, drowned in Venice, a probable suicide. The artist last known oil painting was dated 1776; his final Salon participation was in 1779, and featured several pastel studies. Gravely ill by November of that year, he died in Paris on December 6, at the age of 80.
Carl Philipp Fohr
German, 1795-1818,German painter and draughtsman. His first drawing lessons, from the age of 13, were from Friedrich Rottmann (1768-1816), the father of the painter Carl Rottmann. In 1810 the Darmstadt Court Councillor, Georg Wilhelm Issel, discovered Fohr sketching at Stift Neuberg near Heidelberg and, the following year, invited him to Darmstadt and provided encouragement and financial support. From 1813 Fohr carried out commissions for Grand Duchess Wilhelmina of Hesse, for whom he produced a Sketchbook of the Neckar Region, a collection of views and historical subjects (30 watercolours; 1813-14) and also a Baden Sketchbook (30 watercolours, 1814-15; both Darmstadt, Hess. Landesmus.). These far surpassed the usual level attained in this genre in their sharpness of detail, delicacy of colour and pictorial inventiveness. The Crown Princess granted him an annual pension of 500 guilders. From July 1815 to May 1816, Fohr was a student of landscape painting at the Kunstakademie in Munich.