English Romantic Painter, 1775-1851 Joseph Mallord William Turner (23 April 1775 ?C 19 December 1851) was an English Romantic landscape painter, watercolourist and printmaker, whose style is said to have laid the foundation for Impressionism. Although Turner was considered a controversial figure in his day, he is now regarded as the artist who elevated landscape painting to an eminence rivalling history painting. Turner's talent was recognised early in his life. Financial independence allowed Turner to innovate freely; his mature work is characterised by a chromatic palette and broadly applied atmospheric washes of paint. According to David Piper's The Illustrated History of Art, his later pictures were called "fantastic puzzles." However, Turner was still recognised as an artistic genius: the influential English art critic John Ruskin described Turner as the artist who could most "stirringly and truthfully measure the moods of Nature." (Piper 321) Suitable vehicles for Turner's imagination were to be found in the subjects of shipwrecks, fires (such as the burning of Parliament in 1834, an event which Turner rushed to witness first-hand, and which he transcribed in a series of watercolour sketches), natural catastrophes, and natural phenomena such as sunlight, storm, rain, and fog. He was fascinated by the violent power of the sea, as seen in Dawn after the Wreck (1840) and The Slave Ship (1840). Turner placed human beings in many of his paintings to indicate his affection for humanity on the one hand (note the frequent scenes of people drinking and merry-making or working in the foreground), but its vulnerability and vulgarity amid the 'sublime' nature of the world on the other hand. 'Sublime' here means awe-inspiring, savage grandeur, a natural world unmastered by man, evidence of the power of God - a theme that artists and poets were exploring in this period. The significance of light was to Turner the emanation of God's spirit and this was why he refined the subject matter of his later paintings by leaving out solid objects and detail, concentrating on the play of light on water, the radiance of skies and fires. Although these late paintings appear to be 'impressionistic' and therefore a forerunner of the French school, Turner was striving for expression of spirituality in the world, rather than responding primarily to optical phenomena. Rain, Steam and Speed - The Great Western Railway painted (1844).His early works, such as Tintern Abbey (1795), stayed true to the traditions of English landscape. However, in Hannibal Crossing the Alps (1812), an emphasis on the destructive power of nature had already come into play. His distinctive style of painting, in which he used watercolour technique with oil paints, created lightness, fluency, and ephemeral atmospheric effects. (Piper 321) One popular story about Turner, though it likely has little basis in reality, states that he even had himself "tied to the mast of a ship in order to experience the drama" of the elements during a storm at sea. In his later years he used oils ever more transparently, and turned to an evocation of almost pure light by use of shimmering colour. A prime example of his mature style can be seen in Rain, Steam and Speed - The Great Western Railway, where the objects are barely recognizable. The intensity of hue and interest in evanescent light not only placed Turner's work in the vanguard of English painting, but later exerted an influence upon art in France, as well; the Impressionists, particularly Claude Monet, carefully studied his techniques.  Related Paintings of Joseph Mallord William Turner :. | Impression of number four | Winter-s landscape | Landscape | Waterworks | Forest |
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Robert Swain Gifford
(December 23, 1840 - January 13, 1905) was an American landscape painter. He was influenced by the Barbizon school. Much of his work focuses on the landscapes of New England, where he was born. He, along with Victorian contemporaries from the White Mountain and Hudson River Schools, helped immortalize the majestic cliffs of Grand Manan in the Bay of Fundy. His painting from the island, "Pettes Cove," is illustrative of his masterful marine work. In the 1870s, he undertook several journeys to Europe and the Middle East and painted some subjects from those regions. In 1899, he was an artist on the famous Harriman Alaska Expedition. Some of his works hang in the most prominent galleries in the USA, including the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC. He was a member of the Society of American Artists.
Olga Wisinger-Florian
Austria born 1844 - died 1926 was an Austrian impressionist painter, mainly of landscapes and flower still lifes. She was a notable representative of Austrian Mood Impressionism. Having trained as a concert pianist, Wisinger-Florian switched to painting in the mid-1870s. She was a student of Melchior Fritsch, August Schaeffer, and Emil Jakob Schindler. From 1881 she regularly showed paintings at the annual exhibitions mounted at the artist's house and later often showed at Vienna Secession exhibitions. Work she showed at the Paris and Chicago international exhibitions earned her worldwide acclaim. The artist, who was also active in the middle-class women's movements of the time, was awarded numerous distinctions and prizes. Wisinger-Florian's early paintings can be assigned to what is known as Austrian Mood Impressionism. In her landscape paintings she adopted Schindler's sublime approach to nature. The motifs she employed, such as views of tree-lined avenues, gardens and fields, were strongly reminiscent of her teacher's work. After breaking with Schindler in 1884, however, the artist went her own way. Her conception of landscape became more realistic.
Juan Antonio Ribera Y Fernandez
1779-1860 was a Spanish painter, born at Madrid. He first studied under Francisco Bayeu and enrolled into the Royal Academy of San Fernando, but afterwards went to Paris and become the pupil of Jacques-Louis David. There he painted his Cincinnatus which is now in the Prado Museum. In course of time he went to Rome, and in 1811 was appointed painter to Carlos IV and member of the Academy of St. Luke; and in 1820, honorary member of the Academy of San Fernando. In 1838 he was made professor, and two years afterwards Director of the Prado. He died at Madrid.