Flemish painter (b. 1739, Antwerpen, d. 1822, Bruxelles). Flemish painter and writer. He was the son of the flower painter Cornelis Lens (d after 1766) and studied first under Charles Ykens II (1719-53) and then under Balthazar Beschey. In 1756 he was awarded first prize at the Academie of Antwerp and in 1763 was appointed to the staff on the strength of his decoration (destr.) of the refectory of the Alexians at Lier. He also came to the attention of Charles Alexandre, Duke of Lorraine and Bar, Governor-General of the Netherlands  Related Paintings of LENS, Andries Cornelis :. | Girl interrupted at her music. | Bildnis eines jungen Mannes in gelbbraunem Rock | The children of Ferdinand of Parma | Spaniola | St. Andrew |
Related Artists:
James Smetham
1821-1889 was an English Pre-Raphaelite painter and engraver, a follower of Dante Gabriel Rossetti.[1] Smetham was born in Pateley Bridge, Yorkshire, and attended school in Leeds; he was originally apprenticed to an architect before deciding on an artistic career. He studied at the Royal Academy, beginning in 1843. His modest early success as a portrait painter was stifled by the development of photography (a problem shared by other artists of the time). In 1851 Smetham took a teaching position att the Wesleyan Normal College in Westminster; in 1854 he married Sarah Goble, a fellow teacher at the school. They would eventually have six children. Smetham worked in a range of genres, including religious and literary themes as well as portraiture; but he is perhaps best known as a landscape painter. His "landscapes have a visionary quality" reminiscent of the work of William Blake, John Linnell, and Samuel Palmer.[2] Out of a lifetime output of some 430 paintings and 50 etchings, woodcuts, and book illustrations, his 1856 painting The Dream is perhaps his best-known work. He was also an essayist and art critic; an article on Blake (in the form of a review of Alexander Gilchrist's Life of William Blake), which appeared in the January 1869 issue of the Quarterly Review,[3] influenced and advanced recognition of Blake's artistic importance. Other Smetham articles for the Review were "Religious Art in England" (1861), "The Life and Times of Sir Joshua Reynolds" (1866), and "Alexander Smith" (1868). He also wrote some poetry. Smetham was a devout Methodist, and after a mental breakdown in 1857, the second half of his life was marked by a growing religious mania and eventual insanity. "In one of his notebooks he attempted to illustrate every verse in the Bible."[4] (Smetham habitually created miniature, postage-stamp-sized pen-and-ink drawings, in a process he called "squaring." He produced thousands of these in his lifetime.) He suffered a final breakdown in 1877 and lived in seclusion until his death. Smetham's letters, posthumously published by his widow,[5] throw light upon Rossetti, John Ruskin, and other contemporaries, and have been praised for their literary and spiritual qualities.
Max Koch
(born July 17, 1854 - April 1, 1925) was a German-born Australian botanical collector. Born in Berlin, Koch was apprenticed to a merchant's office, but, not liking the work, joined the crew of a Glasgow-based sailing ship at Bremerhaven. He left it at Port Augusta, South Australia in April 1878, taking work at a wheat farm. Later he moved to Mount Lyndhurst sheep station, where he remained for many years. Around 1896 he began serious botanical collecting. Koch visited Germany around 1902-1903, then returned to Australia, and in 1904 moved to the extreme south-west of Western Australia, where he spent the next 17 years working in the timber industry. By that time he had a large family, and he supplemented his income by plant specimens, and, in his later years, seed. He died at Pemberton, Western Australia in 1925
STRIGEL, Bernhard
German Northern Renaissance Painter, ca.1460-1528..Painter, son or nephew of Hans Strigel II. His training with Hans Striegel II shows stylistically in his early works in the Grisons, e.g. the Last Judgement (1486; Brigels, pilgrimage chapel of St Eusebius) and an altarpiece at Disentis (1489; St Johann Baptist). In the 1480s and 1490s he also worked in the studio of Ivo Strigel. Motifs in his pictures stem from engravings by Martin Schongauer and from Ulm book woodcuts. He met Bartholomus Zeitblom as a fellow worker on the high altar (1493-4) of Blaubeuren Abbey, both being influenced by Netherlandish art: Zeitblom by Rogier van der Weyden but Strigel primarily by Dieric Bouts. This influence is also seen in his Adoration of the Magi altarpiece (c. 1500; Memmingen, Stedtmus.). The altar of the Virgin for the monastery at Salem (1507-8; Salem, Schloss) has links with D?rer's graphic work: an increasing three-dimensionality and monumentalization of the objects and figures, and their disposition in space.