German Painter, 1874-1930 Otto Mueller was born on October 16, 1874, in Liebau, German Silesia. His mother had been adopted as a young girl, giving rise to the story that he was the son of a gypsy - a story he never denied. He was a cousin to the famous German writers and dramatists Gerhart and Carl Hauptmann (the latter's novel "Einhart der Lächler" is an imaginary portrait of the painter). After four years of apprenticeship with a lithographer, Mueller entered the Academy of Fine Arts in Dresden in 1894. He was dissatisfied with the conservative instructions and left after two years. The next several years he lived close to his influential cousins, and for a short while he went to Munich to study with the famous painter Franz von Stuck. Information about his life and work until 1908 - when he settled in Berlin - is sketchy, especially since the artist destroyed many of his earlier works. In Berlin Mueller met the expressionist sculptor Wilhelm Lehmbruck, whose concept of the human form had a decisive influence on his own perception. When in 1910 his entries to the exhibition of the Berlin Secession were rejected he joined the members of the artist group "Die Brecke" (The Bridge) and exhibited with the New Secession and thus met Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Ernst Heckel, and Karl Schmidt-Rottluff. He became their lifelong friend, and, while only slightly influenced by their woodcut techniques, he contributed in return his experience in lithography and especially his techniques of distemper painting (colors bound by glue or size). This technique permits the quick coverage of large areas of the very rough canvas (burlap) which he preferred and adds a subdued luminosity. Since overpainting in distemper is not possible, the artist has to have a clear conception of his work before he begins. The technical devices strengthened the Brecke painters' desire to "flatten" the image on the canvas - following the examples of Paul Gauguin and even Edvard Munch and rejecting the academic preference for an emphasis on three-dimensionality of the subject. In his graphic works Mueller experimented with mixtures of woodcut and lithography, the rubbing of the printer's ink, frequently adding color in the form of watercolor or colored chalk, until he had the technical means of the Breslau Academy available to make true color lithographs. His "Gypsy-Portfolio" (nine color lithographs in a portfolio of 1927), which used as many as five stones, is one of his great achievements as a graphic artist. From 1916 to 1918 he served as a soldier in World War I, an experience which left no impact on his work. Shortly after his return he was appointed professor at the Breslau Academy of Art, where he taught until his death. Mueller's work shows only three motifs: landscapes, gypsies, and primarily nudes in landscapes. The last motif dominated his work. The earthen color of his mostly young, subtle but angular nude girls forms with the subdued and delicate greens of the landscape backgrounds a vision of a lost past. There is a frequently melancholic nostalgia in his works, presenting a harmony between nature and the human form which is not only opposite to the academic approach but also to that of the other Expressionists.  Related Paintings of Otto Mueller :. | Oath of the Horatii | Portrait of a Student (mk39) | Eglantines (mk40) | Monastery Gates | Meditation (san29) |
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asillia guillen

bartolomeo della gatta
(1448 -1502), born Pietro di Antonio Dei, was an Italian (Florentine) painter, illuminator, and architect. He was the son of a goldsmith. He was a colleague of Fra Bartolommeo. In 1468, Bartolomeo became a monk in the Order of Camaldoli, probably in the Church of Santa Maria degli Angeli in Florence, which his brother Nicolo had already entered. Upon taking holy orders, he changed his name to Bartolomeo. About 1481, he was summoned to Rome where he contributed to the cycle of frescos on the walls of the Sistine Chapel. Bartolomeo eventually became Abbot of San Clemente in Arezzo. He died in 1502 and was buried in the Abbey of San Clemente.
Aleksey Korin
Korin Alexey (1865-1923) - brief biography Alexey Korin was born in 1865. The main themes of his painting were Russian lanscapes, genre-scenes, portraits, interiors. Studied at the Moscvow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture in 1884-1889. Gradueted from this school with big silver medal. Was the member and took part at the exhebitions of the The Association of Traveling Art Exhibitions (the Itinerants group) since 1891. Teached at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture since 1894. Took part at the World Art Exhibition in Paris in 1900. Some of the paintings of Alexey Korin were bought by Pavel Tretyakov for his collection.