French Post-Impressionist Painter, 1839-1906 During the second half of the 19th century French impressionism created a dramatic break with the art of the past. In conception and appearance the style was radically new and, although it initially inspired public ridicule, it soon affected nearly every ambitious artist in western Europe. The new vision emerged during the 1870s, chiefly in the art of Claude Monet, Auguste Renoir, and Camille Pissarro. For each of these artists impressionism was an illusionistic style which differed from the tradition of Renaissance illusionism in its greater emphasis upon vibrant, natural color and on an immediate confrontation with the phenomena of the visible world. As the style developed during the 1880s, however, it increasingly became characterized by paintings which were flat rather than illusionistic. In other words, the impressionists insistence upon a direct application of pigment to canvas resulted in surfaces which declared themselves first of all as surfaces - and, consequently, in paintings which declared themselves first of all as paintings rather than as windows which looked out upon the natural world. The tendency toward flatness persisted into the last years of the 19th century, its pervasiveness giving the impression that illusionistic space - fought for, won, and defended since the very beginning of the Renaissance - had finally been sacrificed by the medium of painting. Paul C??zanne worked within and finally emerged from this trend. As a painter, he matured slowly, his greatest works coming during the last 25 years of his life. During this period he scored a remarkable and heroic achievement: he restored to painting the space and volume that had seemingly been lost to it. But he did it in a totally unprecedented way: not by return to the illusionism of the past but by the creation of a spatial illusionism that did not violate flatness. C??zanne was born on Jan. 19, 1839, in Aix-en-Provence. His father, Philippe Auguste, was the cofounder of a banking firm which prospered throughout the artist life, affording him financial security that was unavailable to most of his contemporaries and eventually resulting in a large inheritance. In 1852 C??zanne entered the Coll??ge Bourbon, where he met and became friends with Émile Zola. This friendship was decisive for both men: with youthful romanticism they envisioned successful careers in the Paris art world, C??zanne as a painter and Zola as a writer. Consequently, C??zanne began to study painting and drawing at the École des Beaux-Arts in Aix in 1856. His father opposed the pursuit of an artistic career, and in 1858 he persuaded C??zanne to enter law school at the University of Aix. Although C??zanne continued his law studies for several years, he was simultaneously enrolled in the School of Design in Aix, where he remained until 1861. In 1861 C??zanne finally convinced his father to allow him to go to Paris. He planned to join Zola there and to enroll in the École des Beaux-Arts. But his application was rejected and, although he had gained inspiration from visits to the Louvre, particularly from the study of Diego Vel??zquez and Caravaggio, C??zanne experienced self-doubt and returned to Aix within the year. He entered his father banking house but continued to study at the School of Design. The remainder of the decade was a period of flux and uncertainty for C??zanne. His attempt to work in his father business was abortive, and he returned to Paris in 1862 and stayed for a year and a half. During this period he met Monet and Pissarro and became acquainted with the revolutionary work of Gustave Courbet and Édouard Manet. C??zanne also admired the fiery romanticism of Eug??ne Delacroix paintings. But he was never entirely comfortable with Parisian life and periodically returned to Aix, where he could work in relative isolation. He retreated there, for instance, during the Franco-Prussian War (1870-1871).  Related Paintings of Paul Cezanne :. | Plate with fruits and sponger fingers | Masion en Provence-La vallee de Riaux pres de l'Estaque | Aqueduct and Lock | The Magdalen,or Sorrow | Mont Sainte-Victoire |
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Pavel Chistyakov
(July 5 [O.S. June 23] 1832 - November 11, 1919) was a Russian painter and teacher of art. He studied at the St.Petersburg Academy of arts (1849-1861) under Petr Basin. He was a pensioner of the Academy of Arts in Paris and in Rome (1862?C1870). He taught in the Drawing School of the Society for the Encouragement of the Arts (1860-1864), and in St.Petersburg (from 1872) he was the professor-head of workshop (1908-1910) and managing mosaic branch (1890-1912). The art-pedagogical system of Chistiakov, whose students included Viktor Vasnetsov, Mikhail Vrubel, Vasily Polenov, Ilya Repin, Valentin Serov, and Vasily Surikov, developed in constant struggle against the inert system of academism and played a huge role in the development of realism in Russian art of the second half of the 19th century. The main goal of Chistiakov was the preparation of the artist-citizen possessing high professional skill. His pedagogical method assumed the merger of the direct perception of nature by the artist with its scientific study. In creative practice he aspired to dramatization of a historical plot and psychological saturation in historical and genre portraits (Head of a Ciucciara, 1864, in the Russian Museum,
Roger Van Der Weyden
c.1399-1464 Rogier van der Weyden was the son of Henri de le Pasture, a cutler in Tournai, and Agn?s de Watreloz. His birthdate is estimated from the facts that he was stated to be 35 in April 1435 and 43 in September 1441. Before or in 1427 he married Elisabeth Goffaert (c. 1405-77), whose father was a prosperous shoemaker in Brussels. Rogier may have lived for a time in Brussels: his eldest child Cornelis (b 1427) was sometimes referred to as 'de Bruxella' but was not necessarily a native of Brussels. On 5 March 1427 'Rogelet de le Pasture, natif de Tournai' was apprenticed to the Tournai painter Robert Campin. This Rogelet duly completed his apprenticeship in 1431 and on 1 August 1432 became a master of the Tournai guild. Despite much debate, it would appear that Rogelet was Rogier van der Weyden, though it has also been argued that in 1427 Rogier was a married man well past the normal age of apprenticeship and that Rogelet must have been a second Tournai painter of the same name. JACQUES DARET, however, was in his twenties when in 1428 he was apprenticed to Campin, and other instances can be cited of married apprentices. The political situation at Tournai in 1427-8 was unusual, and the guild system was not functioning normally.
GENTILESCHI, Artemisia
Italian Baroque Era Painter, 1593-1652 Tuscan painter, daughter and pupil of Orazio Gentileschi, b. Rome. She studied under Agostino Tassi, her father's collaborator, who was convicted of raping the teen-age Artemisia in 1612. Over the years, she has been portrayed as a strumpet, a feminist victim or heroine, and an independent woman of her era and her life has been fictionalized in several novels and plays. In purely artistic terms, she achieved renown for her spirited execution and admirable use of chiaroscuro in the style of Caravaggio, and during her life she achieved both success and fame. In 1616 she became the first woman admitted to the Academy of Design in Florence. About 1638 she visited England, where she was in great demand as a portraitist. Among her works are Judith and Holofernes (Uffizi);