French Baroque Era Painter, 1612-1695 Pierre Mignard (7 novembre 1612 - May 30, 1695), called "Le Romain" to distinguish him from his brother Nicolas, was a French painter. He was born at Troyes, and came of a family of artists; he also needs to be distinguished from his nephew Pierre (1640-1725), often called "Pierre II" or "Le Chevalier". In 1630 he left the studio of Simon Vouet for Italy, where he spent twenty-two years, and made a reputation which brought him a summons to Paris. Successful with his portrait of the king, and in favour with the court, Mignard pitted himself against Le Brun, declined to enter the Academy of which he was the head, and made himself the centre of opposition to its authority. The history of this struggle is most important, because it was identical, as long as it lasted, with that between the old gilds of France and the new body which Colbert, for political reasons, was determined to support.. Portrait of Louise de Kerouaille, Duchess of Portsmouth. Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Pierre Mignard Shut out, in spite of the deserved success of his decorations of the cupola of Val de Grace (1664), from any great share in those public works, the control of which was the attribute of the new Academy, Mignard was chiefly active in portraiture. Turenne, Moliere, Bossuet, Maintenon (Louvre), La Valliere, Sevigne, Montespan, Descartes (Castle Howard), all the beauties and celebrities of his day, sat to him. His readiness and skill, his happy instinct for grace of arrangement, atoned for want of originality and real power. With the death of Le Brun (1690) the situation changed. Mignard deserted his allies, and succeeded to all the posts held by his opponent. These late honours he did not long enjoy. In 1695 he died whilst about to commence work on the cupola of the Invalides. His best compositions have been engraved by Audran, Edelinck, Masson, Poilly and others. There is a good selection of works by Pierre, Nicolas, and Pierre II in Avignon at the Mus??e Calvet. The Courtauld Institute of Art (London), Harvard University Art Museums, the Hermitage Museum, the Honolulu Academy of Arts, Kunst Indeks Danmark, the Louvre, Mus??e d'art et d'histoire (Geneva), Mus??e des Augustins (Toulouse, France), Mus??e Ingres (Montauban, France), Museo Lombardi (Parma, Italy), the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, the National Gallery, London, the National Portrait Gallery, London, the North Carolina Museum of Art, the Portland Art Museum and Versailles are among the public collections holding works by Pierre Mignard  Related Paintings of Pierre Mignard :. | Portrait of Philip V of Spain as a child | Self-portrait | Portrait of cardinal Jules Mazarin | Marie Therese de Bourbon dressed in a red and gold gown | Louis XIV of France riding a horse |
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Nouy, Jean Lecomte du
French, 1842-1923 was an orientalist French painter and sculptor. He was Charles Gleyre's and Jean-Leon Gerôme's pupil. A Paris street was named after him in 1932.
Alexander Pope
(21 May 1688 - 30 May 1744) was an eighteenth-century English poet, best known for his satirical verse and for his translation of Homer. He is the third most frequently quoted writer in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, after Shakespeare and Tennyson. Pope is famous for his use of the heroic couplet. Pope was born to Edith Pope (1643-1733) and Alexander Pope Senior. (1646-1717) a linen merchant of Plough Court, Lombard Street, London, who were both Catholics. Pope's education was affected by the penal law in force at the time upholding the status of the established Church of England, which banned Catholics from teaching, attending a university, voting, or holding public office on pain of perpetual imprisonment. Pope was taught to read by his aunt, then went to Twyford School in about 1698-9. He then went to two Catholic schools in London. Such schools, while illegal, were tolerated in some areas. In 1700, his family moved to a small estate at Popeswood in Binfield, Berkshire, close to the royal Windsor Forest. This was due to strong anti-Catholic sentiment and a statute preventing Catholics from living within 10 miles (16 km) of either London or Westminster. Pope would later describe the countryside around the house in his poem Windsor Forest. Pope's formal education ended at this time, and from then on he mostly educated himself by reading the works of classical writers such as the satirists Horace and Juvenal, the epic poets Homer and Virgil, as well as English authors such as Geoffrey Chaucer, William Shakespeare and John Dryden. He also studied many languages and read works by English, French, Italian, Latin, and Greek poets. After five years of study, Pope came into contact with figures from the London literary society such as William Wycherley, William Congreve, Samuel Garth, William Trumbull, and William Walsh. At Binfield, he also began to make many important friends. One of them, John Caryll (the future dedicatee of The Rape of the Lock), was twenty years older than the poet and had made many acquaintances in the London literary world. He introduced the young Pope to the aging playwright William Wycherley and to William Walsh, a minor poet, who helped Pope revise his first major work, The Pastorals. He also met the Blount sisters, Teresa and (his alleged future lover) Martha, both of whom would remain lifelong friends. From the age of 12, he suffered numerous health problems, such as Pott's disease (a form of tuberculosis that affects the bone) which deformed his body and stunted his growth, leaving him with a severe hunchback. His tuberculosis infection caused other health problems including respiratory difficulties, high fevers, inflamed eyes, and abdominal pain. He never grew beyond 1.37 m (4 ft 6 in) tall. Pope was already removed from society because he was Catholic; his poor health only alienated him further. Although he never married, he had many female friends to whom he wrote witty letters. He did have one alleged lover,
William Hodges
English Painter, 1744-1797 English painter. He first attended classes at William Shipley's Academy in the Strand, London, and from 1758 to 1765 was apprenticed to Richard Wilson (about whom he published a short biographical essay in 1790). Hodges followed Wilson's classical landscape style periodically throughout his career.