French Impressionist Painter, 1841-1919
French painter, printmaker and sculptor. He was one of the founders and leading exponents of IMPRESSIONISM from the late 1860s, producing some of the movement's most famous images of carefree leisure. He broke with his Impressionist colleagues to exhibit at the Salon from 1878, and from c. 1884 he adopted a more linear style indebted to the Old Masters.
His critical reputation has suffered from the many minor works he produced during his later years. Related Paintings of Pierre-Auguste Renoir :. | The Painter Sisley and his Wife (mk09) | Monet Painting in his Garden | Weiblicher Akt | La baigneuse blonde | Dance at Le Moulin de la Galette | Related Artists:
H.Siddons MowbrayAmerican Painter, 1858-1928
Abraham GovaertsAbraham Govaerts (Antwerp, 1589 - 9 September 1626) was a Flemish Baroque painter who specialized in small cabinet-sized forest landscapes in the manner of Jan Brueghel the Elder and Gillis van Coninxloo.[1] He became a master in Antwerp's guild of St. Luke in 1607-1608, and subsequently trained several other painters in including Alexander Keirincx. Govaerts' paintings, such as A Forest View with the Sacrifice of Isaac (Alte Pinakothek, Munich), typically show diminutive history, mythological or biblical subjects within a Mannerist three-color universal landscape bracketed by repoussoir trees. The figures were often added by other artists, especially by members of the Francken family.
GIRARDON, FrancoisFrench Baroque Era Sculptor, 1628-1715
François Girardon was born at Troyes on March 17, 1628. He studied in Rome for an undetermined period of time between 1645 and 1650. He then studied at the Royal Academy in Paris and was admitted to the academy as a member in 1657. Much of Girardon's most important work was executed for King Louis XIV and consisted of major commissions for the palace and gardens of Versailles. One of Girardon's most famous productions is Apollo and the Nymphs of Thetis in Versailles (1666-1672), originally designed for a grotto there. This elaborate project of seven separate marble statues depicts the god Apollo surrounded by nymphs, and it exemplifies with exceptional clarity the French interpretation of the baroque style in sculpture, an interpretation that rejected the fluid, dramatic, and emotional Italian baroque in favor of a cooler, more sober approach based upon the sculpture of antiquity. The Apollo group is filled with references to Hellenistic and Roman sculpture, and while Girardon was working on the commission he made a second trip to Rome for inspiration from antique sources. The ancient world, however, had never attempted to assemble several large pieces of free-standing sculpture into one unified composition, and in solving this problem Girardon had recourse to the paintings of Nicolas Poussin, the great French baroque classicist. The classicism of the Apollo group conformed fully to the official style of the French Academy and the personal taste of Louis XIV, but the composition has many baroque elements. The vigor and variety in the movement of the figures, the rich textural contrasts, the grand scale of the project, and the dramatic use of space are all stylistic qualities that firmly link the work to the international baroque style. One of Girardon's most important works is the tomb of Cardinal Richelieu in the church of the Sorbonne, Paris (1675-1677). This monument shows the dying prelate in a semireclining position, his vestments falling in broad curves that are echoed in the draperies of the allegorical figures at the head and foot of the tomb. As originally placed in the church, the monument was freestanding so that the spectator was compelled to enter into the action of the work - a typical baroque compositional device. Girardon's most significant late work was a majestic bronze equestrian statue of Louis XIV (1683-1692) executed for the Place Vendôme in Paris and based upon the famous Roman equestrian monument of the emperor Marcus Aurelius.