Russian Impressionist Painter, 1865-1911  Related Paintings of Valentin Serov :. | Portrait of Konstantin Balmont. | Portrait of Countess Varvara Musina-Pushkina | Open Window | The Tretyakov Gallery | Rinsing Linen. On the River. Study |
Related Artists:
Karl Theodor von Piloty
German, 1826-1886,German painter. He received his first training from his father, the lithographer Ferdinand Piloty (1786-1844). In 1838 Piloty entered the Munich Akademie der Bildenden Kenste and from 1840 became a pupil of Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld. Piloty had to manage the family business after his father's death in 1844, but in 1846 he returned to the Akademie as a pupil of Karl Schorn (1801-50). His artistic development was influenced by the work of the Antwerp artist Louis Gallait (1810-87), the heightened colour and multi-figure compositions in whose history paintings especially impressed him. Besides his study of Old Masters, especially Veronese and Rubens, he was influenced by French history painters like Paul Delaroche and Horace Vernet. His history painting Seni by the Body of Wallenstein (1855; Munich, Neue Pin.) was an enormous success, allowing him to take a leading role in the art life of Munich. In 1860 he was ennobled.
Abraham Evertsz. van Westerveld
painted Cornelis Tromp in Roman costume in 1650-1692
John William Godward
English 1861-1922 Godward was a Victorian Neo-classicist, and therefore a follower in theory of Frederic Leighton. However, he is more closely allied stylistically to Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, with whom he shared a penchant for the rendering of Classical architecture, in particular, static landscape features constructed from marble. The vast majority of Godward's extant images feature women in Classical dress, posed against these landscape features, though there are some semi-nude and fully nude figures included in his oeuvre (a notable example being In The Tepidarium (1913), a title shared with a controversial Alma-Tadema painting of the same subject that resides in the Lady Lever Art Gallery). The titles reflect Godward's source of inspiration: Classical civilisation, most notably that of Ancient Rome (again a subject binding Godward closely to Alma-Tadema artistically), though Ancient Greece sometimes features, thus providing artistic ties, albeit of a more limited extent, with Leighton. Given that Classical scholarship was more widespread among the potential audience for his paintings during his lifetime than in the present day, meticulous research of detail was important in order to attain a standing as an artist in this genre. Alma-Tadema was, as well as a painter, an archaeologist who attended historical sites and collected artefacts that were later used in his paintings: Godward, too, studied such details as architecture and dress, in order to ensure that his works bore the stamp of authenticity. In addition, Godward painstakingly and meticulously rendered those other important features in his paintings, animal skins (the paintings Noon Day Rest (1910) and A Cool Retreat (1910) contain superb examples of such rendition) and wild flowers (Nerissa (1906), illustrated above, and Summer Flowers (1903) are again excellent examples of this). The appearance of beautiful women in studied poses in so many of Godward's canvases causes many newcomers to his works to categorise him mistakenly as being Pre-Raphaelite, particularly as his palette is often a vibrantly colourful one. However, the choice of subject matter (ancient civilisation versus, for example, Arthurian legend) is more properly that of the Victorian Neoclassicist: however, it is appropriate to comment that in common with numerous painters contemporary with him, Godward was a 'High Victorian Dreamer', producing beautiful images of a world which, it must be said, was idealised and romanticised, and which in the case of both Godward and Alma-Tadema came to be criticised as a world-view of 'Victorians in togas'.