Dutch Post-Impressionist Painter, 1853-1890 Vincent Willem van Gogh (30 March 1853 ?C 29 July 1890) was a Dutch Post-Impressionist artist. Some of his paintings are now among the world's best known, most popular and expensive works of art. Van Gogh spent his early adult life working for a firm of art dealers. After a brief spell as a teacher, he became a missionary worker in a very poor mining region. He did not embark upon a career as an artist until 1880. Initially, Van Gogh worked only with sombre colours, until he encountered Impressionism and Neo-Impressionism in Paris. He incorporated their brighter colours and style of painting into a uniquely recognizable style, which was fully developed during the time he spent at Arles, France. He produced more than 2,000 works, including around 900 paintings and 1,100 drawings and sketches, during the last ten years of his life. Most of his best-known works were produced in the final two years of his life, during which time he cut off part of his left ear following a breakdown in his friendship with Paul Gauguin. After this he suffered recurrent bouts of mental illness, which led to his suicide. The central figure in Van Gogh's life was his brother Theo, who continually and selflessly provided financial support. Their lifelong friendship is documented in numerous letters they exchanged from August 1872 onwards. Van Gogh is a pioneer of what came to be known as Expressionism. He had an enormous influence on 20th century art, especially on the Fauves and German Expressionists.  Related Paintings of Vincent Van Gogh :. | The Roubine du Roi Canal wtih Washerwomen (nn04) | Trees and Undergroth (nn04) | Self-Portrait with Pipe and Straw Hat (nn04) | Still life:Bloaters on a Piece of Yellow Paper (nn04) | Still life:Vast with Twelve Sunflowers (nn04) |
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Carl Ludwig Brandt
(22 September 1831 Holstein, Germany - 1905) was a German-born artist who worked mostly in the United States. Brandt was born near Hamburg, in Holstein, Germany. His father and grandfather were physicians in Hamburg. His father taught him drawing at the age of seven, and he subsequently studied in the principal galleries of Europe. He served in the First War of Schleswig (1848-1850), between Germany and Denmark. He came to the United States in 1852. He painted several portraits previous to 1864, and in that year built his studio in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York, but lived in Europe from 1865 until 1869. He was chosen a national academician in 1872, and in 1883 was elected first director of the Telfair Academy of Arts and Sciences, Savannah, Georgia, where he resided in winter. At Telfair he offered art instruction and oversaw art acquisitions, including plaster casts, thus transforming a family mansion into a cultural institution.
Christen Kobke
1810-1848 Danish Christen Kobke Galleries He lived in Kastellet until 1833 and made many paintings of the area. His painting "Gården ved bageriet i Kastellet" (ca. 1832) hangs in the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek museum in Copenhagen. In 1832 he shared a studio with friend, landscape painter Frederik Hansen Sødring. He painted a portrait of Sødring which now hangs in the Hirschsprung Collection. In 1834 he moved, along with his parents, outside of Copenhagen??s fortifications near Sortedamssøen, a lake area. He painted many views overlooking the lake towards the city and the embankments surrounding the city. His work becomes larger, more monumental. Like many of his contemporary artists he came under the influence of Niels Lauritz Høyen, art historian, who promoted a nationalistic art. Høyen called for artists to search for subject matter in the folk life of their country instead of searching for themes in other lands, such as Italy (which was at that time considered a requirement for an artist??s training). On a visit to Hillerod in 1835 he painted a romantic picture of Frederiksborg Palace, "Frederiksborg Slot ved Aftenbelysning" ("Frederiksborg Palace in the Evening Light"). At the end of 1837 he married Susanna Cecilie Kobke (1810-1849), and shortly afterwards painted a portrait of his young bride. One of the Small Towers on Frederiksborg Castle, c.1834-35.In 1838 he received a travel stipend from the Academy, left his new wife and traveled over Dresden and Munich to Italy accompanied by decorative painter Georg Hilker. They arrived in Rome by year??s end where he met brother-in-law Frederik Christopher Krohn, sculptor and medallionist, and many other Danish artists. He traveled, along with Constantin Hansen the following summer to Naples, Sorrento, Pompeii and Capri where he painted out in the open air. He returned home in 1840 with a large collection of sketches for later use and inspiration. Unfortunately, most his later work with these Italian themes was uninspired, and they found little favor. Kobke even considered at the time becoming a decoration painter, having participated in 1844-1845 in the decoration of the Thorvaldsens Museum, a museum dedicated to the artistic works of Bertel Thorvaldsen. Two years after his father died in 1843 the family sold the property outside Copenhagen, and Kobke moved back into the city. His application for admission to the Academy, which was accompanied by one of his failed Italian landscapes, was rejected in 1846. He died in 1848 of pneumonia, and is buried in Assistens Kirkegard. Kobke, a national romantic, painted portraits, landscapes and architectural paintings. Most of Kobke??s portraits show friends, family members and fellow artists. He found most of his motifs in his immediate surroundings. Now he is recognized internationally for his well composed and harmonic paintings, for their coloristic qualities and for his sense of the everyday life. But in his lifetime he was almost forgotten, especially because of his early death and limited production. Despite his talent and the praise of various contemporaries, Kobke had never been inundated with commissions. Kobke is recognized today as one of the most talented among Denmark??s Golden Age painters and the most internationally renowned Danish painter of his generation. The painterly interpretations he made of his surroundings stand as highpoints of the period. His works are in the collections of not only Danish museums but also such international museums as the J. Paul Getty Museum
WATTEAU, Antoine
(1684?C1721). French painter of Flemish descent, b. Valenciennes. Until 1704 poverty forced him to work in the shops of mediocre artists, where he produced genre and devotional subjects. In 1704?C8 he studied in the studio of Claude Gillot, an adept painter of scenes of theatrical life, which later became the subject of some of Watteau's finest paintings, such as Love in the Italian Theatre and Love in the French Theatre (both: Berlin). In 1708?C9 Watteau worked with the decorator Claude Audran. Watteau attracted the attention of eminent patrons in his last years, including the comte de Caylus, his biographer, and in 1717 he was made a full member of the Acad??mie royale. The Embarkation for Cythera (1717; Louvre) is characteristic of his art; it is a delicate, courtly fantasy, represented in warm and shimmering pastel tones that place him among the great colorists of all time. A lyric, Giorgionesque quality pervades his airy, gay, and sensuous scenes, which have a poignancy that none of his followers attained. Out of the most fleeting aspects of life he created an enduring and individual art. His exquisite paintings influenced fashion and garden design in the 18th cent. Other outstanding works include Gilles (Louvre), Perspective (Mus. of Fine Arts, Boston), Mezzetin (Metropolitan Mus.), and Gersaint's Shop Sign (1719; Berlin).