(8 March 1826, in Vastemõisa near Suure-Jaani, Viljandi County, Estonia - 22 April 1899 in St. Petersburg, Russia) was an Estonian painter. He is considered to have been the first professional Estonian painter. He distinguished himself primarily by his portraiture and to a lesser extent by his landscape paintings. Some of his most notable pictures depict the Estonian rural life in the second half of the 19th Century. Johann Köler was the seventh child born to a peasant family. Despite the poverty of the parents Köler managed to attend the elementary and the district schools in Viljandi. Then he attended a workshop of master painters in Cesis (then in Livonia). In 1846, Köler travelled to St. Petersburg to work as a sign writer, where his talent was soon discovered. From 1848 to 1855 Johan Köler studied drawing and painting at the St. Petersburg Imperial Academy of Arts. During 1857 Köler travelled to Paris via Berlin, later returned to Germany then travelled to the Netherlands and Belgium. In 1858, he travelled across the Alps to Milan, Geneva, Florence and Rome. There, he studied in a private academy and devoted his time to watercolor technique. In Rome during 1859 he presented his composition "Christ on the Cross". Answering the call of the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts, Köler returned to the city in 1861. From 1862 to 1874 he was a teacher of the Grand Duchess Maria Aleksandrovna, the daughter of Czar Alexander II of Russia. In 1869-1870, he worked as a lecturer at the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts. From 1886 to 1889 Johan Köler worked in Vienna, Nice and Paris.  Related Paintings of Johann Koler :. | Duke Gortchakov | Portrait of Hugo Treffner | Italian landscape | Duke Gortchakov | Christ on the Cross |
Related Artists:
Adriaen van de Velde
(bapt. 30 November 1636, Amsterdam - bur. 21 January 1672, Amsterdam), was a Dutch animal and landscape painter, son of Willem van de Velde the Elder and brother of Willem van de Velde the Younger, the marine painter. Adriaen did not want to become a marine painter so he was trained in the studio of Jan Wynants, the landscape painter. There he made the acquaintance of Philip Wouwerman, who is believed to have aided him in his studies of animals, and to have exercised a powerful and beneficial influence upon his art. Having made exceptionally rapid progress, he was soon employed by his master to introduce figures into his landscape compositions, and he rendered a similar service to Hobbema, Ruysdael, Verboom and other contemporary artists. According to Houbraken, he died while in collaboration with Jan van der Heyden and Frederik de Moucheron, painting animals on their paintings.[1] His favourite subjects were scenes of open pasture land, with sheep, cattle and goats, which he executed with dexterity, with much precision of touch and truth of draughtsmanship, and with clear silvery colouring. He painted a few small winter scenes with skaters, and several religious subjects, such as the Descent from the Cross, for a Roman Catholic hidden church in Amsterdam. In addition to his paintings, of which nearly two hundred have been catalogued, he executed about twenty etchings, several of which appear from their dates to have been done in his fourteenth year. They are distinguished by directness of method and by delicacy and certainty of touch. Van de Velde lived in Kalverstraat, near the Regulierspoort.
Ignacio Zuloaga
Spanish Painter, 1870-1945 was a Spanish Basque painter, born in Eibar, in the Basque country, near the monastery of Loyola. He was the son of metalworker and damascener Placido Zuloaga and grandson of the organizer and director of the royal armoury in Madrid. In his youth, he drew and worked in his father's workshop. He was educated by the Jesuits in France. His father wanted him to be an architect, and with this objective in mind, he was sent to Rome, where he immediately followed the strong impulse that led him to painting. After only six months' work he completed his first picture, which was exhibited at the Paris Salon of 1890. Continuing his studies in Paris, where he lived for five years, he was strongly influenced by Paul Gauguin and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. Only upon returning to his native land did he find his true style, which is based on the national Spanish tradition embodied in the work of Diego Velazquez, Francisco de Zurbaran, El Greco, and Francisco Goya. Bleeding Christ; or Blood Christ (El cristo de la Sangre) (1911)His own country was slow in acknowledging the young artist whose strong, decorative and rugged style stood in opposition to the styles of well-known modern Spanish artists such as Fortuny, Madrazo,
John La Farge
1835-1910 John La Farge (March 31, 1835 ?C November 14, 1910) was an American painter, stained glass window maker, decorator, and writer. Born in New York City, New York, his interest in art was aroused during his training at Mount St. Mary's University and St. John's College (now Fordham University). He had only the study of law in view until he returned from his first visit to Paris, France where he studied with Thomas Couture and enjoyed the most brilliant literary society of the day. Even his earliest drawings and landscapes, done in Newport, Rhode Island, after his marriage in 1861 to Margaret Mason Perry, sister-in-law of Lilla Cabot Perry, show marked originality, especially in the handling of color values, and also the influence of Japanese art, in the study of which he was a pioneer. La Farge's inquiring mind led him to experiment with color problems, especially in the medium of stained glass. He succeeded not only in rivaling the gorgeousness of the medieval windows, but in adding new resources by his invention of opalescent glass and his original methods of superimposing and welding his material. Among his many masterpieces are the "Battle Window" at Harvard and the cloisonn?? "Peacock Window" in the Worcester Art Museum. Two of his largest windows are located in Unity Church in North Easton, Massachusetts. The earliest of these, the "Angel of Help" was completed in 1887 while the "Figure of Wisdom" dates to 1901. Both of these windows were restored by "Victor Rothman for Stained Glass Inc" of Yonkers, New York in the 1990's. Between 1859 and 1870, he illustrated Tennyson's Enoch Arden and Robert Browning's Men and Women. Breadth of observation and structural conception, and a vivid imagination and sense of color are shown by his mural decorations. His first work in mural painting was done in Trinity Church, Boston, in 1873. Then followed his decorations in the Church of the Ascension (the large altarpiece) and St. Paul's Church, New York. For the State Capitol at St. Paul he executed, in his seventy-first year, four great lunettes representing the history of religion, and for the Supreme Court building at Baltimore, a similar series with Justice as the theme. In addition there are his vast numbers of other paintings and water colors, notably those recording his extensive travels in the Orient and South Pacific. His labors in almost every field of art won for him from the French Government the Cross of the Legion of Honor and membership in the principal artistic societies of America, as well as the presidency of the Society of Mural Painters. Enjoying an extraordinary knowledge of languages (ancient and modern), literature, and art, by his cultured personality and reflective conversation he greatly influenced all who knew him. Though naturally a questioner he venerated the traditions of religious art, and preserved always his Catholic faith and reverence. In 1904, he was one of the first seven chosen for membership in the American Academy of Arts and Letters. On his passing in 1910, John LaFarge was interred in the Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York. During his life, he maintained a studio at 51 West 10th Street, in Greenwich Village, which today is part of the site of Eugene Lang College