German Painter, 1808-1885 German painter. He trained (1825-8), at his father's insistence, as a pharmacist, by 1829 becoming manager of a pharmacy in the Straubing district of Munich. From 1830 to 1832 he made advanced studies in pharmacy, botany and chemistry at the University of Munich, passing his final examination with distinction. On receiving a large legacy in 1833, which made him financially independent, he decided to become a painter. He had drawn since the age of 15 and had frequented artistic circles since the late 1820s; but he had no professional training as a painter. He learnt much from contacts with young Munich landscape painters such as Eduard Schleich the elder and produced his first oil paintings in 1834. In 1835 he became a member of the Munich Kunstverein but left two years later due to disappointment over the reception of the first version of the Poor Poet (1837; Munich, Neue Pin.; second version 1839; Berlin, Neue N.G.), a scene of gently humorous pathos that has since become his most celebrated work. Spitzweg's decision to leave the Kunstverein, however, was also encouraged by his first successful attempts to sell his paintings independently. In 1839 he travelled to Dalmatia, where he made sketches that he used for many later works on Turkish themes (e.g. the Turkish Coffee House, c. 1860; Munich, Schack-Gal.). From the 1840s he travelled regularly, usually with his close friend, the painter Schleich, both within Bavaria and to Austria and Switzerland and also to the Adriatic coast, especially to Trieste.  Related Paintings of Carl Spitzweg :. | Der Schreiber | Dog and Hare | coastal scene from the north of France | Badendes Madchen | Ein Solo |
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PEREDA, Antonio de
Spanish Baroque Era Painter, ca.1611-1678 Spanish painter. He was the son of a minor painter of the same name (d 1622) and, after his father died, about 1627 he moved to Madrid with his mother. There he entered the studio of Pedro de las Cuevas, and his fellow pupils included such artists as Juan Carreeo de Miranda, Francisco Camilo, Jusepe Leonardo and Antonio Arias Fernendez. He must also have known and studied the work of many masters esteemed at court, particularly Vicente Carducho, echoes of whose work can be found in the former's early paintings. Pereda received protection early on from a member of the Royal Council, Francisco de Tejada, and later from Giovanni Battista Crescenzi, a painter and patron who was in Spain from 1617. Pereda probably completed his training through contact with Crescenzi's collection and eventually he lived in Crescenzi's house. In 1634 Pereda executed Aid to Genoa (Madrid, Prado) for the decoration of the Salen de Reinos in the Casen Buen Retiro, Madrid, a project involving all the leading artists of Madrid, including Carducho, Velezquez, Zurbaren and Jose Leonardo. The death of Crescenzi in 1635 deprived Pereda of further court commissions and seems to have stopped him painting any further secular works other than still-lifes. Also in 1635 he began a well-documented career as a religious painter, producing large altar paintings and many other medium-sized works, probably for private worship. Outstanding among these is the Immaculate Conception (1637) in the Convento de los Felipenses, Alcale de Henares (Madrid). The important allegorical painting Vanitas
Hans Thoma
German Symbolist Painter, 1839-1924 German painter, printmaker and museum director. He was the son of a miller, craftsman and smallholder and studied briefly as a lithographer in Basle in 1854 before being apprenticed to a watchcase painter in Furtwangen. Returning home the same year, he started to draw and paint in his spare time. In 1859 he enrolled at the Kunstschule in Karlsruhe, where he studied until 1866 with Ludwig Des Coudres (1820-78) and the landscape painter Johann Wilhelm Schirmer, by whom he was especially influenced. He spent his summer vacations drawing and painting in Bernau, and his landscapes, portraits and genre pictures from this time record his transition from amateur painter to accomplished artist. His pictures of his mother and his sister Agathe
Claude Joseph Vernet
Claude-Joseph Vernet (14 August 1714 - 3 December 1789) was a French painter. His son, Antoine Charles Horace Vernet, was also a painter. Vernet was born in Avignon. When only fourteen years of age he aided his father, Antoine Vernet (1689-1753),[1] a skilled decorative painter, in the most important parts of his work. The panels of sedan chairs, however, could not satisfy his ambition, and Vernet started for Rome. The sight of the sea at Marseilles and his voyage thence to Civitavecchia (Papal States' main port on the Tyrrhenian Sea) made a deep impression on him, and immediately after his arrival he entered the studio of a marine painter, Bernardino Fergioni. Slowly Vernet attracted notice in the artistic milieu of Rome. With a certain conventionality in design, proper to his day, he allied the results of constant and honest observation of natural effects of atmosphere, which he rendered with unusual pictorial art. Perhaps no painter of landscapes or sea-pieces has ever made the human figure so completely a part of the scene depicted or so important a factor in his design. In this respect he was heavily influenced by Giovanni Paolo Panini, whom he probably met and worked with in Rome. Vernet's work draws on natural themes, but in a way that is neither sentimental or emotive. The overall effect of his style is wholly decorative.[2] "Others may know better", he said, with just pride, "how to paint the sky, the earth, the ocean; no one knows better than I how to paint a picture". His style remained relatively static throughout his life. His works' attentiveness to atmospheric effects is combined with a sense of harmony that is reminiscent of Claude Lorrain.