Swiss-born British Romantic Painter, 1741-1825 Henry Fuseli was the first artist to command the epic literature and heroic history of northern Europe as well as the Mediterranean countries, and by his wide reading and close study of the Old Masters he equipped himself to extend the scope of history painting far beyond the traditional limits of the Bible and classical antiquity. In his speculative boldness he was a child of the Enlightenment, but he was also a fierce critic of sterile rationalism and preached the gospel of the imagination with religious fervor. Henry Fuseli was born Johann Heinrich F??ssli (in 1764 he Anglicized his name) in Zurich on Feb. 6, 1741, the son of a painter with strong religious convictions who destined him for the Zwinglian ministry. After a period of intensive theological study Fuseli was ordained in 1761 and preached his first sermon. He was a friend of Johann Kaspar Lavater, whose Aphorisms on Man he later translated into English from manuscript. Fuseli became the favorite disciple of Johann Jakob Bodmer, who in 1740 had published an essay on the wonderful in poetry that led to a literary war with Johann Christoph Gottsched in Germany and the formation of a revolutionary Swiss school which used English literature, especially Milton and Shakespeare, as a spearhead in promoting romanticism.  Related Paintings of Henry Fuseli :. | Kriemhilde Sees the Dead Sikegfried in a Dream (mk45) | Lady Macbeth Sleepwalking | Kriemhild and Gunther, | Lady Macbeth Seizing the Daggers | Titania's Awakening |
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Robert Dodd
English Painter, 1748-1816, English painter and engraver. He exhibited at the Society of Arts from 1780 and at the Royal Academy, London, from 1782 to 1809. He had gained some reputation as a landscape artist by 1771 but soon concentrated on marine scenes. He became a ship portraitist and above all a prolific recorder of naval actions in the American and French Revolutionary wars such as the Sinking of the 'Vengeur de Peuple' at the Battle of the Glorious First of June, 1794 (1795; London, N. Mar. Mus.). He was also praised for his handling of storm scenes, notably a series depicting the loss of the Ramillies in the West Indies hurricane of September 1782 (1783-5; London, N. Mar. Mus.). His work was engraved by others but he also executed over 100 plates himself, mostly in aquatint, including views of the naval dockyards at Chatham, Woolwich and Deptford and also of the Thames at Blackwall and Greenwich, the last-named based on his oil painting of 1792 (London, N. Mar. Mus.).
Jan van Noordt
Dutch Baroque Era Painter, 1620-1676
Franz von Defregger
(after 1883 Franz von Defregger) (30 April 1835 - 2 January 1921) was an Austrian artist known mostly for his genre and history paintings. He was born in Ederhof at Stronach, in Tyrol, the son of a prosperous farmer. In 1860, following his father's death, Franz sold the family's farm and went to Innsbruck, where he studied with the sculptor Michael Stolz. He went to Munich in 1861 to study under Hermann Dyck and Hermann Anschetz. In 1863 he travelled to Paris, where he continued his artistic education autodidactically by a routine of figure drawing and a thorough study of the museums, art collections and studios. On 8 July 1865 he returned to Munich, where from 1867 to 1870 he studied alongside Hans Makart and Gabriel Max in the studio of history painter Karl von Piloty. Defregger became one of the leading genre painters in Munich, and became a professor of history painting at the Munich Academy, where he continued to teach until 1910. He died in Munich in 1921.