(bapt. June 2, 1621, Haarlem - buried October 16, 1649, Haarlem) was a Dutch genre and landscape painter. Van Ostade began his studies under his brother, Adriaen, with whom he remained till 1641, when he started his own practice. At an early period he felt the influence of Rembrandt, and this is apparent in a Slaughtered Pig of 1639, in the gallery of Augsburg. He soon found a style more suited to his own inclinations. He produced pictures in 1641-1642 on the lines of his brother - amongst these, the Five Senses, which Adrian afterwards represented by a Man reading a Paper, a Peasant tasting Beer, a Rustic smearing his Sores with Ointment and a Countryman sniffing at a Snuff-box. A specimen of Isaac's work at this period may be seen in the Laughing Boor with a Pot of Beer, in the museum of Amsterdam; the cottage interior, with two peasants and three children near a fire, in the Berlin museum; a Concert, with people listening to singers accompanied by a piper and flute player, and a Boor stealing a Kiss from a Woman, in the Lacaze collection at the Louvre. The interior at Berlin is lighted from a casement in the same Rembrandtesque style as Adrian's interior of 1643 at the Louvre. He received low prices for this kind of painting, in which he could only remain subordinate to his brother. Gradually he abandoned Adrian's cottage subjects for landscapes in the fashion of Esaias van de Velde and Salomon van Ruysdael. Once only, in 1645, he reverted to the earlier mode, when he produced the Slaughtered Pig, with a boy puffing out a bladder, in the museum of Lille. Isaac's progress in his new path was greatly facilitated by his previous experience as a figure painter; and, although he now selected his subjects either from village high streets or frozen canals, he gave fresh life to the scenes by depicting animated groups of people with a refined and searching study of picturesque contrasts. He did not live long enough to bring his art to the highest perfection. He died on 16 October 1649 having painted about 400 pictures (see H de Groot, 1910). The first manifestation of Isaac's surrender of Adrian's style is apparent in 1644 when the skating and sledging scenes were executed which we see in the Lacaze collection and the galleries of the Hermitage, Antwerp and Lille. Three of these examples bear the artists name, spelled Isack van Ostade, and the dates of 1644 and 1645. The roadside inns, with halts of travellers, form a compact series from 1646 to 1649. This is the last form of Isaac's art and has very distinct peculiarities. The air which pervades his composition is warm and sunny, yet mellow and hazy, as if the sky were veiled with a vapour coloured by moor smoke. The trees are rubbings of umber, in which the prominent foliage is tipped with touches hardened in a liquid state by amber varnish mediums. The same principle applied to details such asglazed bricks or rents in the mud lining of cottages gives an unreal and conventional stamp to them. These quirks are overcome by his broad contrasts of light and shade and the masterly figures of horses, riders, travellers, rustics, quarrelling children, dogs, poultry and cattle. A favorite place is always given to the white horse, which seems as invariable an accompaniment as the grey in the skirmishes and fairs of Philip Wouwerman. Isaac displays the best qualities in winter scenes. The absence of foliage, the crisp atmosphere and the calm air of cold January days, unsullied by smoke or vapour, preclude the use of the brown tinge, and leave the painter no choice but to ring the changes with a great variety of opal tints. Then the figures emerge with masterly effect on the light background. Amongst the roadside inns it is worth noting those in the collections of Buckingham Palace, the National Gallery, London, the Wallace Collection and Holford collections in England, the Louvre, Berlin, Hermitage and Rotterdam museums and the Rothschild collection at Vienna. The finest of the ice scenes is the famous one at the Louvre.   Related Paintings of Isaac van Ostade :. | Bauerninterieur mit spielenden Kindern | Travellers Halting at an Inn | insomnad student | Schweineschlachten | Travellers Halting at an Inn |
Related Artists:
Adolphe Yvon
Adolphe Yvon (1817-1893) was a French painter known for his paintings from the Napoleonic Wars. Yvon studied under Paul Delaroche, rose to fame during the Second Empire, then finished his career as a teacher. Shortly after the end of the Crimean War in September 1855, Yvon was commissioned by the French government to paint a large picture of the capture of the Malakoff at Sevastopol. He sailed for the Crimea on February 19, 1856 where he spent six weeks compiling a portfolio of sketches, as well as visiting the battlefield of Inkerman. In 1857, the finished painting La Prise de la tour de Malakoff 8 septembre 1855 was shown at the Paris Salon, and two years later came La Gorge de Malakoff, and La courtine de Malakoff. La Prise was a massive piece measuring 6 metres by 9 metres and represented the moment when the fortification was captured around midday. In the succeeding years, Emperor Napoleon III began to admire his battle scenes; naturally he glorified the carnage of Napoleon I's campaigns. Yvon became an officer of the Legion d'Honneur in 1867, and painted Napoleon III's portrait the following year (unlocated). Yvon was known as the leading teacher of drawing at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts (1863-83). A few Americans received instruction from him, including Christian Schussele, Alfred Wordsworth Thompson, William Sartain, and J. Alden Weir. The latter took Yvon's afternoon life-drawing class starting in the fall of 1874. Yvon provided the subject for compositional sketches for his students, for example, The Assassination of Julius Caesar, for which he specified how it should be done: Caesar covers his head with his toga.
victor pasmore
Edwin John Victor Pasmore (3 December 1908 - 23 January 1998) was a British artist and architect. He pioneered the development of abstract art in Britain in the 1940s and 1950s. Pasmore was born in Chelsham, Surrey. He studied at Harrow but with the death of his father in 1927 he was forced to take an administrative job at the London County Council. He studied painting part-time at the Central School of Art and was associated with the formation of the Euston Road School and the first post-war exhibition of abstract art. After experimenting with abstraction Pasmore worked for a time in a lyrical figurative style, painting views of the Thames from Hammersmith much in the style of Turner and Whistler. Beginning in 1947 he developed a purely abstract style under the influence of Ben Nicholson and other artists associated with Circle, becoming a pioneering figure of the revival of interest in Constructivism in Britain following the War. Pasmore's abstract work, often in collage and construction of reliefs, pioneered the use of new materials and was sometimes on a large architectural scale. Herbert Read described Pasmore's new style as 'The most revolutionary event in post-war British art'. Pasmore's abstract Mural for the canteen of a bus depot in Kingston upon Thames 1950Pasmore was a leading figure in the promotion of abstract art and reform of the fine art education system. From 1943-1949 he taught at Camberwell School of Art where one of his students was Terry Frost whom he advised not to bother with the School's formal teaching and to instead study the works in the National Gallery. In 1950 he was commissioned to design an abstract mural for a bus depot in Kingston upon Thames and the following year Pasmore contributed a mural to the Festival of Britain that promoted a number of the British Constructivists. From 1952 he was leader of the art course of Kings College, Durham based in Newcastle upon Tyne. There he developed a general art and design course inspired by the 'basic course' of the Bauhaus that became the model for higher arts education across the UK. Pasmore was a supporter of fellow artist Richard Hamilton, giving him a teaching job in Newcastle and contributing a constructivist structure to the exhibition "This Is Tomorrow" in collaboration with Ernő Goldfinger and Helen Phillips. Pasmore was commissioned to make a mural for the new Newcastle Civic Centre. His interest in the synthesis of art and architecture was given free hand when he was appointed Consulting Director of Architectural Design for Peterlee development corporation in 1955. Pasmore's choices in this area proved controversial; the centerpiece of the town design became an abstract public art structure of his design, the Apollo Pavilion. The structure became the focus for local criticism over the failures of the Development Corporation but Pasmore remained a defender of his work, returning to the town to face critics of the Pavilion at a public meeting in 1982. Pasmore represented Britain at the 1961 Venice Biennale, was participating artist at the documenta II 1959 in Kassel and was a trustee of the Tate Gallery, donating a number of works to the collection. He gave a lecture on J.M.W.Turner as 'first of the moderns' to the Turner Society, of which he was elected a vice president in 1975.
Bertram Mackennal
1863 - 1931,Mackennal was born in Fitzroy a suburb of Melbourne to parents who were both of Scottish descent. His father, John Simpson Mackennal, who was also a sculptor, provided his early training which was followed by studies at the school of design at the Melbourne National Gallery which he attended from 1878 to 1882. Marshall Wood, the English sculptor, who visited Australia in 1880, strongly advised him to go abroad. He left for London in 1882 to study at the National Gallery Schools, and for a time shared a studio with Charles Douglas Richardson and Tom Roberts. In 1884 he visited Paris for further study and married a fellow student, Agnes Spooner. On returning to England he obtained a position at the Coalport china factory as a designer and modeller. In 1886 he won a competition for the sculptured reliefs on the front of Parliament House, Melbourne, and returned to Australia in 1887 to carry these out. While in Australia he obtained other commissions, including the figure over the doorway of Mercantile Chambers, Collins Street, Melbourne. He also met Sarah Bernhardt, who was on a professional visit to Australia, and strongly advised the young man to return to Paris, which he did in 1891. In 1893 he had his first success, when his full length figure "Circe", now at the National Gallery of Victoria, obtained a "mention" at the Salon and created a good deal of interest. It was exhibited later at the Royal Academy where it also aroused great interest, partly because of the prudery of the hanging committee which insisted that the base should be covered. Commissions began to flow in, among them being the figures "Oceana" and "Grief' for the Union Club, Sydney. Two Melbourne commissions brought him to Australia again in 1901, the memorial to Sir William John Clarke at the Treasury Gardens, Melbourne, and the sculptures for the Springthorpe Memorial in Kew. He returned to London, and among his works of this period were the fine pediment for the local government board office at Westminster, a Boer War memorial for Islington, and statues of Queen Victoria for Ballarat, Lahore, and Blackburn. In 1907 his marble group "The Earth and the Elements" was purchased for the National Gallery of British Art under the Chantry Bequest, and in 1908 his "Diana Wounded" was also bought for the nation. This dual success brought Mackennal into great prominence, and he was elected an associate of the Royal Academy in 1909. In the following year he designed the Coronation Medal for King George V and also won the important commission for the obverse design (the monarch's head) of the new coinage needed for the new reign from 1911. This is certainly his most enduring design. His initials, B.M., can be seen on the truncation of the King's neck on the obverse of all British coins of George V. His next important piece of work was the memorial to Gainsborough at Sudbury, which was followed by the memorial tomb of King Edward VII at St. George's Chapel, Windsor. He also did statues of King Edward VII for London, Melbourne, Calcutta and Adelaide. He was the first Australian artist to be knighted.He was created a Knight Commander of the Victorian Order in 1921, and was elected R.A. in 1922. Among his later works were the nude male figure for the Eton War Memorial, the war memorial to the members of both houses of parliament in London, the figures of the soldier and the sailor for the cenotaph in Martin Place, Sydney, the bronze statue of King George V at Old Parliament House, Canberra, and the head of "Victory", presented to the Commonwealth by the artist, also at Canberra. He completed the Desert Mounted Corps memorial at the Suez Canal from the designs of Charles Web Gilbert a little while before his death. He died suddenly at his house, Watcombe Hall, near Torquay,