1725-1805 French Jean Baptiste Greuze Galleries French painter and draughtsman. He was named an associate member of the Academie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture, Paris, in 1755 on the strength of a group of paintings that included genre scenes, portraits and studies of expressive heads (t?tes d'expression). These remained the essential subjects of his art for the next 50 years, except for a brief, concentrated and unsuccessful experiment with history painting in the late 1760s, which was to affect his later genre painting deeply. Though his art has often been compared with that of Jean-Simeon Chardin in particular and interpreted within the context of NEO-CLASSICISM in general, it stands so strikingly apart from the currents of its time that Greuze's accomplishments are best described, as they often were by the artist's contemporaries, as unique. He was greatly admired by connoisseurs, critics and the general public throughout most of his life. His pictures were in the collections of such noted connoisseurs as Ange-Laurent de La Live de Jully, Claude-Henri Watelet and Etienne-Francois, Duc de Choiseul. For a long period he was in particular favour with the critic Denis Diderot, who wrote about him in the Salon reviews that he published in Melchior Grimm's privately circulated Correspondance litteraire. His reputation declined towards the end of his life and through the early part of the 19th century, to be revived after 1850, when 18th-century painting returned to favour, by such critics as Th?ophile Thore, Arsene Houssaye and, most notably, Edmond and Jules de Goncourt in their book L'Art du dix-huiti?me siecle. By the end of the century Greuze's work, especially his many variations on the Head of a Girl, fetched record prices, and his Broken Pitcher (Paris, Louvre) was one of the most popular paintings in the Louvre. The advent of modernism in the early decades of the 20th century totally obliterated Greuze's reputation. It was only in the 1970s, with Brookner's monograph, Munhall's first comprehensive exhibition of the artist's work, increased sale prices, important museum acquisitions and fresh analyses of his art by young historians, that Greuze began to regain the important place that he merits in the history of French art of the 18th century.  Related Paintings of Jean Baptiste Greuze :. | Louis-Francois Robin | Young Girl Weeping for her Dead Bird | the guitar player | Young Girl Weeping for her Dead Bird | L-Accordee de Village |
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Lucien Levy-Dhurmer
French Art Nouveau Painter, 1865-1953,was a French Symbolist/Art Nouveau painter and potter. He was born Lucien Levy to a Jewish family in Algiers. In 1879 he began studying drawing and sculpture in Paris. In 1887 Levy began making his living in southern France, overseeing the decoration of ceramics. His own tastes in pottery decoration were influenced by Islamic Art. In 1895 he left for Paris to begin a career in painting; around this time he visited Italy and was further influenced by art of the Renaissance. In 1896 he exhibited his first pastels and paintings under the name Lucien Levy-Dhurmer; he'd added the last two syllables of his mother's maiden name (Goldhurmer), likely to differentiate himself from other people named Levy. His paintings soon became popular with the public and among fellow artists as well. He earned high praise for the academic attention to detail with which he captured figures lost in a Pre-Raphaelite haze of melancholy, contrasted with bright Impressionist colouration. His portrait of writer Georges Rodenbach is perhaps the most striking example of this strange and extraordinary synergy.
Charles Demuth
(November 8, 1883 - October 23, 1935) was an American watercolorist who turned to oils late in his career, developing a style of painting known as Precisionism. "Search the history of American art," wrote Ken Johnson in the New York Times, "and you will discover few watercolors more beautiful than those of Charles Demuth. Combining exacting botanical observation and loosely Cubist abstraction, his watercolors of flowers, fruit and vegetables have a magical liveliness and an almost shocking sensuousness." Demuth was a lifelong resident of Lancaster, Pennsylvania. The home he shared with his mother is now a museum of his work. He graduated from Franklin & Marshall Academy before studying at Drexel University and at Philadelphia's Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts.
Maerten van heemskerck
Dutch Northern Renaissance Painter, 1498-1574 Dutch painter, draughtsman and print designer. He was among the second generation of Netherlandish artists to travel to Italy, where he was profoundly affected by the work of contemporary artists in Rome and by the examples of Classical sculpture to be seen in the city (see ROMANISM). On his return to the north, van Heemskerck had a long and successful career. His extensive oeuvre (over 100 paintings) comprises large altarpieces, portraits and smaller works (with both religious and mythological subjects). He also produced a vast number of drawings for prints. He helped spread the influence of Michelangelo and Giulio Romano in the northern Netherlands, through his strong, monumental style, with much emphasis on anatomical detail. He was thus an important figure in the dissemination of late Mannerism in northern Europe