Spanish Realist/Impressionist Painter , 1863-1923
Spanish painter, b. Valencia. He is noted for his large landscapes in full, glowing sunlight, painted in strong color and in a bold, fluent style. Sorolla's best-known works include Beaching the Boat and The Swimmers. Related Paintings of Joaquin Sorolla Y Bastida :. | La fiesta del pan | Nina en la playa by Joaquin Sorolla y Bastida | Eating on the Boat | The Beach of Valencia,the sun of Morning | On the Beach | Related Artists:
Francis DanbyIrish Painter, 1793-1861
was a British painter of the Romantic eraBorn in the south of Ireland, he was one of a set of twins; his father, James Danby, farmed a small property he owned near Wexford, but his death, in 1807, caused the family to move to Dublin, while Francis was still a schoolboy. He began to practice drawing at the Royal Dublin Society's schools; and under an erratic young artist named James Arthur O'Connor he began painting landscapes. Danby also made acquaintance with George Petrie, and all three left for London together in 1824. This expedition, undertaken with very inadequate funds, quickly came to an end, and they had to get home again by walking. At Bristol they made a pause, and Danby, finding he could get trifling sums for water-color drawings, remained there working diligently and sending to the London exhibitions pictures of importance. There his large oil paintings quickly attracted attention. Danby painted "vast illusionist canvases" comparable to those of John Martin of "grand, gloomy and fantastic subjects which chimed exactly with the Byronic taste of the 1820s."The Upas Tree (1820) and The Delivery of the Israelites (1825) brought him his election as an Associate Member of the Royal Academy. He left Bristol for London, and in 1828 exhibited his Opening of the Sixth Seal at the British Institution, receiving from that body a prize of 200 guineas; and this picture was followed by two others on the theme of the Apocalypse. In 1829 Danby's wife deserted him, running off with the painter Paul Falconer Poole Danby left London, declaring that he would never live there again, and that the Academy, instead of aiding him, had, somehow or other, used him badly. For a decade he lived on the Lake of Geneva in Switzerland, becoming a Bohemian with boat-building fancies, painting only now and then. He later moved to Paris for a short period of time. He returned to England in 1840, when his sons, James and Thomas, both artists, were growing up. Danby exhibited his large (15 feet wide) and powerful The Deluge that year; the success of that painting, "the largest and most dramatic of all his Martinesque visions, revitalized his reputation and career. Other pictures by him were The Golden Age (c. 1827, exhibited 1831), Rich and Rare Were the Gems She Wore (1837), and The Evening Gun (1848). Some of Danby's later paintings, like The Woodnymph's Hymn to the Rising Sun (1845), tended toward a calmer, more restrained, more cheerful manner than those in his earlier style; but he returned to his early mode for The Shipwreck (1859).
Karl HagemeisterGerman, 1848-1933,German painter. He studied from 1871 at the Kunstschule in Weimar under Friedrich Preller, who introduced him to the principles of classical landscape painting. In 1873 he began to develop a more modern approach when he met Carl Schuch at the Hintersee, near Berchtesgaden; he immediately became his pupil and later wrote Schuch's biography. Schuch introduced Hagemeister to the Leibl circle (see LEIBL, WILHELM). He travelled to the Netherlands and Belgium (1873-4), Italy (1876) and France (1884-5), often accompanying Schuch and, in the early journeys, Wilhelm Trebner. His approach to landscape changed from classical Naturalism to 'pure painting', a more formalist approach in which purely pictorial qualities were given priority over naturalistic representation, as in Lake Shore (c. 1900; Schweinfurt, Samml. Schefer). His brushwork became broader, his depiction of objects became increasingly summary, and his colours lighter and cooler. Absorbing the influence of Japanese art through the interpretations of the French Impressionists, and following trends in international Art Nouveau, Hagemeister developed an individual variant of Jugendstil. His pictures were composed in accordance with decorative rather than naturalistic principles and became primarily ornamental, as in White Poppy
Albert Anker1831-1910
Swiss Albert Anker Galleries
During his studies, Anker produced a series of works with historical and biblical themes, including paintings of Luther and Calvin. Soon after returning to Ins, though, he turned to what would become his signature theme: the everyday life of people in rural communities. His paintings depict his fellow citizens in an unpretentious and plain manner, without idealising country life, but also without the critical examination of social conditions that can be found in the works of contemporaries such as Daumier, Courbet or Millet. Although Anker did paint occasional scenes with a social significance, such as visits by usurers or charlatans to the village, his affirmative and idealistic Christian world-view did not include an inclination to issue any sort of overt challenge.
Also prominent in Anker's work are the more than 30 still lifes he created. They depict both rural and urban table settings in the tradition of Chardin, their realist solidity reflecting Anker's vision of a harmonic and stable world order. In addition, Anker created hundreds of commissioned watercolours and drawings, mostly portraits and illustrations, including for an edition of Jeremias Gotthelf's collected works. To provide for a steady income, Anker also decorated more than 500 faience plates for the Alsatian producer Theodore Deck.
Anker was quick to reach his artistic objectives and never strayed from his chosen path. His works, though, exude a sense of conciliation and understanding as well as a calm trust in Swiss democracy; they are executed with great skill, providing brilliance to everyday scenes through subtle choices in colouring and lighting. Their parochial motives belie the open-mindedness towards contemporary European art and events that Anker's correspondence reflects.