1854-1907 John Frederick Peto Gallery John Frederick Peto (May 21, 1854 ?C November 23, 1907) was an American trompe l'oeil ("fool the eye") painter who was long forgotten until his paintings were rediscovered along with those of fellow trompe l'oeil artist William Harnett. Although Peto and the slightly older Harnett knew each other and painted similar subjects, their careers followed different paths. Peto was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts at the same time as Harnett.[1] Until he was in his mid-thirties, he submitted paintings regularly to the annual exhibitions at the Philadelphia Academy. In 1889, he moved to the resort town of Island Heights, New Jersey, where he worked in obscurity for the rest of his life. He and his wife took in seasonal boarders, he found work playing cornet at the town's camp revival meetings, and he supplemented his income by selling his paintings to tourists.[2] He never had a gallery exhibition in his lifetime.[3] Harnett, on the other hand, achieved success and had considerable influence on other artists painting in the trompe l'oeil genre, but even his paintings were given the snub by critics as mere novelty and trickery. Both artists were masters of trompe l'oeil, a genre of still life that aims to deceive the viewer into mistaking painted objects for reality. Exploiting the fallibility of human perception, the trompe l'oeil painter depicts objects in accordance with a set of rules unique to the genre. For example, Peto and Harnett both represented the objects in their paintings at their actual size, and the objects rarely were cut off by the edge of the painting, as this would allow a visual cue to the viewer that the depiction was not real. But the main technical device was to arrange the subject matter in a shallow space, using the shadow of the objects to suggest depth without the eye seeing actual depth. Thus the term trompe l'oeil??"fool the eye." Both artists enthrall the viewer with a disturbing but pleasant sense of confusion. Letter Rack by PetoPeto's paintings, generally considered less technically skilled than Harnett's,[4] are more abstract, use more unusual color, and often have a stronger emotional resonance. Peto's mature works have an opaque and powdery texture which is often compared to Chardin.[5] The subject matter of Peto's paintings consisted of the most ordinary of things: pistols, horseshoes, bits of paper, keys, books, and the like. He frequently painted old time "letter racks," which were a kind of board that used ribbons tacked into a square that held notes, letters, pencils, and photographs. Many of Peto's paintings reinterpret themes Harnett had painted earlier,[6] but Peto's compositions are less formal and his objects are typically rustier, more worn, less expensive looking.[7] Other artists who practiced trompe l'oeil in the late nineteenth century include John Haberle and Jefferson David Chalfant. Otis Kaye followed several decades later. A pioneering study of Peto and Harnett is Alfred Frankenstein's After the Hunt, William Harnett and Other American Still Life Painters 1870-1900. Frankenstein's book itself is a fantastic tale of solving the mystery of why these artists were forgotten for much of the twentieth century.  Related Paintings of John Frederick Peto :. | Steckbrett der Gebr Smith | Take Your Choice | The Poor Man s Store | Take Your Choice | Toms River |
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ALLORI Alessandro
Italian Mannerist Painter, 1535-1607 Born in Florence. After the death of his father in 1540 he was brought up and trained in art by a close friend, often referred to as his 'uncle', the mannerist painter Agnolo Bronzino, whose name he sometimes assumed in his pictures. In some ways, Allori is the last of the line of prominent Florentine painters, of generally undiluted Tuscan artistic heritage: Andrea del Sarto worked with Fra Bartolomeo (as well as Leonardo Da Vinci), Pontormo briefly worked under Andrea, and trained Bronzino, who trained Allori. Subsequent generations in the city would be strongly influenced by the tide of Baroque styles pre-eminent in other parts of Italy. Freedburg derides Allori as derivative, claiming he illustrates "the ideal of Maniera by which art (and style) are generated out of pre-existing art." The polish of figures has an unnatural marble-like form as if he aimed for cold statuary. It can be said of late phase mannerist painting in Florence, that the city that had early breathed life into statuary with the works of masters like Donatello and Michelangelo, was still so awed by them that it petrified the poses of figures in painting. While by 1600 the Baroque elsewhere was beginning to give life to painted figures, Florence was painting two-dimensional statues. Furthermore, in general, with the exception of the Contra Maniera artists, it dared not stray from high themes or stray into high emotion.
Hendrick Danckerts
(c.1625 - 1680) was a Dutch Golden Age landscape painter and engraver. Danckerts was born in The Hague, where he learned his trade and remained until 1653.He visited England for the first time in 1650.In 1653 he went to Italy, where he stayed for five years. He then moved to England where he entered the service of Charles II and the Duke of York. He painted Italianate landscapes, especially views of harbors and royal residences. He also produced portraits and devotional pictures and made engravings after the Italian old masters in the Royal Collection. He left England in 1679due to the public hostility towards Roman Catholics after the Popish Plot controversy. He died soon after in Amsterdam.
Prentice, Levi Wells
American, 1850-1935