English 1861-1922 Godward was a Victorian Neo-classicist, and therefore a follower in theory of Frederic Leighton. However, he is more closely allied stylistically to Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, with whom he shared a penchant for the rendering of Classical architecture, in particular, static landscape features constructed from marble. The vast majority of Godward's extant images feature women in Classical dress, posed against these landscape features, though there are some semi-nude and fully nude figures included in his oeuvre (a notable example being In The Tepidarium (1913), a title shared with a controversial Alma-Tadema painting of the same subject that resides in the Lady Lever Art Gallery). The titles reflect Godward's source of inspiration: Classical civilisation, most notably that of Ancient Rome (again a subject binding Godward closely to Alma-Tadema artistically), though Ancient Greece sometimes features, thus providing artistic ties, albeit of a more limited extent, with Leighton. Given that Classical scholarship was more widespread among the potential audience for his paintings during his lifetime than in the present day, meticulous research of detail was important in order to attain a standing as an artist in this genre. Alma-Tadema was, as well as a painter, an archaeologist who attended historical sites and collected artefacts that were later used in his paintings: Godward, too, studied such details as architecture and dress, in order to ensure that his works bore the stamp of authenticity. In addition, Godward painstakingly and meticulously rendered those other important features in his paintings, animal skins (the paintings Noon Day Rest (1910) and A Cool Retreat (1910) contain superb examples of such rendition) and wild flowers (Nerissa (1906), illustrated above, and Summer Flowers (1903) are again excellent examples of this). The appearance of beautiful women in studied poses in so many of Godward's canvases causes many newcomers to his works to categorise him mistakenly as being Pre-Raphaelite, particularly as his palette is often a vibrantly colourful one. However, the choice of subject matter (ancient civilisation versus, for example, Arthurian legend) is more properly that of the Victorian Neoclassicist: however, it is appropriate to comment that in common with numerous painters contemporary with him, Godward was a 'High Victorian Dreamer', producing beautiful images of a world which, it must be said, was idealised and romanticised, and which in the case of both Godward and Alma-Tadema came to be criticised as a world-view of 'Victorians in togas'.  Related Paintings of John William Godward :. | The Betrothed | A Quiet Pet detail | Flabellifera | The Jewel Casket | Under the Blossom that Hangs on the Bough |
Related Artists:
Mario Villares Barbosa
painted Nu feminino in 1880 - 1917
Marx Reichlich
1460-1520 German Marx Reichlich Gallery Austrian painter. His name, which first appeared in records of Salzburg citizens in 1494, has been linked (Semper) to an artist who signed some of his paintings with the initials M R. The earliest of the initialled panels, the Adoration of the Magi with the Donor Heinrich Mentlberger (1489; Innsbruck, ex-Wilten Abbey Church; Innsbruck, Tirol. Landesmus.), suggests that Reichlich had trained with the Tyrolean artists Friedrich Pacher and Michael Pacher. The latter lived in Salzburg from 1495 to 1498, and the stylistic association with him visible in the Perckhamer Altarpiece (c. 1495-8; Austria, priv. col., see Oberhammer, nos 1-12) may account for Reichlich's having become a citizen in Salzburg. The connections with both Pachers and the fact that Reichlich received several commissions in Neustift (Novacella, nr Bressanone) suggest that his origins were in that region. According to a receipt dated 1499, he painted a panel (untraced) for the Benediktinerstift of St Lambrecht in Styria. In 1508 Emperor Maximilian I commissioned him to restore the frescoes (in situ) in Schloss Runkelstein near Bozen (Bolzano). The latest panels signed with the initials M R make up part of a double-winged altarpiece (Heiligenblut, St Vincent) that was completed by one 'Wolffgang Maller' in 1520, perhaps because Reichlich was no longer living. Also attributed to Reichlich on stylistic, technical and circumstantial grounds are eight portraits (c. 1519-20) formerly assigned to a 'Master of the Angrer Portrait' whose name was derived from the riveting bust-length portrait of Canon Gregor Angrer of Brixen (1519; Innsbruck, Tirol. Landesmus.).
Jan van Huysum
1682-1749 Dutch Jan Van Huysum Galleries He was the brother of Jacob van Huysum, and the son of Justus van Huysum, who is said to have been expeditious in decorating doorways, screens and vases. A picture by Justus is preserved in the gallery of Brunswick, representing "Orpheus and the Beasts in a wooded landscape", and here we have some explanation of his son's fondness for landscapes of a conventional and Arcadian kind; for Jan van Huysum, though skilled as a painter of still life, believed himself to possess the genius of a landscape painter. Half his pictures in public galleries are landscapes, views of imaginary lakes and harbours with impossible ruins and classic edifices, and woods of tall and motionless trees-the whole very glossy and smooth, and entirely lifeless. The earliest dated work of this kind is that of 1717, in the Louvre, a grove with maidens culling flowers near a tomb, ruins of a portico, and a distant palace on the shores of a lake bounded by mountains. Some of the finest of van Huysum's fruit and flower pieces have been in English private collections: those of 1723 in the earl of Ellesmere's gallery, others of 1730-1732 in the collections of Hope and Ashburton. One of the best examples is now in the National Gallery, London (1736-1737). No public museum has finer and more numerous specimens than the Louvre, which boasts of four landscapes and six panels with still life; then come Berlin and Amsterdam with four fruit and flower pieces; then St Petersburg, Munich, Hanover, Dresden, the Hague, Brunswick, Vienna, Carlsruhe, Boston and Copenhagen.