English Romantic Painter, 1775-1851 Joseph Mallord William Turner (23 April 1775 ?C 19 December 1851) was an English Romantic landscape painter, watercolourist and printmaker, whose style is said to have laid the foundation for Impressionism. Although Turner was considered a controversial figure in his day, he is now regarded as the artist who elevated landscape painting to an eminence rivalling history painting. Turner's talent was recognised early in his life. Financial independence allowed Turner to innovate freely; his mature work is characterised by a chromatic palette and broadly applied atmospheric washes of paint. According to David Piper's The Illustrated History of Art, his later pictures were called "fantastic puzzles." However, Turner was still recognised as an artistic genius: the influential English art critic John Ruskin described Turner as the artist who could most "stirringly and truthfully measure the moods of Nature." (Piper 321) Suitable vehicles for Turner's imagination were to be found in the subjects of shipwrecks, fires (such as the burning of Parliament in 1834, an event which Turner rushed to witness first-hand, and which he transcribed in a series of watercolour sketches), natural catastrophes, and natural phenomena such as sunlight, storm, rain, and fog. He was fascinated by the violent power of the sea, as seen in Dawn after the Wreck (1840) and The Slave Ship (1840). Turner placed human beings in many of his paintings to indicate his affection for humanity on the one hand (note the frequent scenes of people drinking and merry-making or working in the foreground), but its vulnerability and vulgarity amid the 'sublime' nature of the world on the other hand. 'Sublime' here means awe-inspiring, savage grandeur, a natural world unmastered by man, evidence of the power of God - a theme that artists and poets were exploring in this period. The significance of light was to Turner the emanation of God's spirit and this was why he refined the subject matter of his later paintings by leaving out solid objects and detail, concentrating on the play of light on water, the radiance of skies and fires. Although these late paintings appear to be 'impressionistic' and therefore a forerunner of the French school, Turner was striving for expression of spirituality in the world, rather than responding primarily to optical phenomena. Rain, Steam and Speed - The Great Western Railway painted (1844).His early works, such as Tintern Abbey (1795), stayed true to the traditions of English landscape. However, in Hannibal Crossing the Alps (1812), an emphasis on the destructive power of nature had already come into play. His distinctive style of painting, in which he used watercolour technique with oil paints, created lightness, fluency, and ephemeral atmospheric effects. (Piper 321) One popular story about Turner, though it likely has little basis in reality, states that he even had himself "tied to the mast of a ship in order to experience the drama" of the elements during a storm at sea. In his later years he used oils ever more transparently, and turned to an evocation of almost pure light by use of shimmering colour. A prime example of his mature style can be seen in Rain, Steam and Speed - The Great Western Railway, where the objects are barely recognizable. The intensity of hue and interest in evanescent light not only placed Turner's work in the vanguard of English painting, but later exerted an influence upon art in France, as well; the Impressionists, particularly Claude Monet, carefully studied his techniques.  Related Paintings of Joseph Mallord William Turner :. | Step | Dolbadern Castle | The morning | Number seven | Houses of Parliament on Fire |
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Antoine Roux
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GRIMMER, Jacob
Flemish Baroque Era Painter, ca.1570-C.1619
Pagani, Gregorio
Italian, 1558-1605 Italian painter. He trained in the studio of the Late Mannerist Maso da San Friano, but then studied with the more progressive Santi di Tito. There he became friends with Ludovico Cigoli: the two artists, who desired to renew the art of painting, studied from nature and developed an interest in Venetian and Emilian art. Pagani was deeply influenced by Correggio. His earliest surviving works include the frescoes of the Confirmation of the Rule of St Dominic (c. 1580; Florence, S Maria Novella, Chiostro Grande) and the Meeting between SS Dominic and Francis (Florence, Convento dei Cappuccini di Monturghi). In 1592 he painted the Virgin and Saints (St Petersburg, Hermitage), a work that already reveals his interest in Correggio. In the same year he painted a Finding of the True Cross (untraced), a daring composition that is preserved in preparatory drawings. A number of works from the 1590s survive and show Pagani's interest in Emilian art; the Crucifixion and Saints (1595; Florence, S Bartolomeo in Pozzo) and the Virgin and Child with SS Michael the Archangel and Benedict (1595; Florence, S Michele Arcangelo Le Ville). At the turn of the century Pagani was increasingly associated with those Florentine artists who wished to develop a new narrative clarity and directness. His pictures (e.g. Pyramus and Thisbe; Florence, Uffizi) show figures carefully posed with varied expressions and gestures. In the early 17th century Pagani became yet more attracted by naturalism, as in the St Lawrence (1600) in the basilica of the Madonna delle Grazie at San Giovanni, Valdarno. Through his friendship with Bartolomeo Carducho he was influenced by Spanish art, as is evident in the Adoration of the Magi