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 :. | Landscape | Castle von Kilgarran am Twyvey | Fountain | Boston in Lincolnshire | Last watercolour |
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Elizabeth Shippen Green
American Golden Age Illustrator, 1871-1954 was an American illustrator. She illustrated children's books and worked for many years for Harper's Magazine. Green studied with the painters Thomas Anshutz and Robert Vonnoh at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts (1889-1893). She then began study with Howard Pyle at Drexel Institute where she met Violet Oakley and Jessie Willcox Smith. Life was made for love and cheer; Watercolor and charcoal on board, Harper's Magazine, September 1904She had already begun publishing when she was eighteen and began making pen and ink drawings and illustrations for St. Nicholas Magazine, Woman's Home Companion, and the Saturday Evening Post. In 1911, she signed an exclusive contract with Harper's Monthly. Green was also a prolific book illustrator. Green became close and lifelong friends with Oakley and Smith. They lived together first at the Red Rose Inn (they were called the Red Rose girls by Pyle) and later at Cogslea, their home in the Mount Airy neighborhood of Philadelphia. In 1911, Green married Huger Elliott, an architecture professor.
Franz Ittenbach
(April 18, 1813 - December 1, 1879) was a German religious painter from Königswinter, North Rhine-Westphalia, at the foot of the Drachenfels. Ittenbach began his art education as a student of Kaufmann, then left to study under Franz Katz in Cologne. In 1832, Ittenbach became a pupil, at the age of 19, of the Desseldorf Academy, where he also received private lessons from its president, Schadow. He was a member of the Nazarene movement and associated himself mainly with three of his friends and fellow-students: Karl and Andreas Meller, and Ernst Deger. The four men travelled about in Germany, studying and painting together. From 1839 to 1842, Ittenbach lived in Italy. On his return, he stayed in Munich for some time. In 1849, he returned to Desseldorf. From 1859 until his death, he was a member of the artist club "Malkasten". Ittenbach was exceedingly religious and persistently declined any commissions for mythological or pagan subjects. As a rule, he devoted his energies exclusively to church decoration. He would precede the execution of his greatest works with devout religious exercises, including confession and communion. His finest paintings are said to be found at Bonn, in the church of St. Remigius, and in Breslau in a church dedicated to the same saint. There is also a remarkable "Holy Family" dated 1861, painted for Prince Liechtenstein in his private chapel near Vienna. Most of his other works can be found in various Catholic churches in Germany. His only important fresco was painted in 1844 in a church at Remagen. Ittenbach was a popular painter in court circles, a member of most of the European academies, and the recipient of many medals and decorations. He painted a few portraits, but they were unimportant; his main work was his altar-pieces.
Charles Deas
1818-1867,American painter. After an unsuccessful attempt to obtain an appointment at West Point Military Academy, he turned to an artistic career. He quickly earned recognition at the annual exhibitions of the National Academy of Design, New York, to which he was elected an associate member in 1839, with subjects taken from James Fenimore Cooper, such as the Turkey Shoot (c. 1837; Richmond, VA Mus. F.A.), and from Washington Irving, The Devil and Tom Walker (1838; Richard P. W. Williams priv. col.).