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 :. | Part of Constructure | Snow Storm,Hannibal and his Amy Crossing the Alps | Pantheon | No title | Fishing upon Blythe-sand,tide setting in (mk31) |
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BABUREN, Dirck van
Dutch Baroque Era Painter, 1595-1624 1624). Dutch painter. His father, Jasper van Baburen (d ?1599), had been in the service of Geertruijd van Bronckhorst van Battenburg, Baroness (vrijvrouw) of Vianen, Viscountess (burggravin) of Utrecht, and thus Dirck must have received a better than average education, a fact at least partially confirmed by the innovative and often literary nature of his subject-matter. In 1611 he is recorded as a pupil of the portrait and history painter Paulus Moreelse in Utrecht. It is likely that this was the last year of his apprenticeship. Van Baburen probably left for Italy shortly after 1611, for a document rediscovered in the late 1980s records a signed and dated altarpiece of the Martyrdom of St Sebastian (1615; untraced), executed for a church in Parma. His most important pictures made in Italy were painted in collaboration with David de Haen (d 1622) for the Piet? Chapel of S Pietro in Montorio, Rome, which was decorated between 1615 and 1620. Van Baburen's paintings for the chapel were mentioned by Giulio Mancini in his manuscript notes, Considerazioni sulla pittura (c. 1619-20); there Mancini claims the artist was 22 or 23 years old when he carried out the commission. One of his best-known works, the Entombment (formerly dated 1617), is still in situ on the altar of the chapel. This much-copied composition reveals van Baburen's close study of Caravaggio's famous Entombment (Rome, Pin. Vaticana). In 1619 and the spring of 1620 van Baburen and de Haen were recorded as living in the same house in the Roman parish of S Andrea delle Fratte. Caravaggio's close follower and presumed student, Bartolomeo Manfredi, was living in the same parish in 1619. Van Baburen must have known the works of Manfredi.
Jean-Louis Forain
1852-1931 French painter, printmaker and illustrator. Around 1860 he moved with his family to Paris, where he was taught by Jacquesson de la Chevreuse (1839-1903), Jean Baptiste Carpeaux and Andre Gill. He participated in the Franco-Prussian War (1870-71) and was a friend of the poets Paul Verlaine and Arthur Rimbaud; the latter is the presumed subject of a portrait (1874; priv. col., see 1982 exh. cat., no. 1) that may have influenced Manet late portrait of Mallarme (1876; Paris, Louvre). Forain first met Manet through his friendship with Degas in the early 1870s at the salon of Nina de Callias. He continued to associate with Manet, meeting the group of young Impressionists at the Cafe Guerbois and the Cafe de la Nouvelle Athenes. In 1878 Forain painted a small gouache, Cafe Scene (New York, Brooklyn Mus.), which probably influenced Manet Bar at the Folies-Bergere (1881-2; London, Courtauld Inst. Gals).
Girolamo Mocetto
Italian Painter, ca.1470-1531,Italian engraver, painter and designer of stained glass. He was born into a family of glass painters, and, although there is no documentary evidence that he worked outside Venice, his early paintings and engravings show the influence of Domenico Morone and of Mantegna and his circle, which would suggest that Mocetto's training may not have been exclusively Venetian. His artistic evolution is most clearly seen in a comparison of early works still close to Morone, such as a series of three engravings of the Battle between Israel and the Amalekites (see Hind, nos 719-20) or the painting of the Battle (Pavia, Pin. Malaspina), to works of a few years later, such as the two small paintings of the Massacre of the Innocents (London, N.G.; see fig.) and the engravings of Pagan Sacrifices (H 726-7), the Metamorphosis of Amymone (H 728) and the Calumny of Apelles (H. 727), all datable to c. 1500. In the later works, whole passages or motifs are copied or adapted from drawings and engravings by Mantegna. Mocetto may have had direct contact with the court of Mantua (the Metamorphosis of Amymone is an allegory of the city of Mantua); two engravings dating from the first years of the 16th century, St John the Baptist (H 724) and Judith with the Head of Holofernes (H 725),