French Impressionist Painter, 1841-1919 Pierre-Auguste Renoir (February 25, 1841?CDecember 3, 1919) was a French artist who was a leading painter in the development of the Impressionist style. As a celebrator of beauty, and especially feminine sensuality, it has been said that "Renoir is the final representative of a tradition which runs directly from Rubens to Watteau". Renoir's paintings are notable for their vibrant light and saturated color, most often focusing on people in intimate and candid compositions. The female nude was one of his primary subjects. In characteristic Impressionist style, Renoir suggested the details of a scene through freely brushed touches of color, so that his figures softly fuse with one another and their surroundings. His initial paintings show the influence of the colorism of Eugene Delacroix and the luminosity of Camille Corot. He also admired the realism of Gustave Courbet and Edouard Manet, and his early work resembles theirs in his use of black as a color. As well, Renoir admired Edgar Degas' sense of movement. Another painter Renoir greatly admired was the 18th century master François Boucher. A fine example of Renoir's early work, and evidence of the influence of Courbet's realism, is Diana, 1867. Ostensibly a mythological subject, the painting is a naturalistic studio work, the figure carefully observed, solidly modeled, and superimposed upon a contrived landscape. If the work is still a 'student' piece, already Renoir's heightened personal response to female sensuality is present. The model was Lise Tr??hot, then the artist's mistress and inspiration for a number of paintings. In the late 1860s, through the practice of painting light and water en plein air (in the open air), he and his friend Claude Monet discovered that the color of shadows is not brown or black, but the reflected color of the objects surrounding them. Several pairs of paintings exist in which Renoir and Monet, working side-by-side, depicted the same scenes (La Grenouill??re, 1869). One of the best known Impressionist works is Renoir's 1876 Dance at Le Moulin de la Galette (Le Bal au Moulin de la Galette). The painting depicts an open-air scene, crowded with people, at a popular dance garden on the Butte Montmartre, close to where he lived. On the Terrace, oil on canvas, 1881, Art Institute of ChicagoThe works of his early maturity were typically Impressionist snapshots of real life, full of sparkling colour and light. By the mid 1880s, however, he had broken with the movement to apply a more disciplined, formal technique to portraits and figure paintings, particularly of women, such as The Bathers, which was created during 1884-87. It was a trip to Italy in 1881, when he saw works by Raphael and other Renaissance masters, that convinced him that he was on the wrong path, and for the next several years he painted in a more severe style, in an attempt to return to classicism. This is sometimes called his "Ingres period", as he concentrated on his drawing and emphasized the outlines of figures. After 1890, however, he changed direction again, returning to the use of thinly brushed color which dissolved outlines as in his earlier work. From this period onward he concentrated especially on monumental nudes and domestic scenes, fine examples of which are Girls at the Piano, 1892, and Grandes Baigneuses, 1918-19. The latter painting is the most typical and successful of Renoir's late, abundantly fleshed nudes. A prolific artist, he made several thousand paintings. The warm sensuality of Renoir's style made his paintings some of the most well-known and frequently-reproduced works in the history of art..  Related Paintings of Pierre Renoir :. | White Pierrot | Landscape with River | Young Girl Undressing | Two Girls | Reclining Semi-nude |
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jozef marian chelmonski
Jozef Marian Chełmoski (November 7, 1849 -- April 6, 1914) was a Polish painter. Chełmoski was born in the village of Boczki near Łowicz in central Congress Poland, Russian Empire. His first drawing teacher was his father (a small leaseholder and administrator of Boczki village). After finishing high school in Warsaw, he studied in Warsaw Drawing Class (1867C1871) and took private lessons from Wojciech Gerson. From 1871 to 1874 Chełmoski lived in Munich. He worked with Polish painters assembled around Jozef Brandt and Maksymilian Gierymski. He also had studied for a few months at the academy of H. Anschutz and A. Strahuber. In 1872 and 1874 Chełmoski visited the Polish territories (Poland as a country did not exist then), Tatra Mountains and Ukraine. His first paintings were done under the influence of Gerson. The works that followed were landscapes and villages. In 1875 Chełmoski went to Paris, where he had many important exhibitions and became known to the art scene. With many orders, the artistic level of his paintings decreased. From 1878 to 1887 Chełmoski visited Poland, Vienna and Venice. In 1887 he returned to Poland and in 1889 settled in Kuklewka Zarzeczna village. Contact with his homeland and nature revealed quality in his artworks. From that time are the best liked Chełmoski's paintings such as Partridge on the Snow, The Storks or Before Thunderstorm. Chełmoski represented the trend in art called "Polish Patriotic Painting". He died in Kuklewka near Grodzisk Mazowiecki in 1914.
Princess Kaiulani
Victoria Kaʻiulani Kalaninuiahilapalapa Kawekiu i Lunalilo Cleghorn (1875-1899) was heir to the throne of the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi and held the title of crown princess. Kaʻiulani became known throughout the world for her intelligence, beauty and determination. After the overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy in 1893, she visited the United States to help restore the Kingdom. Although reluctant to participate in politics, she made many speeches and public appearances denouncing the overthrow of her government and the injustice toward her people. In Washington, D.C, she paid an informal visit to U.S. President Grover Cleveland and his wife, but her efforts could not prevent eventual annexation.
James Peale
1749-1831 James Peale Galleries James Peale (1749 ?C May 24, 1831) was an American painter, best known for his miniature and still life paintings, and a younger brother of noted painter Charles Willson Peale. Peale was born in Chestertown, Maryland, the second child, after Charles, of Charles Peale (1709?C1750) and Margaret Triggs (1709?C1791). His father died when he was an infant, and the family moved to Annapolis. In 1762 he began to serve apprenticeships there, first in a saddlery and later in a cabinetmaking shop. After his brother Charles returned from London in 1769, where he had studied with Benjamin West, Peale served as his assistant and learned how to paint. Peale worked in his brother's studio until January 14, 1776, when he accepted a commission in the Continental Army as an ensign in William Smallwood's regiment. Within three months he was promoted to captain, and during the next three years fought in the battles of Long Island, White Plains, Trenton, Brandywine, Germantown, Princeton, and Monmouth. He resigned his army commission in 1779, and moved to Philadelphia to live with his brother. In 1782 he married, after which he established his own household and artistic career. (One notable later collaboration, however, was in 1788 to make floats for Philadelphia's Federal Procession in honor of the newly drafted United States Constitution.) At the outset of his career Peale painted portraits and still-life, and by the mid-1780s had established his reputation. At about this time, however, Charles turned over his own miniature portrait practice to him, and throughout the 1790s and early 1800s Peale devoted himself to miniature painting. Much of this work was watercolor on ivory. In 1795 Peale exhibited a still life of fruit along with nine miniatures and his family portrait at the Columbianum, a short-lived art academy in Philadelphia. Around 1810, as Peale's eyesight began to weaken, he gave up painting miniatures to turn to large portraits and still-life subjects that were greatly admired and widely exhibited in Philadelphia, Boston, and Baltimore. The total number of Peale's landscape paintings remains unknown, but he executed more than 200 watercolor miniatures on ivory, perhaps 100 still-life paintings, fewer than 70 oil portraits, and at least 8 history paintings. Peale died in Philadelphia on May 24, 1831. Three of his six children became accomplished painters: Anna Claypoole Peale (1798?C1871), a miniaturist and still-life painter; Margaretta Angelica Peale (1795?C1882), painter of trompe l??oeil subjects and tabletop fruit; and Sarah Miriam Peale (1800?C1885), a portraitist and still-life painter.