British Painter, 1769-1844
English painter and etcher. After taking drawing-lessons from John Alexander Gresse (1740-94), he enrolled at the Royal Academy Schools, London, in 1788. Village and rural scenes, and in particular studies of animals, occupied him throughout his working life; his favourite subjects were cattle, sheep, donkeys, pigs and above all deer, which he stalked for the purpose of sketching. As well as making plein-air drawings, Hills carried out careful anatomical studies of animal bones and joints. Between 1798 and 1815 he issued an extensive series of Etchings of Quadrupeds; the British Museum holds the artist's collection of his own etchings Related Paintings of Robert Hills :. | Portrait of Gilbert Marcellin Desboutin | Porfile of a Young Girl | Napoleon in Coronation Robes | Tiger Attacking a Bull | Large red Bust | Related Artists:
Bernardo BellotooItalian Rococo Era Painter, ca.1721-1780
Philipp Otto RungeGerman Romantic Painter, 1777-1810
..German painter, draughtsman and theorist. He stands alongside Caspar David Friedrich as a leading figure in German Romantic painting even though his early death restricted his oeuvre to relatively few stages of development. The enduring prominence of philosophical and theoretical concerns suggests that further work would have contributed to the history of ideas as well as to that of art. Runge's greatest influence was on later, largely 20th-century artists and thinkers rather than on his immediate contemporaries. While 19th-century developments certainly bore out Runge's claim for a new, symbolic role for landscape,
Arthur MelvilleBritish Painter, 1858-1904, Scottish painter. He was trained in Edinburgh under James Campbell Noble (1846-1913) and at the Royal Scottish Academy Schools. His early works are peasant subjects in a subdued tonal style. While at the Acad?mie Julian in Paris and at Grez-sur-Loing (1878-81) he developed a colouristic watercolour style with strong chiaroscuro. This was consolidated during his journey in 1881 to Egypt and Constantinople, and on trips between 1890 and 1893 to Spain (with Frank Brangwyn) and North Africa. Contrasts of strong sunlight and coloured shadows were created in his 'blottesque' technique of colour droplets on paper saturated with Chinese white: sponge and brushwork were used to clarify form, as in Little Bullfight: 'Bravo Toro' (c. 1888-9; London, V&A). He was associated with the Glasgow Boys and influenced their development of colour and design. His closest contact with them came during outdoor sketching trips in Scotland between 1882 and 1889, and in Paris in 1886 and 1889. In 1886 he became an Associate of the Royal Scottish Academy and developed a strongly decorative oil style, seen in Audrey and her Goats (1884-9; London, Tate).