British 1723-1792 Sir Joshua Reynolds Locations Reynolds was born in Plympton, Devon, on 16 July 1723. As one of eleven children, and the son of the village school-master, Reynolds was restricted to a formal education provided by his father. He exhibited a natural curiosity and, as a boy, came under the influence of Zachariah Mudge, whose Platonistic philosophy stayed with him all his life. Showing an early interest in art, Reynolds was apprenticed in 1740 to the fashionable portrait painter Thomas Hudson, with whom he remained until 1743. From 1749 to 1752, he spent over two years in Italy, where he studied the Old Masters and acquired a taste for the "Grand Style". Unfortunately, whilst in Rome, Reynolds suffered a severe cold which left him partially deaf and, as a result, he began to carry a small ear trumpet with which he is often pictured. From 1753 until the end of his life he lived in London, his talents gaining recognition soon after his arrival in France. Reynolds worked long hours in his studio, rarely taking a holiday. He was both gregarious and keenly intellectual, with a great number of friends from London's intelligentsia, numbered amongst whom were Dr Samuel Johnson, Oliver Goldsmith, Edmund Burke, Giuseppe Baretti, Henry Thrale, David Garrick and fellow artist Angelica Kauffmann. Because of his popularity as a portrait painter, Reynolds enjoyed constant interaction with the wealthy and famous men and women of the day, and it was he who first brought together the famous figures of "The" Club. With his rival Thomas Gainsborough, Reynolds was the dominant English portraitist of 'the Age of Johnson'. It is said that in his long life he painted as many as three thousand portraits. In 1789 he lost the sight of his left eye, which finally forced him into retirement. In 1791 James Boswell dedicated his Life of Samuel Johnson to Reynolds. Reynolds died on 23 February 1792 in his house in Leicester Fields, London. He is buried in St. Paul's Cathedral.  Related Paintings of Sir Joshua Reynolds :. | Colonel Banastre Tarleton | mrs hale as, euphrosyne | members of the society of dilettanti | Self-portrait | Portrait of Alexander Wedderburn |
Related Artists:
Walter Gramatte
Walter Gramatte (8 January 1897 in Berlin - 9 February 1929 in Hamburg) was a German expressionist painter who specialized in magic realism. He often painted with a mystical view of nature. Walter Gramatte died on 9 February 1929 of Intestinal Tuberculosis. His second wife Sonia married again, was then named Sophie Carmen Eckhardt-Gramatte and lived in Canada as a renowned musician. To remember her and her former husband Walter Gramatte „The Eckhardt-Gramatte-Foundatione was established in Winnipeg, Canada. Walter Gramatte's written posthumous works are preserved in the German National Museum. A special exhibition of his paintings, titled Rediscovered: Walter Gramatte 1897-1929, took place in Hamburg Ernst Barlach Haus from October 26, 2008 to February 1, 2009. This exhibition was organized by Kirchner Museum in Davos, Switzerland and the Ernst Barlach Haus in Hamburg, Germany.
Lucas Cranach the Elder
b. 1472, Kronach, d. 1553, Weimar. German painter and printmaker. He took his name from the town of his birth. Little is known about his early life or training. In Vienna (c. 1501 ?C 04) he painted some notable portraits and landscapes characteristic of the Danube school. From 1505 to 1550 he was court painter in Wittenberg, where he achieved great success and wealth painting portraits, mythological subjects, and altarpieces for Protestant and Catholic churches. He attracted so many young artists to Wittenberg that the town became an art centre. A friend of Martin Luther, Cranach became known as the chief pictorial propagandist of the Protestant cause in Germany. He produced numerous engravings and more than 100 woodcuts, notably for the first German edition of the New Testament (1522). After his death, his style was perpetuated by his son, Lucas the Younger (1515 C 86).
Cornelisz van Haarlem
1562-1638 Dutch Cornelisz van Haarlem Galleries Dutch painter and draughtsman. He came from a wealthy family. During the Spanish siege and occupation of Haarlem (1572-7), his parents moved elsewhere, leaving their son and large house in the protection of the painter Pieter Pietersz. (1540/41-1603), who became Cornelis's teacher. In 1579 Cornelis travelled to France by sea, but the journey terminated at Rouen because of an outbreak of plague. He then became a pupil of Gillis Congnet in Antwerp, with whom he stayed for one year. In 1580-81 he returned permanently to Haarlem, and in 1583 he received his first official commission from the city, a militia company portrait, the Banquet of the Haarlem Civic Guard (Haarlem, Frans Halsmus.). Around 1584 he befriended Hendrick Goltzius and Karel van Mander, with whom he is said to have established a kind of academy.