1727-1788 British Thomas Gainsborough Locations English painter, draughtsman and printmaker. He was the contemporary and rival of Joshua Reynolds, who honoured him on 10 December 1788 with a valedictory Discourse (pubd London, 1789), in which he stated: If ever this nation should produce genius sufficient to acquire to us the honourable distinction of an English School, the name of Gainsborough will be transmitted to posterity, in the history of Art, among the very first of that rising name. He went on to consider Gainsborough portraits, landscapes and fancy pictures within the Old Master tradition, against which, in his view, modern painting had always to match itself. Reynolds was acknowledging a general opinion that Gainsborough was one of the most significant painters of their generation. Less ambitious than Reynolds in his portraits, he nevertheless painted with elegance and virtuosity. He founded his landscape manner largely on the study of northern European artists and developed a very beautiful and often poignant imagery of the British countryside. By the mid-1760s he was making formal allusions to a wide range of previous art, from Rubens and Watteau to, eventually, Claude and Titian. He was as various in his drawings and was among the first to take up the new printmaking techniques of aquatint and soft-ground etching. Because his friend, the musician and painter William Jackson (1730-1803), claimed that Gainsborough detested reading, there has been a tendency to deny him any literacy. He was, nevertheless, as his surviving letters show, verbally adept, extremely witty and highly cultured. He loved music and performed well. He was a person of rapidly changing moods, humorous, brilliant and witty. At the time of his death he was expanding the range of his art, having lived through one of the more complex and creative phases in the history of British painting. He painted with unmatched skill and bravura; while giving the impression of a kind of holy innocence, he was among the most artistically learned and sophisticated painters of his generation. It has been usual to consider his career in terms of the rivalry with Reynolds that was acknowledged by their contemporaries; while Reynolds maintained an intellectual and academic ideal of art, Gainsborough grounded his imagery on contemporary life, maintaining an aesthetic outlook previously given its most powerful expression by William Hogarth. His portraits, landscapes and subject pictures are only now coming to be studied in all their complexity; having previously been viewed as being isolated from the social, philosophical and ideological currents of their time, they have yet to be fully related to them. It is clear, however, that his landscapes and rural pieces, and some of his portraits, were as significant as Reynolds acknowledged them to be in 1788.  Related Paintings of Thomas Gainsborough :. | Portrait of the Queen Charlotte | Mrs. Siddons | Pfeiferauchender Bauer vor der Huttentxr | Portrat von Molly und Peggy mit Zeichenutensilien | Mary, Countess Howe |
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tidemand
Tidemand kom vid 17 års ålder till Köpenhamns konstakademi, studerade där i fem år, tänkte sedan utbilda sig till historiemålare i Munchen, men valde i stället på en kamrats råd Dusseldorf till studieort och reste dit 1837. Han blev elev av Theodor Hildebrandt, men tog tidigare intryck av Carl Friedrich Lessings relativt realistiska historiemåleri. Hans första större målning behandlade ett svenskt ämne, Gustaf Vasa talar till dalkarlarna vid Mora (1841). Målningen inköptes av Rhens och Westfalens konstförening samt förskaffade Tidemand ett resestipendium från Norge och beställning på en altartavla till Vor Freisers kirke i Kristiania. Han reste sedan till Munchen och Italien, återvände till Norge på ett kort besök sommaren 1842, gjorde en studieresa i fjälltrakterna för att samla material till en påtänkt fosterländsk historiemålning, men kom nu till klarhet över sitt mål. Han ville, som han själv yttrat, skildra detta kraftiga naturfolks karaktär seder och vanor. Hans första tavla i detta syfte var Sagoberätterskan 1844, inköptes av drottning Josefina och förskaffade konstnären medlemskap av svenska konstakademien. Efter nya studieresor i Norge målade han Söndagskväll i Hardanger köptes av Oscar I, på slottet i Kristiania och Gudstjänst i en landskyrka. Han bosatte sig 1845 på allvar i Dusseldorf och vann snart ett namn genom de norska bondelivsbilderna. Samma år målade Tidemand i samarbete med Hans Fredrik Gude den romantiska Brudefärden i Hardanger. Revolutionsoroligheterna hade vid denna tid drivit de norske konstnärerna hem till Norge, och det såg ut, som skulle konsten nu bli rotfäst i hemlandet. Impulsen till en nationell konst gavs, men då lugn åter inträdde, återvände konstnärerna till utlandet. Under de närmaste åren målade Tidemand för det av Oscar I uppförda lilla lustslottet Oskarshal, som pryddes av uteslutande norska konstverk, serien Norskt bondeliv. Hans sista arbete var förstudier till en aldrig utförd historiemålning, Kristian IV grundlägger Kristiania, beställd av Oscar II. Tidemand skapade även tre altartavlor. I samarbete med Gude målade han Afton på Kröderen (1849), Ljustring (1850), Likfärd på Sognefjorden (1853), Fiskare i fara (1859), med Sophus Jacobsen Lappar på renjakt (1873) och med Morten M??ller Sinclairs landstigning i Romsdalen (1875). Han blev av sin samtid hyllad som Norges främsta representativa konstnär. Hans betydelse ligger i att han i sin konst gav uttryck åt det nationella uppvaknandet i sitt hemland. På samma gång föreställde han det norska folket för den stora allmänheten i utlandet. I Tyskland betraktades han som en av de främsta representanter i samtidens konst. Han fick många utmärkelser såväl i Tyskland som i Paris och i England, och hans arbeten såldes till höga pris. Sina mest omtyckta målningar upprepade han med tillhjälp av flera medhjälpare gång på gång, några i ända till 12 exemplar. Många av hans arbeten är återgivna i kopparstick och litografi. L. Dietrichson utgav Adolph Tidemand, hans liv og hans værker (2 delar, 1878-79).
Abraham Govaerts
Abraham Govaerts (Antwerp, 1589 - 9 September 1626) was a Flemish Baroque painter who specialized in small cabinet-sized forest landscapes in the manner of Jan Brueghel the Elder and Gillis van Coninxloo.[1] He became a master in Antwerp's guild of St. Luke in 1607-1608, and subsequently trained several other painters in including Alexander Keirincx. Govaerts' paintings, such as A Forest View with the Sacrifice of Isaac (Alte Pinakothek, Munich), typically show diminutive history, mythological or biblical subjects within a Mannerist three-color universal landscape bracketed by repoussoir trees. The figures were often added by other artists, especially by members of the Francken family.
Knud Bergslien
(May 15, 1827 - November 27, 1908) was a Norwegian painter, art teacher and master artist. In his art, he frequently portrayed the lives of the Norwegian people, their history and heroes of the past. Bergslien is most associated with his historical paintings, especially Skiing Birchlegs Crossing the Mountain with the Royal Child. Knud Larsen Bergslien was born in Voss, in Hordaland, Norway. His parents were Lars Bergeson Bergslien and Kirsten Knutsdotter Gjelle. Knud Bergslien was the brother of sculptor Brynjulf Bergslien and uncle of painter and sculptor Nils Bergslien. Monuments honoring the three famous Bergslien artists now exist in Bergslien park located in Voss, Hordaland