Dutch Post-Impressionist Painter, 1853-1890 Vincent Willem van Gogh (30 March 1853 ?C 29 July 1890) was a Dutch Post-Impressionist artist. Some of his paintings are now among the world's best known, most popular and expensive works of art. Van Gogh spent his early adult life working for a firm of art dealers. After a brief spell as a teacher, he became a missionary worker in a very poor mining region. He did not embark upon a career as an artist until 1880. Initially, Van Gogh worked only with sombre colours, until he encountered Impressionism and Neo-Impressionism in Paris. He incorporated their brighter colours and style of painting into a uniquely recognizable style, which was fully developed during the time he spent at Arles, France. He produced more than 2,000 works, including around 900 paintings and 1,100 drawings and sketches, during the last ten years of his life. Most of his best-known works were produced in the final two years of his life, during which time he cut off part of his left ear following a breakdown in his friendship with Paul Gauguin. After this he suffered recurrent bouts of mental illness, which led to his suicide. The central figure in Van Gogh's life was his brother Theo, who continually and selflessly provided financial support. Their lifelong friendship is documented in numerous letters they exchanged from August 1872 onwards. Van Gogh is a pioneer of what came to be known as Expressionism. He had an enormous influence on 20th century art, especially on the Fauves and German Expressionists.  Related Paintings of Vincent Van Gogh :. | Valley with Ploughman Seen from Above | New-Born Calf Lying on Straw (nn04) | Orchard in Blossom,Bordered by Cypresses (nn04) | Weaver, in a room with three narrow windows | Olive Trees with Yellow Sky and Sun |
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Nebbia, Cesare
Italian, 1536-1614 Italian painter and draughtsman. He was a pupil of GIROLAMO MUZIANO and much influenced by Federico Zuccaro, and Vasari cited him as a promising painter. Between 1562 and 1575 Nebbia was continuously employed in Orvieto, producing altarpieces and frescoes in the cathedral, for example the Marriage at Cana (1569), the Crucifixion (1574) and the Crowning with Thorns (1575; all Orvieto, Mus. Opera Duomo). In Rome, where from 1579 his name appeared in the register of the Accademia di S Luca, he executed an Ecce homo and another Crowning with Thorns (1576; oratory of the Gonfalone), a Noli me tangere (1579; S Maria degli Angeli), decorations in the Sforza Chapel, S Maria Maggiore (1582), Heraclius Taking the Cross (1582-4; Santissimo Crocifisso), the Martyrdom of St Lawrence (1589; S Susanna) and decorations in the Borghese Chapel, Trinit? dei Monti (c. 1590). Under Pope Sixtus V he was responsible, with Giovanni Guerra, for the decorations in the Sistine Library, and he also worked on the Scala Santa, in the Vatican Palace and in the Lateran Palace. In 1597 he was principal of the Accademia di S Luca. Two years later he received payment for the cartoons of St Matthew and St Mark for the mosaics in the cupola of St Peter's. The following year he painted the Dream of Constantine (S Giovanni in Laterano). In 1603-4 he decorated, with Zuccaro, the hall in the Collegio Borromeo, Pavia. He retired to Orvieto in 1609.
Francois Gerard
French Neoclassical Painter, 1770-1837 was a French painter born in Rome, where his father occupied a post in the house of the French ambassador. His mother was Italian. François Gerard was born in Rome, on 12 March 1770, to J. S. Gerard and Cleria Matteï. At the age of twelve Gerard obtained admission into the Pension du Roi in Paris. From the Pension he passed to the studio of the sculptor Augustin Pajou which he left at the end of two years for that of the history painter Nicolas-Guy Brenet, whom he quit almost immediately to place himself under Jacques-Louis David. In 1789 he competed for the Prix de Rome, which was carried off by his comrade Girodet. In the following year (1790) he again presented himself, but the death of his father prevented the completion of his work, and obliged him to accompany his mother to Rome. In 1791 he returned to Paris; but his poverty was so great that he was forced to forgo his studies in favor of employment which should bring in immediate profit. David at once availed himself of his help, and one of that master's most celebrated portraits, of Le Pelletier de St Fargeaumay, owes much to the hand of Gerard. This painting was executed early in 1793, the year in which Gerard, at the request of David, was named a member of the revolutionary tribunal, from the fatal decisions of which he, however, invariably absented himself. In 1794 he obtained the first prize in a competition, the subject of which was The Tenth of August, and, further stimulated by the successes of his rival and friend Girodet in the Salons of 1793 and 1794, Gerard (nobly aided by Jean-Baptiste Isabey, the miniaturist, produced in 1795 his famous Belisaire. In 1796 a portrait of his generous friend (in the Louvre) obtained undisputed success, and the money received from Isabey for these two works enabled Gerard to execute in 1797 his Psyche et l'Amour (illustration). At last, in 1799, his portrait of Madame Mere established his position as one of the first portrait-painters of the day. In 1808 as many as eight, in 1810 no less than fourteen portraits by him, were exhibited at the Salon, and these figures afford only an indication of the enormous numbers which he executed yearly; all the leading figures of the Empire and of the Restoration, all the most celebrated men and women of Europe, sat to Gerard. This extraordinary vogue was due partly to the charm of his manner and conversation, for his salon was as much frequented as his studio; Madame de Staël, George Canning, Talleyrand, the Duke of Wellington, have all borne witness to the attraction of his society. Rich and famous, Gerard was stung by remorse for earlier ambitions abandoned; at intervals he had indeed striven to prove his strength with Girodet and other rivals, and his Bataille d'Austerlitz (1810) showed a breadth of invention and style which are even more conspicuous in L'Entree d'Henri IV Paris (at Versailles), the work with which in 1817 he did homage to the Bourbons. After this date Gerard declined,
Jackson Pollock
l912--1956,U.S. painter. He grew up in California and Arizona. In the early 1930s he studied in New York City under Thomas Hart Benton, and later he was employed on the WPA Federal Art Project. In 1945 he married the artist Lee Krasner. Two years later, after several years of semiabstract work stimulated by psychotherapy, Pollock began to lay his canvas on the floor and pour or drip paint onto it in stages. This process permitted him to record the force and scope of his gestures in trajectories of enamel or aluminum paint that veiled the figurative elements found in his earlier work. The results were huge areas covered with complex and dynamic linear patterns that fuse image and form and engulf the vision of the spectator in their scale and intricacy. Pollock believed that art derived from the unconscious and judged his work and that of others on its inherent authenticity of personal expression. He became known as a leading practitioner of Abstract Expressionism, particularly the form known as action painting. Championed by critic Clement Greenberg and others, he became a celebrity. When he died in a car crash at 44, he was one of the few American painters to be recognized during his lifetime and afterward as the peer of 20th-century European masters of modern art.