(8 March 1826, in Vastemõisa near Suure-Jaani, Viljandi County, Estonia - 22 April 1899 in St. Petersburg, Russia) was an Estonian painter. He is considered to have been the first professional Estonian painter. He distinguished himself primarily by his portraiture and to a lesser extent by his landscape paintings. Some of his most notable pictures depict the Estonian rural life in the second half of the 19th Century. Johann Köler was the seventh child born to a peasant family. Despite the poverty of the parents Köler managed to attend the elementary and the district schools in Viljandi. Then he attended a workshop of master painters in Cesis (then in Livonia). In 1846, Köler travelled to St. Petersburg to work as a sign writer, where his talent was soon discovered. From 1848 to 1855 Johan Köler studied drawing and painting at the St. Petersburg Imperial Academy of Arts. During 1857 Köler travelled to Paris via Berlin, later returned to Germany then travelled to the Netherlands and Belgium. In 1858, he travelled across the Alps to Milan, Geneva, Florence and Rome. There, he studied in a private academy and devoted his time to watercolor technique. In Rome during 1859 he presented his composition "Christ on the Cross". Answering the call of the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts, Köler returned to the city in 1861. From 1862 to 1874 he was a teacher of the Grand Duchess Maria Aleksandrovna, the daughter of Czar Alexander II of Russia. In 1869-1870, he worked as a lecturer at the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts. From 1886 to 1889 Johan Köler worked in Vienna, Nice and Paris.  Related Paintings of Johann Koler :. | A Roman Woman | Christ on the Cross | Italian landscape | Portrait of the Daughter of Nikolai Petrovitsch Semjonov | Portrait of the Daughter of Nikolai Petrovitsch Semjonov |
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fredrika bremer
was a Swedish writer and a feminist activist. Fredrika Bremer was born in Åbo (Turku) in Finland but moved with her family to Stockholm when she was three years old. She grew up in Stockholm and in the manor Årsta outside Stockholm. Her father was described as somewhat of a house tyrant, and her mother was a socialite, and she and her sisters where brought up to marry in to the aristocracy; a trip on the continent 1821-1822 was the finishing touch of her upbringing before her debute. Bremer was not comfortable with this role, and was inflicted by a crisis, which she overcame by charitable work in the country around Årsta. In 1828, she debuted as a writer, anonomously, with a series of novels published until 1831, and was soon followed by others. Her novels were romantic stories of the time and concentrates on women in the marriage market; either beautiful and superficial, or unattractive with no hope of joining it, and the person telling the story and watching them is often an independent woman. She wanted a new kind of family life, not focused only on the men of the family, that would allow for women to develop their own talents and personality. By the 1840s, she was an acknowledged part of the culture life in Sweden and was translated to many languages. Politically, she was a liberal, but also felt symphaty for the socialism of the English working class movement
Frans van mieris the elder
Dutch Baroque Era Painter, 1635-1681 was a Dutch genre and portrait painter. The leading member of a Leiden family of painters, his sons Jan (1660-1690) and Willem (1662 C1747) and his grandson Frans van Mieris the Younger (1689 C1763) were also accomplished genre painters. Frans was the son of Jan Bastiaans van Mieris, a goldsmith, carver of rubies and diamond setter at Leiden. His father wished to train him to his own business, but Frans preferred drawing, and took service with Abraham Torenvliet, a glazier who kept a school of design. In his father's shop he became familiar with the ways and dress of people of distinction. His eye was fascinated in turn by the sheen of jewelry and stained glass; and, though he soon gave up the teaching of Torenvliet for that of Gerard Dou and Abraham van den Tempel, he acquired a manner which had more of the finish of the exquisites of the Dutch school than of the breadth of the disciples of Rembrandt. It should be borne in mind that he seldom chose panels of which the size exceeded 12 to 15 inches, and whenever his name is attached to a picture above that size we may surely assign it to his son Willem or to some other imitator. Unlike Dou when he first left Rembrandt, or Jan Steen when he started on an independent career, Mieris never ventured to design figures as large as life. Characteristic of his art in its minute proportions is a shiny brightness and metallic polish. The Music Lesson,National Museum of Serbia , BelgradeThe subjects which he treated best are those in which he illustrated the habits or actions of the wealthier classes; but he sometimes succeeded in homely incidents and in portrait, and not unfrequently he ventured on allegory. He repeatedly painted the satin skirt which Ter Borch brought into fashion, and he often rivalled Ter Borch in the faithful rendering of rich and highly-coloured woven tissues. But he remained below Ter Borch and Metsu, because he had not their delicate perception of harmony or their charming mellowness of touch and tint, and he fell behind Gerard Dou, because he was hard and had not his feeling for effect by concentrated light and shade. In the form of his composition, which sometimes represents the framework of a window enlivened with greenery, and adorned with bas-reliefs within which figures are seen to the waist, his model is certainly Dou.
Pieter Gallis
(1633, Enkhuizen - 1697, Hoorn), was a Dutch Golden Age painter. According to Houbraken, he painted as a hobby, since he earned his living as the director of the local pawn shop (Bank van Lening).He specialized in landscapes, flowers, fruit and other forms of still life. He was a very friendly man, especially to artists and art collectors. He was active in Enkhuizen (and perhaps Amsterdam), in Purmerend from 1679-1683, and in Hoorn from 1683 until his death.