#master painters

[mote-historie]

Edvard Munch (Norwegian, 1863-1944), Kvinne med valmuer / Woman with Poppies, 1918-1919.

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SIR LAWRENCE ALMA-TADEMA

On this day of 8th January, Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, (8 January 1836 – 25 June 1912) was born in the village of Dronryp in the province of Friesland in the north of the Netherlands.

He was trained at the Royal Academy of Antwerp, Belgium, under Gustaf Wappers.

A classical-subject painter, he became famous for his depictions of the luxury and decadence of the Roman Empire, with languorous figures set in fabulous marbled interiors or against a backdrop of dazzling blue Mediterranean Sea and sky. Alma-Tadema was considered one of the most popular Victorian painters.

During the summer of 1864, Tadema met Ernest Gambart. Gambart was highly impressed with the work of Tadema, gave him an order for twenty-four pictures, and arranged for three of Tadema's paintings to be shown in London.

In 1865, Tadema was named a Knight of the Order of Leopold.

On 19 June 1879, Alma-Tadema was made a full Academician, his most personally important award. A major retrospective of his entire oeuvre was organised at the Grosvenor Gallery in London, including 185 of his pictures.

The last years of Alma-Tadema's life saw the rise of Post-Impressionism, Fauvism, Cubism, and Futurism, which he disapproved. John Collier wrote, 'it is impossible to reconcile the art of Alma-Tadema with that of Matisse, Gauguin, and Picasso’.

In 1962, New York art dealer Robert Isaacson mounted the first show of Alma-Tadema's works, the revival of interest in Victorian painting gained impetus, and a number of well-attended exhibitions were held. Allen Funt, the creator and, television host was a collector of Alma-Tadema paintings at a time when the artist's reputation was at its nadir and bought 35 works, about ten percent of Alma-Tadema's output. After Funt was robbed by his accountant, he was forced to sell his collection at Sotheby's. From this sale, the interest in Alma-Tadema was re-awakened.

His painting The Finding of Moses was purchased initially at £5,250, and subsequent sales were for £861, £265, £252 but in 2010 it was auctioned for $35.92 million.

In 2011 his The Meeting of Antony and Cleopatra: 41 BC was sold for $29.2 million.

[angelicxi]

          pierre auguste cot, storm (detail)

[zhille]

Paja Jovanović (1859-1957) Paja Jovanović was a Serbian realist painter. One of the most significant Serbian academic artists and a rare Orientalist among Serbian painters of the time. 

Being from Serbia, I am very much familiar with his work, most popular of those being the Migration of the Serbs. Recently, the first painting in the post (Bashi-bazouks Before a Gateway) was auctioned off for almost half a milion pounds. (Source) This made the painting be the most expensive piece of art by a Serbian painter.

Find out more about this almost centennial artist at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paja_Jovanovi%C4%87

[renderedimpressions]

Plautilla Nelli - A Renaissance Woman In Art

Plautilla Nelli – A Renaissance Woman In Art

7/13/17 St. Catherine with a Lily by P. Nelli  (1528 -1588) It's often hard for me to imagine life in the 1500's and the challenges women must have faced, especially those with a gift for the fine arts. Pulisena Margherita Nelli (1524 -1588) was a nun by the age of 14 and became Sister Plautilla. She resided at the convent of Santa Caterina da Siena. At the convent devotional painting and drawing…

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[fayelafaye]

[mrinalkantimajumder]

SIR DAVID WILKIE 

 On this day of 18th November, Sir David Wilkie (18 November 1785 – 1 June 1841) was born in Pitlessie Fife in Scotland.

 He developed a love for art at an early age. After he had attended school at Pitlessie, Kingskettle, and Cupar, his father reluctantly agreed to his becoming a painter. Wilkie was admitted to the Trustees' Academy in Edinburgh, and studied under John Graham, Sir William Allan, and John Burnet.

Wilkie was especially known for his genre scenes. He painted successfully in a wide variety of genres, including historical scenes, portraits, of formal royal ones, and scenes from his travels to Europe and the Middle East.

His main base was in London, but he died and was buried at sea, off Gibraltar, returning from his first trip to the Middle East. He was sometimes known as the "people's painter".

He was Principal Painter in Ordinary to King William IV and Queen Victoria. Apart from royal portraits, his best-known painting today is probably The Chelsea Pensioners reading the Waterloo Dispatch 

At the early stages, the painting which needs mention was Ceres in Search of Proserpine, and Diana and Calisto, while his pencil portraits of himself and his mother are now in the possession of the Duke of Buccleuch.

Wilke’s other notable paintings are The Pitlessie Fair which includes about 140 figures, Bounty-Money, or the Village Recruit, Village Politicians, The Blind Fiddler, Alfred in the Neatherd's Cottage,  Card-Players The Rent Day, Ale-House Door or The Village Festival, Blind Man's Buff. Letter of Introduction, Distraining for Rent, Reading the Will, The Abbotsford Family, The Pifferari, Princess Doria, The Maid of Saragossa, The Spanish Podado, Guerilla Council of War, The Guerilla Taking Leave of his Family, the Guerilla's Return to his Family, Two Spanish Monks of Toledo, Columbus in the Convent, Napoleon, Pius VII, Empress Josephine, and the Fortune-Teller, Queen Victoria Presiding at her First Council, and General Sir David Baird Discovering the Body of Sultan Tippoo Sahib 

In 1836 he received the honour of Knighthood.

[mrinalkantimajumder]

BERTHE MARIE PAULINE MORISOT

On this day of 14th January, Berthe Marie Pauline Morisot (January 14, 1841 – March 2, 1895) was born in Bourges, France.

She was a painter and a member of the circle of painters in Paris who became known as the Impressionists.

Morisot exhibited for the highly esteemed Salon de Paris. Sponsored by the government and judged by Academicians, the Salon was the official, annual exhibition of the Académie des beaux-arts in Paris. Her work was selected for exhibition in six subsequent Salons.

She joined the "rejected" Impressionists in the first of their own exhibitions, which included Paul Cézanne, Edgar Degas, Claude Monet, Camille Pissarro, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and Alfred Sisley. It was held at the studio of the photographer Nadar. Morisot went on to participate in all but one of the following eight impressionist exhibitions.

As a copyist at the Louvre, Morisot met and befriended other artists such as Manet and Monet. She was introduced to Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, the pivotal landscape painter of the Barbizon school who also excelled in figure painting. Under Corot's influence, she took up the plein air method of working. She was studied under Achille Oudinot, another Barbizon painter. She studied sculpture under Aimé Millet, but none of her sculpture is known to survive.

Morisot was married to Eugène Manet, the brother of Édouard Manet.

She was described as one of "les trois grandes dames" of Impressionism alongside Marie Bracquemond and Mary Cassatt.