1.
1777 in architecture
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The year 1777 in architecture involved some significant architectural events and new buildings. April 21 - The foundation stone of Wesleys Chapel in London is laid, corselitze, Falster, Denmark, designed by Andreas Kirkerup. Rococo-Classicist Roman Catholic Church in Malý Kiar, The Glorification of the Saint Cross, wenvoe Castle, Vale of Glamorgan, the only building in Wales designed by Robert Adam. Home House, Portman Square, London, completed to the design of Robert Adam, richmond Bridge, London, designed by James Paine and Kenton Couse. February 13 - James Trubshaw, English builder, architect and civil engineer
2.
Cane Tago
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Cane Tago is a statue erected in Bologna, Italy, in 1777. It was the work of Luigi Acquisti, commissioned by the marquis Tommaso dè Buoi, the dog had fallen from the windowsill in joy at seeing its master returning from a long journey. After 200 years, atmospheric damage necessitated restoration, and the statue was displayed at the local Museum of Archeology. It is now at the Collezioni Comunali d’Arte, inside Palazzo dAccursio
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John Trumbull
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John Trumbull was an American artist during the period of the American Revolutionary War and was notable for his historical paintings. His Declaration of Independence was used on the reverse of the two-dollar bill, Trumbull was born in Lebanon, Connecticut, in 1756, to Jonathan Trumbull and his wife Faith Trumbull. His father served as Governor of Connecticut from 1769 to 1784, both sides of his family were descended from early Puritan settlers in the state. The young Trumbull entered the 1771 junior class at Harvard College at age fifteen, due to a childhood accident, Trumbull lost use of one eye, which may have influenced his detailed painting style. As a soldier in the American Revolutionary War, Trumbull rendered a service at Boston by sketching plans of the British works. He witnessed the Battle of Bunker Hill and he was appointed second personal aide to General George Washington, and in June 1776, deputy adjutant-general to General Horatio Gates. He resigned from the army in 1777 after a dispute over the dating of his officer commission, in 1780 he traveled to London, where he studied under Benjamin West. At Wests suggestion, Trumbull painted small pictures of the War of Independence and he painted about 250 in his lifetime. On September 23,1780, British agent Major John André was captured by Continental troops in North America, after news reached Great Britain, outrage flared and Trumbull was arrested, as having been an officer in the Continental Army of similar rank to André. He was imprisoned for seven months in Londons Tothill Fields Bridewell, after being released, Trumbull returned to the United States. In 1784, following the British recognition of the United States independence, while working in his studio, Trumbull painted Battle of Bunker Hill and Death of General Montgomery in the Attack on Quebec. Both works are now in the Yale University Art Gallery, in 1785 Trumbull went to Paris, where he made portrait sketches of French officers for the Surrender of Lord Cornwallis. With the assistance of Thomas Jefferson, serving there as the US minister, while in Paris, Trumbull is credited with having introduced Jefferson to the Italian painter Maria Cosway, they became lifelong intimate friends. Trumbulls painting became widely known due to an engraving of it by Asher Brown Durand. All now hang in rotunda of the United States Capitol, congress reportedly authorized only funds sufficient to purchase these four paintings. Trumbulls The Sortie Made by the Garrison of Gibraltar,1789, in 1831 Trumbull sold a series of 28 paintings and 60 miniature portraits to Yale University for an annuity of $1,000. This is by far the largest single collection of his works, the collection was originally housed in a neoclassical art gallery designed by Trumbull on Yales Old Campus, along with portraits by other artists. His portraits include full lengths of General Washington and George Clinton, New York also bought his full-length paintings of Alexander Hamilton and John Jay
4.
Antonio Carnicero
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Antonio Carnicero was a Spanish painter of the Neoclassical style. In addition to his paintings, over the course of his career he produced prints. Carnicero was born in Salamanca on 10 January 1748 and his father, the sculptor Alejandro Carnicero, went to the court of Madrid in 1749 to fulfill a commission for a series of sculptures in the royal palace. Antonios brothers Gregorio and Isidro were also artists, after initial training from his father, Carnicero entered the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando in 1758. At age 12, he was awarded a scholarship to accompany his brother Isidro to Rome so they could further their study of painting, in 1766 he returned to Madrid, where he began to paint for civil and religious institutions as well as private clients. In 1775, Carnicero collaborated with Joseph del Castillo in the execution of tapestry cartoons for the royal household and he also worked as a theatrical decorator for performances at the Teatro de la Cruz and the Teatro del Principe. He scored a success with his work The Coronation of King Alfonso XI and Queen Mary. Two other well-known works depict the contemporary sensation of early hot air balloon flights, in 1796, Carnicero was named chamber painter for King Charles IV of Spain. This came after several failed attempts to secure a court appointment. From that point on, he worked mainly as a portraitist of the family and leading ministers at court. He taught drawing to the children of the family, especially the future Ferdinand VII. On account of his relationship with the Prince, Carnicero drew suspicion of being involved in the El Escorial Conspiracy of 1807 to dethrone Charles IV, as a result, Carnicero was arrested on 7 November and detained for over ten days before being released. As Spain came under Napoleonic rule, beginning in 1809 Carnicero, after the restoration of the Bourbons, Carnicero was put on trial for removal from his office on the grounds that he had served the foreign king. An appeal to him came too late when Carnicero died in Madrid on 21 August 1814. Catálogo Descriptivo e Histórico del Museo del Prado de Madrid, calle del Duque de Osuna #3, Original from Oxford University, Digitized May 1,2007, M. Rivadeneyra
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Thomas Gainsborough
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Thomas Gainsborough FRSA was an English portrait and landscape painter, draughtsman, and printmaker. He surpassed his rival Sir Joshua Reynolds to become the dominant British portraitist of the half of the 18th century. He painted quickly, and the works of his maturity are characterised by a light palette and he preferred landscapes to portraits, and is credited as the originator of the 18th-century British landscape school. Gainsborough was a member of the Royal Academy. He was born in Sudbury, Suffolk, the youngest son of John Gainsborough, a weaver and maker of woollen goods, and his wife, the artist spent his childhood at what is now Gainsboroughs House, on Gainsborough Street. The original building survives and is now a dedicated House to his life. Gainsborough was allowed to leave home in 1740 to study art in London and he assisted Francis Hayman in the decoration of the supper boxes at Vauxhall Gardens, and contributed to the decoration of what is now the Thomas Coram Foundation for Children. In 1746, Gainsborough married Margaret Burr, a daughter of the Duke of Beaufort. The artists work, then consisting of landscape paintings, was not selling well. He returned to Sudbury in 1748–1749 and concentrated on painting portraits, in 1752, he and his family, now including two daughters, moved to Ipswich. Commissions for personal portraits increased, but his clientele included mainly local merchants and he had to borrow against his wifes annuity. The Artists family and Self-Portrait In 1759, Gainsborough and his moved to Bath. There, he studied portraits by van Dyck and was able to attract a fashionable clientele. In 1761, he began to work to the Society of Arts exhibition in London. He selected portraits of well-known or notorious clients in order to attract attention, the exhibitions helped him acquire a national reputation, and he was invited to become a founding member of the Royal Academy in 1769. His relationship with the academy was not a one and he stopped exhibiting his paintings in 1773. In 1774, Gainsborough and his moved to London to live in Schomberg House. A commemorative blue plaque was put on the house in 1951, in 1777, he again began to exhibit his paintings at the Royal Academy, including portraits of contemporary celebrities, such as the Duke and Duchess of Cumberland
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Francisco Goya
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Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes was a Spanish romantic painter and printmaker. He is considered the most important Spanish artist of late 18th and early 19th centuries and throughout his career was a commentator. Immensely successful in his lifetime, Goya is often referred to as both the last of the Old Masters and the first of the moderns and he was also one of the great portraitists of modern times. He was born to a modest family in 1746 in the village of Fuendetodos in Aragon and he studied painting from age 14 under José Luzán y Martinez and moved to Madrid to study with Anton Raphael Mengs. He married Josefa Bayeu in 1773, the couples life together was characterised by an almost constant series of pregnancies and miscarriages, Goya was a guarded man and although letters and writings survive, little is known about his thoughts. He suffered a severe and undiagnosed illness in 1793 which left him completely deaf, after 1793 his work became progressively darker and more pessimistic. His later easel and mural paintings, prints and drawings appear to reflect a bleak outlook on personal, social and political levels and he was appointed Director of the Royal Academy in 1795, the year Manuel Godoy made an unfavorable treaty with France. In 1799 Goya became Primer Pintor de Cámara, the then-highest rank for a Spanish court painter, in the late 1790s, commissioned by Godoy, he completed his La maja desnuda, a remarkably daring nude for the time and clearly indebted to Diego Velázquez. In 1801 he painted Charles IV of Spain and His Family, in 1807 Napoleon led the French army into Spain. Goya remained in Madrid during the Peninsular War, which seems to have affected him deeply. Although he did not vocalise his thoughts in public, they can be inferred from his Disasters of War series of prints and his 1814 paintings The Second of May 1808 and The Third of May 1808. Goya eventually abandoned Spain in 1824 to retire to the French city of Bordeaux, accompanied by his much younger maid and companion, Leocadia Weiss, there he completed his La Tauromaquia series and a number of other, major, canvases. Following a stroke left him paralyzed on his right side. His body was later re-interred in Spain, Francisco Goya was born in Fuendetodos, Aragón, Spain, on 30 March 1746 to José Benito de Goya y Franque and Gracia de Lucientes y Salvador. The family had moved that year from the city of Zaragoza, José was the son of a notary and of Basque origin, his ancestors being from Zerain, earning his living as a gilder, specialising in religious and decorative craftwork. He oversaw the gilding and most of the ornamentation during the rebuilding of the Basilica of Our Lady of the Pillar, Francisco was their fourth child, following his sister Rita, brother Tomás and second sister Jacinta. There were two sons, Mariano and Camilo. His mothers family had pretensions of nobility and the house, a modest brick cottage, was owned by her family and, perhaps fancifully, about 1749 José and Gracia bought a home in Zaragoza and were able to return to live in the city
7.
The Parasol
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The Parasol is one of a cartoon series of oil on linen paintings made by the painter Francisco Goya. This series of paintings was made in order to be transformed into tapestries that would be hung on the walls of the Royal Palace of El Pardo in Madrid. The tapestries showed serene events in life, which made them a nice addition to the dining room of Prince and Princess of Asturias—the future King Charles IV. The queen called on Goya because she wanted to decorate the room with cheerful scenes, The Parasol. The painting is located in the Museo del Prado in Madrid as is another in the series. On July 25,1773, Goya married Josefa, the sister of Francisco Bayeu, Bayeu was a member of the Royal Academy of Fine Art and helped Goya to secure his place with the Royal Tapestry Workshop. He designed 42 patterns in five years that would soon insulate and decorate the walls of the Palacio Real de El Pardo and this series of tapestries demonstrated Goyas talent enough to give him access to the Royal Court, and drastically change his career. Goya went on to expand his patrons and paint for many royal court members, such as the Count of Floridablanca and this all led up to the peak of Goyas career, during the reign of Charles IV, right after the French revolution. He saw a painting of Big Ben In his paintings, Goya often joins French fashion to the Spanish one, the woman in this particular painting is sitting on the ground, possibly resting from a long walk. She is dressed in French style, according to the time period and she is holding a fan in her right hand, while a little dog is cuddled in her lap. The young man is holding the parasol in order to shade the womans face and he is dressed in the so-called majo style, meaning he is dressed like a poor person for the time period. His hair gathered in a net, and his belt is made of colorful silk, in the background we can see dark clouds in the sky and the trees swaying in the wind, possibly signaling a storm coming. The painting has very calm warmth it emits, which is offset by the tree that seems to be blowing in pretty strong wind. The way the boy is standing, with one foot on the rock and one not, he seems to be triumphantly shading the woman from the rays of the sun. From 1775 to 1792 Goya painted his cartoons for the tapestries and this was his first genre of paintings and possibly the most important period in his artistic development. Painting the tapestries helped Goya become an observer of human behavior. Goya was influenced by neoclassicism, which was gaining favor over the style at the time. This particular painting is considered classicism for its relation to everyday life, around this same time, Goya began painting portraits for many of the Spanish Monarchs
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Jean-Baptiste Greuze
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Jean-Baptiste Greuze was a French painter of portraits, genre scenes, and history painting. Greuze was born at Tournus, a town in Burgundy. In 1755 Greuze exhibited his Aveugle trompé, upon which, presented by Pigalle the sculptor, towards the close of the same year he left France for Italy, in company with the Abbé Louis Gougenot. In 1759,1761 and 1763 Greuze exhibited with ever-increasing success, in 1765 he reached the zenith of his powers, Greuze wished to be received as a historical painter, and produced a work which he intended to vindicate his right to despise his qualifications as a genre artist. This unfortunate canvas was exhibited in 1769 side by side with Greuzes portrait of Jeaurat, Greuze, greatly incensed, quarrelled with his confreres, and ceased to exhibit until, in 1804, the Revolution had thrown open the doors of the Academy to all the world. In the following year, on 4 March 1805, he died in the Louvre in great poverty, around the stem was a paper inscribed, These flowers offered by the most grateful of his students are emblems of his glory. It was Mlle Mayer, later the friend of Prudhon and that return to nature which inspired Rousseaus attacks upon an artificial civilization demanded expression in art. La Jeune Fille à lagneau fetched, indeed, at the Pourtals sale in 1865, one of Greuzes pupils, Madame Le Doux, imitated with success the manner of her master, his daughter and granddaughter, Madame de Valory, also inherited some traditions of his talent. Were the real subject of the picture, in the sixteenth chapter of E. M. Chinese author Xiao Yi mentions Greuzes work The Broken Pitcher throughout the first half of her novel Blue Nails. The Broken Pitcher is also mentioned in the first scene of the Jean-Paul Sartre play, / We like Beardsley and Green Chartreuse. / Faded boys, jaded boys, come what may, / Art is our inspiration / And as we are the reason for the “Nineties” being gay, edgar Munhall organized the first major exhibition devoted to the artist, Jean-Baptiste Greuze, 1725-1805. The exhibition opened at the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford and then traveled to the California Legion of Honor in San Francisco, in 2002, the first exhibition of Greuzes drawings was held at The Frick Collection in New York. It was also organized by Munhall, who wrote the catalog, Jean-Baptiste Greuzes works Les Neuf Sœurs References Sources Normand, J. B. Emma Barker, Greuze and the Painting of Sentiment and this article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain, Chisholm, Hugh, ed. Greuze, Jean Baptiste. Works and literature at PubHist Europe in the age of enlightenment and revolution, a catalog from The Metropolitan Museum of Art Libraries, which contains material on Greuze
9.
William Hoare
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William Hoare of Bath RA was an English portraitist, painter and printmaker. From c.1740 to 1759, he was the leading oil portraitist at Bath, Somerset, noted for his pastels, he was a foundation member of the Royal Academy. Born near Eye, Suffolk, Hoare received an education in Faringdon. He showed an aptitude for drawing and was sent to London to study under Giuseppe Grisoni, when Grisoni returned to Italy in 1728, Hoare went with him, travelling to Rome and continuing his studies under the direction of Francesco Imperiali. He remained in Rome for nine years, returning to London in 1737/8, failing to establish himself in London, Hoare settled in Bath, an expanding spa town popular with the wealthier classes. He obtained numerous commissions, the most important being for official portraits of leaders of the day. There are several versions of most of these, suggesting that he had a studio, Hoare himself was a delicate etcher and published a number of private plates, mostly of family and friends, including a Miss Hoare, Christopher Anstey and the 3rd Duke of Beaufort. His pastels were influenced by Rosalba Carriera, william Hoare was the first fashionable portraitist to settle in Bath, and he remained as the leading portraitist there until the arrival of Thomas Gainsborough in 1759. He remained the favourite of his patron the Duke of Newcastle, his family, followers. Included amongst his other important patrons were the Earls of Pembroke and Chesterfield, with Gainsborough and Joshua Reynolds, he was a founding member of the Royal Academy. Hoare was closely involved with the running of the Royal Mineral Water Hospital in Bath from 1742 and he served as a governor of the hospital. And became acquainted with Baths notable visitors and the landed families. Chalmers described him as an ingenious and amiable English painter and he died at Bath on 12 December 1792. His son, Prince Hoare, achieved fame as a painter, holbrook, M. Painters in Bath in the eighteenth century. William Hoare of Bath RA, 1707–92, dr Oliver and Mr Peirce Examining Patients
10.
Ozias Humphry
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Ozias Humphry was a leading English painter of portrait miniatures, later oils and pastels, of the 18th century. He was elected to the Royal Academy in 1791, and in 1792 he was appointed Portrait Painter in Crayons to the King, Humphry is the spelling Ozias himself used in his signature on the backing card of his miniature of Charlotte, Princess Royal. This is also the spelling given in the catalogues of the exhibitions of the Royal Academy from 1779 to 1795. The different spelling in the far more common form of Humphrey may originally well be due to a mistake but was already in use during his own lifetime. It appears thus in the Royal Academy catalogues for the years 1796 and 1797 as well as in the writings of Horace Walpole, Humphry is the generally used spelling today. Born and schooled in Honiton, Devon, Humphry was attracted by the gallery of casts opened by the Duke of Richmond and he also studied art in Bath, in Bath, he lodged with Thomas Linley. As a young artist, his talent was encouraged by Thomas Gainsborough and Sir Joshua Reynolds and his problems with his sight, which ultimately led to blindness, began in the early 1770s and forced him to paint larger works in oils and pastel. He traveled to Italy in 1773 with his great friend George Romney, stopping en route at Knole, near Sevenoaks in Kent and his stay in Italy lasted until 1777. This failed to reach its minimum estimate in a Christies auction in April 2007 and he compiled a fifty-page manuscript A Memoir of George Stubbs, based on what Stubbs had related to him, it is the only contemporary biography. This was edited and privately published in the 1870s and republished in 2005 and he also knew William Blake and commissioned copies of some of his illustrated books. At least one of Blakes letters to him is a significant document for Blakes biographers, from 1785 to 1787, he travelled to India, producing many miniatures and sketches. He was elected a member of the Royal Academy in 1791, in 1792 he was appointed Portrait Painter in Crayons to the King. Most of his portraits of the Royal Family are still in the Royal Collection. His sight finally failed in 1797, and he died in 1810 in Hampstead, the bulk of his possessions came into the hands of his natural son, William Upcott, the book collector. From him the British Museum acquired a number of papers relating to Humphry. He is alluded to in some lines by Hayley, Humphry is said to be the painter of the Rice portrait of Jane Austen, although both the attribution and the identity of the sitter are disputed. This article incorporates text from a now in the public domain, Chisholm, Hugh, ed. Humphry. 7 works by Humphry from the National Portrait Gallery Profile on Royal Academy of Arts Collections
11.
George Stubbs
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George Stubbs ARA was an English painter, best known for his paintings of horses. Stubbs was born in Liverpool, the son of a currier and leather merchant, information on his life up to age thirty-five is sparse, relying almost entirely on notes made by fellow artist Ozias Humphry towards the end of Stubbss life. Stubbs worked at his fathers trade until he was 15 or 16, thereafter as an artist he was self-taught. In the 1740s he worked as a painter in the North of England. He had had a passion for anatomy from his childhood, in 1756 he rented a farmhouse in the village of Horkstow, Lincolnshire, and spent 18 months dissecting horses, assisted by his common-law wife, Mary Spencer. He moved to London in about 1759 and in 1766 published The anatomy of the Horse, the original drawings are now in the collection of the Royal Academy. In 1759 the 3rd Duke of Richmond commissioned three large pictures from him, and his career was soon secure. By 1763 he had produced works for several dukes and other lords and was able to buy a house in Marylebone, a fashionable part of London. His most famous work is probably Whistlejacket, a painting of a prancing horse commissioned by the 2nd Marquess of Rockingham and this and two other paintings carried out for Rockingham break with convention in having plain backgrounds. Throughout the 1760s he produced a range of individual and group portraits of horses, sometimes accompanied by hounds. He often painted horses with their grooms, whom he painted as individuals. Meanwhile, he continued to accept commissions for portraits of people. From 1761 to 1776 he exhibited at the Society of Artists of Great Britain, Stubbs also painted more exotic animals including lions, tigers, giraffes, monkeys, and rhinoceroses, which he was able to observe in private menageries. His painting of a kangaroo was the first glimpse of this animal for many 18th-century Britons and he became preoccupied with the theme of a wild horse threatened by a lion and produced several variations on this theme. These and other works became known at the time through engravings of Stubbss work. Stubbs also painted pictures, but these are much less well regarded. From the late 1760s he produced work on enamel. In the 1770s Josiah Wedgwood developed a new and larger type of enamel panel at Stubbss request, Stubbs hoped to achieve commercial success with his paintings in enamel, but the venture left him in debt
12.
Thomas Jones (artist)
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Thomas Jones was a Welsh landscape painter. He was a pupil of Richard Wilson and was best known in his lifetime as a painter of Welsh, however, Joness reputation grew in the 20th century when more unconventional works by him, not originally intended for exhibition, came to light. Most notable among these is a series of views of Naples which he painted from 1782 to 1783, by breaking with the conventions of classical landscape painting in favour of direct observation, they look forward to the work of Camille Corot and the Barbizon School in the 19th century. His autobiography, Memoirs of Thomas Jones of Penkerrig, went unpublished until 1951 but is now recognised as an important source of information on the 18th-century art world. Thomas Jones was born in Trefonnen in Cefnllys, Radnorshire, the second of sixteen children to the landowner Thomas Jones of Trefonnen and his wife, Hannah. His formative years were spent on his fathers estate at Pencerrig near Builth Wells and he was educated at Christ College, Brecon, and later at a school kept by Jenkin Jenkins at Llanfyllin in Montgomeryshire, before going to Oxford in 1759 to study at Jesus College. His university education was funded by an uncle who, contrary to Joness own wishes. Jones dropped out of Oxford after this death in 1761. Jones moved to London and enrolled at William Shipleys drawing school in November 1761, a high-spirited youth, Jones recorded in his journal that he and two rowdy fellow pupils were once rebuked by their master with the words, Gentlemen, this is not the way to rival Claude. In 1765 Jones began to exhibit at the Society of Artists, from 1769 onwards his landscapes began to adopt the grand manner, becoming settings for scenes in history, literature or mythology. His frequent collaborator on these works was John Hamilton Mortimer, who painted the figures, one of his best-known works from this period is The Bard, based on the poem by Thomas Gray. The 1770s were a period for Jones, he was elected a fellow of the Society of Artists in 1771. This period also saw the beginning of Jones’s unconventional habit of producing small landscape sketches in oils on paper for his own amusement, Jones embarked on an eagerly anticipated trip to Italy in September 1776. The works produced there departed significantly from the example of his master, particularly in his watercolour paintings, jacob More, John Robert Cozens and Thomas Banks were among the fellow expatriate artists with whom Jones was friendly. His first commission in Italy was a landscape entitled Lake Albano – Sunset for the Earl-Bishop of Derry, Jones made his first visit to Naples in September 1778, staying there for five months. He returned to Rome for a time, living in a house near the Spanish Steps built by Salvator Rosa and he took on a Danish widow called Maria Moncke as his Maid Servant in April 1779, eloping with her to Naples a year later. Then the largest city in Italy, Naples promised more opportunities for patronage than had Rome, Maria gave birth to two daughters in Naples, Anna Maria and Elizabetha. Upon hearing of his fathers death in 1782, Jones, who six years in Italy was becoming restless and homesick
13.
Joshua Reynolds
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Sir Joshua Reynolds RA FRS FRSA was an influential eighteenth-century English painter, specialising in portraits. He promoted the Grand Style in painting which depended on idealization of the imperfect and he was a founder and first president of the Royal Academy of Arts, and was knighted by George III in 1769. Reynolds was born in Plympton, Devon, on 16 July 1723 the third son of the Rev. Samuel Reynolds and his father had been a fellow of Balliol College, Oxford, but did not send any of his sons to the university. One of his sisters was Mary Palmer, seven years his senior, author of Devonshire Dialogue, in 1740 she provided £60, half of the premium paid to Thomas Hudson the portrait-painter, for Joshuas pupilage, and nine years later advanced money for his expenses in Italy. His other siblings included Frances Reynolds and Elizabeth Johnson, as a boy, he came under the influence of Zachariah Mudge, whose Platonistic philosophy stayed with him all his life. The work that came to have the most influential impact on Reynolds was Jonathan Richardsons An Essay on the Theory of Painting, having shown an early interest in art, Reynolds was apprenticed in 1740 to the fashionable London portrait painter Thomas Hudson, who had been born in Devon. Hudson had a collection of old master drawings, including some by Guercino, although apprenticed to Hudson for four years, Reynolds only remained with him until summer 1743. Having left Hudson, Reynolds worked for some time as a portrait-painter in Plymouth Dock and he returned to London before the end of 1744, but following his fathers death in late 1745 he shared a house in Plymouth Dock with his sisters. In 1749, Reynolds met Commodore Augustus Keppel, who invited him to join HMS Centurion, of which he had command, while with the ship he visited Lisbon, Cadiz, Algiers, and Minorca. From Minorca he travelled to Livorno in Italy, and then to Rome, while in Rome he 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. Reynolds travelled homeward overland via Florence, Bologna, Venice, and he was accompanied by Giuseppe Marchi, then aged about 17. Apart from a brief interlude in 1770, Marchi remained in Reynolds employment as an assistant for the rest of the artists career. Following his arrival in England in October 1752, Reynolds spent three months in Devon, before establishing himself in London, where he remained for the rest of his life. He took rooms in St Martins Lane, before moving to Great Newport Street and he achieved success rapidly, and was extremely prolific. In 1760 Reynolds moved into a house, with space to show his works and accommodate his assistants. Alongside ambitious full-length portraits, Reynolds painted large numbers of smaller works, in the late 1750s, at the height of the social season, he received five or six sitters a day, each for an hour. By 1761 Reynolds could command a fee of 80 guineas for a full-length portrait, the clothing of Reynolds sitters was usually painted either by one of his pupils, his studio assistant Giuseppe Marchi, or the specialist drapery painter Peter Toms. Lay figures were used to model the clothes and he had an excellent vantage from his house, Wick House, on Richmond Hill, and painted the view in about 1780
14.
John Francis Rigaud
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John Francis Rigaud RA was an eighteenth-century history, portrait, and decorative painter. Of French descent, he was born in Turin and spent most of his career in England, Rigaud was born in Turin on 18 May 1742 and baptised on 9 September. He was the son of James Dutilh or Rigaud and Jeanne Françoise Guiraudet. His father came from a family of Protestant merchants, his grandfather Jacques Dutilh had fled from Lyon to Geneva with his family after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, Jacques died on the journey, and his widow assumed her maiden name—Rigaud—by which the family became known. Johns brother James Stephen later became observer at the Kings Observatory in England, whilst his nephew Stephen Peter Rigaud became a noted astronomer, having demonstrated an artistic ability, Rigaud studied with Claudio Francesco Beaumont of Turin, historical painter to the king of Sardinia. He left Beaumont to travel Italy and study painting in Florence and in Bologna and he then travelled to Rome, but had to return home due to family considerations. In January 1768, he set off again, this time to Piacenza, Parma, Bologna. He settled there and studied the art, particularly the old masters. There he produced what the Dictionary of National Biography describes as one of his most important works, while in Rome, Rigaud became friends with the Swedish sculptor Johan Tobias Sergel and the Irish painter James Barry. In April 1770, he and Barry travelled together to Florence, Bologna, Rigaud then spent a short time in Paris before leaving for London in December 1771. He exhibited his Hercules at the Royal Academy in 1772 and was elected an associate of the Academy in the same year. Some of his exhibits at the Academy were studies for ceiling paintings, the architect William Chambers offered him work in London at Melbourne House in Piccadilly and at Somerset House. He also helped decorate the common council chamber of the Guildhall in London, according to the Dictionary of National Biography, all these works were executed in the fashionable Italian style of G. B. Cipriani and Biagio Rebecca, being mostly classical figures and imitations of bas-reliefs and his works at the Guildhall, representing Providence, Innocence, Wisdom and Happiness were painted at the expense of Alderman John Boydell. They did not last, a guidebook to the building, published in 1819, recorded that these Paintings never dried perfectly, according to the Dictionary of National Biography, his historical paintings were not well received. This last painting soon fell into a condition and was destroyed during alterations to the building in 1827. He also painted a series of heroes, including Lord Nelson. According to the Dictionary of National Biography, his portraits tend to be characterized and boldly conceived
15.
George Romney (painter)
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George Romney was an English portrait painter. He was the most fashionable artist of his day, painting many leading society figures – including his artistic muse, Emma Hamilton, Romney was born in Beckside in Dalton-in-Furness, Lancashire, the 3rd son of John Romney, cabinet maker, and Anne Simpson. Raised in a cottage named High Cocken in modern-day Barrow-in-Furness, he was sent to school at nearby Dendron and he appears to have been an indifferent student and was withdrawn at the age of 11 and apprenticed to his fathers business instead. He proved to have an ability for drawing and making things from wood – including violins. All costs were to be borne by Georges father, in October 1756, Romney married Mary Abbot, but the couple were immediately separated when he was called away to York on business by his employer. After a year, Steele eventually agreed to cancel the apprenticeship, at Georges request, in 1757, Romney rejoined his wife and young son in Kendal, working as a portraitist, landscape and historical painter. In this period he became friends with Adam Walker, the inventor and writer, in March 1762, he parted from his wife, son and daughter, to seek his fortune in London, where he stayed until 1799. Throughout the separation, he maintained contact with his family and financially supported them, in 1763, Romney entered his painting, The Death of General Wolfe, into a Royal Society of Arts competition. According to friends of Romney, he was awarded the prize of 50 guineas. It is said that Sir Joshua Reynolds himself was the mover behind this decision. Despite his later success, Romney was never invited to join the Royal Academy of Arts, though he was asked, urged even and this decision certainly cost him valuable royal patronage and support from others connected at court. His own career supported this belief, and it was only towards the end of his life that he expressed the slightest regret for his views and his early years in the capital were something of a struggle financially. In September 1764, he travelled to Paris for a few weeks to study the works of the old masters, in 1765 he again won the second prize of 50 guineas in the Royal Society of Arts competition. In 1768, he made the acquaintance of Richard Cumberland, the dramatist, whose portrait he painted, and he also became friends with miniature painter Ozias Humphrey. In 1770 he started to exhibit his work at the Chartered Society of Artists rather the rival Free Society of Artists, by 1772 Romney was financially secure enough to make the journey to Italy to study the great artists of the past, as he had always intended. He set off in March, making his way through Europe, a letter of introduction allowed him to meet the Pope, Clement XIV, who allowed him to set up scaffolding in the Vatican to study the frescoes of Raphael. He spent 18 months in Rome making studies and sketches of the art works on view there. He returned to London in July 1775 after an absence of over 2 years, on his return, in 1775, Romney moved to Cavendish Square, in a house formerly owned by noted portraitist Francis Cotes
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Alexander Roslin
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Alexander Roslin was a Swedish portrait painter who worked in Scania, Bayreuth, Paris, Italy, Warsaw and St. Petersburg, primarily for members of aristocratic families. He combined insightful psychological portrayal with a representation of fabrics. In his choice of style and lustrous, shimmering colors Alexander Roslin exemplifies Rococo and he lived in France from 1752 until 1793, a period that spanned most of his career. Rococo artists opted for a more jocular, elegant and ornate style, characterized by lightness, elegance and graceful approach to art and architecture. The painting by Roslin depicting Jeanne Sophie de Vignerot du Plessis, Alexander Roslin was born on 15 July 1718, in Malmö, Sweden, the son of naval physician Hans Roslin and Catherine Wertmüller. Stockholm had become an intellectual and artistic center since Queen Christina had established connections with Paris, at the age of sixteen he became apprenticed to the court painter Georg Engelhard Schröder in Stockholm, studying painting there until 1741 and beginning to paint large portraits in oils. Schröder was influenced by Hyacinthe Rigaud and Nicolas de Largillière, in 1741, Roslin settled in Gothenburg, and the following year moved to Scania, where he remained until 1745 painting portraits and also creating religious paintings for the church at Hasslöv. In 1745, Roslin left Sweden for Bayreuth, where he had invited to work for Frederick. In 1747, he moved to Italy to study the works of the great masters, while in Italy he portrayed, among others, the family of Philip, Duke of Parma in 1752. In the same year Roslin moved to Paris, at the age of 34, here, in 1759, he married the pastel painter Marie-Suzanne Giroust. The couple had three sons and three daughters, in 1768 Roslin painted her dressed in Bolognese fashion, Lady with Veil, a portrait that the art critic, writer and philosopher Denis Diderot judged très piquante. In 1767 he painted a portrait of them both, she is depicted working in pastels on a portrait of Henrik Wilhelm Peill, while Roslin points at a gold box he received from Peill as a present. The frame of the painting is inscribed Loin et près, showing that the portrait was a token of friendship and this painting was purchased by the Swedish National Museum in 2013. In Paris he was a protégé of François Boucher and his work became fashionable. He was chosen as a member of the French Art Academy and his early portraits are painted in bright, cool colours, and show the influence of Jean-Marc Nattier and Hyacinthe Rigaud. Around the 1760s he started using daring colouring in his paintings, such as in the portrait of his wife, Lady with Veil, and the Jennings Family. Roslin had great skill in painting the surfaces and texture of precious materials such as fabrics and jewels. In Paris he soon became one of the foremost portraitists of his time, valued mostly for practiced rendering of fabrics and gentle complexions
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John Webber
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John Webber RA was an English artist who accompanied Captain Cook on his third Pacific expedition. He is best known for his images of Australasia, Hawaii, Webber was born in London, educated in Bern and studied painting at Paris. His father was Abraham Wäber, a Swiss sculptor who had moved to London, Webber served as official artist on James Cooks third voyage of discovery around the Pacific aboard HMS Resolution. At Adventure Bay in January 1777 he did drawings of A Man of Van Diemens Land and he also did many drawings of scenes in New Zealand and the South Sea islands. On this voyage, during which Cook lost his life in a fight in Hawaii, Webber became the first European artist to make contact with Hawaii and he made numerous watercolor landscapes of the islands of Kauai and Hawaii, and also portrayed many of the Hawaiian people. In April 1778, Captain Cooks ships Resolution and Discovery anchored at Ship Cove, now known as Nootka Sound, Vancouver Island, the crew took observations and recorded encounters with the local people. Webber made watercolour landscapes including Resolution and Discovery in Ship Cove,1778 and his drawings and paintings were engraved for British Admiraltys account of the expedition, which was published in 1784. Back in England in 1780 Webber exhibited around 50 works at Royal Academy exhibitions between 1784 and 1792, and was elected an associate of the Royal Academy in 1785, most of his work were landscapes. Sometimes figures were included as in A Party from H. M. S, Resolution shooting sea horses, which was shown at the academy in 1784, and his The Death of Captain Cook became well known through an engraving of it. Another version of this picture is in the William Dixson gallery at Sydney and his Young Woman of the Sandwich Islands is in San Antonio Museum of Art. Biography at the Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online
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Christian Daniel Rauch
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Christian Daniel Rauch was a German sculptor. He founded the Berlin school of sculpture, and was the foremost German sculptor of the 19th century, Rauch was born at Arolsen in the Principality of Waldeck in the Holy Roman Empire. His father was employed at the court of Prince Frederick II of Hesse, in 1795, he became assistant to Johann Christian Ruhl, the court sculptor of Kassel. After the death of his father in 1796 and his brother in 1797. He abandoned sculpture temporarily, but his new position provided a field for improvement. He came under the influence of Johann Gottfried Schadow, in 1802, he exhibited his “Sleeping Endymion. ”Queen Louisa of Prussia, surprising him one day in the act of modeling her features in wax, sent him to study at the Prussian Academy of Art. Not long afterwards, in 1804, Count Sandrecky gave Rauch the means to complete his education at Rome, other works were bas-reliefs of “Hippolytus and Phaedra, ” “Mars and Venus wounded by Diomede, ” and a “Child praying. ”He remained in Rome for six years. In 1811, Rauch was commissioned to execute a monument for Queen Louisa of Prussia, the statue, representing the queen in a sleeping posture, was placed in a mausoleum in the grounds of Charlottenburg, and procured great fame and a European reputation for the artist. A similar statue of the Queen, even more successful, was placed in the Sanssouci Park at Potsdam, the erection of nearly all public statues came to be entrusted to him. By 1824, he had executed 70 busts in marble of which 20 were of colossal size, one of his finest works is the group “Faith, Hope and Charity, ” which he presented to his native town, Arolsen. At length, in 1830, Rauch began, along with the architect Karl Friedrich Schinkel, the models for a colossal equestrian monument at Berlin to honor King Frederick II of Prussia. This work was inaugurated with great pomp in May 1851, and is regarded as one of the masterpieces of modern sculpture, princes decorated Rauch with honors and the academies of Europe enrolled him among their members. In 1837 Rauch became associated member of the Royal Institute of the Netherlands, zwei Friedenssäulen, Charlottenburg Palace, Berlin Rines, George Edwin, ed. Rauch, Christian Daniel. Thurston, H. T. Colby, F. M. eds, media related to Christian Daniel Rauch at Wikimedia Commons Rauch biography at Preussen. de
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Germans
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Germans are a Germanic ethnic group native to Central Europe, who share a common German ancestry, culture and history. German is the mother tongue of a substantial majority of ethnic Germans. The English term Germans has historically referred to the German-speaking population of the Holy Roman Empire since the Late Middle Ages, before the collapse of communism and the reunification of Germany in 1990, Germans constituted the largest divided nation in Europe by far. Ever since the outbreak of the Protestant Reformation within the Holy Roman Empire, of approximately 100 million native speakers of German in the world, roughly 80 million consider themselves Germans. Thus, the number of Germans lies somewhere between 100 and more than 150 million, depending on the criteria applied. Today, people from countries with German-speaking majorities most often subscribe to their own national identities, the German term Deutsche originates from the Old High German word diutisc, referring to the Germanic language of the people. It is not clear how commonly, if at all, the word was used as an ethnonym in Old High German, used as a noun, ein diutscher in the sense of a German emerges in Middle High German, attested from the second half of the 12th century. The Old French term alemans is taken from the name of the Alamanni and it was loaned into Middle English as almains in the early 14th century. The word Dutch is attested in English from the 14th century, denoting continental West Germanic dialects, while in most Romance languages the Germans have been named from the Alamanni, the Old Norse, Finnish and Estonian names for the Germans were taken from that of the Saxons. In Slavic languages, the Germans were given the name of němьci, originally with a meaning foreigner, the English term Germans is only attested from the mid-16th century, based on the classical Latin term Germani used by Julius Caesar and later Tacitus. It gradually replaced Dutch and Almains, the latter becoming mostly obsolete by the early 18th century, the Germans are a Germanic people, who as an ethnicity emerged during the Middle Ages. Originally part of the Holy Roman Empire, around 300 independent German states emerged during its decline after the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 ending the Thirty Years War and these states eventually formed into modern Germany in the 19th century. The concept of a German ethnicity is linked to Germanic tribes of antiquity in central Europe, the early Germans originated on the North German Plain as well as southern Scandinavia. By the 2nd century BC, the number of Germans was significantly increasing and they began expanding into eastern Europe, during antiquity these Germanic tribes remained separate from each other and did not have writing systems at that time. In the European Iron Age the area that is now Germany was divided into the La Tène horizon in Southern Germany and the Jastorf culture in Northern Germany. By 55 BC, the Germans had reached the Danube river and had either assimilated or otherwise driven out the Celts who had lived there, and had spread west into what is now Belgium and France. Conflict between the Germanic tribes and the forces of Rome under Julius Caesar forced major Germanic tribes to retreat to the east bank of the Rhine, in Roman-held territories with Germanic populations, the Germanic and Roman peoples intermarried, and Roman, Germanic, and Christian traditions intermingled. The adoption of Christianity would later become an influence in the development of a common German identity
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1857 in art
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Events from the year 1857 in art. June 22 – The South Kensington Museum, predecessor of the Victoria, lewis Carroll meets John Ruskin and begins to associate with the Pre-Raphaelites. In the same year, Ruskin publishes his Political Economy of Art, may 5 – October 17 – The Art Treasures of Great Britain exhibition is held in Manchester, one of the largest such displays of all time. Emily Mary Osborn – Nameless and Friendless O. G. W
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Lorenzo Bartolini
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Bartolini was born in Savignano di Prato, near Prato, Tuscany. The bas-relief Cleobis and Biton, with which he gained the prize of the Academy in 1803, at once established his fame as a sculptor. His bas-relief of the Battle of Austerlitz was among those executed for the column erected in Place Vendôme and he also executed many minor pieces for Vivant Denon, besides portrait busts of the opera composers Méhul and Cherubini. Here he remained as the portrait sculptor to the Buonapartes till after the fall of Napoleon. In 1833, Bartolini was elected to the National Academy of Design as an Honorary member and he then took up his residence in Florence, where he resided till his death. In Florence, his Bonapartist associations and his departures as an artist from the strict Canovan classicism being taught at the Academy limited his opportunities and his naturalistic and somewhat sentimental marble LAmmostatore took its inspiration from under-appreciated Quattrocento Florentine sculptors like Andrea Verrocchio. A major commission came in 1830 from the sons of the Russian emigree prince Nicola Demidoff, the sons commissioned the Monument to Nicola Demidoff to honor their father, which was placed in Piazza Demidoff, Florence. The commissions multiple figures took shape during Bartolinis last decades, it was completed by Bartolinis assistant Pasquale Romanelli and his works are varied and include an immense number of portrait busts. The best are, perhaps, the group of Charity, the Hercules and Lichas and Faith in God and his portrait statue of Machiavelli took its place as his only commission among the long series of historical Florentine males provided for the empty exterior niches of the Uffizi. Attribution Chisholm, Hugh, ed. Bartolini, Lorenzo, touring Club Italiano Firenze e Dintorni 1964. La Scultura Italiana, Lorenzo Bartolini http, //www. imdb. com/name/nm0059035/
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Italians
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Italians are a nation and ethnic group native to Italy who share a common culture, ancestry and speak the Italian language as a native tongue. The majority of Italian nationals are speakers of Standard Italian. Italians have greatly influenced and contributed to the arts and music, science, technology, cuisine, sports, fashion, jurisprudence, banking, Italian people are generally known for their localism and their attention to clothing and family values. The term Italian is at least 3,000 years old and has a history that goes back to pre-Roman Italy. According to one of the common explanations, the term Italia, from Latin, Italia, was borrowed through Greek from the Oscan Víteliú. The bull was a symbol of the southern Italic tribes and was often depicted goring the Roman wolf as a defiant symbol of free Italy during the Social War. Greek historian Dionysius of Halicarnassus states this account together with the legend that Italy was named after Italus, mentioned also by Aristotle and Thucydides. The Etruscan civilization reached its peak about the 7th century BC, but by 509 BC, when the Romans overthrew their Etruscan monarchs, its control in Italy was on the wane. By 350 BC, after a series of wars between Greeks and Etruscans, the Latins, with Rome as their capital, gained the ascendancy by 272 BC, and they managed to unite the entire Italian peninsula. This period of unification was followed by one of conquest in the Mediterranean, in the course of the century-long struggle against Carthage, the Romans conquered Sicily, Sardinia and Corsica. Finally, in 146 BC, at the conclusion of the Third Punic War, with Carthage completely destroyed and its inhabitants enslaved, octavian, the final victor, was accorded the title of Augustus by the Senate and thereby became the first Roman emperor. After two centuries of rule, in the 3rd century AD, Rome was threatened by internal discord and menaced by Germanic and Asian invaders. Emperor Diocletians administrative division of the empire into two parts in 285 provided only temporary relief, it became permanent in 395, in 313, Emperor Constantine accepted Christianity, and churches thereafter rose throughout the empire. However, he moved his capital from Rome to Constantinople. The last Western emperor, Romulus Augustulus, was deposed in 476 by a Germanic foederati general in Italy and his defeat marked the end of the western part of the Roman Empire. During most of the period from the fall of Rome until the Kingdom of Italy was established in 1861, Odoacer ruled well for 13 years after gaining control of Italy in 476. Then he was attacked and defeated by Theodoric, the king of another Germanic tribe, Theodoric and Odoacer ruled jointly until 493, when Theodoric murdered Odoacer. Theodoric continued to rule Italy with an army of Ostrogoths and a government that was mostly Italian, after the death of Theodoric in 526, the kingdom began to grow weak
