1.
Lyon
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Lyon or Lyons is a city in east-central France, in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region, about 470 km from Paris and 320 km from Marseille. Inhabitants of the city are called Lyonnais, Lyon had a population of 506,615 in 2014 and is Frances third-largest city after Paris and Marseille. Lyon is the capital of the Metropolis of Lyon and the region of Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, the metropolitan area of Lyon had a population of 2,237,676 in 2013, the second-largest in France after Paris. The city is known for its cuisine and gastronomy and historical and architectural landmarks and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, Lyon was historically an important area for the production and weaving of silk. It played a significant role in the history of cinema, Auguste, the city is also known for its famous light festival, Fête des Lumières, which occurs every 8 December and lasts for four days, earning Lyon the title of Capital of Lights. Economically, Lyon is a centre for banking, as well as for the chemical, pharmaceutical. The city contains a significant software industry with a focus on video games. Lyon hosts the headquarters of Interpol, Euronews, and International Agency for Research on Cancer. Lyon was ranked 19th globally and second in France for innovation in 2014 and it ranked second in France and 39th globally in Mercers 2015 liveability rankings. These refugees had been expelled from Vienne by the Allobroges and were now encamped at the confluence of the Saône and Rhône rivers, dio Cassius says this task was to keep the two men from joining Mark Antony and bringing their armies into the developing conflict. The Roman foundation was at Fourvière hill and was officially called Colonia Copia Felix Munatia, a name invoking prosperity, the city became increasingly referred to as Lugdunum. The earliest translation of this Gaulish place-name as Desired Mountain is offered by the 9th-century Endlicher Glossary, in contrast, some modern scholars have proposed a Gaulish hill-fort named Lugdunon, after the Celtic god Lugus, and dúnon. It then became the capital of Gaul, partly due to its convenient location at the convergence of two rivers, and quickly became the main city of Gaul. Two emperors were born in city, Claudius, whose speech is preserved in the Lyon Tablet in which he justifies the nomination of Gallic senators. Today, the archbishop of Lyon is still referred to as Primat des Gaules, the Christians in Lyon were martyred for their beliefs under the reigns of various Roman emperors, most notably Marcus Aurelius and Septimus Severus. Local saints from this period include Blandina, Pothinus, and Epipodius, in the second century AD, the great Christian bishop of Lyon was the Easterner, Irenaeus. Burgundian refugees fleeing the destruction of Worms by the Huns in 437 were re-settled by the commander of the west, Aëtius. This became the capital of the new Burgundian kingdom in 461, in 843, by the Treaty of Verdun, Lyon, with the country beyond the Saône, went to Lothair I
2.
France
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France, officially the French Republic, is a country with territory in western Europe and several overseas regions and territories. The European, or metropolitan, area of France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, Overseas France include French Guiana on the South American continent and several island territories in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans. France spans 643,801 square kilometres and had a population of almost 67 million people as of January 2017. It is a unitary republic with the capital in Paris. Other major urban centres include Marseille, Lyon, Lille, Nice, Toulouse, during the Iron Age, what is now metropolitan France was inhabited by the Gauls, a Celtic people. The area was annexed in 51 BC by Rome, which held Gaul until 486, France emerged as a major European power in the Late Middle Ages, with its victory in the Hundred Years War strengthening state-building and political centralisation. During the Renaissance, French culture flourished and a colonial empire was established. The 16th century was dominated by civil wars between Catholics and Protestants. France became Europes dominant cultural, political, and military power under Louis XIV, in the 19th century Napoleon took power and established the First French Empire, whose subsequent Napoleonic Wars shaped the course of continental Europe. Following the collapse of the Empire, France endured a succession of governments culminating with the establishment of the French Third Republic in 1870. Following liberation in 1944, a Fourth Republic was established and later dissolved in the course of the Algerian War, the Fifth Republic, led by Charles de Gaulle, was formed in 1958 and remains to this day. Algeria and nearly all the colonies became independent in the 1960s with minimal controversy and typically retained close economic. France has long been a centre of art, science. It hosts Europes fourth-largest number of cultural UNESCO World Heritage Sites and receives around 83 million foreign tourists annually, France is a developed country with the worlds sixth-largest economy by nominal GDP and ninth-largest by purchasing power parity. In terms of household wealth, it ranks fourth in the world. France performs well in international rankings of education, health care, life expectancy, France remains a great power in the world, being one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council with the power to veto and an official nuclear-weapon state. It is a member state of the European Union and the Eurozone. It is also a member of the Group of 7, North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the World Trade Organization, originally applied to the whole Frankish Empire, the name France comes from the Latin Francia, or country of the Franks
3.
Geographic coordinate system
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A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
4.
Art museum
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An art museum or art gallery is a building or space for the exhibition of art, usually visual art. Museums can be public or private, but what distinguishes a museum is the ownership of a collection, the term is used for both public galleries, which are non-profit or publicly owned museums that display selected collections of art. On the other hand, private galleries refers to the commercial enterprises for the sale of art, however, both types of gallery may host traveling exhibits or temporary exhibitions including art borrowed from elsewhere. In broad terms, in North American usage, the word gallery alone often implies a private gallery, the term contemporary art gallery refers usually to a privately owned for-profit commercial gallery. These galleries are found clustered together in large urban centers. Smaller cities are home to at least one gallery, but they may also be found in towns or villages. Contemporary art galleries are open to the general public without charge, however. They usually profit by taking a portion of art sales, from 25% to 50% is typical, there are also many non-profit or collective galleries. Some galleries in cities like Tokyo charge the artists a flat rate per day, curators often create group shows that say something about a certain theme, trend in art, or group of associated artists. Galleries sometimes choose to represent artists exclusively, giving them the opportunity to show regularly, a gallerys definition can also include the artist cooperative or artist-run space, which often operates as a space with a more democratic mission and selection process. A vanity gallery is an art gallery that charges fees from artists in order to show their work, the shows are not legitimately curated and will frequently or usually include as many artists as possible. Most art professionals are able to identify them on an artists resume, University art museums and galleries constitute collections of art that are developed, owned, and maintained by all kinds of schools, community colleges, colleges, and universities. This phenomenon exists in both the West and East, making it a global practice, although largely overlooked, there are over 700 university art museums in America alone. This number, in comparison to other kinds of art museums, throughout history, large and expensive works of art have generally been commissioned by religious institutions and monarchs and been displayed in temples, churches, and palaces. Although these collections of art were private, they were made available for viewing for a portion of the public. In classical times, religious institutions began to function as a form of art gallery. Wealthy Roman collectors of engraved gems and other precious objects often donated their collections to temples and it is unclear how easy it was in practice for the public to view these items. At the Palace of Versailles, entrance was restricted to wearing the proper apparel – the appropriate accessories could be hired from shops outside
5.
Museum
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Most large museums are located in major cities throughout the world and more local ones exist in smaller cities, towns and even the countryside. Museums have varying aims, ranging from serving researchers and specialists to serving the general public, the goal of serving researchers is increasingly shifting to serving the general public. There are many types of museums, including art museums, natural history museums, science museums, war museums, the city with the largest number of museums is Mexico City with over 128 museums. According to The World Museum Community, there are more than 55,000 museums in 202 countries, the English museum comes from the Latin word, and is pluralized as museums. The first museum/library is considered to be the one of Plato in Athens, however, Pausanias gives another place called Museum, namely a small hill in Classical Athens opposite to the Akropolis. The hill was called Mouseion after Mousaious, a man who used to sing on the hill, the purpose of modern museums is to collect, preserve, interpret, and display items of artistic, cultural, or scientific significance for the education of the public. The purpose can also depend on ones point of view, to a family looking for entertainment on a Sunday afternoon, a trip to a local history museum or large city art museum could be a fun, and enlightening way to spend the day. To city leaders, a healthy museum community can be seen as a gauge of the health of a city. To a museum professional, a museum might be seen as a way to educate the public about the museums mission, Museums are, above all, storehouses of knowledge. In 1829, James Smithsons bequest, that would fund the Smithsonian Institution, stated he wanted to establish an institution for the increase, Museums of natural history in the late 19th century exemplified the Victorian desire for consumption and for order. Gathering all examples of classification of a field of knowledge for research. As American colleges grew in the 19th century, they developed their own natural history collections for the use of their students, while many large museums, such as the Smithsonian Institution, are still respected as research centers, research is no longer a main purpose of most museums. While there is a debate about the purposes of interpretation of a museums collection, there has been a consistent mission to protect. Much care, expertise, and expense is invested in efforts to retard decomposition in aging documents, artifacts, artworks. All museums display objects that are important to a culture, as historian Steven Conn writes, To see the thing itself, with ones own eyes and in a public place, surrounded by other people having some version of the same experience can be enchanting. Museum purposes vary from institution to institution, some favor education over conservation, or vice versa. For example, in the 1970s, the Canada Science and Technology Museum favored education over preservation of their objects and they displayed objects as well as their functions. One exhibit featured a printing press that a staff member used for visitors to create museum memorabilia
6.
Place des Terreaux
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The Place des Terreaux is a square located in the center of Lyon, France on the Presquîle between the Rhône and the Saône, at the foot of the hill of La Croix-Rousse in the 1st arrondissement of Lyon. The square belongs to the classified as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. However, Renaud de Forez and his successors continued the works undertaken by the bourgeois of Lyon, a two-metre-thick and ten-metre-high new wall was built between the Saône and Rhône. Approximately 500 metres long, this enclosure was pierced by two gates defended by drawbridges and protected by ten towers, a crenelated walk and five stone booths allowed soldiers to watch at the top. The main wall was separated by a 22-metre ditch from another two-metre wall located to the north, in case of siege, the ditch, which was called Terralia nova or Fossés de la Lanterne, could be filled with water. This one entered when needed in a succession of basins, called the Neyron channel, under normal circumstances, the crossbowmen, then culverin men used ditches as a training location, first on the Saône side, then from 1533 on the Rhône side. In the 16th century, the walls crumbled, in 1538, the demolition of the enclosure was initiated. The ditch located on the Saône side was filled later to build the Boucherie de la Lanterne, in 1555, the nuns of the convent Saint-Pierre were allowed to use the stones of the wall to repair the monastery. In 1578, the lands of the current Place des Terreaux were filled, and in 1617, between 1646 and 1651, Simon Maupin built on the eastern side of the square the Hôtel de ville de Lyon, rebuilt by Jules Hardouin-Mansart, after the fire of 1674. In the 17th century, the nuns of Saint-Pierre rebuilt their convent, on this square was beheaded the Henri Coiffier de Ruzé, Marquis of Cinq-Mars, who was a conspirator against Richelieu. During the French Revolution, the guillotine was installed and running at speed during the tenure of Marie Joseph Chalier. After the siege of Lyon,79 people were also beheaded, in the second half of the 19th century, access to the site was expanded to accommodate the restructuring plan of the peninsula led by Claude-Marius Vaïsse. In 1855, the passage of Terreaux was opened between the square and the Lanterne street, the prefect also planned to drill a new street in the north axis of the Palais Saint-Pierre, but this project was never realized. At the center of the square, the municipal officials inaugurated on 22 September 1891 an allegorical fountain of the Saône, made by Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi. The sculpted group called Char triomphant de la Garonne represents the Garonne and its four tributaries jumping into the ocean, after the 1889 Exposition Universelle, the monument became too expensive for the city of Bordeaux and was bought in 1890 by the Mayor of Lyon, Antoine Gailleton. The square was redeveloped in 1994 by architect and urban planner Christian Drevet and artist Daniel Buren, to build the underground parking of the square, the fountain was originally located in front of city hall, then moved to its current location in the axis of the palace Saint-Pierre. On 29 September 1995, the square was classified as a monument historique, during the cold winter of 2012, the fountain situated in Place des Terreaux froze. List of streets and squares in Lyon History of the place
7.
Georges Braque
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Georges Braque was a major 20th-century French painter, collagist, draughtsman, printmaker and sculptor. His most important contributions to the history of art were in his alliance with Fauvism from 1906, braque’s work between 1908 and 1912 is closely associated with that of his colleague Pablo Picasso. Their respective Cubist works were indistinguishable for many years, yet the quiet nature of Braque was partially eclipsed by the fame, georges Braque was born on 13 May 1882 in Argenteuil, Val-dOise. He grew up in Le Havre and trained to be a house painter, however, he also studied artistic painting during evenings at the École des Beaux-Arts, in Le Havre, from about 1897 to 1899. In Paris, he apprenticed with a decorator and was awarded his certificate in 1902, the next year, he attended the Académie Humbert, also in Paris, and painted there until 1904. It was here that he met Marie Laurencin and Francis Picabia, Braques earliest works were impressionistic, but after seeing the work exhibited by the artistic group known as the Fauves in 1905, he adopted a Fauvist style. The Fauves, a group that included Henri Matisse and André Derain among others, Braque worked most closely with the artists Raoul Dufy and Othon Friesz, who shared Braques hometown of Le Havre, to develop a somewhat more subdued Fauvist style. In 1906, Braque traveled with Friesz to LEstaque, to Antwerp, in May 1907, he successfully exhibited works of the Fauve style in the Salon des Indépendants. The 1907 Cézanne retrospective at the Salon dAutomne greatly affected the artists of Paris. Braques paintings of 1908–1912 reflected his new interest in geometry and simultaneous perspective and he showed this in the painting Houses at lEstaque. Beginning in 1909, Braque began to work closely with Pablo Picasso who had been developing a similar proto-Cubist style of painting. At the time, Pablo Picasso was influenced by Gauguin, Cézanne, African masks, Picasso celebrates animation, while Braque celebrates contemplation. Thus, the invention of Cubism was a joint effort between Picasso and Braque, then residents of Montmartre, Paris and these artists were the styles main innovators. After meeting in October or November 1907, Braque and Picasso, in particular, both artists produced paintings of monochromatic color and complex patterns of faceted form, now termed Analytic Cubism. In 1912, they began to experiment with collage and Braque invented the papier collé technique, French art critic Louis Vauxcelles used the terms bizarre cubiques in 1908 after seeing a picture by Braque. He described it as full of little cubes, the term Cubism, first pronounced in 1911 with reference to artists exhibiting at the Salon des Indépendants, quickly gained wide use but Picasso and Braque did not adopt it initially. Art historian Ernst Gombrich described Cubism as the most radical attempt to stamp out ambiguity and to one reading of the picture—that of a man-made construction. The Cubist style spread quickly throughout Paris and then Europe, the two artists productive collaboration continued and they worked closely together until the beginning of World War I in 1914, when Braque enlisted with the French Army
8.
Henri Laurens
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Henri Laurens was a French sculptor and illustrator. Born in Paris, Henri Laurens worked as a stonemason before he became a sculptor, in 1899 he attended drawing classes, during which he produced works that were greatly influenced by the popularity of Auguste Rodin. Later Laurens was drawn to a new gathering of artistic creativity in Montparnasse, from 1915 he began to sculpt in the Cubist style after meeting Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, Juan Gris and Fernand Léger. Laurens was exempted from call-up for the First World War, after having a leg amputated in 1909 due to osteo-tuberculosis, multi-talented, Laurens worked with poster paint, and collage, was an engraver and created theatre design and decoration. In 1915 he illustrated a book for his friend, the author Pierre Reverdy, in 1938 he shared an exhibition with Braque and Picasso that travelled to major Scandinavian cities. In 1947, he made prints for book illustrations, in 1948 he exhibited his art at the important international Venice Biennale. That same year, he exhibited at the Galerie dArt Moderne in Basel, a great many of his sculptures are massive objects. An example of style is the monumental piece LAmphion, created in 1952 for the Central University of Venezuela. Henri Laurens died in Paris, and was interred in the Cimetière du Montparnasse there and his tomb is decorated with his sculpture, La Douleur. Crystal Cubism Henri Laurens in American public collections, on the French Sculpture Census website
9.
Louis XIV of France
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Louis XIV, known as Louis the Great or the Sun King, was a monarch of the House of Bourbon who ruled as King of France and Navarre from 1643 until his death in 1715. His reign of 72 years and 110 days is the longest of any monarch of a country in European history. In the age of absolutism in Europe, Louis XIVs France was a leader in the centralization of power. Louis began his rule of France in 1661, after the death of his chief minister. By these means he became one of the most powerful French monarchs, under his rule, the Edict of Nantes, which granted rights to Huguenots, was abolished. The revocation effectively forced Huguenots to emigrate or convert in a wave of dragonnades, which managed to virtually destroy the French Protestant minority. During Louis reign, France was the leading European power, and it fought three wars, the Franco-Dutch War, the War of the League of Augsburg. There were also two lesser conflicts, the War of Devolution and the War of the Reunions, warfare defined Louis XIVs foreign policies, and his personality shaped his approach. Impelled by a mix of commerce, revenge, and pique, in peacetime he concentrated on preparing for the next war. He taught his diplomats their job was to create tactical and strategic advantages for the French military, Louis XIV was born on 5 September 1638 in the Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye, to Louis XIII and Anne of Austria. He was named Louis Dieudonné and bore the title of French heirs apparent. At the time of his birth, his parents had married for 23 years. His mother had experienced four stillbirths between 1619 and 1631, leading contemporaries thus regarded him as a divine gift and his birth a miracle of God. Sensing imminent death, Louis XIII decided to put his affairs in order in the spring of 1643, in defiance of custom, which would have made Queen Anne the sole Regent of France, the king decreed that a regency council would rule on his sons behalf. His lack of faith in Queen Annes political abilities was his primary rationale and he did, however, make the concession of appointing her head of the council. Louis relationship with his mother was uncommonly affectionate for the time, contemporaries and eyewitnesses claimed that the Queen would spend all her time with Louis. Both were greatly interested in food and theatre, and it is likely that Louis developed these interests through his close relationship with his mother. This long-lasting and loving relationship can be evidenced by excerpts in Louis journal entries, such as, but attachments formed later by shared qualities of the spirit are far more difficult to break than those formed merely by blood
10.
Louis Cretey
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Louis Cretey, formerly known as Pierre-Louis Cretey, was a French baroque painter and one of the leading masters in the Lyonnaise school. Little is known about the life of this artist. Records place Cretey in Rome from 1661 to 1679, then Modena in 1679 - another place he probably worked was Parma. He then returned to France and spent most of his subsequent career in Lyon, gaining renown from the 1680s onwards as a history painter and he became Thomas Blanchets main collaborator, working with him on many decorative schemes such as work at the Palais de Roanne. The Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon holds a collection of this artists works. Other museums displaying paintings by Cretey include the Musei Vaticani, the Musée du Louvre, the Detroit Institute of Art, media related to Louis Cretey at Wikimedia Commons
11.
Pierre Puvis de Chavannes
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Pierre Puvis de Chavannes was a French painter best known for his mural painting, who came to be known as the painter for France. He became the co-founder and president of the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts, Puvis de Chavannes was a prominent painter in the early Third Republic. Émile Zola described his work as an art made of reason, passion, Puvis de Chavannes was born Pierre-Cécile Puvis in a suburb of Lyon, France. He was the son of a mining engineer, being descended from an old noble family of Burgundy, he later added the ancestral de Chavannes to his name. Throughout his life, however, he spurned his Lyon origins, preferring to identify himself with the blood of the Burgundians. Puvis de Chavannes was educated at the Amiens College and at the Lycée Henri IV in Paris and he intended to follow his fathers profession until a serious illness compelled him to convalesce at Mâcon with his brother and sister-in-law in 1844 and 1845, interrupting his studies. A journey to Italy opened his mind to fresh ideas, and he studied first under Eugène Delacroix, but only very briefly, as Delacroix closed his studio shortly afterwards due to ill health. He studied subsequently under Henri Scheffer and then Thomas Couture and his training was not classical as he found that he preferred to work alone. He took a studio near the Gare de Lyon and attended anatomy classes at the Académie des Beaux Arts. It was not until a number of later, when the government of France acquired one of his works. Puvis de Chavannes made his Salon debut in 1850 with Dead Christ, Negro Boy, The Reading Lesson, and Portrait of a Man. In Montmartre, he had an affair with one of his models, Suzanne Valadon, who would one of the leading artists of the day as well as the mother, teacher. One of his protégés was Georges de Feure, Puvis de Chavannes is best known for his mural painting, and came to be known as the painter for France. His first commission was for his brothers chateau, Le Brouchy, the principal decorations take the four seasons as their theme. His first public commissions came early in the 1860s, with work at the Musée de Picardie at Amiens, the first four works were Concordia, Bellum, Le Travail and Le Repos. Over the course of his career, Puvis received a number of commissions for works to be carried out in public. His early work at the Musée de Picardie had helped him to develop his style. Among his public works are the later cycles completed at Amiens, at Marseille, at Lyon, of particular importance is the cycle at the Palais de Beaux Arts in Lyon, which includes three significant works, filling the wall space in the main staircase
12.
National Museum, Warsaw
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The National Museum in Warsaw, popularly abbreviated as MNW, is a national museum in Warsaw, one of the largest museums in Poland and the largest in the capital. The museum is home to numismatic collections, a gallery of applied arts. The National Museum in Warsaw was established on 20 May 1862, as the Museum of Fine Arts, Warsaw, the collection, on Jerusalem Avenue, is housed in a building designed by Tadeusz Tolwiński, developed between 1927 and 1938. In 1932 an exhibition of decorative art opened in the two earlier erected wings of the building, the new building was inaugurated on 18 June 1938. The purpose-built modernistic edifice, was situated on the edge of Na Książęcem Park established between 1776–79 for Prince Kazimierz Poniatowski, from 1935 the museum director was Stanisław Lorentz, who directed an effort to save the most valuable works of art during World War II. The Gestapo headquarters presented Rembrandts portrait of Maerten Soolmans as a gift to Hans Frank in occupied Kraków, after the war the Polish Government, under the supervision of Professor Lorentz, retrieved many of the works seized by the Germans. More than 5,000 artifacts are still missing, in 2008 the Polish Archaeological Mission Tyritake of National Museum in Warsaw commenced works at Tyritake, Crimea. It is headed by Alfred Twardecki curator of the Ancient Art Gallery, in 2010 the National Museum, as one of the first state institutions in the world, held an exhibition entirely consecrated to homoerotic art - Ars Homo Erotica. Since the 2011–12 renovation, the museum is considered as one of the most modern in Europe with a computer-led LED lighting allowing to enhance unique qualities of every painting. In 2012 the permanent galleries underwent revolutionary changes, the curators of the museum re-arranged it and supplemented it with new works from the museums warehouses. Paintings were not hung chronologically, but thematically, genre painting, still lifes, landscapes, cityscapes, biblical, mythological, works by Italian, Flemish, Dutch, German and Polish artists were hung together, making it easy to observe and compare similarities and differences. The Gallery of Medieval Art mainly presents objects from the late Middle Ages, originating from different regions of todays Poland and these works were originally designed almost exclusively for churches. The exhibition was designed to allow the audience to understand the role of art in the life of the Middle Ages. The new techniques implemented in the gallery allow the presentation of large polyptychs, such as the famous Grudziądz Polyptych. The new arrangement of the exhibition was designed by WWAA, the Gallery of Old Masters on the second floor was conceived from the former Gallery of Decorative Art, Gallery of Old European Painting and the Gallery of Old Polish and European Portrait in 2016. It combines species of pictorial art - painting, sculpture, drawings and these social spaces have provided the key to the division of the gallery,1. Church, chapel and domestic altar,3, in the redesigned gallery, the works are presented not according to national schools, but as a confrontation of artistic circles of the South and North. The new system reflects the hierarchy of the created by Renaissance art theory
13.
Warsaw
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Warsaw is the capital and largest city of Poland. It stands on the Vistula River in east-central Poland, roughly 260 kilometres from the Baltic Sea and 300 kilometres from the Carpathian Mountains. Its population is estimated at 1.750 million residents within a metropolitan area of 3.101 million residents. The city limits cover 516.9 square kilometres, while the area covers 6,100.43 square kilometres. Once described as Paris of the East, Warsaw was believed to be one of the most beautiful cities in the world until World War II. On 9 November 1939, the city was awarded Polands highest military decoration for heroism, Warsaw is one of Europe’s most dynamic metropolitan cities. In 2012 the Economist Intelligence Unit ranked Warsaw as the 32nd most liveable city in the world, in 2017 the city came 4th in the “Business-friendly” category and 8th in the “Human capital and life style”. It was also ranked as one of the most liveable cities in Central, Warsaw is considered an Alpha– global city, a major international tourist destination and a significant cultural, political and economic hub. The city is a significant centre of research and development, BPO, ITO, the Warsaw Stock Exchange is the largest and most important in Central and Eastern Europe. Frontex, the European Union agency for external security, has its headquarters in Warsaw. Together with Frankfurt, London and Paris, Warsaw is also one of the cities with the highest number of skyscrapers in the European Union, the city is the seat of the Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw National Philharmonic Orchestra and the University of Warsaw. The historic city-centre of Warsaw with its picturesque Old Town in 1980 was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, buildings represent examples of nearly every European architectural style and historical period. Warsaw provides many examples of architecture from the gothic, renaissance, baroque, neoclassical and modern periods, furthermore, the city is positioning itself as Europes chic cultural capital with thriving art and club scenes and renowned restaurants. Folk etymology attributes the city name to a fisherman, Wars, according to legend, Sawa was a mermaid living in the Vistula River with whom Wars fell in love. In actuality, Warsz was a 12th/13th-century nobleman who owned a village located at the site of Mariensztat neighbourhood. See also the Vršovci family which had escaped to Poland, the official city name in full is miasto stołeczne Warszawa. A native or resident of Warsaw is known as a Varsovian – in Polish warszawiak, warszawianin, warszawianka, warszawiacy, other names for Warsaw include Varsovia and Varsóvia, Varsovie, Varsavia, Warschau, װאַרשע /Varshe, Варшава /Varšava /Varshava, Varšuva, Varsó. The first fortified settlements on the site of todays Warsaw were located in Bródno, after Jazdów was raided by nearby clans and dukes, a new similar settlement was established on the site of a small fishing village called Warszowa
14.
French Revolution
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Through the Revolutionary Wars, it unleashed a wave of global conflicts that extended from the Caribbean to the Middle East. Historians widely regard the Revolution as one of the most important events in human history, the causes of the French Revolution are complex and are still debated among historians. Following the Seven Years War and the American Revolutionary War, the French government was deeply in debt, Years of bad harvests leading up to the Revolution also inflamed popular resentment of the privileges enjoyed by the clergy and the aristocracy. Demands for change were formulated in terms of Enlightenment ideals and contributed to the convocation of the Estates-General in May 1789, a central event of the first stage, in August 1789, was the abolition of feudalism and the old rules and privileges left over from the Ancien Régime. The next few years featured political struggles between various liberal assemblies and right-wing supporters of the intent on thwarting major reforms. The Republic was proclaimed in September 1792 after the French victory at Valmy, in a momentous event that led to international condemnation, Louis XVI was executed in January 1793. External threats closely shaped the course of the Revolution, internally, popular agitation radicalised the Revolution significantly, culminating in the rise of Maximilien Robespierre and the Jacobins. Large numbers of civilians were executed by revolutionary tribunals during the Terror, after the Thermidorian Reaction, an executive council known as the Directory assumed control of the French state in 1795. The rule of the Directory was characterised by suspended elections, debt repudiations, financial instability, persecutions against the Catholic clergy, dogged by charges of corruption, the Directory collapsed in a coup led by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1799. The modern era has unfolded in the shadow of the French Revolution, almost all future revolutionary movements looked back to the Revolution as their predecessor. The values and institutions of the Revolution dominate French politics to this day, the French Revolution differed from other revolutions in being not merely national, for it aimed at benefiting all humanity. Globally, the Revolution accelerated the rise of republics and democracies and it became the focal point for the development of all modern political ideologies, leading to the spread of liberalism, radicalism, nationalism, socialism, feminism, and secularism, among many others. The Revolution also witnessed the birth of total war by organising the resources of France, historians have pointed to many events and factors within the Ancien Régime that led to the Revolution. Over the course of the 18th century, there emerged what the philosopher Jürgen Habermas called the idea of the sphere in France. A perfect example would be the Palace of Versailles which was meant to overwhelm the senses of the visitor and convince one of the greatness of the French state and Louis XIV. Starting in the early 18th century saw the appearance of the sphere which was critical in that both sides were active. In France, the emergence of the public sphere outside of the control of the saw the shift from Versailles to Paris as the cultural capital of France. In the 1750s, during the querelle des bouffons over the question of the quality of Italian vs, in 1782, Louis-Sébastien Mercier wrote, The word court no longer inspires awe amongst us as in the time of Louis XIV
15.
Albert Gleizes
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Albert Gleizes was a French artist, theoretician, philosopher, a self-proclaimed founder of Cubism and an influence on the School of Paris. Albert Gleizes and Jean Metzinger wrote the first major treatise on Cubism, Gleizes was a founding member of the Section dOr group of artists. He was also a member of Der Sturm, and his theoretical writings were originally most appreciated in Germany. Gleizes spent four years in New York, and played an important role in making America aware of modern art. He was a member of the Society of Independent Artists, founder of the Ernest-Renan Association, Gleizes exhibited regularly at Léonce Rosenberg’s Galerie de l’Effort Moderne in Paris, he was also a founder, organizer and director of Abstraction-Création. From the mid-1920s to the late 1930s much of his energy went into writing, La Peinture et ses lois, Vers une conscience plastique, La Forme et l’histoire and Homocentrisme. Born Albert Léon Gleizes and raised in Paris, he was the son of a designer who ran a large industrial design workshop. He was also the nephew of Léon Comerre, a portrait painter who won the 1875 Prix de Rome. The young Albert Gleizes did not like school and often skipped classes to idle away the time writing poetry, finally, after completing his secondary schooling, Gleizes spent four years in the 72nd Infantry Regiment of the French army then began pursuing a career as a painter. Gleizes began to paint self-taught around 1901 in the Impressionist tradition and his first landscapes from around Courbevoie appear particularly inspired by Sisley or Pissarro. The density with which these works are painted and their solid framework suggest affinities with Divisionism which were noted by early critics. Gleizes was only years of age when his work titled La Seine à Asnières was exhibited at the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts in 1902. The following year Gleizes exhibited two paintings at the Salon dAutomne, in 1905 Gleizes was among the founders of lAssociation Ernest-Renan, a union of students opposed to military propaganda. Gleizes was in charge of the Section littéraire et artistique, organizing theater productions, at the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon, Gleizes exhibited Jour de marché en banlieue. Tending towards 1907 his work evolved into a Post-Impressionist style with strong Naturalist and Symbolist components, Gleizes and others decide to create an association fraternelle dartistes and rent a large house in Créteil. The Abbaye de Créteil was a community of artists that aimed to develop their art free of any commercial concerns. For nearly a year, Gleizes along with painters, poets, musicians and writers. A lack of income forced them to give up their cherished Abbaye de Créteil in early 1908 and Gleizes moved to rue du Delta near Montmartre, in 1908 Gleizes exhibited at the Toison dOr in Moscow
16.
Nicolas Poussin
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Nicolas Poussin was the leading painter of the classical French Baroque style, although he spent most of his working life in Rome. His work is characterized by clarity, logic, and order, until the 20th century he remained a major inspiration for such classically oriented artists as Jacques-Louis David, Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres and Paul Cézanne. He worked in Rome for a circle of leading collectors from there and elsewhere, most of his works are history paintings of religious or mythological subjects that very often have a large landscape element. Early sketches attracted the notice of Quentin Varin, a painter, whose pupil Poussin became. There he entered the studios of the Flemish painter Ferdinand Elle and then of Georges Lallemand and he found French art in a stage of transition, the old apprenticeship system was disturbed, and the academic training destined to supplant it was not yet established by Simon Vouet. In Paris, Poussin was impressed by Italian art he viewed in the royal collection and he attempted to travel to Rome, but after reaching Florence he was forced, perhaps by ill health, to return to Paris. In 1622 he met Giambattista Marino, the poet to Marie de Medici. Marino employed him on illustrations for an edition of Ovids Metamorphoses. These Marino drawings preserved at Windsor Castle are among the few identifiable works of Poussin executed before his arrival in Rome. Marino took him into his household, and in 1624 enabled Poussin to rejoin him at Rome, Poussin was thirty when he arrived in Rome in 1624. At first he lodged with Simon Vouet, through Marino, he had been introduced to Marcello Sacchetti who in turn introduced him to another of his early patrons, Cardinal Francesco Barberini. However, their return from Spain in 1626 stabilized Poussin’s position, with renewed patronage by the Barberini and their circle. He fell ill at this time and was taken into the house of his compatriot Jacques Dughet, where he was nursed by Dughet’s daughter, Anna Maria and his two brothers-in-law were artists and Gaspard Dughet later took Poussin’s surname. During the late 1620s and 1630s, he experimented and formulated his own style and he studied the Antique as well as works such as Titian’s Bacchanals at the Casino Ludovisi and the paintings of Domenichino and Guido Reni. Peter’s, and an ingenious architectural imagination was emerging in works by Borromini, at the time the papacy was Rome’s foremost patron of the arts. Poussin’s Martyrdom of St. Erasmus for St and his subsequent career depended on private patronage. Louis XIII conferred on him the title of First Painter in Ordinary, in 1642, disgusted by the intrigues of Simon Vouet, Fouquières and the architect Jacques Lemercier, Poussin withdrew to Rome. There, in 1648, he finished for de Chantelou the second series of the Seven Sacraments and this painting shows the philosopher discarding his last worldly possession, his cup, after watching a man drink water by cupping his hands
17.
Simon Vouet
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Simon Vouet was a French painter and draftsman, who today is perhaps best remembered for helping to introduce the Italian Baroque style of painting to France. Simon Vouet was born on January 9,1590 in Paris and his father Laurent was a painter in Paris and taught him the rudiments of art. Simons brother Aubin Vouet and his grandson Ludovico Dorigny were also painters, Simon began his painting career as a portrait painter. At a young age he travelled to England and was part of the entourage of the Baron de Sancy, from there he went to Venice and was in Rome in 1614. He spent a period of time in Italy, from 1613 to 1627. He was mostly in Rome where the Baroque style was emerging during these years and he received a pension from the King of France and his patrons included the Barberini family, Cassiano dal Pozzo, Paolo Giordano Orsini and Vincenzo Giustiniani. He also visited other parts of Italy, Venice, Bologna, Genoa, Vouets immense success in Rome led to his election as president of the Accademia di San Luca in 1624. In 1626 he married Virginia da Vezzo who modelled Madonnas for Vouets religious commissions, despite his success in Rome, Vouet suddenly returned to France in 1627, following pressing recommendations from the Duc de Béthunes and a summons from the King. Vouets new style was distinctly Italian, importing the Italian Baroque style into France, in 1632, he worked for Cardinal Richelieu at the Palais-Royal and the Château de Malmaison. In Paris, Vouet was the dominating force in French painting, producing numerous public altarpieces. Vouets other students included Valentin de Boulogne, Charles Alphonse du Fresnoy, Pierre Mignard, Eustache Le Sueur, Nicolas Chaperon, Claude Mellan, Vouet was also a friend of Claude Vignon. A number of Vouets decorative schemes have been lost but are recorded in engravings by Claude Mellan,1990, retrospective of Simon Vouets work at the Galeries nationales of the Grand Palais. 2002-2003, Simon Vouet ou léloquence sensible at the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Nantes, 2008-2009, Simon Vouet, les années italiennes, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Nantes, in collaboration with the Musée des Beaux-Arts et darchéologie de Besançon
18.
Philippe de Champaigne
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Philippe de Champaigne was a Brabançon-born French Baroque era painter, a major exponent of the French school. He was a member of the Académie de peinture et de sculpture. Born of a family in Brussels, during the reign of the Archduke Albert and Isabella. In 1621 he moved to Paris, where he worked with Nicolas Poussin on the decoration of the Palais du Luxembourg under the direction of Nicolas Duchesne, whose daughter he married. According to Houbraken, Duchesne was angry at Champaigne for becoming more popular than he was at court, and it was only after he received news of Duchesnes death that he returned to marry his daughter. After the death of his protector Duchesne, Champaigne worked for the Queen Mother, Marie de Medicis and he made several paintings for the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, dating from 1638. He also drew cartoons for tapestries. He was made first painter of the Queen with a pension of 1200 pounds and he also decorated the Carmelite Church of Faubourg Saint-Jacques, one of the favorite churches of the Queen Mother. He also worked for Cardinal Richelieu, for whom he decorated the Palais Cardinal, Champaigne was the only artist who was allowed to paint Richelieu enrobed as a cardinal, which he did eleven times. He was a member of the Académie de peinture et de sculpture in 1648. Later in his life, he came under the influence of Jansenism, Champaigne produced a very large number of paintings, mainly religious works and portraits. Influenced by Rubens at the beginning of his career, his style became more austere. Philippe de Champaigne remains an exceptional painter thanks to the brilliance of the colors in his paintings and he portrayed the entire French court, the French high nobility, royalty, high members of the church and the state, parliamentarians and architects, and other notable people. In depicting their faces, he refused to show a transitory expression and his pupils were his nephew Jean Baptiste de Champaigne, William Faithorne, Jean Morin, and Nicolas de Plattemontagne. During his last period Champaigne painted mainly religious subjects and family members and he died in Paris in 1674. Selected works Portraits PhilippeDeChampaigne. org,98 works by Philippe de Champaigne ScholarsResource. com, Paintings of Philippe de Champaigne
19.
Eustache Le Sueur
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Eustache Le Sueur or Lesueur was a French artist and one of the founders of the French Academy of Painting. He is known primarily for his paintings of religious subjects and he was born in Paris, where he spent his entire life. His father, Cathelin Le Sueur, a turner and sculptor in wood, placed him with Vouet, in whose studio he rapidly distinguished himself. Admitted at an early age into the guild of master-painters, he left them to part in establishing the academy of painting and sculpture. These last have more character than anything else Le Sueur produced. The Louvre also possesses many fine drawings, of which Le Sueur left an incredible quantity, chiefly executed in black and white chalk. His pupils, who aided him much in his work, were his wifes brother, Theodore Goussé, most of his works have been engraved, chiefly by Picart, B. Audran, Leclerc, Drevet, Chauveau, Poilly and Desplaces and this article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain, Chisholm, Hugh, ed. Eustace Le Sueur
20.
Charles Le Brun
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Charles Le Brun was a French painter and art theorist. Declared by Louis XIV the greatest French artist of all time, he was a dominant figure in 17th-century French art, born in Paris, he attracted the notice of Chancellor Séguier, who placed him at the age of eleven in the studio of Simon Vouet. He was also a pupil of François Perrier, in Rome he remained four years in the receipt of a pension due to the liberality of the chancellor. There he worked under Poussin, adapting the latters theories of art, on his return to Paris in 1646, Le Brun found numerous patrons, of whom Superintendent Fouquet was the most important, for whom he painted a large portrait of Anne of Austria. Employed at Vaux-le-Vicomte, Le Brun ingratiated himself with Mazarin, then secretly pitting Colbert against Fouquet, Colbert also promptly recognized Le Bruns powers of organization, and attached him to his interests. Together they took control of the Academy of Painting and Sculpture, and the Academy of France at Rome, another project Le Brun worked on was Hôtel Lambert. The ceiling in the gallery of Hercules was painted by him, Le Brun started work on the project in 1650, shortly after his return from Italy. The decoration continued intermittently over twelve years or so, as it was interrupted by the renovation of Vaux le Vicomte. In 1660 they established the Gobelins, which at first was a school for the manufacture, not of tapestries only. He was the originator of Louis XIV Style and gave a direction to the national tendencies which endured centuries after his death, the King had declared him the greatest French artist of all time. From this date all that was done in the palaces was directed by Le Brun. In 1663, he director of the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture. While he was working on The Battles, Le Bruns style became more personal as he moved away from the ancient masters that influenced him. Le Bruns decoration is not only a work of art, it is the monument of a reign. This contributed to the illness which on 22 February 1690 ended in his death in his private mansion, Le Brun primarily worked for King Louis XIV, for whom he executed large altarpieces and battle pieces. His most important paintings are at Versailles, besides his gigantic labours at Versailles and the Louvre, the number of his works for religious corporations and private patrons is enormous. Le Brun was also a fine portraitist and an excellent draughtsman, but he was not fond of portrait or landscape painting, what mattered was scholarly composition, whose ultimate goal was to nourish the spirit. For Le Brun, a painting represented a story one could read, nearly all his compositions have been reproduced by celebrated engravers
21.
Hyacinthe Rigaud
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Hyacinthe Rigaud was a French baroque painter of Catalan origin whose career was based in Paris. Hyacinthe Rigaud was born in Perpignan, the grandson of painter-gilders from Roussillon and he was trained in tailoring in his fathers workshop but perfected his skills as a painter under Antoine Ranc at Montpellier from 1671 onwards, before moving to Lyon four years later. It was in cities that he became familiar with Flemish, Dutch and Italian painting, particularly that of Rubens, Van Dyck, Rembrandt and Titian. Arriving in Paris in 1681, he won the prix de Rome in 1682, received into the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture in 1700, he rose to the top of this institution before retiring from it in 1735. Since Rigauds paintings captured very exact likenesses along with the costumes and background details. Rigaud was baptised with his Catalan name in the old cathédrale Saint-Jean de Perpignan on 20 July 1659 and he would not have become French had not Roussillon and the Cerdanya been annexed to France the following 7 November thanks to the Treaty of the Pyrenees. That Treaty also put an end to the wars that had taken place between France and Habsburg Spain since 1635 and married King Louis XIV of France to the infanta Maria Theresa of Spain, few of these have survived to the present. On 13 March 1647 Hyacinthes father Matias Rigau, married Thérèse Faget, widowed shortly after, he decided to speedily remarry, to Maria Serra, daughter of a Perpignan textile merchant, on 20 December 1655. In 1665, he acquired a house en lo carrer de las casas cremades, by his second marriage, he also acquired a house on place de lHuile, but he soon sold it. Unfortunately, little is known about Rigauds activities in Lyon, due to the lack of surviving documents, however, as per tradition, artists from Montpellier had strong ties with this city, as had, for example, Samuel Boissière who was trained in there, in Lyon. The identity of Rigauds future depicted models shows that he worked for the cloth merchants. Rigauds portrait of Jean de Brunenc, painted in 1687, a merchant, banker and consul of Lyon. In his first will, dated 30 May 1707, the artist left the bust to the Grand Dauphin, Louis XIVs son, also in the document, Rigaud bequeathed the portrait containing the two profiles of Maria Serra to the elder son of his brother Gaspard, named Hyacinthe. He also applied sketches of his sister Claire, accompanied by her husband and their first daughter, in spring 1696, Hyacinthe Rigaud returned to Paris, where he painted one of his most important portraits of the year. This was in fact sollicited by the duke of Saint-Simon, to depict Armand Jean le Bouthillier de Rancé, in 1709 he was made a noble by his hometown of Perpignan. In 1727 he was made a knight of the Order of Saint Michael, Rigaud died in Paris in 1743 at the age of 84. He was one of the most important portrait painters during the reign of King Louis XIV and his instinct for impressive poses and grand presentations precisely suited the tastes of the royal personages, ambassadors, clerics, courtiers, and financiers who sat for him. His œuvre reads as a portrait gallery of the chief movers in France from 1680 to 1740
22.
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
23.
Claude Joseph Vernet
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Claude-Joseph Vernet was a French painter. His son, Antoine Charles Horace Vernet, was also a painter, when only fourteen years of age he aided his father, Antoine Vernet, a skilled decorative painter, in the most important parts of his work. The panels of sedan chairs, however, could not satisfy his ambition, in 1734, Vernet left for Rome to study landscape designers and maritime painters, like Claude Gellee, where we find the styles and subjects of Vernets paintings. Slowly Vernet attracted notice in the milieu of Rome. With a certain conventionality in design, proper to his day, he allied the results of constant and honest observation of effects of atmosphere. Perhaps no painter of landscapes or sea-pieces has ever made the figure so completely a part of the scene depicted or so important a factor in his design. In this respect he was influenced by Giovanni Paolo Panini. Vernets work draws on themes, but in a way that is neither sentimental or emotive. The overall effect of his style is wholly decorative, others may know better, he said, with just pride, how to paint the sky, the earth, the ocean, no one knows better than I how to paint a picture. His style remained relatively static throughout his life and his works attentiveness to atmospheric effects is combined with a sense of harmony that is reminiscent of Claude Lorrain. In 1745 he married an Englishwoman whom he met in the city, in 1753 he was recalled to Paris, there, by royal command, he executed the series of the seaports of France by which he is best known. His The Port of Rochefort is particularly notable, in the piece Vernet is able to achieve, according to art historian Michael Levey, one of his most crystalline and atmospherically sensitive skies. In 1757, he painted a series of four paintings titled Four Times of the Day depicting, not surprisingly, throughout his life Vernet returned to Italian themes, as shown through one of his later works – A Beached Whale. Amongst the very numerous engravers of his works may be specially cited Le Bas, Cochin, Basan, Duret, Flipart and Le Veau in France and this article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain, Chisholm, Hugh, ed. Vernet. Life and works of Vernet C. J. Vernet online
24.
Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres
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Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres was a French Neoclassical painter. A man profoundly respectful of the past, he assumed the role of a guardian of orthodoxy against the ascendant Romantic style represented by his nemesis. His exemplars, he explained, were the great masters which flourished in that century of glorious memory when Raphael set the eternal. I am thus a conservator of good doctrine, and not an innovator, Ingres was born in Montauban, Tarn-et-Garonne, France, the first of seven children of Jean-Marie-Joseph Ingres and his wife Anne Moulet. From his father the young Ingres received early encouragement and instruction in drawing and music, and his first known drawing, the deficiency in his schooling would always remain for him a source of insecurity. In 1791, Joseph Ingres took his son to Toulouse, where the young Jean-Auguste-Dominique was enrolled in the Académie Royale de Peinture, Sculpture et Architecture, there he studied under the sculptor Jean-Pierre Vigan, the landscape painter Jean Briant, and the neoclassical painter Guillaume-Joseph Roques. Roques veneration of Raphael was an influence on the young artist. Ingres won prizes in several disciplines, such as composition, figure and antique and his musical talent was developed under the tutelage of the violinist Lejeune, and from the ages of thirteen to sixteen he played second violin in the Orchestre du Capitole de Toulouse. Ingres followed his masters neoclassical example but revealed, according to David and his trip to Rome, however, was postponed until 1806, when the financially strained government finally appropriated the travel funds. Working in Paris alongside several other students of David in a provided by the state. He found inspiration in the works of Raphael, in Etruscan vase paintings, in 1802 he made his debut at the Salon with Portrait of a Woman. The following year brought a commission, when Ingres was one of five artists selected to paint full-length portraits of Napoleon Bonaparte as First Consul. These were to be distributed to the towns of Liège, Antwerp, Dunkerque, Brussels. In the summer of 1806 Ingres became engaged to Marie-Anne-Julie Forestier, although he had hoped to stay in Paris long enough to witness the opening of that years Salon, in which he was to display several works, he reluctantly left for Italy just days before the opening. Chaussard condemned Ingress style as gothic and asked, How, with so much talent, a line so flawless, the answer is that he wanted to do something singular, something extraordinary. M. Ingress intention is nothing less than to make art regress by four centuries, to carry us back to its infancy, Ingres stylistic eclecticism represented a new tendency in art. As art historian Marjorie Cohn has written, At the time, Artists and critics outdid each other in their attempts to identify, interpret, and exploit what they were just beginning to perceive as historical stylistic developments. From the beginning of his career, Ingres freely borrowed from earlier art, adopting the style appropriate to his subject
25.
Edgar Degas
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Edgar Degas was a French artist famous for his paintings, sculptures, prints, and drawings. He is especially identified with the subject of dance, more than half of his works depict dancers and he is regarded as one of the founders of Impressionism, although he rejected the term, preferring to be called a realist. He was a draftsman, and particularly masterly in depicting movement, as can be seen in his rendition of dancers, racecourse subjects. His portraits are notable for their complexity and for their portrayal of human isolation. At the beginning of his career, Degas wanted to be a history painter, in his early thirties, he changed course, and by bringing the traditional methods of a history painter to bear on contemporary subject matter, he became a classical painter of modern life. Degas was born in Paris, France, into a wealthy family. He was the oldest of five children of Célestine Musson De Gas, a Creole from New Orleans, Louisiana, and Augustin De Gas and his maternal grandfather Germain Musson, was born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti of French descent and had settled in New Orleans in 1810. Degas began his schooling at age eleven, enrolling in the Lycée Louis-le-Grand and his mother died when he was thirteen, and his father and grandfather became the main influences on him for the remainder of his youth. Degas began to paint early in life, by the time he graduated from the Lycée with a baccalauréat in literature in 1853, at age 18, he had turned a room in his home into an artists studio. Upon graduating, he registered as a copyist in The Louvre Museum, Degas duly enrolled at the Faculty of Law of the University of Paris in November 1853, but applied little effort to his studies. In April of that year Degas was admitted to the École des Beaux-Arts and he studied drawing there with Louis Lamothe, under whose guidance he flourished, following the style of Ingres. In July 1856, Degas traveled to Italy, where he would remain for the three years. In 1858, while staying with his aunts family in Naples and he also began work on several history paintings, Alexander and Bucephalus and The Daughter of Jephthah in 1859–60, Sémiramis Building Babylon in 1860, and Young Spartans around 1860. In 1861 Degas visited his childhood friend Paul Valpinçon in Normandy and he exhibited at the Salon for the first time in 1865, when the jury accepted his painting Scene of War in the Middle Ages, which attracted little attention. The change in his art was influenced primarily by the example of Édouard Manet, upon the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War in 1870, Degas enlisted in the National Guard, where his defense of Paris left him little time for painting. During rifle training his eyesight was found to be defective, after the war, Degas began in 1872 an extended stay in New Orleans, Louisiana, where his brother René and a number of other relatives lived. Staying at the home of his Creole uncle, Michel Musson, on Esplanade Avenue, Degas produced a number of works, many depicting family members. One of Degass New Orleans works, A Cotton Office in New Orleans, garnered favorable attention back in France, Degas returned to Paris in 1873 and his father died the following year, whereupon Degas learned that his brother René had amassed enormous business debts
26.
Pierre-Auguste Renoir
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Pierre-Auguste Renoir, commonly known as Auguste Renoir, was a French artist who was a leading painter in the development of the Impressionist style. As a celebrator of beauty and especially feminine sensuality, it has said that Renoir is the final representative of a tradition which runs directly from Rubens to Watteau. He was the father of actor Pierre Renoir, filmmaker Jean Renoir and he was the grandfather of the filmmaker Claude Renoir, son of Pierre. Pierre-Auguste Renoir was born in Limoges, Haute-Vienne, France, in 1841 and his father, Léonard Renoir, was a tailor of modest means, so in 1844, Renoirs family moved to Paris in search of more favorable prospects. The location of their home, in rue d’Argenteuil in central Paris, although the young Renoir had a natural proclivity for drawing, he exhibited a greater talent for singing. His talent was encouraged by his teacher, Charles Gounod, who was the choir-master at the Church of St Roch at the time. However, due to the financial circumstances, Renoir had to discontinue his music lessons. Although Renoir displayed a talent for his work, he tired of the subject matter. The owner of the factory recognized his apprentice’s talent and communicated this to Renoir’s family, following this, Renoir started taking lessons to prepare for entry into Ecole des Beaux Arts. When the porcelain factory adopted mechanical reproduction processes in 1858, Renoir was forced to other means to support his learning. Before he enrolled in art school, he also painted hangings for overseas missionaries, in 1862, he began studying art under Charles Gleyre in Paris. There he met Alfred Sisley, Frédéric Bazille, and Claude Monet, at times, during the 1860s, he did not have enough money to buy paint. Renoir had his first success at the Salon of 1868 with his painting Lise with a Parasol, although Renoir first started exhibiting paintings at the Paris Salon in 1864, recognition was slow in coming, partly as a result of the turmoil of the Franco-Prussian War. This loss of a favorite painting location resulted in a change of subjects. Renoir was inspired by the style and subject matter of modern painters Camille Pissarro. Although the critical response to the exhibition was largely unfavorable, Renoirs work was well received. That same year, two of his works were shown with Durand-Ruel in London, hoping to secure a livelihood by attracting portrait commissions, Renoir displayed mostly portraits at the second Impressionist exhibition in 1876. He contributed a diverse range of paintings the next year when the group presented its third exhibition, they included Dance at Le Moulin de la Galette
27.
Berthe Morisot
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Berthe Marie Pauline Morisot was a painter and a member of the circle of painters in Paris who became known as the Impressionists. She was described by Gustave Geffroy in 1894 as one of les trois grandes dames of Impressionism alongside Marie Bracquemond, in 1864, she exhibited for the first time in 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 and it was held at the studio of the photographer Nadar. She was married to Eugène Manet, the brother of her friend, Morisot was born in Bourges, France, into an affluent bourgeois family. Her father, Edmé Tiburce Morisot, was the prefect of the department of Cher and he also studied architecture at École des Beaux Arts. Her mother, Marie-Joséphine-Cornélie Thomas, was the great-niece of Jean-Honoré Fragonard and she had two older sisters, Yves and Edma, plus a younger brother, Tiburce, born in 1848. The family moved to Paris in 1852, when Morisot was a child and it was common practice for daughters of bourgeois families to receive art education, so Berthe and her sisters Yves and Edma were taught privately by Geoffroy-Alphonse Chocarne and Joseph Guichard. Morisot and her sisters initially started taking lessons so that they could make a drawing for their father for his birthday. In 1857 Guichard, who ran a school for girls in Rue des Moulins, introduced Berthe and Edma to the Louvre gallery where they could learn by looking and he also introduced them to the works of Gavarni. Guichard later became the director of École des Beaux Arts where Morisots father earned his degree, as art students, Berthe and Edma worked closely together until Edma married Adolphe Pontillon, a naval officer, moved to Cherbourg, had children, and had less time to paint. Letters between the show a loving relationship, underscored by Berthes regret at the distance between them and Edmas withdrawal from painting. Edma wholeheartedly supported Berthes continued work and their families always remained close, Edma wrote “… I am often with you in thought, dear Berthe. I’m in your studio and I like to slip away, if only for a quarter of an hour and her sister Yves married Theodore Gobillard, a tax inspector, in 1866, and was painted by Edgar Degas as Mrs Theodore Gobillard. In 1860, under Corots influence she took up the plein air method of working, by 1863 she was studying under Achille Oudinot, another Barbizon painter. In the winter of 1863–64 she studied sculpture under Aimé Millet, Morisots first appearance in the Salon de Paris came at the age of twenty-three in 1864, with the acceptance of two landscape paintings. She continued to show regularly in the Salon, to favorable reviews, until 1873. She exhibited with the Impressionists from 1874 onwards, only missing the exhibition in 1878 when her daughter was born, Morisots mature career began in 1872. She found an audience for her work with Durand-Ruel, the private dealer, in 1877, she was described by the critic for Le Temps as the one real Impressionist in this group
28.
Paul Gauguin
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Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin was a French post-Impressionist artist. Underappreciated until after his death, Gauguin is now recognized for his use of color. His work was influential to the French avant-garde and many artists, such as Pablo Picasso. Many of his paintings were in the possession of Russian collector Sergei Shchukin and he was an important figure in the Symbolist movement as a painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramist, and writer. He was also a proponent of wood engraving and woodcuts as art forms. Gauguin was born in Paris, France to Clovis Gauguin and Alina Maria Chazal on June 7,1848 and his birth coincided with revolutionary upheavals throughout Europe that year. His father, a 34-year-old liberal journalist, came from a family of petit-bourgeoisie entrepreneurs residing in Orléans and he was compelled to flee France when the newspaper for which he wrote was suppressed by French authorities. Gauguins mother, the 22-year-old Aline Marie Chazal, was the daughter of Andre Chazal, an engraver, and Flora Tristan and their union ended when Andre assaulted his wife Flora and was sentenced to prison for attempted murder. Paul Gauguins maternal grandmother, Flora Tristan, was the daughter of Thérèse Laisnay. Details of Thérèses family background are not known, her father, Don Mariano, was a Spanish nobleman, members of the wealthy Tristan Moscoso family held powerful positions in Peru. Nonetheless, Don Marianos unexpected death plunged his mistress and daughter Flora into poverty, when Floras marriage with Andre failed, she petitioned for and obtained a small monetary settlement from her fathers Peruvian relatives. She sailed to Peru in hopes of enlarging her share of the Tristan Moscoso family fortune and this never materialized, but she successfully published a popular travelogue of her experiences in Peru which launched her literary career in 1838. An active supporter of early socialist societies, Gauguins maternal grandmother helped to lay the foundations for the 1848 revolutionary movements, placed under surveillance by French police and suffering from overwork, she died in 1844. Her grandson Paul idolized his grandmother, and kept copies of her books with him to the end of his life. In 1850, Clovis Gauguin departed for Peru with his wife Alina and he died of a heart attack en route, and Alina arrived in Peru a widow with the 18-month-old Paul and his 2 ½ year-old sister, Marie. Gauguins mother was welcomed by her granduncle, whose son-in-law would shortly assume the presidency of Peru. To the age of six, Paul enjoyed an upbringing, attended by nursemaids. He retained a vivid memory of period of his childhood which instilled indelible impressions of Peru that haunted him the rest of his life
29.
Vincent van Gogh
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Vincent Willem van Gogh was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter who is among the most famous and influential figures in the history of Western art. In just over a decade he created about 2,100 artworks, including around 860 oil paintings and his suicide at 37 followed years of mental illness and poverty. Born into a family, Van Gogh drew as a child and was serious, quiet. As a young man he worked as an art dealer, often travelling and he turned to religion, and spent time as a Protestant missionary in southern Belgium. He drifted in ill health and solitude before taking up painting in 1881 and his younger brother Theo supported him financially, and the two kept up a long correspondence by letter. His early works, mostly still lifes and depictions of peasant labourers, in 1886 he moved to Paris, where he met members of the avant-garde, including Émile Bernard and Paul Gauguin, who were reacting against the Impressionist sensibility. As his work developed he created a new approach to still lifes and his paintings grew brighter in colour as he developed a style that became fully realised during his stay in Arles in the south of France in 1888. During this period he broadened his subject matter to include trees, cypresses, wheat fields. Van Gogh suffered from episodes and delusions and though he worried about his mental stability, he often neglected his physical health, did not eat properly. His friendship with Gauguin ended after a confrontation with a razor and he spent time in psychiatric hospitals, including a period at Saint-Rémy. After he discharged himself and moved to the Auberge Ravoux in Auvers-sur-Oise near Paris and his depression continued and on 27 July 1890, Van Gogh shot himself in the chest with a revolver. He died from his injuries two days later, Van Gogh was unsuccessful during his lifetime, and was considered a madman and a failure. He became famous after his suicide, and exists in the imagination as the quintessential misunderstood genius. His reputation began to grow in the early 20th century as elements of his style came to be incorporated by the Fauves. The most comprehensive source on Van Gogh is the correspondence between him and his younger brother, Theo. Their lifelong friendship, and most of what is known of Vincents thoughts, Theo van Gogh was an art dealer and provided his brother with financial and emotional support, and access to influential people on the contemporary art scene. Theo kept all of Vincents letters to him, Vincent kept few of the letters he received, after both had died, Theos widow Johanna arranged for the publication of some of their letters. A few appeared in 1906 and 1913, the majority were published in 1914, Vincents letters are eloquent and expressive and have been described as having a diary-like intimacy, and read in parts like autobiography
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Pietro Perugino
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Pietro Perugino, born Pietro Vannucci, was an Italian Renaissance painter of the Umbrian school, who developed some of the qualities that found classic expression in the High Renaissance. Raphael was his most famous pupil, Pietro Perugino was born Pietro Vannucci in Città della Pieve, Umbria, the son of Cristoforo Marie Vannucci. Pietros nickname characterizes him as from Perugia, the city of Umbria. Scholars continue to dispute the status of the Vannucci family. While certain academics maintain that Vannucci worked his way out of poverty and his exact date of birth is not known, although, based on his age at the death mentioned by Vasari and Giovanni Santi, he is suspected to be born between 1446 and 1452. Pietro most likely began studying painting in local workshops in Perugia such as those of Bartolomeo Caporali or Fiorenzo di Lorenzo, the date of this first Florentine sojourn is unknown, some make it as early as 1466/1470, others push the date to 1479. According to Vasari, he apprenticed in the workshop of Andrea del Verrocchio alongside Leonardo da Vinci, Domenico Ghirlandaio, Lorenzo di Credi, Filippino Lippi, piero della Francesca is thought to have taught him perspective form. In 1472 he must have completed his apprenticeship, for he was enrolled as a master in the Confraternity of St Luke, Pietro, although very talented was not extremely enthusiastic about his work. Perugino was one of the earliest Italian practitioners of oil painting, a good specimen of his early style in tempera is the tondo in the Musée du Louvre of the Virgin and Child Enthroned between Saints. Perugino returned from Florence to Perugia, where his Florentine training showed in the Adoration of the Magi for the church of Santa Maria dei Servi of Perugia, in about 1480, he was called to Rome by Sixtus IV to paint fresco panels for the Sistine Chapel walls. The frescoes he executed there included Moses and Zipporah, the Baptism of Christ, pinturicchio accompanied Perugino to Rome, and was made his partner, receiving a third of the profits. He may have some of the Zipporah subject. The Sistine frescoes were the major high Renaissance commission in Rome, the altar wall was also painted with the Assumption, the Nativity, and Moses in the Bulrushes. He had a studio in Florence, and received a great number of commissions. His Pietà in the Uffizi is an uncharacteristically stark work that avoids Peruginos sometimes too easy sentimental piety, in 1499 the guild of the cambio of Perugia asked him to decorate their audience-hall, the Sala delle Udienze del Collegio del Cambio. The humanist Francesco Maturanzio acted as his consultant, on the mid-pilaster of the hall Perugino placed his own portrait in bust-form. It is probable that Raphael, who in boyhood, towards 1496, had been placed by his uncles under the tuition of Perugino, Perugino was made one of the priors of Perugia in 1501. On one occasion Michelangelo told Perugino to his face that he was a bungler in art, Vannucci brought an action for defamation of character, unsuccessfully
31.
Lorenzo Costa
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Lorenzo Costa was an Italian painter of the Renaissance. He was born at Ferrara, but moved to Bologna by his early twenties, however, many artists worked in both cities, and thus some consider him a product of the School of Ferrara. It is possible that he trained with Cosimo Tura, in 1483 he painted the famous Bentivoglio Altarpiece and other frescoes on the walls of the Bentivoglio chapel in San Giacomo Maggiore. He was a friend of Francesco Francia, who was much influenced by him. In 1509 he moved to Mantua to become the painter of Marquis Francesco Gonzaga. For the latters studiolo in the Ducal Palace, he painted the Allegory of Isabella dEstes Coronation and he died at Mantua in 1535. His sons Ippolito and Girolamo were also painters, as was Girolamos son, contemporaries who worked with or under him include Cosimo Tura, Dosso Dossi, Ludovico Mazzolino, Lorenzo Leonbruno, and Niccolò Pisano. Attribution This article incorporates text from a now in the public domain, Chisholm, Hugh, ed. Costa
32.
Paolo Veronese
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Known as a supreme colorist, and after an early period with Mannerism, Paolo Veronese developed a naturalist style of painting, influenced by Titian. His most famous works are elaborate narrative cycles, executed in a dramatic and colorful style, full of architectural settings. Nonetheless, many of the greatest artists, may be counted among his admirers, including Rubens, Watteau, Tiepolo, Delacroix and Renoir. Veronese took his name from his birthplace of Verona, then the largest possession of Venice on the mainland. The census in Verona attests that Veronese was born sometime in 1528 to a stonecutter, or spezapreda, named Gabriele and it was common for surnames to be taken from a fathers profession, and thus Veronese was known as Paolo Spezapreda. He later changed his name to Paolo Caliari, because his mother was the daughter of a nobleman called Antonio Caliari. He was often called Paolo Veronese before the last century to him from another painter from Verona, Alessandro Veronese. By 1541, Veronese was apprenticed with Antonio Badile, who was later to become his father-in-law, although trained in the culture of Mannerism then popular in Parma, he soon developed his own preference for a more radiant palette. In 1552 Cardinal Ercole Gonzaga, great-uncle of the ruling Guglielmo Gonzaga, Duke of Mantua, commissioned an altarpiece for Mantua Cathedral and his panel of Jupiter Expelling the Vices for the former is now in the Louvre. He then painted a History of Esther in the ceiling for the church of San Sebastiano and it was these ceiling paintings and those of 1557 in the Marciana Library that established him as a master among his Venetian contemporaries. Already these works indicate Veroneses mastery in reflecting both the subtle foreshortening of the figures of Correggio and the heroism of those by Michelangelo. By 1556 Veronese was commissioned to paint the first of his monumental banquet scenes, the Feast in the House of Simon, owing to its scattered composition and lack of focus, however, it was not his most successful refectory mural. In the late 1550s, during a break in his work for San Sebastiano, Veronese decorated the Villa Barbaro in Maser, Veroneses decorations employed complex perspective and trompe loeil, and resulted in a luminescent and inspired visual poetry. The encounter between architect and artist was a triumph, the Wedding at Cana, painted in 1562–1563, was also collaboration with Palladio. It was commissioned by the Benedictine monks for the San Giorgio Maggiore Monastery, on an island across from Saint Marks. The contract insisted on the size, and that the quality of pigment. For example, the contract specified that the blues should contain the precious mineral lapis-lazuli, the contract also specified that the painting should include as many figures as possible. There are a number of portraits staged upon a canvas surface nearly ten meters wide
33.
Tintoretto
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Tintoretto was an Italian painter and a notable exponent of the Renaissance school. For his phenomenal energy in painting he was termed Il Furioso and his work is characterized by its muscular figures, dramatic gestures, and bold use of perspective in the Mannerist style, while maintaining color and light typical of the Venetian School. His real name Comin was discovered by Miguel Falomir of the Museo del Prado, Madrid, Comin translates to the spice cumin in the local language. Tintoretto was born in Venice in 1518, as the eldest of 21 children and his father, Giovanni, was a dyer, or tintore, hence the son got the nickname of Tintoretto, little dyer, or dyers boy, which is anglicized as Tintoret. The family originated from Brescia, in Lombardy, then part of the Republic of Venice, older studies gave the Tuscan town of Lucca as the origin of the family. In childhood Jacopo, a painter, began daubing on the dyers walls, his father, noticing his bent. This was supposedly towards 1533, when Titian was already fifty-six years of age, active disparagement also was not wanting, but it passed unnoticed by Tintoretto. The latter sought for no further teaching, but studied on his own account with laborious zeal, he lived poorly, collecting casts, bas-reliefs etc. and practising by their aid. His noble conception of art and his personal ambition were evidenced in the inscription which he placed over his studio Il disegno di Michelangelo ed il colorito di Tiziano. Now and afterwards he very frequently worked by night as well as by day, the young painter Andrea Schiavone, four years Tintorettos junior, was much in his company. Tintoretto helped Schiavone gratis in wall-paintings, and in many subsequent instances he worked also for nothing, the two earliest mural paintings of Tintoretto—done, like others, for next to no pay—are said to have been Belshazzars Feast and a Cavalry Fight. These are both long since perished, as are all his frescoes, early or later, the first work of his to attract some considerable notice was a portrait-group of himself and his brother—the latter playing a guitar—with a nocturnal effect, this also is lost. It was followed by some subject, which Titian was candid enough to praise. For the Scuola della Trinità he painted four subjects from Genesis, up till 2012, The Embarkation of St Helena in the Holy Land was attributed to his contemporary Andrea Schiavone. But new analysis of the work has revealed it as one of a series of three paintings by Tintoretto, depicting the legend of St Helena And The Holy Cross, the error was uncovered during work on a project to catalogue continental European oil paintings in the UK. The Embarkation of St Helena was acquired by the V&A in 1865 and its sister paintings, The Discovery Of The True Cross and St Helen Testing The True Cross, are held in galleries in the US. Towards 1546 Tintoretto painted for the church of the Madonna dellOrto three of his works, the Worship of the Golden Calf, the Presentation of the Virgin in the Temple. He took the commission for two of the paintings, the Worship of the Golden Calf and the Last Judgment, on a cost only basis in order to make himself better known and he settled down in a house hard by the church
34.
Antonio da Correggio
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In his use of dynamic composition, illusionistic perspective and dramatic foreshortening, Correggio prefigured the Rococo art of the 18th century. He is considered a master of chiaroscuro, antonio Allegri was born in Correggio, Italy, a small town near Reggio Emilia. His date of birth is uncertain, otherwise little is known about Correggios early life or training. It is, however, often assumed that he had his first artistic education from his fathers brother, after a trip to Mantua in 1506, he returned to Correggio, where he stayed until 1510. To this period is assigned the Adoration of the Child with St. Elizabeth and John, by 1516, Correggio was in Parma, where he spent most of the remainder of his career. Here, he befriended Michelangelo Anselmi, a prominent Mannerist painter, in 1519 he married Girolama Francesca di Braghetis, also of Correggio, who died in 1529. One of his sons, Pomponio Allegri, became an undistinguished painter, from this period are the Madonna and Child with the Young Saint John, Christ Leaving His Mother and the lost Madonna of Albinea. Correggios first major commission was the decoration of the private dining salon of the mother-superior of the convent of St Paul called the Camera di San Paolo at Parma. Here he painted an arbor pierced by oculi opening to glimpses of playful cherubs, below the oculi are lunettes with images of feigned monochromic marble. The fireplace is frescoed with an image of Diana, the iconography of the scheme is complex, combining images of classical marbles with whimsical colorful bambini. While it recalls the secular frescoes of the palace of the Villa Farnesina in Rome. He then painted the illusionistic Vision of St. John on Patmos for the dome of the church of San Giovanni Evangelista. Three years later he decorated the dome of the Cathedral of Parma with a startling Assumption of the Virgin, the recession and movement implied by the figures presage the dynamism that would characterize Baroque painting. Other masterpieces include The Lamentation and The Martyrdom of Four Saints, the Lamentation is haunted by a lambence rarely seen in Italian painting prior to this time. The Martyrdom is also remarkable for resembling later Baroque compositions such as Berninis Truth and Ercole Ferratas Death of Saint Agnes, aside from his religious output, Correggio conceived a now-famous set of paintings depicting the Loves of Jupiter as described in Ovids Metamorphoses. The voluptuous series was commissioned by Federico II Gonzaga of Mantua, however, they were given to the visiting Holy Roman Emperor Charles V and thus left Italy within years of their completion. Danaë, now in Romes Borghese Gallery, depicts the maiden as she is impregnated by a curtain of gilded divine rain. Her lower torso semi-obscured by sheets, Danae appears more demure and gleeful than Titians 1545 version of the same topic, the picture once called Antiope and the Satyr is now correctly identified as Venus and Cupid with a Satyr
35.
Guido Reni
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Guido Reni was an Italian painter of high-Baroque style. Born in Bologna into a family of musicians, Guido Reni was the son of Daniele Reni, as a child of nine, he was apprenticed under the Bolognese studio of Denis Calvaert. Soon after, he was joined in studio by Albani. He may also have trained with a painter by the name of Ferrantini, when Reni was about twenty years old, the three Calvaert pupils migrated to the rising rival studio, named Accademia degli Incamminati, led by Lodovico Carracci. They went on to form the nucleus of a prolific and successful school of Bolognese painters who followed Lodovicos cousin Annibale Carracci to Rome, like many other Bolognese painters, Renis painting was thematic and eclectic in style. By late 1601, Reni and Albani had moved to Rome to work with the led by Annibale Carracci in fresco decoration of the Farnese Palace. During 1601–1604, his patron was Cardinal Paolo Emilio Sfondrati. By 1604–1605, he received an independent commission for an altarpiece of the Crucifixion of St. Peter, after a few year sojourn in Bologna, he returned to Rome to become one of the premier painters during the papacy of Paul V. From 1607–1614, he was one of the painters patronized by the Borghese family, Renis frescoed ceiling of the large central hall of garden palace, Casino dellAurora located in the grounds of the Palazzo Pallavicini-Rospigliosi, is considered his masterpiece. The casino was originally a pavilion commissioned by Cardinal Scipione Borghese, the massive fresco is framed in quadri riportati and depicts Apollo in his Chariot preceded by Dawn bringing light to the world. The work is restrained in classicism, copying poses from Roman sarcophagi, there is little concession to perspective, and the vibrantly colored style is antithetical to the tenebrism of Caravaggios followers. Payments showed that he was paid in 247 scudi and 54 baiocchi upon completion on 24 September 1616, the two families were in rather bad relations, and the reason for such friction was their constant quest for temporal power. Also the Popes brother, Antonio Barberini, was a cardinal, in those days, the main church of the Capuchins in Rome was St. Nicholas, rather small and dating back to the Middle Ages. The Archangel Michael trampling Satan, wears a late Roman military cloak,1636, held in Santa Maria della Concezione dei Cappuccini, Rome. According to a legend, Reni became aware that Cardinal Giovanni Battista Pamphilj had slandered him, so, Reni, sensing an opportunity, decided to avenge himself by means of his own talent, at the same time pleasing his client, who belonged to the opposing family. According to existing portraits of him, Cardinal Pamphilj had a face, with thin hair, a scanty beard and a somewhat strange look in his eyes. Therefore, the face that Archangel Michael crushes under his foot looks almost identical to that of Giovanni Battista Pamphilj and this turned out even more embarrassing a few years later, when in 1644 the cardinal was elected Pope Innocent X. According to rumor, the chapel of Montecavallo was assigned to Reni to paint
36.
Domenichino
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Domenico Zampieri, known as Domenichino for his shortness, was an Italian Baroque painter of the Bolognese or Carracci School of painters. Domenichino was born in Bologna, son of a shoemaker, and he left Bologna for Rome in 1602 and became one of the most talented apprentices to emerge from Annibale Carraccis supervision. As a young artist in Rome he lived with his slightly older Bolognese colleagues Albani and Guido Reni, and worked alongside Lanfranco, meanwhile, he had completed frescoes c. Following Annibale Carraccis death in 1609, Annibales Bolognese pupils, foremost Domenichino, Albani, Reni and Lanfranco, became the leading painters in Rome. One of Domenichinos masterpieces, his frescoes of Scenes of the Life of Saint Cecilia in the Polet Chapel of San Luigi dei Francesi, was commissioned in 1612 and completed in 1615. Concurrently he painted his first, and most celebrated, altarpiece and it subsequently would be judged as being comparable to Raphaels great Transfiguration and even as the best picture in the world. With the election of a Bolognese pope in 1621, Domenichino returned to Rome, appointed Papal Architect, he nonetheless continued to be most active as a painter, obtaining many commissions for altarpieces in Roman churches. His Scenes from the Life of San Gennaro occupied him for the rest of his life and he painted four large lunettes, four pendentives, and twelve scenes in the soffits of the arches, all in fresco, plus three large altarpieces in oil on copper. He died, perhaps by poison at the hands of the jealous Cabal of Naples, before completing the fourth altarpiece or the cupola, at the time of his death, Domenichinos chief assistant was an obscure painter from Assisi, Francesco Raspantino, who inherited his masters studio. Earlier, Domenichinos principal pupils were Alessandro Fortuna, Giovanni Battista Ruggieri, Antonio Alberti called Barbalonga, Francesco Cozza, Andrea Camassei, others who studied in his studio include Poussin, Pietro Testa, and his future biographer, Giovanni Pietro Bellori. The portrait of Agucchi in York used to be attributed to Domenichino, Imitation in this sense is not copying but a creative process inspired by rhetorical theory whereby revered models are not only emulated but surpassed. Jerome from an altarpiece of the subject in Bologna by his former teacher. Like Domenichinos paintings, its sources were in ancient models and aimed at clarity of expression capable of moving its audience, as the Florentine composer Giulio Caccini held and Domenichino surely believed, the aim of the composer/artist was to move the passion of the mind. To achieve that goal, Domenichino paid particular attention to expressive gestures, Domenichinos composite score of 58 nonetheless was surpassed only by Raphael and Rubens, and it equalled that of the Carracci. The Balance reflects Domenichinos high standing in the history of European taste— until John Ruskin in the 1840s wrote his devastating attacks on Bolognese Baroque painting in his Modern Painters, the Carracci and their followers were condemned by Ruskin as being insincere. For Ruskin, there was no entirely sincere nor any great art from the seventeenth century, in 1996 the first major exhibition of his work was held at the Palazzo Venezia in Rome. 1620, Royal Collection, Hampton Court Madonna of Loreto with Saints John the Baptist, Paterniano, 1618–19, North Carolina Museum of Art) Rinaldo and Armida, c. 1620–21, Louvre, Paris Martyrdom of St Peter Martyr, c, 1622-23, Louvre, Paris Saint Ignatius de Loyola’s Vision of Christ and God the Father, c
37.
Pietro da Cortona
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Pietro da Cortona was an Italian Baroque painter and architect. Along with his contemporaries and rivals Gian Lorenzo Bernini and Francesco Borromini and he was also an important designer of interior decorations. He was born Pietro Berrettini, but is known by the name of his native town of Cortona in Tuscany. He worked mainly in Rome and Florence, only a limited number of his architectural projects were built but nonetheless they are as distinctive and as inventive as those of his rivals. Berrettini was born into a family of artisans and masons, in Cortona and he trained in painting in Florence under Andrea Commodi, but soon he departed for Rome at around 1612/3, where he joined the studio of Baccio Ciarpi. In Rome, he had encouragement from many prominent patrons, according to Cortonas biographers his gifted copy of Raphaels Galatea fresco brought him to the attention of Marcello Sacchetti, papal treasurer during the Barberini papacy. Such contacts helped him gain a major commission in Rome. In 1633, Pope Urban VIII commissioned from Cortona a large painting for the main salon ceiling of the Barberini family palace. It was completed six years later, following Cortonas influential visit to northern Italy where he would have seen at first hand perspectival works by Paolo Veronese, Cortonas huge Allegory of Divine Providence and Barberini Power marks a watershed in Baroque painting. The ornamented architectural framework essentially forms five compartments, the central and most significant part celebrates the glorification of the reign of Urban VIII in a light filled scene populated with allegorical figures and Barberini family emblems. The illusion of spatial extension through paint, the grandiose theme, the first two represented the ages of silver and gold. In 1641, he was recalled to paint the Bronze Age and he began work on the decoration of the grand-ducal reception rooms on the first floor of the Palazzo Pitti, now part of the Palatine Gallery. These highly ornate ceilings with frescoes and elaborate stucco work essentially celebrate the Medici lineage, Pietro left Florence in 1647, and his pupil and collaborator, Ciro Ferri, completed the cycle by the 1660s. For a number of years, Cortona was involved for decades in the decoration of the frescoes in the Oratorian Chiesa Nuova in Rome. Other frescoes are in Palazzo Pamphilj in Piazza Navona, in 1660, he executed The Stoning of Saint Stephen for the church of San Ambrogio della Massima in Rome. The work currently hangs in the Hermitage, towards the end of his life he devoted much of his time to architecture, but he published a treatise on painting in 1652 under a pseudonym and in collaboration. He refused invitations to both France and Spain and he was elected as director of the Academy of St Luke the painters guild in Rome, in 1634. It was at the Academy in 1636 that Cortona and Andrea Sacchi were involved in controversies regarding the number of figures that were appropriate in a painted work
38.
Guercino
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Giovanni Francesco Barbieri, best known as Guercino, or Il Guercino, was an Italian Baroque painter and draftsman from the region of Emilia, and active in Rome and Bologna. The vigorous naturalism of his manner is in contrast to the classical equilibrium of his later works. His many drawings are noted for their luminosity and lively style and he was born in Cento, a village between Bologna and Ferrara. At an early age he acquired the nickname Guercino because he was cross-eyed, mainly self-taught, at the age of 16, he worked as apprentice in the shop of Benedetto Gennari, a painter of the Bolognese School. By 1615, he moved to Bologna, where his work was praised by Ludovico Carracci, Guercino painted two large canvases, Elijah Fed by Ravens and Samson Seized by Philistines, for Cardinal Serra, a Papal Legate to Ferrara. These paintings have a stark naturalist Caravaggesque style, although it is unlikely that Guercino saw any of the Roman Caravaggios first-hand, the Arcadian Shepherds was painted in 1618 at the same time of The Flaying of Marsyas by Apollo in Palazzo Pitti. Its dramatic composition is typical of Guercinos early works, which are often tumultuous and he often claimed that his early style was influenced by a canvas of Ludovico Carracci that he saw in the Capuchin church in Cento. Some of his works are closer to the style of his contemporary Guido Reni. He was recommended by Marchese Enzo Bentivoglio to the Bolognese Ludovisi Pope, Pope Gregory XV, the years he spent in Rome, 1621–23, were very productive. Petronilla Altarpiece for the Vatican, which is considered his masterpiece, after the death of Gregory XV, Guercino returned to his hometown. In 1626, he began his frescoes in the Duomo of Piacenza, between 1618 and 1631, Giovanni Battista Pasqualini produced 67 engravings that document the early production of Guercino, which is not included in the Libro dei Conti. In 1642, following the death of Guido Reni, Guercino moved his workshop to Bologna. In 1655, the Franciscan Order of Reggio paid him 300 ducats for the altarpiece of Saint Luke Displaying a Painting of the Madonna, the Corsini also paid him 300 ducats for the Flagellation of Christ painted in 1657. Guercino was remarkable for the rapidity of his executions, he completed no fewer than 106 large altarpieces for churches. He was also a prolific draftsman and his production includes many drawings, usually in ink, washed ink, or red chalk. Most of them were made as preparatory studies for his paintings, but he also drew landscapes, genre subjects, Guercinos drawings are known for their fluent style in which rapid, calligraphic pen strokes combined with dots, dashes, and parallel hatching lines describe the forms. Guercino continued to paint and teach until his death in 1666, as he never married, his estate passed to his nephews and pupils, Benedetto Gennari II and Cesare Gennari. Benedetto Zallone of Cento, and Matteo Loves, masterpieces of Cento, Rome and Polish collections, displayed at the National Museum in Warsaw from September 2013 to February 2014
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Salvator Rosa
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Salvator Rosa was an Italian Baroque painter, poet, and printmaker, who was active in Naples, Rome, and Florence. As a painter, he is best known as unorthodox and extravagant as well as being a perpetual rebel, Rosa was born in Arenella, at that time in the outskirts of Naples, on either June 20 or July 21,1615. His mother was Giulia Greca Rosa, a member of one of the Greek families of Sicily and his father, Vito Antonio de Rosa, a land surveyor, urged his son to become a lawyer or a priest, and entered him into the convent of the Somaschi Fathers. Yet Salvator showed a preference for the arts and secretly worked with his maternal uncle Paolo Greco to learn about painting. He soon transferred himself to the tutelage of his brother-in-law Francesco Fracanzano, a pupil of Ribera, and afterward to either Aniello Falcone, some sources claim he spent time living with roving bandits. He continued apprenticeship with Falcone, helping him complete his battlepiece canvases, in that studio, it is said that Lanfranco took notice of his work, and advised him to relocate to Rome, where he stayed from 1634–36. Returning to Naples, he began painting haunting landscapes, overgrown vegetation, or jagged beaches, mountains. Rosa was among the first to paint romantic landscapes, with a turn for scenes of picturesque, often turbulent and rugged scenes peopled with shepherds, brigands, seamen. These early landscapes were sold cheaply through private dealers and he returned to Rome in 1638–39, where he was housed by Cardinal Francesco Maria Brancaccio, bishop of Viterbo. For the Chiesa Santa Maria della Morte in Viterbo, Rosa painted his first and one of his few altarpieces, while Rosa had a facile genius at painting, he pursued a wide variety of arts, music, poetry, writing, etching, and acting. In Rome, he befriended Pietro Testa and Claude Lorrain, in costume, he inveighed against the farcical comedies acted in the Trastevere under the direction of Bernini. While his plays were successful, this activity also gained him enemies among patrons and artists, including Bernini himself. By late 1639, he had to relocate to Florence, where he stayed for eight years, in part, he had been invited by a Cardinal Gian Carlo de Medici. Once there, Rosa sponsored a combination of studio and salon of poets, playwrights, to the rigid art milieu of Florence, he introduced his canvases of wild landscapes, while influential, he gathered few true pupils. Another painter poet, Lorenzo Lippi, shared with Rosa the hospitality of the cardinal, Lippi encouraged him to proceed with the poem Il Malmantile Racquistato. He was well acquainted also with Ugo and Giulio Maffei, and was housed with them in Volterra, where he wrote four satires Music, Poetry, Painting, about the same time he painted his own portrait, now in the National Gallery, London. In 1646 he returned to Naples, and appears to have sympathized with the 1648 insurrection of Masaniello, whether he participated in the insurrection is unknown. He painted a portrait of Masaniello—probably from reminiscence rather than life, on the approach of Don Juan de Austria, the blood-stained Compagnia dispersed
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Luca Giordano
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Luca Giordano was an Italian late Baroque painter and printmaker in etching. Fluent and decorative, he worked successfully in Naples and Rome, Florence and Venice, born in Naples, Giordano was the son of the painter Antonio Giordano. In around 1650 he was apprenticed to Ribera on the recommendation of the viceroy of Naples, like Ribera, he painted many half-length figures of philosophers, either imaginary portraits of specific figures, or generic types. He acquired the nickname Luca fa presto, which translates into Luca paints quickly, following a period studying in Rome, Parma and Venice, Giordano developed an elaborate Baroque style fusing Venetian and Roman Influences. His mature work combines the ornamental pomp of Paul Veronese with the complex schemes. He is also noted for his lively and showy use of colour, in 1682–1683 Giordano painted various fresco series in Florence, including one in the dome of Corsini Chapel of the Chiesa del Carmine. In the large block occupied by the former Medici palace, he painted the ceiling of the Biblioteca Riccardiana, the vast frescoes of the latter are contained in the 1670s gallery addition, overlooking the gardens. The planning was overseen by Alessandro Segni and commissioned by Francesco Riccardi and they include the prototypic hagiographic celebration of the Medici family in the center, surrounded by a series of interlocking narratives, allegorical figures and mythological episodes. In 1692 Giordano went to Spain at the invitation of Charles II and he stayed there for ten years, returning to Naples in 1702, following Charles death. While in Spain, he painted decorative schemes at the Buen Retiro Palace, El Escorial, the sacristry of Toledo Cathedral. He also painted pictures for the court, private patrons. His pupils, Aniello Rossi and Matteo Pacelli, assisted him in Spain, Giordano was popular at the Spanish court, and the king granted him the title of a caballero. After his return to Naples early in 1702, Giordano continued to paint prolifically, executed in a lighter, less rhetorical style, these late works, prefiguring Rococo, proved influential throughout the eighteenth century, and were admired by Fragonard. He spent large sums in acts of munificence, and was particularly liberal to poorer artists, one of his maxims was that the good painter is the one whom the public like, and that the public are attracted more by colour than by design. Giordano had a facility, which often lead to an impression of superficiality of his works. He left many works in Rome, and far more in Naples and this church contains the artists own tomb. Other notable examples are the Judgment of Paris in the Berlin Museum, in later years, he painted influential frescoes for the Cappella Corsini, the Palazzo Medici-Riccardi and other works. Giordano died in Naples in 1705 and his best pupil in painting was Paolo de Matteis
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Canaletto
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Giovanni Antonio Canal, better known as Canaletto, was an Italian painter of city views or vedute, of Venice. He also painted views, although the demarcation in his works between the real and the imaginary is never quite clearcut. He was further an important printmaker using the etching technique, in the period from 1746 to 1756 he worked in England where he created many sights of London. He was highly successful in England, thanks to the British merchant and connoisseur Joseph Smith and he was born in Venice as the son of the painter Bernardo Canal, hence his mononym Canaletto, and Artemisia Barbieri. Canaletto served his apprenticeship with his father and his brother and he began in his fathers occupation, that of a theatrical scene painter. Canaletto was inspired by the Roman vedutista Giovanni Paolo Pannini, and started painting the life of the city. After returning from Rome in 1719, he began painting in his topographical style and his first known signed and dated work is Architectural Capriccio. Studying with the older Luca Carlevarijs, a painter of urban cityscapes. It is like Carlevaris, but you can see the sun shining in it, much of Canalettos early artwork was painted from nature, differing from the then customary practice of completing paintings in the studio. However, his paintings are notable for their accuracy, he recorded the seasonal submerging of Venice in water. Canalettos early works remain his most coveted and, according to many authorities, one of his early pieces is The Stonemasons Yard which depicts a humble working area of the city. It is regarded one of his finest works and was presented by Sir George Beaumont in 1823/8, later Canaletto painted grand scenes of the canals of Venice and the Doges Palace. His large-scale landscapes portrayed the citys pageantry and waning traditions, making use of atmospheric effects. For these qualities, his works may be said to have anticipated Impressionism and his graphic print S. A Giustina in Prà della Vale was found in the 2012 Nazi loot discovery. Many of his pictures were sold to Englishmen on their Grand Tour and it was Smith who acted as an agent for Canaletto, first in requesting paintings of Venice from the painter in the early 1720s and helping him to sell his paintings to other Englishmen. In the 1740s Canalettos market was disrupted when the War of the Austrian Succession led to a reduction in the number of British visitors to Venice and he remained in England until 1755, producing views of London and of his patrons castles and houses. His 1754 painting of Old Walton Bridge includes an image of Canaletto himself and he was often expected to paint England in the fashion with which he had painted his native city. Historian Michael Levey described his work from this period as inhibited, the artist was compelled to give public painting demonstrations in order to refute this claim, however, his reputation never fully recovered in his lifetime
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