The Mystical Artist Whose Paintings Kickstarted The Dutch Renaissance
Hieronymus Bosch, considered one of the greatest artists of the Northern Renaissance, is known for creating restlessly imaginative works rich in religious symbolism, allegory, and fantastical elements depicted in bustling scenes across expansive compositions.
The Man Who Inspired Picasso: Who Was The Real Cézanne?
Cézanne associated with the Impressionists, but always had other aims. He said that his ambition was to 'make of Impressionism something solid and durable like the art of museums'. Cézanne's work was discovered by the Paris avant-garde during the 1890s. It had a significant influence on Picasso and the development of 20th-century art, but it wasn't until his final years did Cézanne's art reach the "promised land".
How Courbet's Realism Paved The Way For The Impressionists
Gustave Courbet was the founding father of the politically-motivated Realism movement, which revolutionized European painting. He paved the way for the Impressionists and ultimately the birth of modern art. Gustave Courbet is widely renowned as one of France's greatest painters ever.
The French Enigma Who Led The School Of Romantic Painters
Eugène Delacroix was a French Romantic artist regarded from the outset of his career as the leader of the French Romantic school. Delacroix took for his inspiration the art of Rubens and painters of the Venetian Renaissance, with an attendant emphasis on colour and movement rather than clarity of outline and carefully modelled form.
Caspar Friedrich: The Master Of Romantic Landscape Paintings
Caspar David Friedrich changed the face of landscape paintings with his intense and emotional focus on nature, and became a key member of the Romantic movement.
The Life Of Paul Gauguin: From Fraught Friendships To French Polynesia - The story of Gauguin’s life is a tale of wandering. For many years he seeked something that could never be found. Born in Paris in 1848, Gauguin slipped out of his role as a stock broker to a life of painting, resulting in the break up of his marriage and years of artistic exploration, from Martinique with Charles Laval to Arles with Vincent Van Gogh.
Goya: The Romantic Pioneer Whose Paintings Took A Dark Turn
Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes is regarded as the most important Spanish artist of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Over the course of his long career, Goya moved from jolly and lighthearted to deeply pessimistic paintings. But why?
How Impressionism's Most Controversial Artist Craved Notoriety
Known as one of the most controversial artists in his time, Édouard Manet has risen above his detractors to prove his genuine talent that is worthy of emulation. With several paintings that have inspired young artists during that era, he revealed how innovation is not always welcomed by the society, but it is one's gateway to the future. Discover the man who have lived through numerous criticisms to bring himself at the pinnacle of is success.
The Rise & Rapid Fall Of The Most Prominent Pre-Raphaelite
Dante Gabriel Rossetti was an English painter and poet who came from a remarkable and talented family: his father was an exiled Italian patriot, his sister the poet Christina Rossetti, and his brother the critic William Michael Rossetti. Growing up in modest circumstances but a strongly literary environment, he at first found it hard to decide whether he should devote himself to poetry or painting. He later merged the two formats and found a rebellious group of fellow painters angered by the standards at high-end London art schools, forging a ground-breaking artistic career.
How Self-Taught Rousseau Rose To Fame Painting Paris Zoo
Celebrated as being one of the best naive artists, Henri Rousseau's best-known works are lush jungle scenes, inspired not by any firsthand experiences of such far-away places, but by frequent trips to the Paris gardens and zoo as the artist never actually left France.
How Religion Shaped Rubens Into One Of History's Best Painters
Peter Paul Rubens was a prolific seventeenth-century Flemish Baroque painter, and a proponent of an exuberant Baroque style. Not only was he an enormously successful painter whose workshop produced a staggering number of works; but he also played an important diplomatic role in 17th-century European politics.
Van Gogh's Life Of Struggle: How Vincent Never Saw His Success
Who was the real Vincent Van Gogh? In this complete profile on the life of Vincent Willem van Gogh, we discover the Dutch Post-Impressionist painter who posthumously became one of the most famous and influential figures in Western art history. In a decade, he created about 2,100 artworks, including around 860 oil paintings, most of which date from the last two years of his life.
The Master Of Light: How Vermeer's Intimate Scenes Made Him An Icon
With Rembrandt and Frans Hals, Johannes Vermeer ranks among the most admired of all Dutch artists, but he was much less well known in his own time period and remained relatively obscure until the end of the nineteenth century, hundreds of years later. His painting, "Girl With A Pearl Earring", is arguably Vermeer's most widely seen work—and one of the most famous paintings ever created.
The American Artist Who Introduced French Painting To Britain
James Abbott McNeill Whistler was an American artist, active during the American Gilded Age and based primarily in the United Kingdom. He was averse to sentimentality and moral allusion in painting, and was a leading proponent of the credo "art for art's sake". Whistler influenced the art world and the broader culture of his time with his artistic theories and his friendships with leading artists and writers. His combative public persona juxtaposed his artistic delicacy, and his court case with John Ruskin over copyright claims captivated the London Press.