b.Jan. 8, 1836, Dronrijp, Netherlands. d.June 25, 1912, Wiesbaden, Germany. Painter and designer of Dutch birth. The son of a notary, Alma-Tadema demonstrated an early artistic ability. In 1852 he entered the Antwerp Academy, where he studied under Gustaf, Baron Wappers, and Nicaise de Keyser. An important influence at this time was Louis De Taye, Professor of Archaeology at the academy and a practising artist. Alma-Tadema lived and worked with De Taye from 1857 to 1859 and was encouraged by him to depict subjects from the early history of France and Belgium. This taste for historical themes increased when Alma-Tadema entered Baron Henri Leys studio in 1859 and began assisting him with his monumental frescoes for the Antwerp Town Hall. While in Leys studio, Alma-Tadema produced several major paintings, for example the Education of the Children of Clovis (1861; ex-Sir John Pender priv. col., see Zimmern, p. 3) and Venantius Fortunatus Reading his Poems to Radagonda (1862; Dordrecht, Dordrechts Mus.), which are characterized by their obscure Merovingian subject-matter, rather sombre colouring and close attention to detail.  Related Paintings of Alma-Tadema, Sir Lawrence :. | In a Rose Garden (mk23) | Cleopatra at the Temple of Isis at Philae (mk23) | Joseph Overseer of Pharoah's Granaries (mk24) | Comparisons (mk24) | Leaving Church in the Fifteenth Century (mk23) |
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Arnold Bocklin
Swiss 1827-1901 Arnold Bocklin Locations Arnold Bocklin was born on Oct. 16, 1827, in Basel. He attended the Dusseldorf Academy (1845-1847). At this time he painted scenes of the Swiss Alps, using light effects and dramatic views subjectively to project emotional moods into the landscape. In 1848 this romantic introspection gave way to plein air (open-air) objectivity after he was influenced by Camille Corot, Eugene Delacroix, and the painters of the Barbizon school while on a trip to Paris. But after the February and June revolutions Bocklin returned to Basel with a lasting hatred and disgust for contemporary France, and he resumed painting gloomy mountain scenes. In 1850 Bocklin found his mecca in Rome, and immediately his paintings were flooded by the warm Italian sunlight. He populated the lush southern vegetation, the bright light of the Roman Campagna, and the ancient ruins with lonely shepherds, cavorting nymphs, and lusty centaurs. These mythological figures rather than the landscapes became Bocklins primary concern, and he used such themes as Pan Pursuing Syrinx (1857) to express the polarities of life: warm sunshine contrasts with cool, moist shade, and the brightness of womans spirituality contrasts with mans dark sensuality. When Bocklin returned to Basel with his Italian wife, he completed the painting which brought him fame when the king of Bavaria purchased it in 1858: Pan among the Reeds, a depiction of the Greek phallic god with whom the artist identified. He taught at the Academy of Art in Weimar from 1860 to 1862, when he returned to Rome. Called to Basel in 1866, he painted the frescoes and modeled the grotesque masks for the facade of the Basel Museum. Bocklin resided in Florence from 1874 until 1885, and this was his most active period. He continued to explore the male-female antithesis and painted religious scenes, allegories of Natures powers, and moody studies of mans fate. He ceased working with oils and began experimenting with tempera and other media to obtain a pictorial surface free of brushstrokes. Bocklin spent the next 7 years mostly in Switzerland, with occasional trips to Italy; he devoted much of his energy to designing an airplane. Following a stroke in 1892, he returned to Italy, bought a villa in Fiesole, and died there on Jan. 16, 1901. Many of his late works depict nightmares of war, plague, and death.
Ignacio Pinazo
1849-1916 He came from a poor family and in his youth worked as a silversmith, gilder, tile painter and hatter. This experience encouraged an independent spirit unencumbered by academic doctrine. He did, however, attend the Escuela de Bellas Artes in Valencia while working as a hatter, studying colour and composition, life drawing and drawing from the Antique (1868-9). In 1870 he started to devote himself wholly to painting. His early works include several portraits. A series of stays in Italy were important for Pinazo's development. The first of these took place in 1873, when he spent seven months visiting Rome, Naples and Venice and became familiar with the work of Mariano Jos? Bernardo Fortuny y Marsal, whose influence can be seen in Pinazo's small-scale landscapes on panel . Soon, however, his work came to resemble that of the impressionistic Italian painters, the Macchiaioli, as in Pinazo's brightly coloured Wheat-field. His second stay in Italy began in 1877 with an award for his large history painting, Landing of Francis I of France in Valencia
William Henry Pyne
English Painter, 1769-1843 English painter, illustrator and writer. He trained at the drawing academy of Henry Pars (c. 1733-1806) in London and first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1790. His drawings were almost always pen, ink and colour wash (e.g. Gossip at the Cottage Door, 1794; London, BM). His most characteristic works are the illustrations for the books Microcosm (1803-8) and The Costume of Great Britain (1808) in which he successfully placed groups of well-observed characters in picturesque settings. Pyne had been a founder of the Old Water-Colour Society in 1804 but resigned in 1809 when it refused to increase its membership to greater than 24 artists.