American Painter, 1869-1941 was an American Impressionist painter. Born in Baltimore, the Paxton family came to Newton Corner in the mid-1870s, where William's father James established himself as a caterer. At 18, William won a scholarship to attend the Cowles Art School, where he began his art studies with Dennis Miller Bunker. Later he studied with Jean-L??on G??rôme in Paris and, on his return to Boston, with Joseph DeCamp at Cowles. There he met his future wife Elizabeth Okie, who also was studying with DeCamp. After their marriage, William and Elizabeth lived with his parents at 43 Elmwood Street, and later bought a house at 19 Montvale Road in Newton Centre. Paxton, who is best known as a portrait painter, taught at the Museum School from 1906 to 1913. Along with other well known artists of the era, including Edmund Charles Tarbell and Frank Benson, he is identified with the Boston School. Like many of his Boston colleagues, Paxton found inspiration in the work of the seventeenth-century Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer. Paxton was fascinated not only with Vermeer's imagery, but also with the system of optics he employed. He studied Vermeer's works closely, and discovered that only one area in his compositions was entirely in focus, while the rest were somewhat blurred. Paxton ascribed this peculiarity to "binocular vision," crediting Vermeer with recording the slightly different point of view of each individual eye that combine in human sight. He began to employ this system in his own work, including The New Necklace, where only the gold beads are sharply defined while the rest of the objects in the composition have softer, blurrier edges.   Related Paintings of Paxton, William McGregor :. | Reverie | The Croquet Players | The Album | The Other Room | Portrait of Enid Hallin |
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Samuel Finley Breese Morse
1791-1872 Samuel F.B. Morse was born on April 27, 1791 in Charlestown, Massachusetts, the first child of geographer and Pastor Jedidiah Morse (1761-1826) and Elizabeth Ann Breese (1766-1828). Jedidiah was a great preacher of the Calvinist faith and supporter of the American Federalist party. He not only saw it as a great preserver of Puritan traditions (strict observance of the Sabbath), but believed in its idea of an alliance with English in regards to a strong central government. Jedidiah strongly believed in education within a Federalist framework alongside the instillation of Calvinist virtues, morals and prayers for his son. After attending Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, Samuel Morse went on to Yale College to receive instruction in the subjects of religious philosophy, mathematics and science of horses. While at Yale, he attended lectures on electricity from Benjamin Silliman and Jeremiah Day. He earned money by painting. In 1810, he graduated from Yale. Morse's Calvinist beliefs are evident in his painting the Landing of the Pilgrims, through the depiction of simplistic clothing as well as the austere facial features. This image captured the psychology of the Federalists; Calvinists from England brought to the United States ideas of religion and government thus forever linking the two countries. More importantly, this particular work attracted the attention of the famous artist, Washington Allston. Allston wanted Morse to accompany him to England to meet the artist Benjamin West. An agreement for a three- year stay was made with Jedidah, and young Morse set sail with Allston aboard the Lydia on July 15, 1811 (1). Upon his arrival in England, Morse diligently worked at perfecting painting techniques under the watchful eye of Allston; by the end of 1811, he gained admittance to the Royal Academy. At the Academy, he fell in love with the Neo-classical art of the Renaissance and paid close attention to Michelangelo and Raphael. After observing and practicing life drawing and absorbing its anatomical demands, the young artist successfully produced his masterpiece, the Dying Hercules. To some, the Dying Hercules seemed to represent a political statement against the British and also the American Federalists. The muscles apparently symbolized the strength of the young and vibrant United States versus the British and British-American supporters. During Morse??s time in Britain the Americans and English were engaged in the War of 1812 and division existed within United States society over loyalties. Anti-Federalists Americans aligned themselves with the French, abhorred the British, and believed a strong central government to be inherently dangerous to democracy.(3) As the war raged on, his letters to his parents became more anti-Federalist in their tones. In one such letter Morse said, "I assert that the Federalists in the Northern States have done more injury to their country by their violent opposition measures than a French alliance could. Their proceedings are copied into the English papers, read before Parliament, and circulated through their country, and what do they say of them... they call them (Federalists) cowards, a base set, say they are traitors to their country and ought to be hanged like traitors."
John Samuel Raven
(1829-1877) was an English landscape painter. Raven was born in Suffolk in 21 Aug. 1829. He was the son of the Rev. Thomas Raven, a clergyman of the Church of England, who had considerable talent as an amateur artist, as may be seen from six water-colour drawings by him in the South Kensington Museum. John Raven was, however, almost entirely self-taught, initially by studying the works of John Crome and John Constable. He exhibited at the Academy as early as 1845, and his works also appeared at the British Institution. This part of his career was focused on views of the area where he lived, near St. Leonards[disambiguation needed]. He at first fell under the influence of the Norwich school, but his maturer works, which show much poetic feeling, bear traces of pre-Raphaelitism. It was his custom to prepare elaborate cartoons for his pictures. He was drowned while bathing at Harlech in 13 June 1877. He married Margaret Sinclair Dunbar in 1869.
Charles Angrand
French Pointillist Painter, 1854-1926.French painter. He was trained at the Acad?mie de Peinture et de Dessin in Rouen, where he won prizes. Although he failed to gain entry to the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris, Angrand began to win a controversial local reputation for canvases in a loosely Impressionist manner. In 1882 he secured a post as a schoolteacher at the Coll?ge Chaptal in Paris. With this security he was able to make contacts in progressive artistic circles, and in 1884 he became a founder-member of the Salon des Ind?pendants. His paintings of this period depict rural interiors and kitchen gardens, combining the broken brushwork of Monet and Camille Pissarro with the tonal structure of Bastien-Lepage (e.g. In the Garden, 1884; priv. col., see 1979 exh. cat., p. 27).