1824-1898 French Pierre Puvis de Chavannes Art Galleries Born in Lyons on Dec. 14, 1824, Pierre Puvis de Chavannes belonged to the generation of Gustave Courbet and ??douard Manet, and he was fully aware of their revolutionary achievements. Nevertheless, he was drawn to a more traditional and conservative style. From his first involvement with art, which began after a trip to Italy and which interrupted his intention to follow the engineering profession that his father practiced, Puvis pursued his career within the scope of academic classicism and the Salon. Even in this chosen arena, however, he was rejected, particularly during the 1850s. But he gradually won acceptance. By the 1880s he was an established figure in the Salons, and by the 1890s he was their acknowledged master. In both personal and artistic ways Puvis career was closely linked with the avant-grade. In the years of his growing public recognition, when he began to serve on Salon juries, he was consistently sympathetic to the work of younger, more radical artists. Later, as president of the Societe Nationale des Beaux-Arts - the new Salon, as it was called - he was able to exert even more of a liberalizing influence on the important annual exhibitions. Puvis sympathy to new and radical artistic directions was reflected in his own painting. Superficially he was a classicist, but his personal interpretation of that style was unconventional. His subject matter - religious themes, allegories, mythologies, and historical events - was clearly in keeping with the academic tradition. But his style eclipsed his outdated subjects: he characteristically worked with broad, simple compositions, and he resisted the dry photographic realism which had begun to typify academic painting about the end of the century. In addition, the space and figures in his paintings inclined toward flatness, calling attention to the surface on which the images were depicted. These qualities gave his work a modern, abstract look and distinguished it from the sterile tradition to which it might otherwise have been linked. Along with their modern, formal properties, Puvis paintings exhibited a serene and poetic range of feeling. His figures frequently seem to be wrapped in an aura of ritualistic mystery, as though they belong in a private world of dreams or visions. Yet these feelings invariably seem fresh and sincere. This combination of form and feeling deeply appealed to certain avant-garde artists of the 1880s and 1890s. Although Puvis claimed he was neither radical nor revolutionary, he was admired by the symbolist poets, writers, and painters - including Paul Gauguin and Maurice Denis - and he influenced the neoimpressionist painter Georges Seurat. During his mature career Puvis executed many mural paintings. In Paris he did the Life of St. Genevieve (1874-1878) in the Panth??on and Science, Art, and Letters (1880s) in the Sorbonne. In Lyons he executed the Sacred Grove, the Antique Vision, and Christian Inspiration (1880s) in the Mus??e des Beaux-Arts. He painted Pastoral Poetry (1895-1898) in the Boston Public Library. These commissions reflect the high esteem with which Puvis was regarded during his own lifetime. Among his most celebrated oil paintings are Hope (1872) and the Poor Fisherman (1881). He died in Paris on Oct. 10, 1898.  Related Paintings of Pierre Puvis de Chavannes :. | Maria Magdalena in der Wuste | Magdalena | The Beheading of Saint John the Baptist | The Poor Fisheman | Musee de Picardie. cliche H.Maertens |
Related Artists:
Bicknell, Frank Alfred
American, 1866-1943
carl kylberg
Carl Oscar Kylberg, född 23 september 1878 på Vasängen i Fridene församling, död 6 januari 1952 i Stockholm, svensk konstnär och representant för Göteborgskoloristerna. Carl Kylberg var son till kontorschef Gustaf Kylberg och friherrinnan Eleonora von Essen och storebror till konstnären Erik Kylberg. Hans fastrar och farbror var konstnärerna Regina Kylberg-Bobeck, Marina Kylberg och Hjalmar Kylberg. Farfadern Lars Wilhelm Kylberg var konstnär vid sidan av lantbruket på familjegodset Såtenäs i Västergötland. Kylberg studerade först vid tekniska skolan i Stockholm och i Berlin för att bli arkitekt men övergick till måleri omkring 1900. Han studerade under en tid vid Valand i Göteborg som elev till Carl Wilhelmson. Hans verk kännetecknas ofta av ett glödande oljemåleri med starka färger och han avbildade ofta landskap och figurkompositioner på ett avskalat man??r. Under senare delen av sitt konstnärskap skapade han en mängd religiösa motiv. Kring 1930-talet fick han sitt genombrott och han kom att ställa ut, förutom i Sverige även i Köpenhamn, Paris, London, Budapest och i USA men hans måleri var för många provocerande och 1938 gick regeringen in och stoppade ett köp av målningen Uppbrottet för Nationalmuseum i Stockholm. En av hans mest välkända målningar är Hemkomsten från 1938 som hänger på Göteborgs konstmuseum och som föreställer ett skepp i silhuett mot en nästan brinnande gul himmel och ett rödfärgat hav. Denna målning förevigades också 1978 på ett svenskt frimärke av valören 90 öre. Sedan 1980-talet har många av hans tavlor sålts för rekordpriser vid olika internationella konstauktioner.
Casilear John William
American Hudson River School Painter, 1811-1893 was an American landscape artist belonging to the Hudson River School. Casilear was born in New York City. His first professional training was under prominent New York engraver Peter Maverick in the 1820s, then with Asher Durand, himself an engraver at the time. Casilear and Durand became friends, and both worked as engravers in New York through the 1830s. By the middle 1830s Durand had become interested in landscape painting through his friendship with Thomas Cole. Durand, in turn, drew Casilear's attention to painting. By 1840 Casilear's interest in art was sufficiently strong to accompany Durand, John Frederick Kensett, and artist Thomas P. Rossiter on a European trip during which they sketched scenes, visited art museums, and fostered their interest in painting. Casilear gradually developed his talent in landscape art, painting in the style that was later to become known as the Hudson River School. By the middle 1850s he had entirely ceased his engraving career in favor of painting full-time. He was elected a full member of the National Academy of Design in 1851, having been an associate member since 1831