1771-1835 French Baron Antoine-Jean Gros Galleries The son of a painter, Antoine Jean Gros was born in Paris on March 16, 1771. At the age of 14 he entered the studio of Jacques Louis David, the acknowledged leader of the classical revival. Although his own work became radically different from David's, he maintained a lifelong respect for his teacher and envisioned himself as the upholder of the Davidian tradition. In 1787 Gros entered the Acad??mie de Peinture, and when the Acad??mie dissolved in 1793 (a result of the French Revolution) he went to Italy. He met Josephine Bonaparte in Genoa in 1796, and she introduced him to Napoleonic society. Gros entered Napoleon's immediate entourage and accompanied him on several north Italian campaigns. Gros also became involved with Napoleon's program of confiscating Italian art for removal to France. Gros returned to Paris in 1800 and began to show his Napoleonic paintings in the annual Salons. The most famous of these are the Pesthouse at Jaffa (1804) and Napoleon at Eylau (1808). These works served to deify Napoleon, showing him engaged in acts of heroism and mercy. Stylistically, the paintings were revolutionary:their exotic settings, rich color, agitated space, and general penchant for showing the gruesome specifics of war and suffering differed radically from the cool generalizations of Davidian classicism that Gros had learned as a student. The presentation of contemporary historical events was also new, a harbinger of the realism that developed steadily during the first half of the 19th century in French, American, and English painting. Finally, the emphatic emotionalism of Gros's art established the foundation of romantic painting that Th??odore G??ricault and Eug??ne Delacroix developed after him. Unlike that of some of his countrymen (David is a case in point), Gros's position did not suffer after the fall of Napoleon. Gros painted for the restored monarchy, for instance, Louis XVIII Leaving the Tuileries (1817), and he decorated the dome of the Panth??on in Paris with scenes of French history (1814-1824). For this Charles X made him a baron in 1824. But these works lack the zest and commitment of Gros's Napoleonic period, perhaps because they were not based on the immediate kinds of historical experiences that had inspired the earlier paintings. Although marked by considerable public success, Gros's later career was in many ways acutely troubled. Basically, he could not resolve his personal esthetic theories with his own painting or with the work of his younger contemporaries. To the end Gros wished to propagate the classicism of David, and he took over David's studio when the master was exiled in 1816. By the 1820s, however, the revolutionary romanticism of G??ricault and Delacroix, among others, had clearly begun to eclipse classicism, and Gros found himself fighting a lonely and losing battle for conservatism. Ironically, he was fighting a trend that his own best work had helped to originate. As he persisted, moreover, his own painting began to show a diffident mixture of classic and romantic attitudes. Thus, while he was inherently a romantic, he tragically came to doubt himself. Gros died on June 26, 1835, apparently a suicide.  Related Paintings of Baron Antoine-Jean Gros :. | Napoleon auf dem Schlachtfeld von Preubisch-Eylau | Bonaparte on the Bridge at Arcola on 17 November 1796 (mk05) | Arab Guards on the Watch | Charlotte | Bonaparte At Arcole |
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Henry Clarence Whaite
British artist, 1828-1912
Otto Muller
1874-1930 was a German painter and printmaker of the Die Br??cke expressionist movement. Otto Mueller was born in Liebau (now Lubawka, Kamienna G??ra County), Kreis Landeshut, German Silesia. Between 1890-1892 he was trained in lithography in Görlitz and Breslau. From 1894 to 1896 he studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Dresden and continued his study in Munich 1898. He left Munich's academy after Franz von Stuck classified him as untalented. His early works are influenced by impressionism, Jugendstil and symbolism. When he settled to Berlin in 1908, he turned more and more to the expressionism. During this time there were meetings with Wilhelm Lehmbruck, Rainer Maria Rilke and Erich Heckel. In 1910, he joined 'Die Br??cke', a Dresden-based group of Expressionist artists. He was member of the group until it disbanded in 1913 due to artistic differences. At the same time Mueller also had contact with the artists group of the 'Blaue Reiter'. During the World War I he fought as a German soldier in France and Russia. After the war he became professor at the academy of arts (Akademie der Bildenden Kunste) in Breslau where he taught until his death on September 24, 1930. Johnny Friedlaender and Isidor Ascheim were among his pupils there. Altogether his printmaking amounted to 172 prints, in woodcut, etching and lithography. In 1937 the Nazis seized 357 of his works from German museums, since the pictures were considered as degenerate art. Mueller was one of the most lyrical of German expressionist painters. The central topic in Mueller's works is the unity of humans and nature, whereas his paintings are focused on a harmonious simplification of form, colour and contours.
VROOM, Hendrick Cornelisz.
Dutch Baroque Era Painter, ca.1563-1640. He was one of the founders of Dutch marine painting. Painter and draughtsman. By his own account, he received his early training in Delft, home of his mother's family. Van Mander reports that Hendrick's stepfather, like his father a ceramic artist, forced him to work as a decorator of ceramic vessels, which caused the young artist to leave home and embark on extensive travels in Spain and Italy. After working for ecclesiastical patrons in Florence and Rome, he was employed for at least two years (c. 1585-7) by Cardinal Ferdinando de' Medici, who in October 1587 succeeded Francesco I as Grand Duke of Tuscany. Ferdinando's keen interest in ships and the navy seems to have been a determining factor in Vroom's choice of subject-matter. According to Lanzi, he was known in Rome as 'Lo Spagnolo' (since he had arrived there from Spain). Among his earliest works may be a group of marine paintings attributed to him (Rome, Villa Colonna). His friendship in Rome with Paul Bril, mentioned by van Mander, had no effect on Hendrick's painting style, but Bril's influence is discernible in a group of landscape drawings