1853-1918 Swiss Ferdinand Hodler Galleries Hodler was born in Berne and grew up in poverty. His father, Jean Hodler, made a meager living as a carpenter; his mother, Marguerite (n??e Neukomm), was from a peasant family. By the time Hodler was eight years old, he had lost his father and two younger brothers to tuberculosis. His mother remarried to a decorative painter, but in 1867 she too died of tuberculosis. Before he was ten, Hodler received training in decorative painting from his stepfather, and was subsequently sent to Thun to apprentice with a local painter, Ferdinand Sommer. Hodler's earliest works were conventional landscapes, which he sold in shops and to tourists. In 1871, at the age of 18, he traveled on foot to Geneva to start a career as a painter. The works of Hodler's early maturity consisted of landscapes, figure compositions and portraits, treated with a vigorous realism. He made a trip to Basel in 1875, where he studied the paintings of Hans Holbein??especially Dead Christ in the Tomb, which influenced Hodler's many treatments of the theme of death. In the last decade of the 19th century his work evolved to combine influences from several genres including symbolism and art nouveau. He developed a style which he called Parallelism, characterized by groupings of figures symmetrically arranged in poses suggesting ritual or dance. In 1884 Hodler met Augustine Dupin (1852?C1909), who became his companion and model for the next several years. Their son, Hector Hodler, was born in 1887. In 1889 Hodler married Bertha Stucki; they were divorced in 1891. Hodler's work in his final phase took on an expressionist aspect with strongly coloured and geometrical figures. Landscapes were pared down to essentials, sometimes consisting of a jagged wedge of land between water and sky. However, the most famous of Hodler's paintings portray scenes in which characters are engaged in everyday activities, such as the famous woodcutter (Der Holzfaller, Mus??e d'Orsay, Paris). This picture went on to appear on the back of the 50 Swiss Franc bank note issued by the Swiss National Bank. In 1898, Hodler married Berthe Jacques. In 1914 he condemned the German atrocities conducted using artillery at Rheims. In retaliation for this, German art museums excluded Hodler's work. In 1908 he met Valentine Gode-Darel, who became his mistress. She was diagnosed with cancer in 1913, and the many hours Hodler spent by her bedside resulted in a remarkable series of paintings documenting her disintegration. Her death in January 1915 affected Hodler greatly. He occupied himself with work; a series of about 20 introspective self-portraits date from 1916. By late 1917 his declining health led him to thoughts of suicide. He died on May 19, 1918 in Geneva leaving behind a number of unfinished works portraying the city.  Related Paintings of Ferdinand Hodler :. | Surprised by the Storm | Genfersee mit Mont-Blanc im Morgenlicht | lake thun and the stockhorn mountains | Thunersee mit Niesen | The fir tree |
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Georgios Jakobides
Lesbos 11 January 1853 - Athens 13 December 1932) was a Greek painter and one of the main representatives of the Greek artistic movement of the Munich School. He founded and was the first curator of the National Gallery of Greece in Athens. His first education was in Izmir, Turkey. From 1870 to 1876 Jakobides studied sculpture and painting at the Athens School of Fine Arts, and in 1877 he went to the Akademie der Bildenden Kenste in Munich on a scholarship to continue his painting studies under Karl Theodor von Piloty. In Munich he lived for 17 years where he worked in his studio, painting mythological scenes, genre pictures, and portraits. His work is influenced by German academic Realism, his most famous paintings were of children. In the capital of Bavaria he was regarded as a successful German artist selling many of his works at high prices. The Greek government invited him in 1900 to return to Athens to organize the National Gallery of Athens, and in 1904 he was appointed Director of the Athens School of Fine Arts where he taught for 25 years. At this time, additional to his themes he produced formal portraits of eminent Greeks (e.g.Queen Sophia). He opposed all new artistic tendencies, including Impressionism and Expressionism, but supported younger artists to follow their own individual artistic tendencies. He was given awards at five international exhibhits: among those in Berlin 1891 and in Paris 1900.
ALBERTINELLI Mariotto
Italian Early Renaissance Painter, 1474-1515 Italian painter. Albertinelli's contribution to the Florentine High Renaissance was inspired by the work of FRA BARTOLOMMEO, and the two artists worked together in a partnership, their paintings appearing to be the product of a single hand. Albertinelli, however, always retained artistic independence, as is revealed in certain paintings that are eccentrically archaic and in others that show a preference for conventions more typical of the early Renaissance.
Giuseppe Recco
(1634 - 29 May 1695) was a still life Italian painter. Born in Naples, he likely apprenticed with his family, including his father Giacomo Recco and uncle Giovan Battista Recco. His children both son Nicolo and daughter Elena were also painters. A large part of his output was painted in Spain, where his assemblies of victuals, both vegetable and animal, were popular. It is claimed he was influenced by the neapolitan Giovanni Battista Ruoppolo. Recco died at Alicante, Spain.