(1736 - 1809) was a distinguished Russian painter who specialized in portraits. Fyodor Rokotov was born into a family of peasant serfs, belonging to the Repnins. Much in his biography is obscure. He studied art in Saint Petersburg Academy of Arts. After buying back his freedom in the end of 1750s he became established as a fashionable painter. In 1765, Rokotov was elected an Academician, but he did not work as a professor in the Academy long, because it interfered with his painting. He returned to Moscow in 1765, where he lived for the rest of his life. He had a lot of commissions there, becoming one of the best portrait painters of his time. Among his best-known portraits are Portrait of Alexandra Struyskaya (1772), sometimes called the Russian Mona Lisa and admittedly the most celebrated piece of the 18th-century Russian painting; Portrait of Countess Elisabeth Santi (1785), and Lady in a Pink Dress.  Related Paintings of Fyodor Rokotov :. | Emperor Paul I as a Child | Ahapeebha | Portrait of Anna Yuryevna Kvashnina-Samarina | Maria Vorontsova by Rokotov | Portrait de Nikita A. Demidoff |
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Henry Clarence Whaite
British artist, 1828-1912
Henri-Edmond Cross
(May 20, 1856 - May 16, 1910) was a French pointillist painter. Cross was born in Douai and grew up in Lille. He studied at the École des Beaux-Arts. His early works, portraits and still lifes, were in the dark colors of realism, but after meeting with Claude Monet in 1883, he painted in the brighter colors of Impressionism. In 1884, Cross co-founded the Societe des Artistes Independants with Georges Seurat. He went on to become one of the principal exponents of Neo-Impressionism. He began his Pointillist period after spending time with Paul Signac in 1904. His later works are Fauvist, perhaps influenced by his acquaintance with Henri Matisse. His final years, plagued by rheumatism, were spent in Saint-Clair[disambiguation needed ], where he died in 1910. His pieces include The Church of Santa Maria degli Angely Near Assisi (1909) and Landscape with Stars. The Allen Memorial Art Museum (Oberlin College, Ohio), the Block Museum of Art (Northwestern University, Illinois), The Art Institute of Chicago, the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, Harvard University Art Museums, the Hermitage Museum, the Honolulu Academy of Arts, Kröller-Meller Museum, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Grenoble (Grenoble, France), Musee d'Orsay (Paris), Musee Malraux (Le Havre, France), Musee Richard Anacreon (Granville, France), the Museum of Modern Art (New York City), the National Gallery of Art (Washington D.C.), New Art Gallery (Walsall, England), the Tel Aviv Museum of Art and the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum (Madrid), are among the public collections holding works by Henri-Edmond Cross.
COURTOIS, Jacques
French Baroque Era Painter, 1621-1676 was a French painter. He was born at Saint-Hippolyte, near Besançon. His father was a painter, and with him Jacques remained studying up to the age of fifteen. Towards 1637 he went to Italy, was received at Milan by a Burgundian gentleman, and entered, and for three years remained in the French military service. The sight of some battle-pictures revived his taste for fine art. He went to Bologna, and studied under the friendly tutelage of Guido Reni; thence he proceeded to Rome, where he painted, in the Cistercian monastery, the "Miracle of the Loaves." Here he took a house and after a while entered upon his own characteristic style of art, that of battle-painting, in which he has been accounted to excel all other old masters; his merits were cordially recognized by the celebrated Cerquozzi, named Michelangelo delle Battaglie. He soon rose from penury to ease, and married a painter's daughter, Maria Vagini; she died after seven years of wedded life. Prince Matthias of Tuscany employed Courtois on some striking works in his villa, Lappeggio, representing with much historical accuracy the princes military exploits. In Venice also the artist executed for the senator Sagredo some remarkable battle-pieces. In Florence he entered the Society of Jesus, taking the habit in Rome in 1655; it was calumniously rumoured that he adopted this course in order to escape punishment for having poisoned his wife. As a Jesuit Brother, Courtois painted many works in churches and monasteries of the society. He lived piously in Rome, and died there of apoplexy on 20 May 1676 (some accounts say 1670 or 1671). His battle-pieces have movement and fire, warm colouring (now too often blackened), and great command of the brush, those of moderate dimensions are the more esteemed. They are slight in execution, and tell out best from a distance.