Italian Rococo Era Painter, 1712-ca.1793 The records of his parish in Venice show that Francesco Guardi was baptized on Oct. 5, 1712. His father, Domenico, who died when Francesco was 4, had a workshop. Francesco and his elder brother, Gian Antonio, worked in a small studio, carrying out such orders as they could get for almost anything the client wanted:mythological pictures, genre, flower pieces, battle scenes, altarpieces, and even, on rare occasions, frescoes. They did not hesitate to copy compositions by other artists, but what they borrowed they always transformed into something more capricious, less stable, more fragmentary in the refraction of light. Francesco did not emerge as an independent personality until 1760, when his brother died. Then, 48 years old, he married, established his own studio, and devoted himself chiefly to painting views of Venice. For the most part he worked in obscurity, ignored by his contemporaries. He was not even admitted to the Venetian Academy until he was 72 years old. Guardi and Canaletto have always been compared to one another because the buildings they chose to paint were often the same. But the way each artist painted them is very different. Canaletto's world is constructed out of line. It provides solid, carefully drawn, three-dimensional objects that exist within logically constructed three-dimensional space. Guardi's world is constructed out of color and light. The objects in it become weightless in the light's shimmer and dissolve in a welter of brushstrokes; the space, like the forms in space, is suggested rather than described. Canaletto belonged essentially to the Renaissance tradition that began with Giotto and, as it grew progressively tighter and more controlled, pointed the way to neoclassicism. Guardi belonged to the new baroque tradition that grew out of the late style of Titian and, as it became progressively looser and freer, pointed the way toward impressionism. Such differences appear even in Guardi's early view paintings, where he was obviously trying to copy Canaletto, such as the Basin of San Marco. The famous buildings are there, but they are far in the background, insubstantial, seeming to float. In front is a fleet of fishing boats, their curving spars seeming to dance across the surface of the canvas. What is important for Guardi is not perspective but the changing clouds and the way the light falls on the lagoon. Guardi became increasingly fascinated by the water that surrounds Venice. In late works, such as the famous Lagoon with Gondola, buildings and people have been stripped away until there is nothing but the suggestion of a thin line of distant wharfs, a few strokes to indicate one man on a gondola, a long unbroken stretch of still water, and a cloudless sky. Guardi also painted the festivals that so delighted visitors to the city, such as the Marriage of Venice to the Sea. This was a symbolic ceremony in which the doge, in the great gilded galley of the head of state, surrounded by a thousand gondolas, appeared before all Venice, in Goethe's image, "raised up like the Host in a monstrance." Of all Guardi's paintings the most evocative are his caprices, the landscapes born out of his imagination though suggested by the ruined buildings on the lonely islands of the Venetian lagoon. A gentle melancholy clings to such scenes.   Related Paintings of GUARDI, Francesco :. | Piazza San Marco sdgh | The Grand Canal with San Simeone Piccolo and Santa Lucia sdg | Gondola | The Grand Canal with Santa Lucia and the Scalzi dfh | The Doge on the Bucentaur at San Niccol del Lido dfh |
Related Artists:
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.
Prout, Samuel
English Painter, 1783-1852 Painter, draughtsman and writer. Together with his fellow pupil Benjamin Robert Haydon, Prout was encouraged to study drawing by the headmaster of his grammar school in Plymouth. In 1801 he met the topographer and antiquarian John Britton, who, impressed with his work, invited him to London the following year to make drawings of antiquarian subjects and copy works of other artists, including Thomas Hearne, William Alexander and J. M. W. Turner.
Henry Raschen
1854-1937