Austrian Art Nouveau Painter, 1862-1918 Gustav Klimt (July 14, 1862 ?C February 6, 1918) was an Austrian Symbolist painter and one of the most prominent members of the Vienna Art Nouveau (Vienna Secession) movement. His major works include paintings, murals, sketches, and other art objects, many of which are on display in the Vienna Secession gallery. Klimt's primary subject was the female body, and his works are marked by a frank eroticism--nowhere is this more apparent than in his numerous drawings in pencil. Klimt's work is distinguished by the elegant gold or coloured decoration, often of a phallic shape that conceals the more erotic positions of the drawings upon which many of his paintings are based. This can be seen in Judith I (1901), and in The Kiss (1907?C1908), and especially in Danaë (1907). One of the most common themes Klimt utilized was that of the dominant woman, the femme fatale. Art historians note an eclectic range of influences contributing to Klimt's distinct style, including Egyptian, Minoan, Classical Greek, and Byzantine inspirations. Klimt was also inspired by the engravings of Albrecht D??rer, late medieval European painting, and Japanese Rimpa school. His mature works are characterized by a rejection of earlier naturalistic styles, and make use of symbols or symbolic elements to convey psychological ideas and emphasize the "freedom" of art from traditional culture.  Related Paintings of Gustav Klimt :. | Church at Unterach on Lake Atter (mk20) | Castle with a Moat | Tragedy | Farm Garden with Sunflowers (mk20) | Lady with cape and Hat (mk20) |
Related Artists:
Robert Havell Jr Prints
1793-1878 Engraver and painter, cousin of William Havell. He learnt the art of aquatint engraving from his father, Robert Havell I. He worked first in the family engraving business and then c. 1825-7 with Colnaghi in London. In 1827 he undertook the execution in aquatint of the plates for John James Audubon Birds of America, published in parts in London between 1827 and 1838. Havell engraved 425 of the plates and reworked the ten that had been engraved by William Home Lizars in Edinburgh. Havell father printed and coloured some of the double elephant folio sheets in 1827-8 after which Havell took on those tasks himself, establishing himself as a master of aquatint. Among his other important works in the medium are the plates for Mrs E. Bury Selection of Hexandrian Plants (London, 1831-4). In 1839, at Audubon invitation, Havell moved with his family to New York and embarked on a new career as a landscape painter in the style of the Hudson River school, while also working as an engraver. He settled in the Hudson River villages of Ossining (1841) and Tarrytown (1857) but painted throughout north-eastern America. View of Deerfield, Massachusetts (1847; Hist. Deerfield, MA) is characteristic of his quietly romantic idealization of his subjects. Niagara Falls from the Chinese Pagoda (1845; New York, Pub. Lib.), engraved by Havell after one of his paintings, is among the best known of his American aquatints. Though his reputation rests largely on his work for Audubon, his original subjects gave him greater opportunities to display the full range of his aquatint technique. Part of the Havell family
MIGNARD, Pierre
French Baroque Era Painter , b. 1612, Troyes, d. 1695, Paris called "Le Romain" to distinguish him from his brother Nicolas, was a French painter. He was born at Troyes, and came of a family of artists; he also needs to be distinguished from his nephew Pierre (1640-1725), often called "Pierre II" or "Le Chevalier". In 1630 he left the studio of Simon Vouet for Italy, where he spent twenty-two years, and made a reputation which brought him a summons to Paris. Successful with his portrait of the king, and in favour with the court, Mignard pitted himself against Le Brun, declined to enter the Academy of which he was the head, and made himself the centre of opposition to its authority. The history of this struggle is most important, because it was identical, as long as it lasted, with that between the old gilds of France and the new body which Colbert, for political reasons, was determined to support. Portrait of Louise de Kerouaille, Duchess of PortsmouthShut out, in spite of the deserved success of his decorations of the cupola of Val de Grace (1664), from any great share in those public works, the control of which was the attribute of the new Academy, Mignard was chiefly active in portraiture. Turenne, Moliere, Bossuet, Maintenon (Louvre), La Valliere, Sevigne, Montespan, Descartes (Castle Howard), all the beauties and celebrities of his day, sat to him. His readiness and skill, his happy instinct for grace of arrangement,
Antonio Ponce
Spanish, 1608-1662,Spanish painter. He had an undistinguished career in Madrid as a painter of still-lifes and flower-pieces. In 1624 Ponce was apprenticed to Juan van der Hamen y Leen, whose niece he married in 1628. The format of Ponce's compositions and some of his motifs derive from works by van der Hamen, though lacking their subtlety of composition, spatial clarity and formal conviction. In Vase of Flowers, signed and dated 1650 (Strasbourg, Mus. B.-A.), Ponce's style shows laboured imitation of van der Hamen's: his dry execution results in a paradoxically airless and petrified quality. Ponce was always a derivative artist, and some of his still-lifes with seasonal themes are similar to works by Francisco de Barrera, another modest painter with whom he was documented in the 1630s. Paintings from the 1640s and 1650s depicting baskets of fruit and bunches of grapes against light backgrounds are characterized by compositional informality, softer lighting and freer brushwork, through which Ponce attempted to convey the textures of objects and endow the subject with greater naturalness.