French Fauvist Painter and Sculptor, 1869-1954
Henri Matisse is considered the most important French artist of the 20th century and, along with Pablo Picasso, one of the most influential modernist painters of the last century. Matisse began studying drawing and painting in the 1890s. A student of the masters of Post-Impressionism, Matisse later made a reputation for himself as the leader of a group of painters known as Les Fauves. An ironic label given to them by a critic, the name reflected Matisse's aggressive strokes and bold use of primary colors. In 1905 Matisse gained sudden fame with three paintings, including Woman with the Hat, purchased by the wealthy American ex-patriot Gertrude Stein. Beyond painting, he worked with lithographs and sculpture, and during World War II he did a series of book designs. Later in his career he experimented with paper cutouts and designed decorations for the Dominican chapel in Vence, France. Along with Picasso, Related Paintings of Henri Matisse :. | Portrait of Sarah Stein (mk35) | Woman in an Armchair Blue and Yellow Background (mk35) | Woman playing the piano and still life | Woman in a Flowered Hat (mk35) | Two ladies | Related Artists:
Hans Bollongier(1600-idem, 1645) was a Dutch Golden Age still life flower painter.
Bollongier was born in Haarlem. According to the RKD little is known of his early life. He became a member of the Haarlem Guild of St. Luke in 1623, and in 1675 his younger brother Horatio was named as his beneficiary. He was a specialist in bouquets of blooms. Paintings attributed to him that are not flower- or fruit still lifes are likely the work of his brother Horatio.He was an important influence on the later flower painters known as the monogrammist JF and Anthony Claesz II. He painted during a period of great productivity for Haarlem painters, during the decades after Karel van Mander published his Schilderboeck there. In Karel van Mander's book, there were a set of rules to follow to create good paintings and good drawings. Bollongier developed his own style and still observed all of these rules. His paintings were very popular, but his work was not regarded as such by contemporary Haarlem painters. As a genre, still life painting was considered inferior to historical allegories.
His work today is considered part of the proof that Tulip Mania took place, although there is reason to believe that this is also just part of early Haarlem tourist propaganda. Even as early as the 17th century, gentry from Amsterdam, Leiden, and places farther away enjoyed visiting the tulip fields of Haarlem in the Spring, and paintings of tulips were as popular as the bulbs.
PUGET, PierreFrench Baroque Era Sculptor, 1620-1694
French sculptor, painter, draughtsman and architect. Puget was one of the outstanding artists of his century, but his style, formed by the Italian Baroque, did not however always find favour in the classicizing atmosphere of the French court, where Jean-Baptiste Colbert would describe him in 1670 as 'a man who goes a little too fast, and whose imagination is a little too heated'. Although the son of a master mason, Simon Puget (d 1623), Puget was largely self-taught, as were his brother Gaspard Puget (1615-after 1683), an architect, and his son Fran?ois Puget (1651-1707), a painter. Apprenticed in 1634 to a wood-carver, Jean Roman, in Marseille, he left in 1638 for Italy, spending some years in Florence and Rome close to Pietro da Cortona, presumably as a stuccoist and painter, although his part in the decoration of the Palazzo Pitti, Florence, Cortona's main project of these years, is not clear. From 1643 he practised sculpture and painting at the Toulon Arsenal, France's largest naval shipyard, where he was appointed to the wood-carving workshop: around 1645, for instance, he designed and supervised the decoration of the ship Le Magnifique (in 1646 renamed La Reine; destr.). According to some sources, in 1646 he made a second journey to Italy,
HEDA, Willem Claesz.Dutch painter (b. 1594, Haarlem, d. 1680, Haarlem).
Dutch still-life painter. His excellent studies of tables laden with food, called ontbijt still life, are seen in many important European galleries. They are characterized by delicate lighting effects and somber colors.