(27 February 1824 - 17 July 1895) was a French painter born in Nantes.His oeuvre began with portraits and classical historical subject matter but he later moved on to allegorical and mythological themes.He was an academic painter and one of the founders of the Neo-Grec school, along with his close friends Gustave Boulanger, Jean-L??on G??rôme, and Jean-Louis Hamon, also academic painters. All of them studied in the workshops of both Paul Delaroche and later Charles Gleyre. Picou's style was noticeably influenced by Gleyre. While the rest of the group generally painted classical and mythological subjects, Picou also received commissions for large religious frescoes from many churches, including the Église Saint-Roch. His artistic debut was at the Salon in 1847. The next year he was awarded a second-class medal for his painting, Cl??opâtre et Antoine sur le Cydnus. Also known as Cleopatra on the Cydnus, it is commonly regarded as Picou's masterpiece. This showing at the Salon in 1848 was written about by the critic Th??ophile Gautier, who felt that the subject matter was too ambitious, but also said that "As it is, it gives the best hope for the future of the young artist, and ranks among the seven or eight most important paintings of the Salon.In 1875 the painting was exhibited in New York, and afterward found lodgment on the walls of a private art gallery in San Francisco.Picou maintained a large workshop in Paris on the Boulevard de Magenta, which provided him room to work on his expansive frescoes. His popularity continued to rise and he went on to win the Second Prix de Rome in 1853 for his painting, J??sus chassant les vendeurs du Temple (The Moneylenders Chased from the Temple), and another second-class medal for his Salon painting in 1857. From his debut in 1847, he was a regular at the Salon, showing almost every year until his final exhibit in 1893.He has been called the most fashionable painter towards the close of the Second French Empire  Related Paintings of Henri-Pierre Picou :. | Clipping Cupid's Wings | Innocence Seduced by Love | The Judgement of Paris | Sea nymphs | Ronde De Mai |
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Leo von Klenze
German Architect and Painter, 1784-1864,was a German neoclassicist architect, painter and writer. Court architect of Bavarian King Ludwig I, Leo von Klenze was one of the most prominent representatives of Greek revival style. Von Klenze studied architecture in Berlin and Paris. Between 1808 and 1813 he was a court architect of Jerome Bonaparte, King of Westphalia. Later he moved to Bavaria and in 1816 began to work as court architect of Ludwig I. The King's passion for Hellenism shaped the architectural style of von Klenze. He built many neoclassical buildings in Munich, including the Ruhmeshalle and Monopteros temple. On Konigsplatz he designed probably the best known modern Hellenistic architectural ensemble. Near Regensburg he built the Walhalla temple, named after Valhalla, the home of gods in Norse mythology. When Greece won its independence, Ludwig I's son Otto became the country's first king. Von Klenze was invited to Athens to submit plans of city reconstruction in the style of Ancient Greece. Russian Emperor Nicholas I commissioned von Klenze to design a building for the New Hermitage, a public museum that housed Greek, Roman, and Egyptian antiquities. Von Klenze also designed and arranged museum galleries in Munich, including the Glyptothek and Alte Pinakothek. Von Klenze was not only an architect, but also an accomplished painter and draughtsman. In many of his paintings ancient buildings were depicted. Those served as models for his own architectural projects. Klenze studied ancient architecture during his travels to Italy and Greece. He also participated in excavations of ancient buildings in Athens and submitted projects for the restoration of the Acropolis. Klenze collected works of important contemporary German painters. He sold his collection, including 58 landscapes and genre paintings, to King Ludwig I in 1841.
Julius Paulsen
Danish, 1860-1940 Danish painter. He studied at the Kongelige Akademi for de Skenne Kunster, Copenhagen (1879-82), but found the training there uninspired and soon attached himself to more radical artists such as Peder Severin Kreyer and Laurits Regner Tuxen. A turning-point in his career came in 1885 when, with Viggo Johansen, he went to Paris. On the way they visited Amsterdam, where the art of Rembrandt made a great impact on Paulsen; in Paris he showed interest in Courbet and Monet. From 1886 his time was shared between landscape, figure and portrait painting. His first landscape, From the Village of Ry (1886; Copenhagen, Hirschsprungske Saml.), is an early example of his personal blend of Romanticism and Symbolism; it shows a golden sunset colouring the houses and gardens of the small village. His View from the Harbour after Sunset (1891; Copenhagen, Hirschsprungske Saml.) has much in common with Monet, the Copenhagen skyline barely discernible through a deep blue and iridescent atmosphere. A later visit to Paris inspired such sunlit townscapes as Under Pont des Arts in Paris, Midday Sun (1919; Copenhagen, Stat. Mus. Kst), the shimmering, sketchy surface of which is dominated by fresh blues and greens; the painting incorporates a favourite Impressionist motif, the curved filigree of the iron bridge, which both frames the scene and lends it tension.
Luis Eugenio Melendez
(Naples, 1716-Madrid, 1780) was a Spanish painter. Although he received little acclaim during his lifetime and died in poverty, Melendez is recognized today as the greatest Spanish still-life painter of the 18th century. His mastery of composition and light, and his remarkable ability to convey the volume and texture of individual objects enabled him to transform the most mundane of kitchen fare into powerful images. Luis Egidio Melendez de Rivera Durazo y Santo Padre was born in Naples in 1716. His father, Francisco Melendez de Rivera Diaz (1682- after 1758), was a miniaturist painter from Oviedo who had moved to Madrid with his older brother, the portrait painter Miguel Jacinto Melendez (1679-1734) in pursuit of artistic instruction. Whereas Miguel remained in Madrid to study and became a painter in the court of Philip V, Francisco left for Italy in 1699 to seek greater artistic exposure. Francisco took a special interest in visiting the Italian academies and settled in Naples where he married Maria Josefa Durazo y Santo Padre Barrille. Luis was a year old when his father, who had been a soldier in a Spanish garrison and lived abroad for almost two decades, returned to Madrid with the family. Luis Egidio, his brother Jose Agusten, and Ana, one of his sisters, began their careers under the tutelage of their father, who was appointed the King's Painter of Miniatures in 1725. After several years, in his words: painting royal portraits in jewels and bracelets to serve as gifts for envoys and ambassadors, he entered the workshop of Louis Michel van Loo (1707-1771), a Frenchman who had been made royal painter of Philip V of Spain.