Swiss-born British Romantic Painter, 1741-1825 Henry Fuseli was the first artist to command the epic literature and heroic history of northern Europe as well as the Mediterranean countries, and by his wide reading and close study of the Old Masters he equipped himself to extend the scope of history painting far beyond the traditional limits of the Bible and classical antiquity. In his speculative boldness he was a child of the Enlightenment, but he was also a fierce critic of sterile rationalism and preached the gospel of the imagination with religious fervor. Henry Fuseli was born Johann Heinrich F??ssli (in 1764 he Anglicized his name) in Zurich on Feb. 6, 1741, the son of a painter with strong religious convictions who destined him for the Zwinglian ministry. After a period of intensive theological study Fuseli was ordained in 1761 and preached his first sermon. He was a friend of Johann Kaspar Lavater, whose Aphorisms on Man he later translated into English from manuscript. Fuseli became the favorite disciple of Johann Jakob Bodmer, who in 1740 had published an essay on the wonderful in poetry that led to a literary war with Johann Christoph Gottsched in Germany and the formation of a revolutionary Swiss school which used English literature, especially Milton and Shakespeare, as a spearhead in promoting romanticism.  Related Paintings of Henry Fuseli :. | The artist in conversation with Johann Jakob Bodmer | The Nightmare (mk22) | Lady Macbeth | titania awakes,surrounded by attendant fairies | Die drei Eidgenossen beim Schwur auf den Rutli |
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Percy Gray
1869-1952 was an American painter. Gray was born into a San Francisco family endowed with a broad literary and artistic background. He studied under Arthur Frank Mathews at the San Francisco School of Design and later under William Merritt Chase. While he had some early Impressionistic tendencies, his primary expression was under the Tonalism Mathews had brought back from Paris. He is known for his extraction of beauty from the Northern California landscape. Alexander Gray, Percy's father, was born in England, but found his way to a successful insurance business in San Francisco. As the byproduct of a childhood illness, Percy realized he had talents in art. From 1886 to 1888 he attended the California School of Design, then led by Mathews. From there he went on to become a newspaper illustrator, obtaining a job with the New York Journal. In New York he also studied at the Art Students League. He was dispatched from New York to cover the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, but decided to remain in his native city where he would then take up his painting career. Gray's first pieces, headland seascapes, were exhibited in 1907; soon thereafter he addressed in watercolor eucalyptus groves and fields of California wildflowers. These subjects would become signatures of his work. Originally Gray's works were oils; however, he eventually developed an allergy to oil paints, and therefore switched to using watercolors as his primary medium. [1] From early on the critics marvelled at his ability to infuse realistic depictions of nature with a mystical and poetic quality. He was clearly applying the precepts of his mentor William Merritt Chase in exaggeration of light and color. From 1912 to 1923 Gray lived in Burlingame, California about twenty miles south of San Francisco, while keeping his studio in the city itself. At the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition he won a bronze medal for his watercolor Out of the Desert, Oregon. Having been a bachelor for 53 years, Gray surprised his friends by marrying. He and his bride moved to the Bonificio Adobe in Monterey, where seascapes and cypress dominated his later works.
Jean Clouet
French Painter, ca.1485-1541 painter. He was chief painter to Francis I and produced many pastel portraits of members of the French court. Clouet was one of the best 16th-century portrait painters, both incisive and delicate in the psychological characterization of sitters. His drawings are simple, broad, and subtle; his paintings are fresh in colour, subdued in modeling, and minute in execution. He was celebrated in his lifetime as the equal of Michelangelo. His son Francois Clouet (c. 1515 ?C 72) took his place as official painter to Francis I in 1540.
Philip Alexius de Laszlo
Philip Alexius de Laszlo, MVO (30 April 1869 Budapest - 22 November 1937 London) was a Hungarian painter known particularly for his portraits of royal and aristocratic personages. Laszlo was born in Budapest as Laub Fulop Elek (Hungarian style with the surname first), the eldest son of a Jewish tailor. The family changed its name to Laszlo in 1891. As a young man, Laszlo apprenticed to a photographer while studying art, eventually earning a place at the National Academy of Art, where he studied under Bertalan Szekely and Karoly Lotz. He followed this with studies in Munich and Paris. Laszlo's portrait of Pope Leo XIII earned him a Grand Gold Medal at the Paris International Exhibition in 1900. In 1903 Laszlo moved from Budapest to Vienna. In 1907 he moved to England. He remained based in London for the rest of his life while traveling the world to fulfill commissions. Laszlo's patrons awarded him numerous honors and medals. In 1909 he was named an honorary Member of the Royal Victorian Order by King Edward VII of the United Kingdom. In 1912 he was ennobled by King Franz Joseph of Hungary; his surname became "Laszlo de Lombos". The family later shortened the name to "de Laszlo". Laszlo became a British citizen in 1914 but was interned for over twelve months in 1917 and 1918 during the First World War.