French Rococo Era Painter, 1732-1806 was a French painter and printmaker whose late Rococo manner was distinguished by remarkable facility, exuberance, and hedonism. One of the most prolific artists active in the last decades of the Ancien Regime, Fragonard produced more than 550 paintings , of which only five are dated. Among his most popular works are genre paintings conveying an atmosphere of intimacy and veiled eroticism. He was born at Grasse, Alpes-Maritimes, the son of François Fragonard, a glover, and Françoise Petit. He was articled to a Paris notary when his father's circumstances became strained through unsuccessful speculations, but showed such talent and inclination for art that he was taken at the age of eighteen to François Boucher, who, recognizing the youth's rare gifts but disinclined to waste his time with one so inexperienced, sent him to Chardin's atelier. Fragonard studied for six months under the great luminist, then returned more fully equipped to Boucher, whose style he soon acquired so completely that the master entrusted him with the execution of replicas of his paintings. Though not yet a pupil of the Academy, Fragonard gained the Prix de Rome in 1752 with a painting of "Jeroboam Sacrificing to the Golden Calf", but before proceeding to Rome he continued to study for three years under Charles-Andre van Loo. In the year preceding his departure he painted the "Christ washing the Feet of the Apostles" now at Grasse cathedral. On September 17, 1756, he took up his abode at the French Academy in Rome, then presided over by Charles-Joseph Natoire. While at Rome, Fragonard contracted a friendship with a fellow painter, Hubert Robert. In 1760, they toured Italy together, executing numerous sketches of local scenery. It was in these romantic gardens, with their fountains, grottos, temples and terraces, that Fragonard conceived the dreams which he was subsequently to render in his art. He also learned to admire the masters of the Dutch and Flemish schools (Rubens, Hals, Rembrandt, Ruisdael), imitating their loose and vigorous brushstrokes. Added to this influence was the deep impression made upon his mind by the florid sumptuousness of Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, whose works he had an opportunity to study in Venice before he returned to Paris in 1761. In 1765 his "Coresus et Callirhoe" secured his admission to the Academy. It was made the subject of a pompous (though not wholly serious) eulogy by Diderot, and was bought by the king, who had it reproduced at the Gobelins factory. Hitherto Fragonard had hesitated between religious, classic and other subjects; but now the demand of the wealthy art patrons of Louis XV's pleasure-loving and licentious court turned him definitely towards those scenes of love and voluptuousness with which his name will ever be associated, and which are only made acceptable by the tender beauty of his color and the virtuosity of his facile brushwork;   Related Paintings of Jean-Honore Fragonard :. | Selbstportrat, Oval | The Swing | Blindekuhspiel | Madchen im Bett | The Stolen Kiss |
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Francisco Bayeu y Subias
Spanish Painter, 1734-1795,was a Spanish painter, active in a Neoclassic style, whose main subjects were religious and historical themes. Born in Zaragoza, he received a broad childhood education. His initial art studies were with a local master, Jose Luzan[1] and Antonio Gonzalez Velazquez. He then moved to Madrid, winning a scholarship with the painting of the ????Tyranny of Gerion???? to study in the Academia Real de Bellas Artes de San Fernando. The death of his parents and the care of his brothers forced him to return to Zaragoza, until he was recalled by Anton Raphael Mengs to help decorate the Royal Palace of Madrid. In later years, one of his colleagues was Francisco Goya, who married his sister, Josefa Bayeu. He served as court painter to King Charles III of Spain. He was named a professor of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando in 1765 and director in 1788. He painted in the Charterhouse of Aula Dei in Zaragoza. In 1767 he was named court painter for Charles III, king of Spain. He was involved in the decoration of various Royal palaces near Madrid.
Hendrick Terbrugghen
1588-1629 Dutch Hendrick Terbrugghen Galleries Dutch painter and draughtsman. He was, with Gerrit van Honthorst and Dirck van Baburen, one of the leading painters in the group of artists active in Utrecht in the 1620s who came to be known as the UTRECHT CARAVAGGISTI, since they adapted Caravaggio subject-matter and style to suit the Dutch taste for religious and secular paintings. Ter Brugghen was an important innovator for later Dutch 17th-century genre painting; his recognition as an unorthodox, but significant influence on the work of Johannes Vermeer and others is a relatively recent, 20th-century phenomenon.
Joseph Paelinck
Belgian Painter, 1781-1839, Flemish painter. The son of a farmer, he studied at the Academie in Ghent. He exhibited for the first time in 1802 at the Ghent Salon, then left for Paris where he was admitted into Jacques-Louis David's studio. In 1804 his Judgement of Paris (Ghent, Mus. S. Kst.) obtained a prize at the Ghent Salon. The first of numerous commissions that followed was for St Colette (1806; Ghent, St Baaf), which was in keeping with the contemporary Historicist vogue. In 1808 he was commissioned to paint a portrait of the Empress Josephine (Ghent, Mus. S. Kst.), and in the same year the town of Ghent granted him an allowance for four years of study in Rome where, with other former pupils of David, he took part in the decoration of the Palazzo del Quirinale; his contribution, Augustus Ordering the Adornment of Rome, is untraced. While in Italy he also painted a Neo-classical Invention of the Cross (1812; Ghent, St Michel), inspired by Raphael. In 1812 he returned to Ghent and in 1815 moved to Brussels to paint the portrait of William, Prince of Orange (1818; Brussels, H?tel de Ville). He painted several religious subjects, including a Crucifixion (1817; Sleidinge, St Joris) and the Disciples at Emmaus (Everghem Church), which have links with the 17th-century French tradition. Among the portraits he executed in this period is the Snoy Family