English Romantic Painter, 1775-1851 Joseph Mallord William Turner (23 April 1775 ?C 19 December 1851) was an English Romantic landscape painter, watercolourist and printmaker, whose style is said to have laid the foundation for Impressionism. Although Turner was considered a controversial figure in his day, he is now regarded as the artist who elevated landscape painting to an eminence rivalling history painting. Turner's talent was recognised early in his life. Financial independence allowed Turner to innovate freely; his mature work is characterised by a chromatic palette and broadly applied atmospheric washes of paint. According to David Piper's The Illustrated History of Art, his later pictures were called "fantastic puzzles." However, Turner was still recognised as an artistic genius: the influential English art critic John Ruskin described Turner as the artist who could most "stirringly and truthfully measure the moods of Nature." (Piper 321) Suitable vehicles for Turner's imagination were to be found in the subjects of shipwrecks, fires (such as the burning of Parliament in 1834, an event which Turner rushed to witness first-hand, and which he transcribed in a series of watercolour sketches), natural catastrophes, and natural phenomena such as sunlight, storm, rain, and fog. He was fascinated by the violent power of the sea, as seen in Dawn after the Wreck (1840) and The Slave Ship (1840). Turner placed human beings in many of his paintings to indicate his affection for humanity on the one hand (note the frequent scenes of people drinking and merry-making or working in the foreground), but its vulnerability and vulgarity amid the 'sublime' nature of the world on the other hand. 'Sublime' here means awe-inspiring, savage grandeur, a natural world unmastered by man, evidence of the power of God - a theme that artists and poets were exploring in this period. The significance of light was to Turner the emanation of God's spirit and this was why he refined the subject matter of his later paintings by leaving out solid objects and detail, concentrating on the play of light on water, the radiance of skies and fires. Although these late paintings appear to be 'impressionistic' and therefore a forerunner of the French school, Turner was striving for expression of spirituality in the world, rather than responding primarily to optical phenomena. Rain, Steam and Speed - The Great Western Railway painted (1844).His early works, such as Tintern Abbey (1795), stayed true to the traditions of English landscape. However, in Hannibal Crossing the Alps (1812), an emphasis on the destructive power of nature had already come into play. His distinctive style of painting, in which he used watercolour technique with oil paints, created lightness, fluency, and ephemeral atmospheric effects. (Piper 321) One popular story about Turner, though it likely has little basis in reality, states that he even had himself "tied to the mast of a ship in order to experience the drama" of the elements during a storm at sea. In his later years he used oils ever more transparently, and turned to an evocation of almost pure light by use of shimmering colour. A prime example of his mature style can be seen in Rain, Steam and Speed - The Great Western Railway, where the objects are barely recognizable. The intensity of hue and interest in evanescent light not only placed Turner's work in the vanguard of English painting, but later exerted an influence upon art in France, as well; the Impressionists, particularly Claude Monet, carefully studied his techniques.  Related Paintings of Joseph Mallord William Turner :. | The Grand Canal - Scene - A Street In Venice | Circle | The Saint Gotthard Pass (mk10) | White line | View |
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Gustavus Hesselius
(1682 - May 25, 1755) was a Swedish born painter who emigrated to the New World in 1711. He was the father of painter John Hesselius and cousin of the religious leader Emanuel Swedenborg. Hesselius left his home country of Sweden for Wilmington, Delaware in 1711. There he lived until 1717 when he moved to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where he lived until 1721. In 1721, he moved to Prince George's County, Maryland and became a portrait painter, though he had been trained in Sweden. That same year, he received the first recorded public art commission in the American colonies, he painted The Last Supper. He also painted a Crucifixion. Some time around 1735, Hesselius returned to Philadelphia where spent the rest of his life and traveling. He was listed as a member of the Gloria Dei (Old Swedes') Church in Philadelphia. He also worked as an organ builder, having built an organ for the Moravian Church in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania in 1746. From about this time on, he focused on building organs, referring painting commissions to his son John. J. Hall Pleasants has said that Hesselius became "America's earliest portrait painter of note." In 1994 he was named to the Prince George's County Hall of Fame.
JONES, Thomas
Welsh Painter, 1742-1803
Jan Veth
(18 May 1864 Dordrecht - 1 July 1925 Amsterdam), was a Dutch painter, poet, art critic and university lecturer. Jan Veth was the son of Gerradus Huibert Veth, a Dordrecht iron merchant and liberal politician, and Anna Cornelia Giltay. On his mother's side he descended from the Dordrecht painter family of Van Strij (his mother was a granddaughter of Jacob van Strij). He married Anna Dorothea Dirks on 10 August 1888, from which marriage came five children. Veth received his art education at the Rijksakademie voor Beeldende Kunsten in Amsterdam. With several of his fellow students he founded the St. Luke group. From 1885 he worked with the painter Anton Mauve in Laren. After his marriage in 1888 he settled in Bussum. Jan Veth is especially noted as a portrait painter. Amongst his sitters were Max Liebermann, Lambertus Zijl, Frank van der Goes, Antoon Derkinderen and other contemporaries including various fellow painters. In addition he was a well-known poet, belonging to the Eighties movement and publishing work in the De Nieuwe Gids. He designed the cover for "De Kleine Johannes", a book written by his friend, Frederik van Eeden, contributing to the development of book-art in Holland. As Professor Extraordinary in History of Art and Aesthetics, he was associated with the Rijksakademie voor Beeldende Kunsten in Amsterdam.