1863-1935 French Paul Signac Galleries Paul Victor Jules Signac was born in Paris on November 11, 1863. He followed a course of training in architecture before deciding at the age of 18 to pursue a career as a painter. He sailed around the coasts of Europe, painting the landscapes he encountered. He also painted scenes of cities in France in his later years. In 1884 he met Claude Monet and Georges Seurat. He was struck by the systematic working methods of Seurat and by his theory of colours and became Seurat's faithful supporter. Under his influence he abandoned the short brushstrokes of impressionism to experiment with scientifically juxtaposed small dots of pure colour, intended to combine and blend not on the canvas but in the viewer's eye, the defining feature of pointillism. Many of Signac's paintings are of the French coast. He left the capital each summer, to stay in the south of France in the village of Collioure or at St. Tropez, where he bought a house and invited his friends. In March 1889, he visited Vincent van Gogh at Arles. The next year he made a short trip to Italy, seeing Genoa, Florence, and Naples. The Port of Saint-Tropez, oil on canvas, 1901Signac loved sailing and began to travel in 1892, sailing a small boat to almost all the ports of France, to Holland, and around the Mediterranean as far as Constantinople, basing his boat at St. Tropez, which he "discovered". From his various ports of call, Signac brought back vibrant, colourful watercolors, sketched rapidly from nature. From these sketches, he painted large studio canvases that are carefully worked out in small, mosaic-like squares of color, quite different from the tiny, variegated dots previously used by Seurat. Signac himself experimented with various media. As well as oil paintings and watercolours he made etchings, lithographs, and many pen-and-ink sketches composed of small, laborious dots. The neo-impressionists influenced the next generation: Signac inspired Henri Matisse and Andr?? Derain in particular, thus playing a decisive role in the evolution of Fauvism. As president of the Societe des Artistes Ind??pendants from 1908 until his death, Signac encouraged younger artists (he was the first to buy a painting by Matisse) by exhibiting the controversial works of the Fauves and the Cubists.  Related Paintings of Paul Signac :. | green sail | town beacb | Road | Riverbank | Two Cypress |
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Gellee Claude,dit le Lorrain
French , 1600-1682
Jan Brueghel The Elder
Flemish Baroque Era Painter, 1568-1625 was a Flemish painter, son of Pieter Brueghel the Elder and father of Jan Brueghel the Younger. Nicknamed "Velvet" Brueghel, "Flower" Brueghel, and "Paradise" Brueghel, of which the latter two were derived from favored subjects, while the former may refer to the velveteen sheen of his colors or to his habit of wearing velvet. He was born in Brussels. His father died in 1569, and then, following the death of his mother in 1578, Jan, along with his brother Pieter Brueghel the Younger ("Hell Brueghel") and sister Marie, went to live with their grandmother Mayken Verhulst (widow of Pieter Coecke van Aelst). She was an artist in her own right, and according to Carel van Mander, possibly the first teacher of the two sons. The family moved to Antwerp sometime after 1578. He first applied himself to painting flowers and fruits, and afterwards acquired considerable reputation by his landscapes and sea-pieces. He formed a style more independent of his father's than did his brother Pieter the Younger. His early works are often landscapes containing scenes from scripture, particularly forest landscapes betraying the influence of the master forest landscape-painter Gillis van Coninxloo. Later in his career, he moved toward the painting of pure landscapes and townscapes, and, toward the end, of still lifes. After residing long at Cologne he travelled into Italy, where his landscapes, adorned with small figures, were greatly admired. He left a large number of pictures, chiefly landscapes, which are executed with great skill. Many of his paintings are collaborations in which figures by other painters were placed in landscapes painted by Jan Brueghel.
Gaspard Dughet
1615-1675 French Gaspard Dughet Location Italian painter. He was one of the most distinguished landscape painters working in Rome in the 17th century, painting decorative frescoes and many easel paintings for such major Roman patrons as Pope Innocent X and the Colonna family. He is associated with a new genre of landscape, the storm scene, although of some 400 catalogued works little more than 30 treat this theme. His most characteristic works depict the beauty of the scenery around Rome, particularly near Tivoli, and suggest the shifting patterns of light and shade across a rugged terrain. Dughet drew from nature, yet his landscapes are carefully structured, and figures in antique dress suggest the ancient beauty of a landscape celebrated by Virgil. Very few can be securely dated; his development may be inferred from his few dated fresco paintings and from the wider context in which he was working. Most writers, following Pascoli, have divided Dughet career into three periods. His first landscapes were a little dry (Pascoli); in his second period he developed a more learned style, closer to that of his teacher, Nicolas Poussin; his late works were more intimate and more original.