English Painter, 1783-1852
Painter, draughtsman and writer. Together with his fellow pupil Benjamin Robert Haydon, Prout was encouraged to study drawing by the headmaster of his grammar school in Plymouth. In 1801 he met the topographer and antiquarian John Britton, who, impressed with his work, invited him to London the following year to make drawings of antiquarian subjects and copy works of other artists, including Thomas Hearne, William Alexander and J. M. W. Turner. Related Paintings of Prout, Samuel :. | The Cardplayers | Zonnebeke, | The Flagellation of Christ | Lady Hamilton as a Bacchante. | The Madonna of the premonition | Related Artists:
Otto MuellerGerman Painter, 1874-1930
Otto Mueller was born on October 16, 1874, in Liebau, German Silesia. His mother had been adopted as a young girl, giving rise to the story that he was the son of a gypsy - a story he never denied. He was a cousin to the famous German writers and dramatists Gerhart and Carl Hauptmann (the latter's novel "Einhart der Lächler" is an imaginary portrait of the painter). After four years of apprenticeship with a lithographer, Mueller entered the Academy of Fine Arts in Dresden in 1894. He was dissatisfied with the conservative instructions and left after two years. The next several years he lived close to his influential cousins, and for a short while he went to Munich to study with the famous painter Franz von Stuck. Information about his life and work until 1908 - when he settled in Berlin - is sketchy, especially since the artist destroyed many of his earlier works. In Berlin Mueller met the expressionist sculptor Wilhelm Lehmbruck, whose concept of the human form had a decisive influence on his own perception. When in 1910 his entries to the exhibition of the Berlin Secession were rejected he joined the members of the artist group "Die Brecke" (The Bridge) and exhibited with the New Secession and thus met Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Ernst Heckel, and Karl Schmidt-Rottluff. He became their lifelong friend, and, while only slightly influenced by their woodcut techniques, he contributed in return his experience in lithography and especially his techniques of distemper painting (colors bound by glue or size). This technique permits the quick coverage of large areas of the very rough canvas (burlap) which he preferred and adds a subdued luminosity. Since overpainting in distemper is not possible, the artist has to have a clear conception of his work before he begins. The technical devices strengthened the Brecke painters' desire to "flatten" the image on the canvas - following the examples of Paul Gauguin and even Edvard Munch and rejecting the academic preference for an emphasis on three-dimensionality of the subject. In his graphic works Mueller experimented with mixtures of woodcut and lithography, the rubbing of the printer's ink, frequently adding color in the form of watercolor or colored chalk, until he had the technical means of the Breslau Academy available to make true color lithographs. His "Gypsy-Portfolio" (nine color lithographs in a portfolio of 1927), which used as many as five stones, is one of his great achievements as a graphic artist. From 1916 to 1918 he served as a soldier in World War I, an experience which left no impact on his work. Shortly after his return he was appointed professor at the Breslau Academy of Art, where he taught until his death. Mueller's work shows only three motifs: landscapes, gypsies, and primarily nudes in landscapes. The last motif dominated his work. The earthen color of his mostly young, subtle but angular nude girls forms with the subdued and delicate greens of the landscape backgrounds a vision of a lost past. There is a frequently melancholic nostalgia in his works, presenting a harmony between nature and the human form which is not only opposite to the academic approach but also to that of the other Expressionists.
shah-u-gadaIn Vishnudharmottara Purana, Kubera is described as the embodiment of both Artha ("wealth, prosperity, glory") and Arthashastras, treatises related to it and his iconography mirrors it. Kubera's complexion is described as that of lotus leaves. He rides a man - the state personified, adorned in golden clothes and ornaments, symbolizing his wealth. His left eye is yellow. He wears a armour and necklace upto his large belly. His face should be inclined to the left, sporting a beard and moustache and with two small tusks protruding from the ends of his mouth, representing his powers to punish and bestow favours. His wife Riddhi - representing the journey of life - is seated on his left lap, with her left hand on the back of Kubera and right holding a ratna-patra ("jewel-pot"). He should be four-armed, holding a gada (mace - symbol of dandaniti - administration of justice) and a shakti (power) in his left pair and standards bearing a lion - representing artha and a shibika (a club, the weapon of Kubera). The nidhi treasures Padma and Shankha stand besides him in human forms with their heads emerging from a lotus and a conch respectively. Agni Purana states that Kubera should be installed in temples as seated on a goat with club in his hand. Kubera's image is prescribed to be of gold with multi-coloured attributes
RECCO, GiuseppeItalian Baroque Era Painter, 1634-1695
Son of Giacomo Recco. He was the most celebrated Neapolitan still-life painter of his day. He began in the tradition of his father and (probable) uncle Giovan Battista Recco, painting naturalistic arrangements of flowers, fish, game and kitchen scenes. There are many signed and dated works which chart the development of his style. The Bodeg?n with a Negro and Musical Instruments (1659; Madrid, Medibacoeli priv. col.), the Bodeg?n with Fish (1664; Paris, Moret priv. col.) and the Kitchen Interior (1675; Vienna, Ksthist. Mus.) are close to the art of Giovan Battista Recco. The fish and kitchen still-lifes are typically Neapolitan, yet Giuseppe's art is distinguished by the intensity with which he observes light and surface texture and by the clarity of the composition, based on a careful balance of horizontals and verticals. He moved toward a more Baroque and decorative style, and the unfinished Still-life with Fruit, Flowers and Birds (1672) and the Still-life with Fruit and Flowers