Welsh Romantic Painter, ca.1713-1782 was a Welsh landscape painter, and one of the founder members of the Royal Academy in 1768. Wilson has been described as '...the most distinguished painter Wales has ever produced and the first to appreciate the aesthetic possibilities of his country.' Wilson is considered to be the father of landscape painting in Britain. The son of a clergyman, Wilson was born in Penegoes, Montgomeryshire. The family was an old and respected one, and Wilson was first cousin to Charles Pratt, 1st Earl Camden. In 1729 he went to London where he began as a portrait painter, under the apprentership of an obscure artist, Thomas Wright. From 1750 to 1757 he was in Italy and adopted landscape on the advice of Francesco Zuccarelli. Painting in Italy and afterwards in England, he was the first major British painter to primarily concentrate on landscape. He composed well, but saw and rendered only the general effects of nature thereby creating a personal, ideal style influenced by Claude Lorrain and the Dutch landscape tradition. According to John Ruskin, he "paints in a manly way, and occasionally reaches exquisite tones of colour." He concentrated on painting Italianate landscapes and landscapes based upon classsical literature, but when his painting The Destruction of the Children of Niobe (c.1759-60) won high acclaim he gained many commissions from wealthy families seeking classical potrayals of their estates.   Related Paintings of Richard Wilson :. | Ceyx and Alcyone | The Temple of the Sybil and the Campagna, | Ruinen der Villa des Maecenas in Tivoli | River Scene with Castle, | the destruction of the children of niobe |
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Jan van Beers
(22 February 1821 - 14 November 1888) was Flemish poet born in Antwerp. He is usually referred to as "van Beers the elder" to distinguish him from his son, Jan van Beers, the painter. Van Beers was essentially a Netherlander, though politically a Belgian, expressing his thoughts in the same language as any North Netherland writer. In fact, the poems of Jan van Beers are perhaps more popular in the Netherlands than in Belgium, and of many of them there exist more editions printed in the Netherlands than in his political fatherland. Van Beers started life as a teacher of Dutch language and literature, first at Mechelen, then at Lier, and in 1860 was appointed a professor of both at the Athenaeum (high school) in Antwerp, where he had also been a sub-librarian in the communal library. Van Beers as a teacher was early in the field, with Hendrik Conscience, Willems and others, when the Flemish movement began. He composed a Dutch grammar (1852), which, in enlarged editions, still holds the field, and a volume of selections from Dutch authors, both books being so much appreciated that the Belgian government made them text-books in the public schools. Van Beers's historical poems, the principal of which is, perhaps, Jakob Van Maerlant (Amsterdam, 1860), helped the Flemish revival in Belgium as powerfully as his school-books. He is best known, however, as the writer of ballads and songs. Jongelingsdroomen ("A Young Man's Dreams") first appeared at Antwerp and Amsterdam in 1853. These poems were followed by Levensbeelden ("Life Figures or Pictures," Amsterdam, 1858) and by Gevoel en Leven ("Feeling Living," Amsterdam, 1869). His Rijzende Blaren ("Rising Leaves") first made its appearance at Ghent and Rotterdam in 1883.
plato
Born: c. 428 B.C. Birthplace: Athens, Greece Died: 347 B.C. Best Known As: The ancient philosopher who wrote The Republic
Carel Fabritus
1622-1654 Dutch Carel Fabritus Locations Painter. His oeuvre consists of a scant dozen paintings, since research has rigorously discounted many previously attributed works. These few paintings, however, document the painter unique development within his brief 12-year career. He is often mentioned as being the link between Rembrandt and the Delft school, particularly Pieter de Hooch and Jan Vermeer, whose depiction of light owes much to Fabritius late works in which his use of cool silvery colours to define forms in space marks a radical departure from Rembrandt use of chiaroscuro.