British 1723-1792 Sir Joshua Reynolds Locations Reynolds was born in Plympton, Devon, on 16 July 1723. As one of eleven children, and the son of the village school-master, Reynolds was restricted to a formal education provided by his father. He exhibited a natural curiosity and, as a boy, came under the influence of Zachariah Mudge, whose Platonistic philosophy stayed with him all his life. Showing an early interest in art, Reynolds was apprenticed in 1740 to the fashionable portrait painter Thomas Hudson, with whom he remained until 1743. From 1749 to 1752, he spent over two years in Italy, where he studied the Old Masters and acquired a taste for the "Grand Style". Unfortunately, whilst in Rome, Reynolds suffered a severe cold which left him partially deaf and, as a result, he began to carry a small ear trumpet with which he is often pictured. From 1753 until the end of his life he lived in London, his talents gaining recognition soon after his arrival in France. Reynolds worked long hours in his studio, rarely taking a holiday. He was both gregarious and keenly intellectual, with a great number of friends from London's intelligentsia, numbered amongst whom were Dr Samuel Johnson, Oliver Goldsmith, Edmund Burke, Giuseppe Baretti, Henry Thrale, David Garrick and fellow artist Angelica Kauffmann. Because of his popularity as a portrait painter, Reynolds enjoyed constant interaction with the wealthy and famous men and women of the day, and it was he who first brought together the famous figures of "The" Club. With his rival Thomas Gainsborough, Reynolds was the dominant English portraitist of 'the Age of Johnson'. It is said that in his long life he painted as many as three thousand portraits. In 1789 he lost the sight of his left eye, which finally forced him into retirement. In 1791 James Boswell dedicated his Life of Samuel Johnson to Reynolds. Reynolds died on 23 February 1792 in his house in Leicester Fields, London. He is buried in St. Paul's Cathedral.  Related Paintings of Sir Joshua Reynolds :. | John Ligonier, 1st Earl Ligonier | Portrait of a Clergyman | Sarah Siddons as the Traginc Muse | Commodore the Honourable Augustus Keppel | lord george greville |
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SCHALCKEN, Godfried
Dutch Baroque Era Painter, 1643-1706 Dutch painter and etcher, active also in England. He was the second son of Cornelis Schalcken from Heusden, a clergyman in Made, and Aletta Lydius, who came from a famous clerical family in Dordrecht. In 1654 the family moved to Dordrecht, where Cornelis was appointed headmaster of the Latin school. There Godfried was apprenticed to Samuel van Hoogstraten. He completed his training in Leiden with Gerrit Dou and by 1665 had returned to Dordrecht. Schalcken's earliest known works, for example the Doctor's Visit (1669; Germany, priv. col., on loan to Cologne, Wallraf-Richartz-Mus.), are dominated by the influence of Dou and the Leiden 'fine painters'. Like Dou, Schalcken painted small genre pieces with a wealth of painstakingly rendered detail, and his themes and frequent use of artificial lighting are strongly reminiscent of the Leiden master. The six prints known by him, including a portrait of Gerrit Dou and a few portraits after van Hoogstraten, must also originate from this period. Possibly under the influence of Caspar Netscher and Frans van Mieris, Schalcken soon afterwards adopted a freer touch with gentler transitions and a lighter palette and applied himself to painting genre pieces with elegant figures.
Fritz Zuber-Buhler
was a Swiss painter integrant of the style Academic Classicism, born in 1822 at Le Locle in Switzerland and died November 23, 1896. At sixteen years old he moved to Paris, France where found his first teacher Louis Grosclaude. Later he studied at the École des Beaux-Arts and then refined his technical skills with François-Édouard Picot, who followed the same lineage of contemporaneous artists such as Leon Perrault, Bouguereau, Alexandre Cabanel and many others. Afterwards he spent some time in Italy searching for inspiration and raise the quality of his art. Then, returning to Paris, he made his debut at the Salon in 1850 exhibiting alongside oil paintings, drawings, pastels and watercolors. His painting Innocence shows his romantic view of the peasant childhood and their environments, expressing nature, softness and intense details. Also his works were drawn by popular themes at that period like mythology, religion and requested portraits. Zuber-Buhler produced exhibitions in the United States, comprising at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and achieved great admiration as a classic academic painter.
Frederic Bazille
b.Dec. 6, 1841, Montpellier, France d.Nov. 28, 1870, Beaune-la-Rolande French Frederic Bazille Galleries was a French Impressionist painter best known for his depiction of figures. Born in Montpellier, Herault, Languedoc-Roussillon, into a middle-class Protestant family, Bazille became interested in painting after seeing some works of Eugene Delacroix. His family agreed to let him study painting, but only if he also studied medicine. Bazille began studying medicine in 1859. He moved to Paris in 1862 to continue his studies. There he met Pierre-Auguste Renoir, was drawn to Impressionist painting, and began taking classes in Charles Gleyres studio. After failing his medical exam in 1864, he began painting full-time. His close friends included Claude Monet, Alfred Sisley, and Édouard Manet. Born to a wealthy family, Bazille helped support some of these artists by giving them space in his studio and materials to use. Bazille was just twenty-three years old when he painted several famous works, including The Pink Dress. His best known painting is Family Reunion (1867?C1868).