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 :. | mrs richard hoare and child | Admiral the Honourable Samuel Barrington | The Infant Hercules Strangling Serpents in his Cradle | Portrait of a Woman | Colonel George K.H. Coussmaker |
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John Hamilton Mortimer
ARA (1740-1779) was a British Neoclassical figure and landscape painter and printmaker, known for romantic paintings set in Italy, works depicting conversations, and works drawn in the 1770s portraying war scenes, similar to those of Salvator Rosa. Mortimer became President of the Society of Artists in 1774, five years before his death, at age 39. John Hamilton Mortimer was born on 17 September 1740 at Eastbourne. Not much is known about his family, other than that his father was a customs officer, a dealer in flour and owner of several mills. By 1757, while he was still young, he was studying in London at the Duke of Richmond's Academy. During this time he became a friend of Joseph Wright, a fellow student at the Academy - a friendship which would endure throughout Mortimer's life. Mortimer is also known to have had some professional relationship with the artist Samuel Ireland, who was involved with etching Mortimer's work. At the St Martin's Lane Academy his fellow students included Thomas Jones and William Pars. In 1759 Mortimer won a first prize for a study after Michelangelo's Bacchus and a second prize for a life drawing. He began to display his works on a regular basis from the early 1760s onwards. He became an active member of the Society of Artists and President of the Society in 1774.
wilhelm von gegerfelt
född 9 november 1844 i Göteborg, död 1920, målare, son till arkitekten Victor von Gegerfelt. von Gegerfelt studerade 1861-63 vid konstakademien i Köpenhamn, 1864-67 vid akademien i Stockholm och 1867-72 i D??sseldorf, varefter han överflyttade till Paris. Där arbetade han sig till en helt ny teknik och blev jämte Alfred Wahlberg den förste svenske representanten för det moderna stämningslandskapet. Han gjorde studieresor till Frankrikes nordkust, till hemlandet och till Italien, målade skymning över Venedigs kajer, månsken över lagunerna, kritklippor vid Engelska kanalen i gråstämning, svenska sommarnätter, allt med elegant pensel, smekande färg och livligt föredrag. Gegerfelt är representerad på Nationalmuseum av Stormen (akvarell, motiv från Dalarna, inköpt 1886) och Strand på Hallands Väderö (i olja, 1893) samt på Göteborgs konstmuseum av Strandgata i Venezia (1884), oljemålningen Vinterafton på Hallands Väderö (1893) samt akvarellen Fjällbacka.
Alexander von Humboldt
Berlin 1769-1859 Berlin,was a German naturalist and explorer, and the younger brother of the Prussian minister, philosopher, and linguist Wilhelm von Humboldt (1767-1835). Humboldt's quantitative work on botanical geography was foundational to the field of biogeography. Between 1799 and 1804, Humboldt travelled to Latin America, exploring and describing it from a scientific point of view for the first time. His description of the journey was written up and published in an enormous set of volumes over 21 years. He was one of the first to propose that the lands bordering the Atlantic were once joined (South America and Africa in particular). Later, his five-volume work Kosmos (1845) attempted to unify the various branches of scientific knowledge.