1727-1788 British Thomas Gainsborough Locations English painter, draughtsman and printmaker. He was the contemporary and rival of Joshua Reynolds, who honoured him on 10 December 1788 with a valedictory Discourse (pubd London, 1789), in which he stated: If ever this nation should produce genius sufficient to acquire to us the honourable distinction of an English School, the name of Gainsborough will be transmitted to posterity, in the history of Art, among the very first of that rising name. He went on to consider Gainsborough portraits, landscapes and fancy pictures within the Old Master tradition, against which, in his view, modern painting had always to match itself. Reynolds was acknowledging a general opinion that Gainsborough was one of the most significant painters of their generation. Less ambitious than Reynolds in his portraits, he nevertheless painted with elegance and virtuosity. He founded his landscape manner largely on the study of northern European artists and developed a very beautiful and often poignant imagery of the British countryside. By the mid-1760s he was making formal allusions to a wide range of previous art, from Rubens and Watteau to, eventually, Claude and Titian. He was as various in his drawings and was among the first to take up the new printmaking techniques of aquatint and soft-ground etching. Because his friend, the musician and painter William Jackson (1730-1803), claimed that Gainsborough detested reading, there has been a tendency to deny him any literacy. He was, nevertheless, as his surviving letters show, verbally adept, extremely witty and highly cultured. He loved music and performed well. He was a person of rapidly changing moods, humorous, brilliant and witty. At the time of his death he was expanding the range of his art, having lived through one of the more complex and creative phases in the history of British painting. He painted with unmatched skill and bravura; while giving the impression of a kind of holy innocence, he was among the most artistically learned and sophisticated painters of his generation. It has been usual to consider his career in terms of the rivalry with Reynolds that was acknowledged by their contemporaries; while Reynolds maintained an intellectual and academic ideal of art, Gainsborough grounded his imagery on contemporary life, maintaining an aesthetic outlook previously given its most powerful expression by William Hogarth. His portraits, landscapes and subject pictures are only now coming to be studied in all their complexity; having previously been viewed as being isolated from the social, philosophical and ideological currents of their time, they have yet to be fully related to them. It is clear, however, that his landscapes and rural pieces, and some of his portraits, were as significant as Reynolds acknowledged them to be in 1788.  Related Paintings of Thomas Gainsborough :. | Pfeiferauchender Bauer vor der Huttentur | Mr and Mrs Andrews | Cottage Girl with Dog and pitcher | Mrs Richard Brinsley Sheridan | Portrait of Jonathan Buttall |
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carl kylberg
Carl Oscar Kylberg, född 23 september 1878 på Vasängen i Fridene församling, död 6 januari 1952 i Stockholm, svensk konstnär och representant för Göteborgskoloristerna. Carl Kylberg var son till kontorschef Gustaf Kylberg och friherrinnan Eleonora von Essen och storebror till konstnären Erik Kylberg. Hans fastrar och farbror var konstnärerna Regina Kylberg-Bobeck, Marina Kylberg och Hjalmar Kylberg. Farfadern Lars Wilhelm Kylberg var konstnär vid sidan av lantbruket på familjegodset Såtenäs i Västergötland. Kylberg studerade först vid tekniska skolan i Stockholm och i Berlin för att bli arkitekt men övergick till måleri omkring 1900. Han studerade under en tid vid Valand i Göteborg som elev till Carl Wilhelmson. Hans verk kännetecknas ofta av ett glödande oljemåleri med starka färger och han avbildade ofta landskap och figurkompositioner på ett avskalat man??r. Under senare delen av sitt konstnärskap skapade han en mängd religiösa motiv. Kring 1930-talet fick han sitt genombrott och han kom att ställa ut, förutom i Sverige även i Köpenhamn, Paris, London, Budapest och i USA men hans måleri var för många provocerande och 1938 gick regeringen in och stoppade ett köp av målningen Uppbrottet för Nationalmuseum i Stockholm. En av hans mest välkända målningar är Hemkomsten från 1938 som hänger på Göteborgs konstmuseum och som föreställer ett skepp i silhuett mot en nästan brinnande gul himmel och ett rödfärgat hav. Denna målning förevigades också 1978 på ett svenskt frimärke av valören 90 öre. Sedan 1980-talet har många av hans tavlor sålts för rekordpriser vid olika internationella konstauktioner.
Francisco Pradilla Ortiz
(July 24, 1848 - November 1, 1921) was a prolific Spanish painter famous for creating historical scenes. He was born in Villanueva de Gellego, near Zaragoza in Aragon, and studied initially in Zaragoza and then transferred to the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando and the Academia de Acuarelistas in Madrid. In 1873, he won a scholarship to go to Rome. From there he had opportunities to travel to France and Venice and studied the old masters. In 1878 he submitted his painting Doña Joanna of Castile or (Juana la Loca) to the National Exhibition in Spain and was awarded the Medal of Honor. The Spanish Senate then commissioned him to create La Rendicien de Granada (The Surrender of Granada) that took him three years to complete (1882). In 1881 he became the Director of the Spanish Arts Academy in Rome, but resigned from this post after two years. He traveled, mostly in Italy, portraying local themes and people. In 1897 he returned to Madrid as the director of the Museo del Prado. He held this position only briefly and then focused again on painting. His total output is well over 1,000 paintings showing his interest in a variety of subjects and styles, often without regard of the current fashion. He is primarily recognized for his historical paintings, the last one completed in 1910 carries one of the longer titles of a major painting, Cortejo del bautizo del Prencipe Don Juan, hijo de los Reyes Catelicos, por las calles de Sevilla (Retinue of the Baptism of Don Juan, son of the Catholic Monarchs, Along the Streets of Seville). Much more common, however, are costumbristaseoften romanticized studies that show local customs or mannerseand landscapes that are often sketchy, with impressionistic influences. Financial duress after the bankruptcy of his bank may have imposed a special need to be productive. He died in Madrid in 1921 at the age of 73.
Giovanni Baglione
(1566 - 30 December 1643) was an Italian Late Mannerist and Early Baroque painter and art historian. He is best remembered for his acrimonious involvement with the artist Caravaggio and his writings concerning the other Roman artists of his time. A pupil of Francesco Morelli, he worked mainly in Rome, initially with a late-Mannerist style. He was also nicknamed Il Sordo del Barozzo.