Dutch Post-Impressionist Painter, 1853-1890 Vincent Willem van Gogh (30 March 1853 ?C 29 July 1890) was a Dutch Post-Impressionist artist. Some of his paintings are now among the world's best known, most popular and expensive works of art. Van Gogh spent his early adult life working for a firm of art dealers. After a brief spell as a teacher, he became a missionary worker in a very poor mining region. He did not embark upon a career as an artist until 1880. Initially, Van Gogh worked only with sombre colours, until he encountered Impressionism and Neo-Impressionism in Paris. He incorporated their brighter colours and style of painting into a uniquely recognizable style, which was fully developed during the time he spent at Arles, France. He produced more than 2,000 works, including around 900 paintings and 1,100 drawings and sketches, during the last ten years of his life. Most of his best-known works were produced in the final two years of his life, during which time he cut off part of his left ear following a breakdown in his friendship with Paul Gauguin. After this he suffered recurrent bouts of mental illness, which led to his suicide. The central figure in Van Gogh's life was his brother Theo, who continually and selflessly provided financial support. Their lifelong friendship is documented in numerous letters they exchanged from August 1872 onwards. Van Gogh is a pioneer of what came to be known as Expressionism. He had an enormous influence on 20th century art, especially on the Fauves and German Expressionists.  Related Paintings of Vincent Van Gogh :. | Head of a Peasant Woman with White Cap (nn04) | Terrace of the Cafe on Montmartre | Chestnut Tree in Blosson (nn04) | The Cafe Terrace on the Place du Forum,Arles,at Night (nn04) | Field with sheaves of grain |
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Auguste Rodin
French Sculptor, 1840-1917 .French sculptor. Insolvent and repeatedly rejected by the École des Beaux-Arts, he earned his living by doing decorative stonework. Not until his late 30s, after a trip to Italy, did he develop a personal style free of academic restraints and establish his reputation as a sculptor with The Age of Bronze (exhibited 1878), whose realism was so great that he was accused of forming its mold on a living person. His Gates of Hell, a bronze door commissioned in 1880 for a proposed Musee des Arts Decoratifs, remained unfinished at his death, but two of its many figures were the bases of his most famous images, The Thinker (1880) and The Kiss (1886). His portraits include monumental figures of Victor Hugo and Honore de Balzac. Though these and many other works caused controversy for their unconventionality, he was successful enough that he could establish a workshop where he executed only molds, leaving the casting of bronze and the carving of marble to assistants. To his sculpture he added book illustrations, etchings, and numerous drawings, mostly of female nudes.
Lieve Verschuier
(1627-1686) was a Dutch Golden Age painter of maritime subjects. He was born in Rotterdam, and is documented in Amsterdam in 1651, where he possibly learned to paint from Simon de Vlieger. He traveled to Rome in 1653 as a young man with Jan Vermeer van Utrecht and became friends with Willem Drost and Johann Carl Loth.. On his return he settled in Rotterdam in 1667 where he remained, painting marine scenes, and Italianate landscapes. His maritime works are valued today for their historical value illustrating the art of shipbuilding in the 17th century.
VELAZQUEZ, Diego Rodriguez de Silva y
Spanish Baroque Era Painter, 1599-1660 Spanish painter. He was one of the most important European artists of the 17th century, spending his career from 1623 in the service of Philip IV of Spain. His early canvases comprised bodegones and religious paintings, but as a court artist he was largely occupied in executing portraits, while also producing some historical, mythological and further religious works. His painting was deeply affected by the work of Rubens and by Venetian artists, especially Titian, as well as by the experience of two trips (1629-31 and 1649-51) to Italy. Under these joint influences he developed a uniquely personal style characterized by very loose, expressive brushwork.