 |
FAMOUS ARTISTS
Read about the works and biographies of famous painters
such as Marc Chagall, Leonardo Da Vinci, Paul Klee, Henri
Matisse, Claude Monet, Pablo Picasso, Joseph Mallord William
Turner and Vincent Van Gogh.
Artist: Marc Chagall
Background: This Russian-born French painter was
born to a humble Jewish family in the ghetto of a large
town in White Russia in July 7, 1887. He passed a childhood
steeped in Hasidic culture and brought back the forgotten
dimension of metaphor into French formalism. Chagall's
painting styles are Expressionism and Cubism. This painter-poet
is famous for his paintings of Russian-Jewish villages
and violinists.
Famous Works: Over Vitebsk, The Violinist, The
Praying Jew, I and the Village
Artist: Leonardo Da Vinci
Background: He was one of the greatest painters
of the Italian Renaissance, yet he left only a handful
of completed paintings. It was the period of the renaissance
when Leonardo da Vinci was born on April 15, 1452 in an
Italian town called Vinci. Da Vinci was a sculptor, a
scientist, an inventor, an architect, a musician, and
a mathematician. When he was twenty, he and Verrocchio
created a painting called The Baptism of Christ in 1476.
This painting was an order for Andrea del Verrocchio from
the cloister S. Salvi. DaVinci's paintings were done in
the Realist style.
Famous Works: Mona Lisa, The Last Supper, Madonna
and Child, The Virgin of the Rocks
Artist: Henri Matisse
Background: Henri Matisse was born on December
31, 1869 to a grain merchant in the Picardy region of
Le Cateau Cambresis, France. He first got a degree in
law and then decided to become an artist. When Henri Matisse
was 21 years old he became seriously ill. Two years later,
in 1892, he gave up his career as a lawyer. He attended
art classes at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris and dabbled
in different styles. He then was influenced by the impressionist
and post-impressionist painters Pisarro, Cezanne, van
Gogh, Gauguin and Paul Signac and by the paintings of
W. Turner. Because Matisse had cancer, he became confined
to a wheelchair. It was then when he completed one of
his most famous works, painting the inside of the Chapelle
du Rosaire. Henri Matisse died on November 3, 1954 in
Nice as an internationally well known and highly reputable
artist.
Famous Works: Chapel of the Rosary in Vence, The
Snail, Beasts of the Sea, Creole Dancer, La Fougere Noire
Artist: Claude Monet
Background: Claude Monet was one of the founding
fathers of French Impressionism. Monet's concern was to
reflect the influence of light on a subject. He was born
on November 14, 1840 in Paris but grew up in Le Havre.
He took his early art lessons from the painter, Eugene
Boudin. Boudin. Claude's family was not very happy about
his vocation for painting. In 1860 he was drafted and
had to go to Northern Africa for two years. After his
return from Africa he went to Paris and took painting
lessons at Gleyre's studio in Paris. In 1874 Monet and
a group of painters including Pissarro and Renoir banded
together to form a society of artists. The nucleus of
the future Impressionist movement was born. In 1883, he
settled in Giverny, France and continued to paint, and
explore his fascination with light until his death on
December 5, 1926.
Famous Works: Morning Haze, Marine Near Etretat,
Lily Pond
Artist: Pablo Picasso
Background: Pablo Picasso was born on October 25,
1881 in Malaga, Spain, as the son of an art and drawing
teacher. His father was a teacher and an artist in Spain
where Pablo Picasso was born. In 1893 Pablo became an
artist under his fathers instruction. His Blue Period
was triggered at this time by a close friend's suicide
in a Parisian Café. Picasso's Blue Period paintings
depict blue isolation and urban squalor. Picasso created
the famous works Blue Nude (1902) and The Old Guitarist
(1903/4) during this period. Between 1907-1911 Picasso
started his early cubism stage. Some examples are Fruit
Dish and Ma Jolie. Picasso continued his prolific work
in painting, drawing, prints, ceramics, and sculpture
until his death on April 8, 1973.
Famous Works: Guernica, Three Musicians, The Three
Dancers, Self Portrait: Yo Picasso
Artist: Joseph Mallord William
Turner
Background: Joseph Mallord William Turner, often
called "the painter of light", as well as "the
great pyrotechnist", was born in London, England
on April 23, 1775, at his parents home on 21 Maiden Lane,
Covent Garden. This english was one of the greatest romantic
interpreters of nature in the history of Western art and
is still unrivaled in the virtuosity of his painting of
light. Turner studied at the Royal Academy School in 1789
and had his first exhibition one year later. He started
his career by painting watercolours and producing mezzotints
under the strong influence of John Robert Cozen's work.
Then, in 1796, he launched into oil painting, working
in the neoclassical manner of Richard Wilson and Nicolas
Poussin, with results that found wide acclaim. He exhibited
his first picture Fishermen at Sea (1796) in the Royal
Academy exhibition in 1796. He was elected an Associate
in 1799 and in 1802 a full member of the Royal Academy.
Over the span of his life, Turner created over 20,000
watercolors, oil, and drawings. Turner is also renowned
as one of the best British landscape painters and a predecessor
of Modern British Art.
Famous Works: Fishermen at Sea, Warkworth Castle,
Northumberland - Thunder Storm Approaching at Sun-Set,
Morning Amongst the Coniston Fells, Cumberland, The Shipwreck
Artist: Vincent Van Gogh
Background: Vincent Willem van Gogh was born on
March 30, 1853, in Zundert, in the south of the Netherlands,
as the oldest son of Theodorus van Gogh, a preacher and
Anna Cornelia Carbentus. Van Gogh's birth came one year
to the day after his mother gave birth to a first, stillborn
child also named Vincent. Over the course of his 47 years,
Vincent painted some of the most renowned paintings of
our time. Although Vincent van Gogh is a world-famous
artist today, he did not get much recognition during his
lifetime. Vincent also suffered from severe depression
and was admitted to an asylum in December 1888, after
mutilating the lower portion of his left ear. While in
the asylum, Vincent converted an adjacent cell into a
studio, where he produced one of his best-known paintings,
Starry Night, among the 150 paintings he painted there.
On July 27, 1890, Vincent walked to a wheatfield and shot
himself in the chest and died two days later, on July
29.
Famous Works: The Starry Night, Wheatfield with
Crows, Portrait of Dr. Gachet |
|
|
|
