The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists (136 page)

(1880–1954).
French painter, sculptor, graphic artist, and theatrical designer. In the first two decades of the 20th cent. he was near the centre of avant-garde developments in Paris: he was one of the creators of
Fauvism
, an early adherent of
Cubism
, and one of the first to ‘discover’
primitive
art. However, his later works, mainly landscapes, portraits, still lifes, and nudes, were increasingly based on the Old Masters. He also produced numerous book illustrations and designed for the stage, notably for
Diaghilev's
Ballets Russes
. Although his historical significance is undeniable, there is disagreement about his standing as an artist. John Canaday (
Mainstreams of Modern Art
, 1959) writes: ‘His detractors think of him as a parasite on both the past and the present, but …some critics award Derain unique status as the only twentieth-century painter to achieve an individual compound of the great tradition of French culture as a whole with the spirit of his own time…This opinion is particularly held in France—where, of course, it is most legitimate.’

 
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(1428/31–64).
Florentine sculptor. Like most of his contemporaries he formed his style on
Donatello's
work of the 1430s. He learnt from Donatello the practice of carving in very low
relief
, and the lively, thick-set figures of children on the
Singing Gallery
made by Donatello for Florence Cathedral (1433–9) provided models for Desiderio's own reliefs of the
Madonna and Child
. Desiderio's artistic personality, however, was more delicate than Donatello's, and for refinement of handling he is unsurpassed by any Italian sculptor of his period. His only important public work was the tomb of the Florentine humanist and statesman Gregorio Marsuppini in Sta Croce (after 1453). This is architecturally dependent on the tomb of Leonardo Bruni by Bernardino
Rossellino
(probably Desiderio's teacher), executed for the same church about ten years earlier, but is sculpturally richer and more animated. His sensitive modelling is best exemplified in his portrait busts of women, good examples of which are in Florence (Bargello) and Washington (NG).

 
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(1874–1946).
French sculptor, one of
Rodin's
assistants from 1907 to 1914. After this he turned from his master's intense, vigorous style to a more static, generalized manner which had affinities with that of
Maillol
. His best-known works are his portrait busts, with their intimate delineation of character (
Head of Madame Derain
, Philips Collection, Washington, 1922). He also made several monuments. In the 1920s and 1930s his reputation stood very high in France, but at the end of his life he was ostracized because of his friendship with the Nazi sculptor Arno Breker (1900–91); they had known each other since before the war and in 1942 Despiau attended an exhibition of the German's work in occupied Paris.

 
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(1661–1743).
French painter of dogs, game, and emblems of the chase. In his early career he worked much as a portraitist, notably in 1695–6 at the court of Jan Sobieski (John III) in Poland, but on his return to France he took up hunting subjects and won the patronage of Louis XIV and Louis XV. He achieved considerable celebrity (he was well received on a visit to England in 1712) and in his field was rivalled only by
Oudry
. Although he continued the lavish Flemish tradition exemplified by
Snyders
, Desportes was among the first artists of the 18th cent. to make landscape studies from nature for his backgrounds, and because of this he was considered eccentric. His work is well represented in the Louvre (which has his
Self-portrait as a Huntsman
, 1699) and in the Wallace Collection, London.

 
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Detroy
.

See
TROY
.

 
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