The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists (184 page)

 
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(1770–1837).
French painter, born in Rome, a favourite pupil of J.-L.
David
. In the
Salon
of 1796 he won acclaim with his portrait of
Jean-Baptiste Isabey and his Daughter
(Louvre, Paris) and became the most sought after court and society portraitist of his day. He successfully negotiated the various political changes of the day and was made a Baron and a member of the Legion of Honour. In addition to portraits Gérard painted historical and mythological works. His style derived from David, but was much less taut and heroic, tending at times towards a rather mannered gracefulness.

 
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(active 1462–73).
The most powerful and original Netherlandish sculptor of the second half of the 15th cent. He is known to have worked in Strasburg, Trier, and Vienna, and several signed or documented works survive, in both stone and wood, but the details of his life are obscure. His work is extraordinarily vivid and unconventional, capturing an intense feeling of inner life, as in the celebrated bust of a man in Strasburg (Musée de l'Œuvre, Notre-Dame), which is usually considered to be a self-portrait. The voluminous style of his draperies and his boldness of approach suggest that he was trained in a Burgundian workshop where Claus
Sluter's
style was still predominant, although his name indicates that he was born in the northern Netherlands. His work had considerable influence, particularly in Germany.

 
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(1791–1824).
French painter, one of the prime movers and most original figures of
Romanticism
. He studied in Paris with Carle
Vernet
and Pierre
Guérin
, but was influenced more by making copies of the Old Masters at the
Louvre
, developing in particular a passion for
Rubens
. In 1816–17 he was in Italy and there became an enthusiastic admirer of
Michelangelo
and the
Baroque
. On his return to Paris he exhibited the picture for which he is most famous,
The Raft of the Medusa
(Louvre, Paris, 1819), which although it was awarded a medal at the
Salon
, created a furore both on account of its realistic treatment of a horrific event and because of its political implications (it depicts the ordeal of the survivors of the shipwreck of the
Medusa
in 1816, a disaster ascribed by some to government incompetence). The picture, which was remarkably original in treating a contemporary event with epic grandeur, also had a
succès de scandale
in England, where Géricault spent the years 1820–2. He painted jockeys and horse races (
Derby at Epson
, Louvre, 1821) and was one of the first to introduce English painting to the notice of French artists (he was particularly enthusiastic about
Constable
and
Bonington
). Géricault was a passionate horseman and his death at the age of 33 was brought on by a riding accident. In his temperament and lifestyle as well as his work he ranks (like Byron, for example) as an archetypal Romantic artist. His tempestuous career lasted little more than a decade and in that time he displayed a meteoric and many-sided genius. His love of stirring action, his sense of swirling movement, his energetic handling of paint, and his taste for the macabre were all to become features of Romanticism. He was, at the same time forward-looking in his realism: he made studies from corpses and severed limbs for
The Raft of the Medusa
and painted an extraordinary series of portraits of mental patients in the clinic of his friend Dr Georget, one of the pioneers of humane treatment for the insane (
A Kleptomaniac
, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Ghent,
c.
1822–3). His work had enormous influence, most notably on
Delacroix
.

 
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(1824–1904).
French painter and sculptor. He was a pupil of Paul
Delaroche
and inherited his highly finished academic style. His best-known works are his oriental scenes, the fruit of several visits to Egypt; two typical examples are in the Wallace Collection, London. They won Gérôme great popularity and he had considerable influence as an upholder of academic tradition and enemy of progressive trends in art; he opposed, for example, the acceptance by the state of the
Caillebotte
bequest of
Impressionist
pictures.

 
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