The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists (499 page)

(1869–1943).
The most famous of Norwegian sculptors. He studied in Oslo and Copenhagen and then (1892–5) in Paris and Italy, spending a few months with
Rodin
. The painstakingly naturalistic style he developed at this time developed in the direction of expressive stylization when he devoted himself in 1900 to the study of medieval sculpture in preparation for restoration work on Trondheim Cathedral. In the same year he made his first sketches for the massive project that occupied him for the rest of his life and which he left unfinished at his death—a series of allegorical groups at Frogner Park, Oslo. Originally only a fountain was planned, but with the help of assistants he went on to create numerous other groups, including a 17-metre-high column composed of intertwining bodies. The symbolism of the scheme is not clear, but essentially it represents ‘a statement of the doubt, disillusion, and physical decline that beset humanity in its passage through this world’ (G. H. Hamilton ,
Painting and Sculpture in Europe
: 1880–1940, 1967). Reactions to the whole megalomaniac conception, involving scores of bronze and granite figures, have been mixed since the figures were finally installed in 1944, some critics finding it stupendous, others tasteless and monotonous.

 
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(1593–1670).
French painter and engraver, born in Tours and active mainly in Paris. His richly eclectic style was formed mainly in Italy, where he worked
c.
1616–
c.
1622, and his openness to very diverse influences was later fuelled by his activities as a picture dealer. Paradoxically, in view of his varied sources of inspiration, his style is the most distinctive of any French painter of his generation—highly coloured and often bizarrely expressive.
Elsheimer
and the
Caravaggisti
were strong influences on his handling of light, and his richly encrusted brushwork has striking affinities with
Rembrandt
, whose work he is known to have sold. There are examples of his work in the Louvre. Vignon is said to have fathered more than twenty children by his two wives, and his sons
Claude the Younger
(1633–1703) and
Philippe
(1638–1701) were also painters.

 
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(1875–1963).
French painter, the elder brother of Raymond
Duchamp-Villon
and Marcel
Duchamp
. He changed his name because of his admiration for the 15th-cent. poet François Villon. As a young man he studied law and worked as a newspaper illustrator. Most of his early work was in graphic media, but from
c.
1910 he concentrated on painting. In 1911 he began experimenting with
Cubism
and he became a leader of the
Section d'Or
group. In the late 1920s he evolved a technique of abstraction in which he claimed to represent the essence of objects by ‘signs’ rather than by reproducing their properties. His work became more naturalistic from
c.
1934, but in the 1950s he developed a style of abstraction without relation to natural appearances. Villon lived much of his life in comparative obscurity, but after the Second World War he achieved recognition and honours.

 
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(1576–1630/3).
Flemish-born painter active in Amsterdam. He painted landscapes and
genre
scenes and is a transitional figure between the decorative and imaginative
Mannerist
tradition and the more naturalistic style associated with 17th-cent. Dutch painting. His early genre pictures depicting village festivals reveal the influence of Pieter
Bruegel
, and Vinckboons is credited with introducing some of his motifs into Holland. It has been asserted that Vinckboons's works can always be identified by the presence of a finch (
vinck
) in a tree (
boom
), but the painstaking student usually finds that the bird has flown.

 
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Vingt , Les
(Les XX)
.

Group of twenty progressive Belgian painters and sculptors who exhibited together from 1884 to 1893. The members included James
Ensor
and Jan
Toorop
. They showed not only their own work, but also paintings by non-Belgian artists such as
Cézanne
, van
Gogh
, and
Seurat
. The group was influential in spreading the ideas of
Neo-Impressionism
and
Post-Impressionism
and became the main Belgian forum for
Symbolism
and
Art Nouveau
. Although the group dissolved in 1893 its work was carried on by an association called La Libre Esthétique, which ran from 1894 to 1914. Most of the leading Belgian avant-garde artists of the period were members.

 
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