Richard Parkes Bonington was primarily an English Romantic landscape painter. One of the most influential British artists of his time, the facility of his style was inspired by the old masters, yet was entirely modern in its application. Sadly, he died at the age of 26 of tuberculosis.

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Oil on canvas; 127 x 178 cm.

Leslie was born in London. His parents were American, and when he was five they all returned to America. They settled in Philadelphia. He was mainly interested in painting and drama, and when George Frederick Cooke visited the city he executed a portrait of the actor from recollection, which was considered a work of such promise that a fund was raised to enable him to study in Europe. He left for London in 1811, bearing introductions to West, Beechey, Allston, Coleridge and Washington Irving, and was admitted as a student of the Royal Academy, where he won two silver medals. At first, influenced by West and Fuseli. His earliest important subject depicted Saul and the Witch of Endor; but he soon discovered his true aptitude and became a painter of pictures dealing with scenes from the great masters of fiction such as Shakespeare and Cervantes.

Of individual paintings we may specify Sir Roger de Coverley going to Church (1819); May-day in the Time of Queen Elizabeth (1821); Sancho Panza and the Duchess (1824); Uncle Toby and the Widow Wadman (1831); La Malade Imaginaire, act iii. sc. 6 (1843); and the Dukes Chaplain Enraged leaving the Table, from Don Quixote (1849). He possessed a sympathetic imagination, which enabled him to enter freely into the spirit of the author whom he illustrated, a delicate perception for female beauty, an unfailing eye for character and its outward manifestation in face and figure, and a genial and sunny sense of humor. In 1821 Leslie was elected A.R.A., and five years later full academician.

In addition to his skill as an artist, Leslie was an accomplished writer. His Life of his friend Constable, the landscape painter, appeared in 1843, and his Handbook for Young Painters, a volume embodying the substance of his lectures as professor of painting to the Royal Academy, in 1855. In 1860 Tom Taylor edited his Autobiography and Letters, which contain interesting reminiscences of his distinguished friends and contemporaries.

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Goya was a Spanish painter and print maker. He was a court painter to the Spanish Crown and a chronicler of history. He has been regarded both as the last of the Old Masters and as the first of the moderns. The subversive and subjective element in his art, as well as his bold handling of paint, provided a model for the work of later generations of artists, notably Manet and Picasso.

Tags:   francisco goya goya painter spanish 19th century 1814 king ferdinand VII with royal mantle prado portrait royal portrait ruler realism 1810s figure

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Oil on paper mounted on canvas; 12 1/4 x 19 1/2 in.

Danish painter. His father was a civil servant in Norway, but the family had to leave the country after Norway's separation from Denmark in 1814. He began his studies at the Kunstakademi in Copenhagen in 1820. A student there for over ten years, he failed to win the major gold medal in spite of repeated attempts. His teacher was Christian August Lorentzen (1746-1828), but Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg also gave him private painting lessons. Even as a student Rorbye enjoyed some success, selling genre scenes to the royal family and portraits set in interiors to the middle classes of Copenhagen. He exhibited at Charlottenborg most years between 1824 and 1848, and in 1849 his widow exhibited 12 of his paintings, mostly of Italian subjects.

In 1830 and 1832 Rørbye travelled to Norway. He is known as an inveterate traveller. His first grand tour, which he took in 1834-37, took him Paris, Rome, Sicily, Greece and Turkey. In Paris he studied French contemporary art. He greatly admired Horace Vernet, in particular his exotic, oriental subjects. He also admired Théodore Géricault's Raft of the Medusa but, strangely, disliked the work of Eugène Delacroix.

After Paris, Rørbye travelled to Rome, to Sicily and then, with the architect Gotlieb Bindesbøll, to Athens and Constantinople. Later in life, he undertook many more journeys, travelling to Italy in 1839-41 and to Sweden in 1844. That same year he was appointed Professor at the school of modelling at the Copenhagen Academy.

Following Eckersberg's example, Rørbye was essentially a painter of genre pieces and architecture. His pictures were factual but displayed a uniquely sympathetic view of the people he painted. He also painted a few portraits and landscapes, the latter often inspired by Dahl and, to a certain extent, by Caspar David Friedrich.

Tags:   martinus rorbye rorbye painter 19th century danish 1844 1840s entrance to an inn in the praestegarden at hillested public collection street scene realism exterior

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Series "Fifty-three stations of the Tokaido road "; Woodblock print: 24.5 x 36.5 cm.

Utagawa Hiroshige (Japanese: 歌川 広重), also Andō Hiroshige (Japanese: 安藤 広重; 1797 – 12 October 1858) was a Japanese ukiyo-e artist, considered the last great master of that tradition.

Hiroshige is best known for his landscapes, such as the series The Fifty-three Stations of the Tōkaidō and The Sixty-nine Stations of the Kiso Kaidō; and for his depictions of birds and flowers. The subjects of his work were atypical of the ukiyo-e genre, whose typical focus was on beautiful women, popular actors, and other scenes of the urban pleasure districts of Japan's Edo period (1603–1868). The popular Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji series by Hokusai was a strong influence on Hiroshige's choice of subject, though Hiroshige's approach was more poetic and ambient than Hokusai's bolder, more formal prints.

For scholars and collectors, Hiroshige's death marked the beginning of a rapid decline in the ukiyo-e genre, especially in the face of the westernization that followed the Meiji Restoration of 1868. Hiroshige's work came to have a marked influence on Western painting towards the close of the 19th century as a part of the trend in Japonism. Western artists closely studied Hiroshige's compositions, and some, such as van Gogh, painted copies of Hiroshige's prints.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiroshige

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