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Thomas Lawrence. (1769-1830).
Child prodigy and genious autodidact it carries out his first tables at the 5 years age. He starts to draw in Bristol where his/her father is landlord.
At the ten years age it helps already its family by selling to the customers its portraits with the pastel. The visitors are greeted with these words: “Will Sirs, here my son, let it be made your portraits? ”
One knows of him only portraits and a Crucifixion now disappeared. He is regarded as one of the best portraitists of his time.
Its family settles in Bath where its portraits quickly make him an artist considered in the large company from London. In 1787 in London, at 18 years it carries out its first carried in foot that of Lady Cremorne. Work receives favorable comments in the press and a critic speaks about him like Joshua Reynolds an old future simply 20 years. Its reputation is worth an order : the portrait of the Queen Charlotte (1790), regarded as one of its more great successes with that of the actress Miss Farren, who will become countess of Derby. During following years its notoriety does nothing but grow in the living rooms with the mode and in the artistic mediums, it is received in Royal Académy in 1794 at the required minimal age, 25 years. He becomes about it the president of 1820 to 1830. With death to sir Joshua Reynolds in 1792 it is named painter of the king George III. It continues to very carry out portraits of high-quality, John Angerstein and his Wife (1792), Arthur Atherley. Thomas Lawrence is located in the line of Reynolds and Gainsborough and through them, in the tradition of Van Dyck. The brilliance of the raised colors of white small touchs and the almost impressionist landscapes of the funds produce a tempting and sophisticated effect. However its works do not miss a psychological penetration. In 1794 it represents Pinkie, Sarah Barrett Moulton, the girl of a rich property owner of Jamaica, Pinkie was born in 1783. Unfortunately, its life is short, it dies one year after Thomas Lawrence completes the painting is at 12 years. Pinkie is exposed beside Blue Boy of Gainsborough to the Library of Huntington at San Marino in California. The two fabrics are often associated one with the other. The style of Lawrence is characterized by a firm and energetic touch, the use of bright colors and a great search for expressivity in the treatment of its subjects. The artist especially seeks to excite their elegance. In 1814 the future George IV orders to him the portraits of all the monarchs, statesmen and military chiefs having taken part in the fall of Napoleon. Two of the portraits of the most famous children of Lawrence were painted in 1820 : Emily and Laura Calmady and Charles Lambton or the Red Boy
In 1824 it exposes to Paris and Delacroix takes as a starting point its work to represent the Baron Schwitters. Thomas Lawrence is very gifted to carry out the portraits of children, it can fix their gaity and their unconcern in their plays and it emphasizes also its women models, first witness of their beauty. Of another with dimensions it carries out the official portrait of the Pope Pie VII. Lawrence was famous for the duration that it took to finish some of its paintings, Isabella Wolf awaited his portrait during 12 years…..
At its death, its workshop contained a large number of unfinished paintings….
He never married. When it disappears in 1830, Lawrence is the most famous portraitist painter with the mode in Europe. With sir Joshua Reynolds and Thomas Gainsborough, Thomas Lawrence is one of the largest Masters of the art of the portrait in Great Britain, his work announces romantic painting.
Specialist of sky, it
studies them like “ most imperceptible of the phenomena of the world ”
and seeks “ to determine informs it ”. According to him: “ Painting
is a science, and it should be a constant research of the natural laws.
”.
The following year, it
exposes to Paris and gains a gold medal. Its pictures, and particularly
the Cart of hay (1821) make the admiration of Delacroix and the landscape
designers of the school of Barbizon which at that time start to paint in
outside. After having this picture Delacroix decides to change colors them
Scenes of the Massacres of Scio picture exposed in 1824. In 1828 its wife
Maria Bicknell dies of tuberculosis after having given rise to seven
children, this reflects itself in its work of which the atmosphere becomes
darker.
The picture of youth of
Constable are very impregnated by the tradition of le Lorrain, or Van
Ruisdael and Gainsborough. It is as a majority of the landscapes to the
dark colors. But dice 1802 he prefers with the workshop the direct
observation of nature. Constable always regards the sky as the element
prevailing of a landscape. Its manner becomes more animated and it starts
to use the knife. Sometimes it tries to apply to the oil-base paint the
principles of the watercolour. From this first period remain of especially
religious works. Thereafter it is devoted especially to the portrait and
the landscape. Its landscapes announce by its technique impressionism
because of the direct observation, its pictures are dissociated by their
freshness and their spontaneousness. He seeks the light effects. Its late
works reveal the loneliness of the painter (Corn Field, 1836). But they
announce Hudson River School.
Its art, from which
emerges a particularly significant and sincere vision of nature, light and
atmosphere, do not have much influence in England. He influence deeply
French painters of second half of the 19th century, in particular Eugène
Boudin and Claude Monet.
While painting and by
observing the vastness, John Constable seeks to reach the true nature of
the things. This made of him a romantic painter but also one of the most
authentic precursors of impressionism in France and painters of the Hudson
River School in the United States.
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