|
WORLD'S BEST ARTISTS
For details of the best modern
painters, since 1800, see:
Famous Painters (1830-2010)
WORLD'S GREATEST
ARTWORKS
For a list of the Top 10 painters/
sculptors: Best Artists of All
Time.
For the best oils/watercolours,
see: Greatest Paintings Ever.
MEANING OF ART
For a discussion of the types,
values, and significance of the
visual arts, see: Definition of Art.
.
|
French Impressionists
The Top 8
Paul
Cezanne (1839-1906)
Failed the entrance exams to the French Academy of Fine Arts. Befriended
by Pissarro, he exhibited with the group only twice (1874 and 1877) before
pursuing his own style of Post-Impressionism.
Edgar Degas (1834-1917)
Unlike most others, he had independent means and did not need to sell
his works to survive. Even so, he became the greatest figure painter of
the movement.
Edouard Manet
(1832-83)
After Le Dejeuner sur l'Herbe and Olympia were both rejected
by the Salon, he became the hero of the
younger (Impressionist) generation of Parisian painters. Remained a classicist
at heart, and spent the rest of his life repairing his links with the
Salon. Regarded as the Father of modern painting in France.
Claude Monet (1840-1926)
Acknowledged leader of French Impressionism. Devoted to plein-airism
in his lifelong pursuit to master the depiction of light, he is best known
for his water lily series of paintings, created in his garden at Giverny.
Berthe Morisot
(1841-95)
A pupil of Corot, she met Manet, married his brother Eugene, and exhibited
in all but one of the group's exhibitions. Regarded as the greatest female
Impressionist. Her daughter married the French Expressionist Georges Rouault.
Camille Pissarro
(1830-1903)
Studied at the French Academy of Fine Arts, was a lifelong anarchist,
and plein-air painter of cityscapes and landscapes.
Pierre-Auguste Renoir
(1841-1919)
Originally a porcelain-decorator, he took lessons at Charles Gleyre's
studio, where he met Monet, Bazille and Sisley. Exhibited at numerous
Impressionist shows, and also at the Salon (1879). Became the movement's
greatest painter of 'dappled light' before going his own way in the 1880s.
Alfred Sisley
(1839-1899)
Born in Paris to English parents, he took part in five of the group's
exhibitions, remaining (with Monet and Pissarro) a faithful exponent of
outdoor Impressionism for the rest of his life. See: Impressionist
Landscape Painting.
Other French Impressionists
Jean-Frederic Bazille (1841-70)
Rich young friend and painting associate of Monet, Renoir and Sisley.
Influenced by Manet, he subsidized Renoir, and appears in Monet's Dejeuner
sur l'Herbe.
Pierre Bonnard
(1867-1947)
Abandoned a legal career to become a painter. Member of the decorative
art group Les Nabis with Paul Serusier
(1864-1927), Mauris Denis (1870-1943) and others, before founding an 'interiors'
style known as Intimism with his close friend Edouard Vuillard
(1869-1940).
Eugene-Louis Boudin (1824-98)
Studied under Corot, exhibited at the Salon, and encouraged Monet to take
up plein air painting. Exhibited
at the first Impressionist show, as gesture of support.
Gustave Caillebotte (1848-94)
Exhibited with the group in five shows, and bought 70 of their paintings.
Paul Gauguin (1848-1903)
Quit his career as a stockbroker to become a painter. Associated initially
with Pissarro, and exhibited at four of the group's shows in the 1880s.
Later took up symbolism and an expressionist form of Post-Impressionism,
under the influence of Van Gogh and the South Seas.
Armand Guillaumin (1841-1927)
An active and proficient member of the Impressionist circle. He studied
with Pissarro and Cezanne, and dug ditches to make ends meet. Won 100,000
francs in the Paris lottery, in 1891.
Georges Seurat
(1859-1891)
Showed his masterpiece Sunday Afternoon on La Grande Jatte (1884,
Art Institute Of Chicago) at the 1886 Impressionist exhibition. In 1884,
with Signac, he founded the Societe des Artistes Independents.
Paul Signac (1863-1935)
A painter and the leading colour theorist of Neo-Impressionism,
he persuaded Seurat to employ the colour pigment techniques of Pointillism
which he himself developed further after Seurat's death.
Henri Toulouse-Lautrec
(1864-1901)
Short of stature and crippled in an accident during his youth, he was
greatly influenced by Manet, Degas and Van Gogh. Showed a number of his
wonderful Parisian music hall pictures with the Impressionists at the
Salon des Independents in 1889.
Edouard Vuillard
(1869-1940)
A member of Les Nabis, with Bonnard, he developed his own style
of quiet Impressionistic-interiors, known as Intimism.
German Impressionists
Adolph Menzel (1815-1905)
Seminal painter whose spontaneous depiction of light and atmosphere was
a precursor of later German Impressionism.
Max Liebermann (1847-1935)
Studied at Weimar's Academy of Fine Art and afterwards in Paris under
the Barbizon
painters. Then strongly influenced by Impressionism, he settled in
Berlin where he painted (and collected) Impressionist works.
Lovis Corinth
(1858-1925)
Took a degree at the Konigsberg Academy of Art, then studied in Paris
and Munich before settling in Berlin as a member of the Berlin Sezession
movement. Became one of the most influential German Impressionists, before
turning more to expressionism in the wake of a stroke in 1911.
Max Slevogt (1868-1932)
Like Corinth, went to Berlin to join the Sezession movement. Became an
important German Impressionist artist, specializing in portraits and genre
pictures of theatres and concert halls.
Dutch Impressionists
Johan-Bathold Jongkind (1819-91)
Much older than the others, Jongkind came to Paris as a landscape painter
in 1846. He was also a regular painter of the Normandy coast. In 1863,
he showed at the Salon des Refuses in Paris, making a noticeable
impact on the Impressionists who saw a kindred spirit in his spontaneous
style of painting.
Vincent
Van Gogh (1853-1890)
Moved in 1886 to Paris where he lived with his brother Theo, one of the
few art dealers who appreciated the likes of Degas, Gauguin, Seurat and
Toulouse-Lautrec. Under their influence, Van Gogh brightened up his palette,
and ultimately left to set up a studio for progressive artists in the
South of France. During his last few years, his painting shifted to a
more expressionist style, becoming more frenzied, more impastoed and even
more brilliant in colour.
British Impressionists
Walter Sickert (1860-1942)
A pupil of Whistler and greatly influenced by the drawing skill of his
friend Degas. The leading British Impressionist painter, with a subdued
palette, he founded the Camden Town Group in 1911, and was a close
associate of Camille Pissarro's son Lucien (1863-1944), Frederick Spencer
Gore (1878-1914) the Impressionist and first President of the Camden
Town Group, and Harold Gilman (1876-1919) the British Post-Impressionist.
Philip Wilson Steer (1860-1942)
Progressive British painter whose 1890s beach scenes and seascapes had
a fresh and sparkling Impressionist manner during the early 1890s, before
turning to a more conventional style after Gainsborough and Constable,
and ultimately to watercolours.
Danish Impressionists
P.S.
Kroyer (1851-1909)
Norwegian-born Danish Impressionist, leader of Skagen artist colony. Noted
for Hip Hip Hurrah! Artists Party at Skagen (1888, Goteborgs Konstmuseum,
Sweden), and Summer Evening on Skagen's South Beach with Anna Ancher
and Marie Kroyer (1893, Skagen Museum).
Vilhelm
Hammershoi (1864-1916)
A pupil of P.S. Kroyer, Hammershoi is the greatest Impressionist genre-painter
from Denmark, noted for his quiet interiors in muted colours and tones.
American Impressionists
James
Abbott McNeill Whistler (1834–1903)
After flunking West Point, he went to Paris at 21 to study painting. Along
with Manet, Pissarro, Guillaumin, Fantin-Latour, Jongkind and Cezanne,
he showed at the Salon des Refuses in 1863. Although never an Impressionist
proper, his atmospheric Nocturnes were strongly Impressionistic
in mood.
Mark Fisher (1841-1923)
American painter from Boston who studied under Charles Gleyre with Monet,
Sisley and Bazille. Settled in London where he rapidly established a busy
practice.
Mary
Cassatt (1844-1926)
Daughter of a wealthy Pittsburgh banker, she trained at the Pittsburgh
Academy of Arts and afterwards in Paris, where - at the invitation of
Degas - she exhibited with the group after 1879. She became the leading
American female Impressionist painter, as well as an important source
of contacts between painters and American collectors. Sadly, she abandoned
painting after being struck by blindness in 1914.
John
Singer Sargent (1856-1925)
A strong adherent of Impressionism, though also influenced by Old Master
portraitists such as Velazquez and Frans Hals, his rapid virtuoso dexterity
lent itself perfectly to the spontaneity of the style. One of the greatest
of 19th century portrait artists. See also Impressionist
Portraits.
Childe Hassam (1859-1935)
Trained in Boston and then in Paris (1886-9), where he adopted the techniques
and colour palette of the Impressionists. Afterwards he settled in New
York and became the first artist to import Impressionism into America.
A foremost exponent of the style, he was (like Cassatt before him) given
a one-man show at the prestigious Durand-Ruel gallery in Paris, in 1901.
The Ten (c.1898-1919)
This American Impressionist group consisted of ten progressive painters
from Boston and New York, most of whom had studied in Paris, who exhibited
together in a series of group shows between 1898 and 1919. As well as
Childe Hassam, members included: Frank W. Benson (1862-1951), Joseph R.
de Camp (1858-1923), Thomas W. Dewing (1851-1938), William L. Metcalf
(1858-1925), Robert Reid (1862-1929), Edward E. Simmons (1852-1931), Edund
C. Tarbell (1862-1938), John H Twachtman (1853-1902), and Julian Alden
Weir (1852-1919).
Russian Impressionists
Mikhail
Vrubel (1856–1910)
Symbolist and Impressionist artist.
Valentin Serov
(1865–1911)
Portraitist. One of the great Itinerant painters.
Konstantin Korovin (1861–1932)
Impressionist genre-painter.
Igor Grabar (1871-1960)
Landscape and still-life painter.
Alexander Kuprin (1880-1960)
Impressionist still life painter.
Australian
Impressionists
Tom Roberts (1856-1931)
The British-born Father of Australian landscape painting, he was the first
artist to import Impressionism into Australia (1885), following a short
European tour. Became a successful portraitist as well as one of the first
Aussie plein air painters.
John Peter Russell (1858-1930)
A contemporary of Roberts, he studied at Slade Art College in London,
and afterwards became friendly with Van Gogh in Paris, where he mixed
with the Cloisonnism painters Louis Anquetin, and Emile Bernard and the
sculptor Rodin. Strongly influenced by Monet, whom he met several times,
he returned finally to Sydney in 1908, and was swallowed up by obscurity.
|
