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Article

Adams, Tate  

(b Holywood, County Down, Ireland, Jan 26, 1922).

Australian painter, printmaker, book designer, lecturer, collector, gallery director and publisher of limited edition artists’ books, of Irish decent. He worked as a draughtsman before entering war service in the British Admiralty from 1940 to 1949, including five years in Colombo, where he made sketching trips to jungle temples with the Buddhist monk and artist Manjsiro Thero. Between 1949 and 1951 Adams worked as an exhibition designer in London and studied wood-engraving with Gertrude Hermes in her evening class at the Central School of Arts and Crafts (now Central St Martin’s College of Art and Design). In 1951, after moving to Melbourne, Adams began a 30-year teaching commitment at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT), where he instructed many of the younger generation of Australian printmakers, including George Baldessin and Jan Senbergs. A brief return to Britain and Ireland in 1957–8 provided experience with Dolmen Press, Dublin, which published his first book of engravings, ...

Article

Bonnat, Léon(-Joseph-Florentin)  

Julius Kaplan

(b Bayonne, June 20, 1833; d Monchy-Saint-Eloi, Oise, Sept 8, 1922).

French painter, collector and teacher. He lived in Madrid from 1846 to 1853, where his father owned a bookshop, and there he studied with both José de Madrazo y Agudo and Federico de Madrazo y Küntz. After moving to Paris in 1854, he entered Léon Cogniet’s atelier at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts and competed for the Prix de Rome in 1854, 1855 and 1857. He won second prize in 1857 with the Resurrection of Lazarus (Bayonne, Mus. Bonnat), a painting characterized by the jury as frank, firm and powerful, terms applied to his art throughout his career. His early paintings of historical and religious subjects gave way in the late 1860s to the less esteemed field of genre—scenes of Italian life and the Near East—based on sketches made during visits to Italy (1858–60; see fig.) and the Near East and Greece (1868–70).

Bonnat’s final change of career occurred in the mid- to late 1870s, when he became internationally renowned for his portraits, particularly of members of the European and American establishment. His highly realistic technique reflected his frequent use of photographs as models. The portraits, which cost 30,000 francs each, were so desirable that by the 1880s he had to schedule three to four sittings a day to accommodate his long waiting list....

Article

Bray, Phyllis  

British, 20th century, female.

Born 30 August 1911, in Norwood (London); died 1991, in Hampstead (London).

Painter, illustrator, muralist, lithographer, collector. Still-lifes, figures, landscapes, nature.

East London Group, London Group.

Phyllis Bray was the daughter of William de Bray, attaché to the mother of the Russian Tsar Nicholas II. Her first husband was the painter John Cooper, and her second was Eric Phillips. She studied on a scholarship at the Slade School of Fine Art, London, where her tutor was Henry Tonks. She was a leading figure in the formation of the ...

Article

Byzantine influence in Western medieval art  

Rebecca W. Corrie

In the 20th century, discussion of the relationship between Byzantine art and the art of the Latin West evolved in tandem with scholarship on Byzantine art itself. Identified as the religious imagery and visual and material culture of the Greek Orthodox Empire based at Constantinople between ad 330 and 1453, studies of Byzantine art often encompassed Post-Byzantine art and that of culturally allied states such as Armenian Cilicia, Macedonia, and portions of Italy. As such fields as Palaiologan family manuscripts and wall paintings, Armenian manuscripts, and Crusader manuscripts and icons emerged, scholars identified new intersections between Western medieval and Byzantine art. Subtle comparisons emerged with the recognition that Byzantine art was not static but changed over time in style and meaning, although most analyses identified Byzantine art as an accessible reservoir of the naturalistic, classicizing styles of antiquity. Scholars considering the 7th-century frescoes at S Maria Antiqua and mosaics at S Maria in Cosmedin, both in Rome, and the 8th-century frescoes at Castelseprio and Carolingian manuscripts such as the Coronation Gospels of Charlemagne (Vienna, Schatzkam. SCHK XIII) used formal comparisons with works such as pre-iconoclastic icons at St Catherine’s Monastery on Sinai, along with the history of Byzantine iconoclasm, to argue for the presence of Greek painters in the West. Similarly, Ottonian and Romanesque painting and luxury arts, such as ivories, provided examples of the appropriation of Byzantine imperial imagery. Yet the study of works such as the great 12th-century ...

Article

Zhang Daqian  

Sarah E. Fraser

[Chang Ta-ch’ienChang Dai–chienzhaihao Dafengtang]

(b Neijiang, Sichuan Province, May 10, 1899; d Taipei, Apr 2, 1983).

Chinese painter, calligrapher, collector, and accomplished forger. Born Zhang Zhengquan, he was from an artistic family and began to paint under the tutelage of his mother, Zeng Youzhen (1860–1936). In 1917, after passing through Shanghai, he joined his elder brother Zhang Shanzi (1882–1940) in Kyoto, where he learned textile dyeing and weaving.

In 1919 Zhang returned to Shanghai and studied with the calligrapher Zeng Xi (1861–1930), who gave him the name Zhang Yuan, as well as with the painter Li Ruiqing (1867–1920), a specialist in Shitao-style landscapes (1642–1707). Both are credited with cultivating Zhang’s distinctive calligraphic hand. Zhang’s intentionally splayed characters, combined with awkward elements such as leans in unexpected directions, have origins in antiquarian studies (jinshi xue), an element central to Zeng and Li’s practice. Li deployed a seal script (zhuanshu) based on bronzes and stone stele. In December ...

Article

Derain, André  

Jane Lee

(b Chatou, nr Paris, June 17, 1880; d Garches, Sept 8, 1954).

French painter, sculptor, illustrator, stage designer and collector. He was a leading exponent of Fauvism. In early 1908 he destroyed most of his work to concentrate on tightly constructed landscape paintings, which were a subtle investigation of the work of Cézanne. After World War I his work became more classical, influenced by the work of such artists as Camille Corot. In his sculpture he drew upon his knowledge and collection of non-Western art.

Derain abandoned his engineering studies in 1898 to become a painter and attended the Académie Carrière. He also sketched in the Musée du Louvre and painted on the banks of the Seine. On a visit to the Louvre in 1899 he met the painter Georges Florentin Linaret (1878–1905), who had been his companion at school, and who was copying Uccello in an extraordinary manner; he was studying under Gustave Moreau and later introduced Derain to a fellow pupil, Henri Matisse. Derain’s painting was already influenced by the work of Cézanne, and in ...

Article

Gao Fenghan  

Ju-Hsi Chou

[Kao Feng-han; hao Nanfu Shanren]

(b Jiaozhou (modern Jiao xian), Shandong Province, 1683; d ?Shandong Province, 1748–9).

Chinese painter, calligrapher, seal-carver, collector and poet. The son of a minor official in charge of local education, Gao developed an interest in poetry, painting and seal-carving in his early youth, when he also began to collect old seals and inkstones. The great poet Wang Shizhen took a liking to him and left instructions before his death that Gao be admitted into the ranks of his disciples. A relative of the poet, Wang Qilei, also provided Gao with some formal instruction in the art of painting, beyond what he could learn from his father, an amateur painter of orchids and bamboo. Gao’s official career did not begin until 1729, when he took up an appointment as assistant magistrate of She xian, Anhui Province. In 1734 a new assignment took him to Taizhou, east of Yangzhou, Jiangsu Province. In 1736, having become entangled in a legal dispute involving a chief commissioner of the salt gabelle, he was briefly imprisoned; this and his deteriorating health, which resulted in the paralysis of his right hand, inevitably led to his resignation from officialdom....

Article

Foster, Myles Birket  

Scott Wilcox

(b Tynemouth, Northumb., Feb 4, 1825; d Weybridge, Surrey, March 27, 1899).

English painter, illustrator and collector. After a short and unsatisfactory period working in the family brewing business, he was able to convince his Quaker parents to allow him to pursue a career in art. He was apprenticed to a wood-engraver, Ebenezer Landells (1808–60), who recognized Foster’s talent for drawing and set him to work designing blocks for engraving. Foster also provided designs for Punch and the Illustrated London News. In 1846 he set up on his own as an illustrator. The rustic vignettes of the seasons that he contributed to the Illustrated London News and its counterpart, the Illustrated London Almanack, established him as a charming interpreter of the English countryside and rural life and led to his employment illustrating similar themes in other publications. During the 1850s his designs were much in demand; he was called upon to illustrate volumes of the poetry of Longfellow, Sir Walter Scott and John Milton. His range was limited, however, and he was criticized for relying on the same rural imagery regardless of the nature of the text....

Article

Gigoux, Jean(-François)  

Régis Marin

(b Besançon, Jan 6, 1806; d Paris, Dec 11, 1894).

French painter, lithographer, illustrator and collector. The son of a blacksmith, he attended the school of drawing in Besançon. He left for Paris and in 1828–9 frequented the Ecole des Beaux-Arts while executing various minor works. He made his début at the Salon in 1831 with a number of drawings. He established himself at the Salons of 1833 and 1834 with such sentimental compositions as Henry IV Writing Verses to Gabrielle, St Lambert at Versailles, Count de Comminges, Fortune-telling and such portraits as Laviron and The Blacksmith (1886; unless otherwise stated, all works are in Besançon, Mus. B.-A. & Archéol.; many drawings in Lille, Mus. B.-A. and Rouen, Mus. B.-A.). His portrait of the Phalansterist Fourier (1836) confirmed the success he had achieved as a history painter with the Last Moments of Leonardo da Vinci (1835).

In 1836 Gigoux travelled to Italy with his students ...

Article

Ye Gongchuo  

Elizabeth F. Bennett

[Yeh Kung-ch’uozi Yufu, Yuhuhao Xiaan, Juyuan]

(b Panyu, Guangdong Province, 1881; d 1968).

Chinese calligrapher, painter, archaeologist, collector, poet and government official. He was born into a wealthy, scholarly family, received a classical education and as a youth of 16 founded a school in Guangzhou (Canton) and a publishing company in Shanghai; at 17 he enrolled in law school at the Imperial University in Beijing. His studies were interrupted two years later by the Boxer Rebellion of 1900, whereupon Ye moved to Wuchang, Hubei Province, and taught history, geography and modern languages for four years. In 1906 he began his official career as a specialist in railways and communications. After 1911, Ye held various positions in the Republican government and was instrumental in the establishment of Jiaotong University in Shanghai; he also served as director of classics for several years at Peking [Beijing] University. After the Sino-Japanese War (1937–45), he gave up his government career and devoted himself to the arts and research, although he continued to serve on educational and cultural committees for the rest of his life. In particular, he became involved in the committee to organize the simplification of Chinese characters. In ...

Article

Wang Jiqian  

Mayching Kao

[Wang Chi-ch’ienC. C. Wangming Jiquan]

(b Suzhou, Jiangsu Province, Feb 14, 1907; d New York, NY, July 3, 2003).

Chinese painter, calligrapher, collector, and connoisseur, active in the USA. Wang studied Chinese painting and connoisseurship first with Gu Linshi (1865–1933) in Suzhou and subsequently with Wu Hufan (1894–1968) in Shanghai, where he gained access to major painting collections, including that of the Palace Museum. In 1947 he toured the USA and two years later settled in New York. Thereafter he did much to promote the study of Chinese painting in the USA and was often invited to lecture at universities and to advise museums and collectors. Exhibitions of his work were held in prestigious institutions in both Asia and the USA. In keeping with his study of traditional Chinese paintings, in his early work Wang followed the orthodox masters (see Orthodox school) and continued the elegant styles of the later literati tradition (see China: Court and literati painters). Living in New York put him in contact with trends in modern Western art. Finding parallels between Western abstract art and traditional Chinese painting with its emphasis on spiritual expression, from ...

Article

Ke Jiusi  

Elizabeth F. Bennett

[K’o Chiu-ssuzi Jingzhonghao Zhouqiu Sheng]

(b Tiantai, Zhejiang Province, 1290; d Suzhou, Jiangsu Province, 1343).

Chinese calligrapher, painter, connoisseur, and collector. He was appointed connoisseur to the imperial art collection housed at the newly constructed Kuizhang Pavilion in Beijing in 1330, by the Yuan emperor Wenzong (reg 1330–1332). He was given the title of Master Connoisseur of Calligraphy, and was responsible for the verification of all the painting and calligraphy that entered the collection. After the death of Wenzong in 1332, Ke retired to Suzhou, where he spent the rest of his life.

Ke owned a large collection of painting and calligraphy and was often asked to authenticate works and write inscriptions. His calligraphy appears on paintings such as Lowland with Trees (handscroll, ink on paper, n.d.; New York, John M. Crawford jr. priv. col.) attributed to Guo Xi, Early Autumn (handscroll, ink and color on paper, 267 × 1020 mm, n.d.; Detroit, MI, Inst. A.) by Qian Xuan, and one of the three genuine Tang copies of ...

Article

Kimura Kenkadō  

Tadashi Kobayashi

[Sansai]

(b Osaka, 1736; d Osaka, 1802). Japanese collector, scholar, poet, painter and calligrapher. As a boy he undertook the study of medicinal herbs at the apothecary’s shop owned by his father and other relatives. According to tradition he began to have an interest in art when he was about five or six and studied with the Kanō-school master Ōoka Shunboku. He also learnt bird-and-flower painting (kachōga) under Kakutei, a Zen priest from Nagasaki. He first met the literati painter Ike Taiga (see Ike Taiga) when he was 15, and became his pupil. Taiga’s influence is evident in his Bunjinga (literati painting; see Japan §VI 4., (vi), (d)) and also in his calligraphy, in which he excelled. Kenkadō also studied seal-carving with Kō Fuyō, a friend of Taiga, and poetry with Katayama Hokkai. He became one of the most erudite and well-known literati in the region. By profession he was a sake brewer and amassed a fortune, which, however, he forfeited when he incurred the wrath of the authorities. He collected a vast range of objects including calligraphy, old writings and paintings, maps, ceramics, utensils for the ...

Article

Krychevs’ky, Vasyl’  

Myroslava M. Mudrak

[Krichevsky, Vasily]

(b Vorozhba, Kharkiv province, Jan 12, 1873; d Caracas, Venezuela, Nov 15, 1952).

Ukrainian architect, painter, illustrator and collector. He received no systematic artistic education and first became known because of his interest in Ukrainian folklore. His prizewinning design for the City Council building in Poltava (1900) formed the basis of a new style, founded on traditions of Ukrainian folk art, and initiated a movement in Ukrainian architecture. Among his other buildings are the People’s House in Lokhvitsa (1904) and the Shevchenko Memorial Museum in Kaniv (1931–4). As a painter, he was influenced by the French Impressionists. The pure, harmonious colours of his southern Ukrainian landscapes convey the lyrical atmosphere of his native land, and he took part in the annual exhibitions of the Union of Russian Watercolourists in St Petersburg (1899–1902) and in the exhibitions of Kiev painters (1910–13). Krychevsky was one of the founders of contemporary Ukrainian book design, reviving the technique of the woodcut and producing over 80 cover designs. He produced set and costume designs for 15 plays and operas in the Sadovs’ky Theatre in Kiev (...

Article

Langlois, François  

Maxime Préaud

[Chartres, deCiartres]

(b Chartres, bapt May 12, 1588; d Paris, Jan 13, 1647).

French print-publisher and seller, bookseller and painter. Between 1610 and 1614 he was apprenticed to Pierre-Louis Febvrier, a bookseller in Paris. He visited Rome in 1613 and 1614, and Genoa, Florence and Rome again in 1621; in the course of these travels he became friendly with Anthony van Dyck, who executed his portrait (Viscount Cowdray priv. col.), and with Claude Vignon, Stefano della Bella and François Collignon. It was probably at this period that he acquired the nickname of Chartres, or (in Italian) Ciartres. In 1624 and 1625 he dealt in paintings in association with Vignon, while also collecting prints for Thomas Howard, 14th Earl of Arundel, and for Charles I of England.

In 1629, while on his way to Italy with Matthieu Fredeau, a painter from Antwerp, Langlois collaborated with him on the Rosary altarpiece in the Dominican church in Aix-en-Provence. Around that time he embarked in earnest on a career as a print-publisher, beginning with illustrated books, which he published in collaboration with ...

Article

Paton, Sir (Joseph) Noel  

Alasdair A. Auld

[Noël]

(b Dunfermline, Fife, 1821; d Edinburgh, Dec 25, 1901).

Scottish painter, illustrator, sculptor and collector. From his earliest years he drew avidly, seeking inspiration from ancient history, the Bible and from tales of romance and legend. His father was a keen antiquarian, and his habit of collecting items of historical interest and artistic merit was inherited by his son who amassed a collection, which included arms and armour, now in the National Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh. He used items from the collection in a large number of his paintings such as ‘I wonder who lived in there?’ (1867; Mrs Eva Noël Findlay priv. col.), the Fairy Raid (1867; Glasgow A.G. & Mus.), In die Malo (1881) and Oskold and the Ellé Maids (1874). After three years as head designer in one of the biggest sewn-muslin factories in Paisley, Strathclyde, Paton went to London in 1842. Although he did not take a studentship at the Royal Academy Schools, it was there that he met John Everett Millais, and they became lifelong friends. He won prizes in the Westminster Hall competitions in ...

Article

Dong Qichang  

Celia Carrington Riely

revised by Katharine Burnett

[Tung Ch’i-ch’ang; zi Xuanzai; hao Sibo, Siweng, Xiangguang, Xiangguang jushi; Wenmin]

(b Shanghai, Feb 10, 1555; d Dec 1636).

Chinese painter, calligrapher, connoisseur, theoretician, collector, and high official.

At the age of 12 Dong Qichang, the son of a local school teacher, passed the prefectural civil-service examination to qualify as a Government Student (shengyuan) and was awarded a coveted place in the prefectural school. Mortified, however, at being ranked below his younger kinsman Dong Chuanxu because of his clumsy calligraphy, from 1571 Dong resolved to study calligraphy in earnest. His initial models were rubbings of works by the Tang-period (618–907 ce) calligraphers Yan Zhenqing and Yu Shinan (558–638), but soon realizing the superior merits of the Six Dynasties (222–589 ce) calligraphers, he turned to the works of Zhong You (151–230 ce) and the great Wang Xizhi (see Wang family (i), (1)). After three years he was confident of having grasped their style, and no longer admired works by the Ming-period (...

Article

Ricketts, Charles  

Emmanuel Cooper

(de Sousy)

(b Geneva, Oct 2, 1866; d London, Oct 7, 1931).

English painter, designer, writer and collector. He trained as an illustrator at the City and Guilds Technical Art School, Lambeth, London, where he met and formed a lifelong relationship with Charles Shannon. He identified with the ideals of the Aesthetic Movement, finding inspiration in Renaissance art as well as in the French artists Gustave Moreau and Pierre Puvis de Chavannes. In 1888 he took over James Abbott McNeill Whistler’s house, The Vale, in Chelsea and drew together an artists’ colony. Inspired by the work of A. H. Mackmurdo and William Morris, he set up a small press over which he exercised complete control of design and production, producing art journals and books that included Oscar Wilde’s A House of Pomegranates (1891) and The Sphinx (1894). Ricketts later designed founts, initials, borders and illustrations for the Vale Press (1896–1904), blending medieval, Renaissance and contemporary imagery. His crisp woodcut illustrations often incorporated the swirling lines of Art Nouveau and androgynous figures....

Article

Somme le roi  

Anne-Françoise Leurquin

Manual for religious and moral instruction commissioned by Philip III, King of France (reg 1270–85), from his confessor, the Dominican Frère Laurent. The work was finished in 1279–80 and was a literary success. Over 100 manuscript copies have survived, with printed editions appearing in the 15th century, and translations were made into English, Castilian, Catalan, Italian, Dutch and Occitan.

Although the presentation copy is lost, 7 manuscripts have a complete cycle of 15 full-page images and another 20 have selected images. The scenes include representations of the Ten Commandments, the Credo, the Pater noster, the Apocalyptic beast, the Last Judgement and personifications of the virtues and vices paired with moralizing scenes taken mainly from the Old Testament. The images, like the text, are extremely didactic. Nearly all the fully illuminated manuscripts were made for the royal entourage at the turn of the 14th century, often by exceptional artists. Two books were made for the royal family in ...

Article

Twopeny, William  

British, 19th century, male.

Born 1797; died 1873.

Painter, architectural draughtsman, illustrator, collector. Architectural views.

William Twopeny provided illustrations for books on architecture.

London (British Mus.): 13 albums