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Late 19th-century movement in the arts and literature characterized by the pursuit and veneration of beauty and the fostering of close relationships among the fine and applied arts. According to its major proponents, beauty was found in imaginative creations that harmonized colours, forms, and patterns derived from Western and non-Western cultures as well as motifs from nature. The Aesthetic Movement gained momentum in England in the 1850s, achieved widespread popularity in England and the USA by the 1870s, and declined by the 1890s.

The principal ideologies and practices of British Aestheticism came to the USA through both educational and commercial channels. As early as 1873, the Scottish stained-glass designer, decorator, and art dealer Daniel Cottier opened a branch of his interior design shop in New York and played a significant role in introducing aesthetic taste and artefacts to Americans. The Philadelphia Centennial Exposition of 1876, with its extensive display of industrial and decorative arts, showcased British Aestheticism and the Japanese ceramics that influenced it. British art magazines and books, especially Charles Locke Eastlake’s ...

(b Maidstone, Kent, April 10, 1767; d Maidstone, July 23, 1816).

English painter, engraver, draughtsman and museum official. The son of a coachbuilder, he was apprenticed to Julius Caesar Ibbetson before enrolling in 1784 at the Royal Academy Schools, London. In 1792 he accepted the post (previously declined by Ibbetson) of draughtsman to George, 1st Earl Macartney, on his embassy to China. As the embassy returned by inland waterway from Beijing to Canton, Alexander made detailed sketches of the Chinese hinterland—something achieved by no British artist previously and by very few subsequently. These sketches formed the basis for finished watercolours (e.g. Ping-tze Muen, the Western Gate of Peking, 1799; London, BM) and for numerous engravings by both himself and others. For over fifty years his images of China were widely borrowed by book illustrators and by interior decorators in search of exotic themes.

Alexander was also a keen student of British medieval antiquities, undertaking several tours in order to make drawings of churches and monuments; many of these were reproduced in the antiquarian publications of ...

(b Montrouge, Paris, April 4, 1806; d Paris, April 29, 1885).

French painter and writer. A student of Ingres, he first exhibited at the Salon in 1830 with a portrait of a child. He continued exhibiting portraits until 1868. Such entries as M. Geoffroy as Don Juan (1852; untraced), Rachel, or Tragedy (1855; Paris, Mus. Comédie-Fr.) and Emma Fleury (1861; untraced) from the Comédie-Française indicate an extended pattern of commissions from that institution. His travels in Greece and Italy encouraged the Néo-Grec style that his work exemplifies. Such words as refinement, delicacy, restraint, elegance and charm pepper critiques of both his painting and his sedate, respectable life as an artist, cultural figure and writer in Paris. In contrast to Ingres’s success with mature sitters, Amaury-Duval’s portraits of young women are his most compelling. In them, clear outlines and cool colours evoke innocence and purity. Though the portraits of both artists were influenced by classical norms, Amaury-Duval’s have control and civility in contrast to the mystery and sensuousness of Ingres’s....

(b Lyon, May 24, 1869; d Laudun, Gard, July 11, 1954).

French painter, writer and museum curator. He received his initial art training in Lyon and began his career designing patterns for silk, the city’s principal industry. After moving to Paris in 1889, he attended the Académie Julian and subsequently met Louis Valtat, Paul Ranson, Georges D’Espagnat and Henri Bataille (1872–1922). Perhaps the most important influence on his work was Auguste Renoir, who first saw André’s paintings in 1894 at the Salon des Indépendants and was so favourably impressed that he recommended André to the dealer Paul Durand-Ruel. The two artists struck up a close relationship, which lasted until Renoir’s death in 1919. André’s monograph Renoir (1919) is one of the most accurate contemporary accounts of the artist’s work.

By 1900 André had met the writers and artists associated with the Revue blanche, and in 1902 he helped to organize the journal’s exhibition of the Lyonese painter François Vernay (...

(b Barcelona, 1755; d Barcelona, Sept 7, 1822).

Spanish writer and painter. He was a member of the Real Escuela de la Junta de Comercio in Barcelona, where he was primarily active in a political capacity rather than as an artist and professor in its Escuela de Nobles Artes. He was expelled from the Junta in 1814 because he had taken the oath of loyalty to the usurper King Joseph Bonaparte, and as a result of accusations of favouring the French he spent his last years in total isolation from public life. His work as a writer on art is of considerable interest. He strongly defended French Neo-classicism and, in particular, the artists François Gérard and Jacques-Louis David. In a lecture he gave to the Junta de Comercio in 1810 he proclaimed the absolute validity of academic classicism, and this belief also pervades such manuscript pamphlets as the Discurso sobre la enseñanza del dibujo, Máximas generales para la pintura...

(b Amsterdam, Aug 6, 1762; d Amsterdam, Feb 10, 1844).

Dutch museum director and painter. He was a student at the Tekeningen Akademie in Amsterdam from 1784 to 1786. His teacher was the landscape painter Hendrik Meijer (1738–93), with whom he travelled to England in 1786. Between 1790 and 1795 Apostool produced some 80 aquatints after other masters. From 1796 he occupied a number of posts that once again took him to England, and to New York in 1806. The pen drawing made there, Flatland on Long Island (1806; Amsterdam, Hist. Mus.), is a valuable document within his sparse oeuvre.

Apostool’s career in artistic politics began in 1807. He was appointed secretary to the Legation to Naples, from where he travelled to Paris to report on the Dutch Prix de Rome artists working there. In Italy he made one of his few oil paintings, still entirely in the heroic 18th-century mode: the Anio Valley with the Waterfalls of Tivoli...

(b Santander, 1824; d Madrid, 1897).

Spanish painter and writer. He was a pupil of the landscape painter Carlos de Haes at the Escuela Superior in Madrid and exhibited at the National Fine Arts Exhibitions of 1858, 1860, 1862 and 1866. His artistic career, however, is less significant than his profound knowledge of art. He published articles in La Ilustración española y americana, El Día, Arte en España and the Revista de bellas artes (all published in Madrid), at a time when art criticism, understood as ‘a commentary on work, made with some degree of authority’, was still in its infancy in Spain. He gave several lectures at the Ateneo Cientifico, Literario y Artístico in Madrid, such as: ‘Observaciones sobre el concepto del Arte’ (15 May 1884), ‘Los desenvolvimientos de la pintura—López, Madrazo, Rosales, Fortuny’ (1887) and ‘La España del siglo XIX: Goya y su época’ (1895). His publications include the monographs ...

(Rossi)

(b Alderstone, England, Jan 27, 1851; d Bondi, Sydney, April 27, 1942).

Australian painter and writer . He attended the West London School of Art and, following the end of the Franco-Prussian War in 1871, the Académie Julian in Paris. In 1878 the newspaper owner David Syme invited Ashton to Melbourne to produce black-and-white illustrations for the Illustrated Australian News. After a disagreement with the management he transferred to the rival Australasian Sketcher. In 1883 he went to Sydney, where he joined the staff of the Picturesque Atlas of Australia and also contributed to the Sydney Bulletin. Ashton was an ardent disciple of Impressionist painting and claimed to have executed the first plein-air landscape in Australia: Evening, Merri Creek (1882; Sydney, A.G. NSW). Much of his work, as in the watercolour A Solitary Ramble (1888; Sydney, A.G. NSW), had a strong sentimental streak. In addition to his outdoor works Ashton painted a number of portraits, such as that of Helen Ashton...

[Murillo, Gerardo]

(b Guadalajara, Oct 3, 1875; d Mexico City, Aug 14, 1964).

Mexican painter, printmaker, writer, theorist, volcanologist, and politician. Murillo first studied art in his native Guadalajara with the painter Félix Bernardelli (1866–1905). Murillo relocated to Mexico City in 1896, studying briefly at the Academia de San Carlos, before securing support from the government to continue his education in Europe. He stopped briefly in Paris in 1897 before moving on to Rome and beginning his studies at the Accademia di Belle Arti and the Real Academia de España. Murillo’s encounters with European art had a profound impact on him, particularly Impressionism. He also achieved a measure of success on the European art scene, and his Self-portrait (1899; priv. col.) was awarded the silver medal at the Paris Salon. During his six-year stay Murillo also became absorbed by French and Italian socialist political theory.

Murillo returned to Mexico in 1904, joining the staff of the Academia de San Carlos, where he became an agitator for reform, clashing with the school’s administration over teaching methods and becoming a hero to students, among them José Clemente Orozco and David Alfaro Siqueiros. The debates culminated in the student strike of ...

(Francisca )

(b East Los Angeles, CA, Sept 20, 1946).

American muralist, activist and teacher. Born to Mexican–American parents, Baca is recognized as one of the leading muralists in the USA. She was involved from a young age in activism, including the Chicano Movement, the antiwar protest and Women’s Liberation. She studied art at California State University, Northridge, where she received Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees. Baca started teaching art in 1970 in East Los Angeles for the Los Angeles Department of Recreation and Parks and became interested in the ways murals could involve youth, allowing them to express their experiences. She founded the City of Los Angeles Mural Program in 1974, which evolved into the Social and Public Resource Center, a community arts organization, where she served as artistic director. She held five summer mural workshops from 1976 through 1983 for teenagers and community artists to help her paint a huge mural on the ethnic history of Los Angeles, called the ...

(b Brussels, Aug 20, 1848; d Ixelles, Brussels, Dec 13, 1914).

Belgian architect, designer, painter and writer . He came from a family of artists: one brother, Charles Baes, was a glass painter and two others, Henri Baes and Pierre Baes, were decorative painters. Jean Baes studied decorative design at the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts, Brussels, and, from 1867 to 1871, in the firm of Charle-Albert. He subsequently trained in architecture in the studios of Emile Janlet, Wynand Janssens and Alphonse Balat. Baes devoted most of his professional career—which was cut short in 1895 by a debilitating illness—to architecture but he also worked as an interior designer, a graphic designer, an architectural draughtsman and, especially, as a watercolourist of architectural subjects. In 1872 he was a founder-member of Belgium’s Société Centrale d’Architecture and after 1874 he collaborated on its journal, L’Emulation. In 1886 he became Assistant Director of the newly established Ecole des Arts Décoratifs, Brussels, where his pupils included Paul Hankar and ...

(b Minas de Ríotinto, Huelva, Jan 12, 1871; d Vera de Bidasoa, Navarra, 1953).

Spanish printmaker, painter and writer . He was self-taught. He belonged to the Generación del 98 and the modernist literary movement. He began engraving in 1901 and won second prize at the Exposición Nacional, Madrid (1906), going on to win first prize in 1908. He also began etching c. 1908, and it became his favourite technique, although he also made lithographs. Both his prints and paintings have a literary content and focus thematically on life’s human aspects in a way reminiscent of the work of Toulouse-Lautrec. He illustrated Rubén Darío’s Coloquio de los centauros. Despite their lack of fine detail, his prints are realistic, for example Bar Types (etching and aquatint, c. 1906–9; Madrid, Bib. N.) and Beggars (etching and aquatint, c. 1910; Madrid, Bib. N.). His impressionistic painting style of the 1920s became more roughly worked later, possibly due to the loss of an eye in 1931. In ...

(b Liège, March 18, 1896; d 1995).

Belgian painter, designer and writer. He was a pupil of the Symbolist painter Jean Delville but started using geometric forms after discovering the work of František Kupka. In 1923 he began to collaborate on the avant-garde journal 7 Arts together with Pierre-Louis Flouquet (1900–67) and Karel Maes (1900–74). Also in 1923 he married the dancer Akarova (b 1904) who inspired his ‘Kaloprosopies’ (1925), an album of nine woodcuts, and for whom he designed costumes and stage sets. At the same time he embarked on the design of functional furniture, first in traditional materials and then in metal tubing (1930) and polychrome, cellulose-based lacquer. He opened his own decorating business in Brussels (1930–70) and showed his ‘Standax’ furniture, which could be assembled and dismantled, at the Exposition Internationale des Arts et Techniques dans la Vie Moderne (1937) in Paris. Baugniet was a promoter of the ...

(b Overschie, Nov 4, 1812; d Arnhem, July 8, 1891).

Dutch painter, printmaker and museum director. He was from a wealthy farming family and was only allowed to train as a painter when he was about 20 years old. He was initially taught by the carriage-painter Molijn (probably François Adriaan Molijn Dzn), Jacob de Meijer and then at the Rotterdam Teeken-Akademie. Thereafter he studied for two and a half years in the studio of Pieter Gerardus van Os in The Hague, where he became especially skilled at depicting animals. Subsequently he worked in Overschie (1837), Velsen (1838), The Hague (1839) and Amsterdam (1840–42), where he became friendly with the landscape painter Christiaan Immerzeel (1808–86), whose sister he married. After this he worked in Haarlem (1843–50), Heemstede (1852), The Hague (from 1854) and finally, after 1889, in Arnhem. Van den Berg was a competent cattle and landscape painter who managed to achieve considerable fame. He obtained a gold medal in ...

(b Lille, April 28, 1868; d Paris, April 15, 1941).

French painter and writer. He was the son of a cloth merchant. Relations with his parents were never harmonious, and in 1884, against his father’s wishes, he enrolled as a student at the Atelier Cormon in Paris. There he became a close friend of Louis Anquetin and Toulouse-Lautrec. In suburban views of Asnières, where his parents lived, Bernard experimented with Impressionist and then Pointillist colour theory, in direct opposition to his master’s academic teaching; an argument with Fernand Cormon led to his expulsion from the studio in 1886. He made a walking tour of Normandy and Brittany that year, drawn to Gothic architecture and the simplicity of the carved Breton calvaries. In Concarneau he struck up a friendship with Claude-Emile Schuffenecker and met Gauguin briefly in Pont-Aven. During the winter Bernard met van Gogh and frequented the shop of the colour merchant Julien-François Tanguy, where he gained access to the little-known work of Cézanne....

(b Paris, Oct 7, 1797; d Paris, Sept 14, 1871).

French painter and writer. He trained initially under Anne-Louis Girodet before entering the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris where he studied under Jean-Joseph-Xavier Bidauld and was later taught by Ingres. From 1821 to 1823, and again in 1825, he travelled around Italy during which time he developed his mature style. He first exhibited at the Salon in 1827 with the work Cimabue Meeting Giotto (untraced). In 1833 he was appointed Inspecteur des Beaux-Arts and returned to Italy with the task of making casts of the Baptistery doors by Lorenzo Ghiberti in Florence and of the Singers (Florence, Mus. Opera Duomo) by Luca della Robbia. He continued to exhibit works at the Salon, mainly landscapes, such as View Taken in the Apennines on the Summit of Mount La Vernia (1836; Montpellier, Mus. Fabre), executed in a free Neo-classical style. Bertin later spent a considerable time travelling through Greece, Turkey, Egypt, Spain and Switzerland and painted a number of works evoking the landscapes he saw, such as ...

(b Milan, Dec 11, 1825; d Milan, Nov 24, 1898).

Italian painter, decorative artist and museum director. After studying under Luigi Sabatelli, Giuseppe Bisi (1787–1869) and Francesco Hayez at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera, Milan, Bertini worked in his father’s firm, which manufactured stained-glass windows. He then won a prize for a work of art connected with industry in the Accademia competition of 1844, for which he had submitted a Rest on the Flight into Egypt, painted on glass. The following year his Dante and Brother Ilario (Milan, Brera) took first prize and in 1846 the large-scale Tasso Dying in the Monastery of S Onofrio (ex-priv. col., Milan) was acclaimed. In the same year Bertini began his work as a fresco painter by decorating a room in the Palazzo Busca in Milan, where he depicted Dante and other famous Italians. After inspiring visits to Rome and Venice (1847 and 1848), where the work of Giambattista Tiepolo impressed him enormously, Bertini returned to Milan and devoted himself to great historical subjects. He was especially drawn to Lombard themes, but the painting that made his name was ...

(de)

(b Madrid, Sept 27, 1845; d Madrid, Jan 5, 1912).

Spanish writer, painter and collector. After pursuing a political career and taking a doctorate in civil and canon law, he dedicated himself to writing on art and produced important studies on Diego Velázquez (1898), Joaquín Sorolla y Bastida (1901) and other artists. He travelled extensively and enthusiastically in Europe (France, Belgium, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Italy, Germany, England and elsewhere), studying especially the different national schools of painting. On his travels he also painted landscapes. After working for some time as a copyist in the Museo del Prado, Beruete decided in 1873 to concentrate his efforts on painting and on learning to perfect his craft. He enrolled at the Escuela Superior de Bellas Artes de S Fernando in Madrid and also studied at the studio of Carlos de Haes. Beruete was among the founders of the Institución Libre de Enseñanza, and with its members, and with Carlos de Haes, he made several study trips abroad. In Paris he came to know the painting of the Barbizon school, and in Belgium he assimilated the teaching of the generation of landscape artists who had adopted a form of Realism. The fundamental constants of the Spanish pictorial tradition, however, especially the sketching style typical of Velázquez and Francisco de Goya, became the starting-point for Beruete’s own style, enabling him to record his response to landscape, impressions of light and rural settings. Beruete’s achievement was acknowledged by various national and international awards....

(b Rome, Sept 18, 1803; d Rome, Feb 27, 1884).

Italian writer and painter. He studied theology and Classical literature at the Seminario in Rome and took a degree in theology at the Università degli Studi in Rome, then becoming a respected translator of Ancient Greek. His literary interests led him to join the Arcadia Academy, Rome, and he came into contact with such linguistic scholars as Antonio Cesari (1760–1828) and Pietro Giordani. Like them, he was greatly interested in Italian writers of the 14th century and also in the 19th-century movement called Purismo. As a painter Bianchini specialized in watercolours and miniatures, producing mainly copies of Renaissance masters. He painted an altarpiece of S Giovanni Battista de’ Rossi (Rome, Santa Trinità dei Pellegrini). He was secretary of the Società degli Amatori e Cultori di Belle Arti in Rome (1833–53), where he gave several lectures that developed aesthetic doctrines linking literary and pictorial Purismo. He was engaged in restoration, in the Galleria delle Carte Geografiche of the Vatican and in the chapel of S Scolastica in Subiaco, and also took part in the Amministrazione Comunale of Rome....

[Biegalski, Boleslas-Biegas]

(b Koziczyn, nr Ciechanów, March 29, 1877; d Paris, Sept 30, 1954).

Polish sculptor, painter and writer, active in France. Between 1896 and 1901 he studied at the School of Fine Arts in Kraków under the sculptors Alfred Daun and Konstanty Laszczka. In 1901 he went to Paris on a scholarship and remained there until his death. He exhibited from 1897 throughout Europe (especially at the Salon National des Beaux-Arts, the Salon d’Automne and the Salon des Indépendants in Paris), and he took part in the competitions for the Kościuszko monument for Washington, DC, and the Chopin monument for Warsaw.

Initially, Biegas’s sculptures were inspired by folk art, but towards the end of the 1890s naturalistic traits verging on expressionism and a certain geometrization of form are evident in his compositions. His most characteristic sculptures, mostly heads of women with long hair in the style of the Secession, appeared in the early 20th century. These works, often simplified and geometrical in form (e.g. ...