Art History: 17th - 19th Century

Decorative style in the visual arts, interior design, and architecture that flourished from 1890 to 1910.

Term for that general field of applied design in which hand fabrication is dominant. The term was coined in England in the late 19th cent.

A style characterized by expressive, flamboyant, and dynamic design. It flourished in Europe between 1600 and 1750.

Name applied, at first in a joking spirit, to a period of European culture and a style of furniture, decoration, and art originating in Germany early in the 19th cent.

A term that, when applied generally, means clearness, elegance, symmetry, and repose produced by attention to traditional forms.

Group of American landscape painters, working from 1825 to 1875. The 19th-century romantic movements of England, Germany, and France were introduced to the United States by such writers as Washington Irving and James Fenimore Cooper.

Opposition to the religious use of images. Veneration of pictures and statues symbolizing sacred figures, Christian doctrine.

Used with reference to Italian painting in the 16th century and represents a distinct phase between the art of the High Renaissance and the rise of baroque.

In the arts and literature generally, a ‘true-to-life’ approach to subject matter; also described as naturalism. Taken to its extreme, trompe l'oeil paintings trick the eye into believing objects are real

Movement in art, architecture, and design in Europe and North America about 1750-1850, characterized by a revival of classical Greek and Roman styles.

Group of British painters (1848-53); Dante Gabriel Rossetti, John Everett Millais, and Holman Hunt - at this time young students at the Royal Academy - were the leading figures among the seven founders.

Religious and political movement in 16th-century Europe to reform the Roman Catholic Church, which led to the establishment of the Protestant churches.

Movement in the arts and architecture in 18th-century Europe, particularly in France, that tended towards lightness, elegance, delicacy, and decorative charm.

Term loosely applied to literary and artistic movements of the late 18th and 19th cent.

A pictorial representation of inanimate objects. The term derives from the 17th-century Dutch still-leven, meaning a motionless natural object or objects.

Painter and naturalist, born in Les Cayes, Haiti. In 1803 he moved to his father’s estate near Philadelphia, where he spent his time hunting.

Richard Parkes Bonington was born in Arnold near Nottingham, where his father was a drawing master. In 1817 the family moved to Calais, France, where Richard's father set up a lace factory.

Constable is considered one of the two greatest masters of landscape painting in Britain, the other being J.M.W. Turner (1775 - 1851).

French painter. Born in Paris, he trained initially in the studio of a successful painter, finishing his education at the French Academy in Rome. On his return to France, he emerged as a leading exponent of Neoclassicism.

The greatest French painter of the first half of the 19th century, Eugène Delacroix is generally considered to have been the leader of the Romantic school—opposed to the Neoclassicism of Ingres.

Caspar David Friedrich was the leading landscape painter in Germany during the Romantic era. His views of the desolate coastlands of his native Pomerania and of the mountainous regions of central Europe combine a careful observation of natural features with a deep sense of the spiritual.

French painter and graphic artist. One of the main figures of the Romantic movement, he brought a new energy and emotional intensity to painting.

1746–1828, Spanish painter and graphic artist. Goya is generally conceded to be the greatest painter of his era.

French painter and leader of the French classical school who is remembered for his historical and mythological works.

French artist. A leading member of the Barbizon School, he painted scenes of peasant life and landscapes.

Johann Friedrich Overbeck was a German painter and draftsman born in Lübeck. He studied at the Vienna Academy (1806 - 9), but preferred to frequent the circle around Eberhard Wächter.

From Encyclopedia of the Romantic Era, 1760-1850
Franz Pforr was one of the two founding members of the German artistic community of the Romantic period that called itself the Brotherhood of Saint Luke (Lucas Brotherhood) and was later termed the Nazarenes.

Italian sculptor and architect, b. Naples. He was the dominant figure of the Italian baroque.

Flemish-born painter. The pioneer in the Dutch school of free, broad brushwork, he painted directly on to the canvas to create portraits that are spontaneous and full of life.

From A Biographical Dictionary of Artists
Born Claude Gellée in the village of Chamagne in Lorraine, the French painter known as Claude Lorrain can be considered as the greatest landscapist of the 17th century.

Dutch painter, etcher, and teacher. Rembrandt was one of the most prolific and significant artists in Europe of the 17th century.

Neapolitan artist with a predilection for a dark palette and for fiery battle scenes and violent subject matter.

Flemish painter, regarded as the greatest exponent of the Baroque: appointed (1609) painter to Archduke Albert of Austria, who gave him many commissions, artistic and diplomatic.

Spanish painter. One of the outstanding artists of the 17th century, he was court painter to Philip IV in Madrid, where he produced many portraits of the royal family.

Dutch painter who came from Delft. His response to the transient beauty of light and colored surfaces, and his impeccable sense of design, place him among the greatest of all European artists.

William Blake, born in London where he spent all but three years of his life, was both poet and visionary artist.

French rococo painter. He was court painter to Louis XV from 1765, and was popular for his light-hearted, decorative scenes which often convey a playful eroticism.

French painter. He took as his subjects naturalistic still lifes and quiet domestic scenes that recall the Dutch tradition. His work is a complete contrast to that of his contemporaries, the rococo painters.

Jean-Honoré Fragonard was the last of the French Rococo painters. He outlived the movement, and died poor and unnoticed during the heyday of Neoclassicism.

Italian painter. He was one of the first exponents of Italian rococo and created monumental decorative schemes in palaces and churches in northeastern Italy, southwestern Germany, and Madrid.

The outstanding painter of the French Rococo, and artist beside whom the talents of his contemporaries and successors are measured.

Paul Cézanne persevered throughout a career of failure and neglect to become recognized as one of the most profoundly original painters of the modern period.

The French artist and art theoriest Maurice Denis was a founder member of the group of painters known as the Nabis.

French post-Impressionist painter. Going beyond the Impressionists' concern with ever-changing appearances, he developed a heavily symbolic and decorative style characterized by his sensuous use of pure colours. In his search for a more direct and intense experience of life, he moved to islands in the South Pacific, where he created many of his finest works.

French landscape painter; the leading exponent of impressionism. His interest in the effect of light on colour led him to paint series of pictures of the same subject at different times of day.

French painter. An influential figure in the move away from Realist attitudes that occurred in the 1880s, and showed himself sympathetic to originality, as a teacher at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris.

Poet, designer of textiles and wallpaper, successful businessman, father (often so-called) of the Arts and Crafts movement.

Norwegian painter and graphic artist. Visually examined such primal themes as birth, death, thwarted love, sex, fear, and anxiety.

French artist. One of the major post-Impressionists, he originated, with Paul Signac, the technique of pointillism (painting with small dabs rather than long brushstrokes).

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec was a French painter, printmaker, and poster artist.

One of the pioneers of Expressionism, he used colour primarily for its emotive appeal, and profoundly influenced the Fauves and other experimenters of 20th Century art.

American painter whose subtle coloring and tonal harmony were influenced by musical aesthetics and Japanese art. His works include a portrait of his mother, entitled Arrangement in Grey and Black.

French painter and art collector. Born in Paris, a naval architect by profession, he began to paint from 1872.

Poster artist, illustrator and designer. Born in Moravia, Czechoslovakia. From 1879 he worked as a theatrical scene painter in Vienna where a benefactor recognized his talent and financed his studies in Munich (1884–87) and in Paris (1888).