FROM VALERY KOYFMAN'S MATERIALS

Hermann (Chaim Aharon) Struck was born in 1876 in Berlin into an ultra-Orthodox family and was a deeply religious Jew all his life. However, he chose an occupation that was not entirely accepted for his circle: he became an artist.
From a young age, Herman was interested in drawing, attended an art studio, and at the age of 19 he became a student at the Berlin Academy of Arts.
Having graduated from the Academy of Arts in Berlin after five years of study in 1900, Struck went to Holland, where he became a student of Joseph Israels.
He joined the Zionists early, was one of the founders of the Zionist religious organization in Germany and prepared religious youth for Zionist activities in Palestine.
Struck was most attracted to graphics - in Holland he studied etching and lithography. There, in Holland, Struck met the famous German impressionist Max Liebermann, who later involved Struck in the creative association he founded, the Berlin Secession.
After completing his studies at the Academy, Struck began teaching himself. Among his students were the future stars of German impressionism: Uri Lesser, Lovis Corinth and Max Slevogt.
In 1909, Berlin publisher Paul Cassirer published Herman Struck's guide, The Art of Engraving, which became a reference book for artists.
In 1923, the fifth edition of this textbook was published with a circulation of 14 thousand copies, which was prepared especially carefully.
Struck was widely known as a portrait painter. Among his works in this genre are portraits of Herzl, Freud, Einstein, artists Joseph Israels and Leonid Pasternak, Heine, Stefan Zweig, Henrik Ibsen, Friedrich Nietzsche and Oscar Wilde.
Einstein liked his portrait so much that he printed several copies and sent them to his friends as souvenirs. On the back of these portraits he did not forget to indicate “Artist Hermann Struck.”
Hermann Struck was an engraver who taught engraving techniques to Marc Chagall in Berlin.
Marc Chagall stayed in Berlin from May 1922 to August 1923. This period can be called a turning point in the artist’s work. Chagall had long dreamed of mastering various graphic techniques in order to give as many people as possible the opportunity to see his works.
The famous publisher Paul Cassirer assisted M. Chagall in meeting Hermann Struck. Thanks to Hermann Struck, Chagall quickly mastered the technique of etching and in just a week began creating works with rapid and stunning results.

Among Struck's students was Leonid Pasternak, father of the poet Boris Pasternak. The artist Pasternak acknowledged that his friend Hermann Struck not only taught him engraving, but also helped him pay attention to Jewish themes in Rembrandt’s paintings.
During the First World War, Struck served as a staff officer of the German command in the occupied territories of Lithuania and Belarus and was responsible for contacts with the Jewish population.
At the beginning of World War I, before becoming a soldier, Struck, as a member of the “Jewish Relief Committee for Lithuania and Poland,” traveled through the territories of Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Belarus occupied by German troops. At the same time, he always had a notebook with him, and he made sketches of all those places that he encountered on his way.
Based on these sketches, a whole series of lithographs was created, published in 1915 in Berlin.
Facilitated the delivery of humanitarian aid from US Jews to Lithuanian Jews; with the special permission of the German command, he traveled to Switzerland with the aim of resuming the supply of food and medicine to Jews that had ceased after the United States entered the war, which he achieved.
At the end of the war, he was part of a group of German specialists who participated in the Paris Peace Conference.

Before and after the war, he traveled a lot around the world, in 1903 and 1921 he visited Palestine, where he finally moved in 1922. He lived in Haifa, participated in cultural activities, and was one of the initiators of the creation of the city art museum in Tel Aviv (opened in 1931), was widely involved in charity work.
He painted Israeli landscapes, Jerusalem and its environs. Struck usually engraved from life directly onto the board without preliminary sketches. The technique he developed was distinguished by a variety of engraving techniques, which expanded his capabilities.
During World War II, Struck contributed in every possible way to the rescue of Jews from Nazi-occupied European countries.
A plaque in his home recalls that in 1939 Struck rescued 50 children from Germany, the Czech Republic and Austria and brought them to the Middle East to attend an agricultural religious school. They became the third graduating class from this school.
He died in 1944 in Haifa and 63 years after his death he was honored with a retrospective exhibition in Berlin and the Galilee. In connection with the opening of the exhibition in Tefen (Museum of German-Speaking Jewry), German Chancellor Angela Merkel sent a letter to the organizers, where she spoke of Struck as an outstanding German artist.
A 600-page book about Struck was published in Hebrew and German with illustrations.
The name of the outstanding representative of Jewish culture of the 20th century, Hermann Struck, is still revered to this day. It is rightfully included in the encyclopedia.

German painting began its development in the early Middle Ages under the influence of the classical art of Ancient Rome and Byzantium.

During the period of Gothic dominance, painting turned to window glass painting, and for a long time was closely associated with architecture.

Painting took a new direction in the 15th century under the influence of the Flemish school, which brilliantly developed thanks to the van Eyck brothers.

Michael Wolgemuth is recognized as the first significant master of Germany. He probably learned his craft from the works of Flemish painters. Albrecht Dürer, who later became the greatest artist in Germany, studied in his workshop in 1486-89. His paintings reveal the true grandeur of the Renaissance

The greatest artist, Mathis Niethardt, nicknamed Grunewald, worked simultaneously with Dürer. The coloristic richness of his painting also belongs to the highest achievements of national artistic culture.

The further development of painting was influenced by the work of the outstanding portrait painter, master of mythological and religious scenes, Lucas Cranach the Elder, who possessed a virtuoso art of decorative solutions and a subtle sense of landscape.

His influence affected the work of a whole galaxy of artists in whose painting and graphics landscape played an important role and who are known as the “Danube School”.

The most outstanding representative of the Danube school of painting is Albrecht Altdorfer.

In the 17th century German artists, having borrowed the ideals of classicism from other national schools and trying to maintain them, they opened their own Academy of Arts. Before its opening in 1694, German artists, in order to receive professional training, had to go abroad - to Flanders, Italy, and Holland. That is why the influence of these national schools is so noticeable in the works of German painters.

The most gifted artists tried to defend their originality, although they could not completely abandon other people's models. German artists of the 17th century became a kind of prophets in a foreign country. In Germany itself, national talents were not valued or supported; the artist was in a humiliating, dependent position. A characteristic feature of German art of the 17th century as a whole is inconsistency, first of all it is noted in the work of Joachim von Sandrart.

In the 18th century, national painting styles in Germany began to develop in parallel in various German states. Bavaria became one of the main centers of art. In the early period, the development of national painting proceeded within the framework of the Baroque; later it approached the styles of Rococo and Classicism. Anton Raphael Mengs, the largest German painter of the Classical era, had a greater influence on the painting of the 18th century and subsequent painting.

The first original and national German artist of modern times was Danzig native Daniel Chodowiecki, one of the main representatives of Enlightenment realism.

In the second half of the 19th century, artists who experienced disappointment both in realism and in imitation of old masters searched for new themes and ways to implement them.

Karl Blechen became known as one of the first German "industrial" artists to celebrate the emerging industrial power.

The greatest master of the mid-19th century was the Berlin painter and graphic artist Adolf von Menzel.

Prized for his accurate and at the same time picturesque city views from the 19th century, Johann Philipp Eduard Gaertner.

At the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries, the brilliant talent of the famous German impressionist Lesser Ury emerged.

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner went down in the history of painting as the founder of one of the most notable phenomena in the artistic life of the early twentieth century - expressionism.

You can buy reproductions of paintings by German painters in our online store.

Great foreign artists

Foreign artists

Lorenzetti's paintings harmoniously combined the traditions of Siena painting with its lyricism and the generality of forms and promising spatial construction characteristic of Giotto's art. Although the artist uses religious and allegorical subjects, the features of contemporary life clearly appear in his paintings. The conventional landscape, characteristic of the paintings of the masters of the 14th century, is replaced by Lorenzetti with recognizable Tuscan landscapes. He paints very realistically vineyards, fields, lakes, sea harbors surrounded by inaccessible cliffs.

Eyck Van
Country: Netherlands

The city of Maaseik is considered the homeland of the Van Eyck brothers. Little information has been preserved about his older brother Hubert. It is known that it was he who began work on the famous Ghent Altar in the Church of St. Bavo in Ghent. Probably, the compositional design of the altar belonged to him. Judging by the surviving archaic parts of the altar - "Worship of the Lamb", figures of God the Father, Mary and John the Baptist, - Hubert can be called a master of the transition period. His works had many similarities with the traditions of late Gothic (abstract and mystical interpretation of the theme, conventionality in the transfer of space, little expressed interest in the image of man).

Foreign artists

Albrecht Durer, the great German artist, the largest representative of Renaissance culture in Germany. Born in Nuremberg in the family of a goldsmith, a native of Hungary. Initially he studied with his father, then with the Nuremberg painter M. Wolgemut (1486-89). During his years of study and during his wanderings in Southern Germany (1490-94), during a trip to Venice (1494-95), he absorbed the heritage of the 15th century, but nature became his main teacher.

Bosch Hieronymus
(1450-1516)
Country: Germany

Bosch Hieronymus, the great Dutch painter. Born in Herzogenbosch. His grandfather, grandfather's brother and all five uncles were artists. In 1478, Bosch married a wealthy patrician Aleid van Merwerme, whose family belonged to the highest aristocracy. There were no children from this marriage, and it was not particularly happy. Nevertheless, he brought material prosperity to the artist, and, not yet becoming quite famous, Bosch could afford to paint the way he wanted.

Botticelli Sandro
(1445-1510)
Country: Italy

Real name - Alessandro da Mariano di Vanni di Amedeo Filipepi, great Italian painter of the Renaissance. Born in Florence into a tanner's family. Initially, he was apprenticed to a certain Botticelli, a goldsmith, from whom Alessandro Filipepi received his surname. But the desire for painting forced him in 1459-65 to study with the famous Florentine artist Fra Philippe Lippi. Early works of Botticelli ( "Adoration of the Magi", "Judith and Holofernes" and especially the Madonna - "Madonna Corsini", "Madonna with a Rose", "Madonna with Two Angels") were written under the influence of the latter.

Verrocchio Andrea
(1435-1488)
Country: Italy

Real name - Andrea di Michele di Francesco Cioni, an outstanding Italian sculptor. Born in Florence. He was a famous sculptor, painter, draftsman, architect, jeweler, and musician. In each genre he established himself as a master innovator, not repeating what his predecessors did.

Carpaccio Vittore
(c. 1455 / 1465 - c. 1526)
Country: Italy

Carpaccio Vittore (c. 1455 / 1465 - c. 1526) - Italian painter. Born in Venice. He studied with Gentile Bellini, was strongly influenced by Giovanni Bellini and partly by Giorgione. Carefully observing the events of modern life, this artist knew how to imbue his religious compositions with a lively narrative and many genre details. In fact, he created an encyclopedia of the life and customs of Venice in the 15th century. They say about Carpaccio that this master is “still at home in Venice.” And even the very idea of ​​Venice is inseparably linked with the memory of the greenish paintings of the brilliant draftsman and colorist, as if visible through sea water.

Leonardo da Vinci
(1452 - 1519)
Country: Italy

One of the greatest Italian Renaissance artists, Leonardo da Vinci was also an outstanding scientist, thinker and engineer. All his life he observed and studied nature - the heavenly bodies and the laws of their movement, mountains and the secrets of their origin, water and winds, the light of the sun and the life of plants. Leonardo also considered man as part of nature, whose body is subject to physical laws and at the same time serves as a “mirror of the soul.” He showed his inquisitive, active, restless love for nature in everything. It was she who helped him discover the laws of nature, to put its forces at the service of man, it was she who made Leonardo the greatest artist, who with equal attention captured a blossoming flower, an expressive gesture of a person and a foggy haze covering distant mountains.

Michelangelo Buonarroti
(1475 - 1564)
Country: Italy

“No man has yet been born who, like me, would be so inclined to love people,” the great Italian sculptor, painter, architect and poet Michelangelo wrote about himself. He created brilliant, titanic works and dreamed of creating even more significant ones. Once, when the artist was at the marble mining in Carrara, he decided to carve a statue from an entire mountain.

Rafael Santi
(1483 - 1520)
Country: Italy

Raphael Santi, the great Italian High Renaissance painter and architect. Born in Urbino in the family of G. Santi, the court artist and poet of the Duke of Urbino. He received his first painting lessons from his father. When he died, Raphael moved to T. Viti's studio. In 1500 he moved to Perugio and entered Perugino's workshop, first as an apprentice and then as an assistant. Here he learned the best features of the style of the Umbrian school of Painting: the desire for an expressive interpretation of the subject and the nobility of forms. Soon he brought his skill to the point where it became impossible to distinguish a copy from the original.

Titian Vecellio
(1488- 1576)
Country: Italy

Born in Pieve di Cadoro, a small town on the border of the Venetian possessions in the Alps. He came from the Vecelli family, very influential in the town. During the war between Venice and Emperor Maximilian, the artist’s father rendered great services to the Republic of St. Mark.

Foreign artists

Rubens Peter Paul, the great Flemish painter. “The King of Painters and the Painter of Kings” was called by the contemporaries of the Fleming Rubens. In one of the most beautiful corners of Antwerp, there is still “Rubens-Hughes” - the artist’s house, built according to his own design, and workshop. About three thousand paintings and many wonderful drawings came from here.

Goyen Jan van
(1596-1656)
Country: Holland

Goyen Jan van is a Dutch painter. His passion for painting manifested itself very early. At the age of ten, Goyen began to study drawing with the Leiden artists I. Swanenburg and K. Schilperort. The father wanted his son to become a glass painter, but Goyen himself dreamed of being a landscape painter, and he was assigned to study with the mediocre landscape artist Willem Gerrits in the city of Goorn.

Segers Hercules
(1589/1590 - ca. 1638)
Country: Holland

Segers Hercules - Dutch landscape painter and graphic artist. He studied in Amsterdam with G. van Koninksloo. From 1612 to 1629 he lived in Amsterdam, where he was accepted into the guild of artists. Visited Flanders (c. 1629-1630). From 1631 he lived and worked in Utrecht, and from 1633 - in The Hague.

Frans Hals
(c. 1580-1666)
Country: Holland

The decisive role in the formation of national art at the early stage of development of the Dutch art school was played by the work of Frans Hals, its first great master. He was almost exclusively a portrait painter, but his art meant a lot not only to Dutch portraiture, but also to the formation of other genres. In Hals’s work, three types of portrait compositions can be distinguished: a group portrait, a commissioned individual portrait, and a special type of portrait images, similar in nature to genre painting, which he cultivated mainly in the 20s and early 30s.

Velazquez Diego de Silva
(1559-1660)
Country: Spain

Born in Seville, one of the largest artistic centers in Spain at the end of the 16th and beginning of the 17th centuries. The artist's father came from a Portuguese family that moved to Andalusia. He wanted his son to become a lawyer or writer, but did not stop Velazquez from painting. His first teacher was Fr. Herrera Sr., and then F. Pacheco. Pacheco's daughter became Velazquez's wife. In Pacheco's workshop, Velazquez was busy painting heads from life. At the age of seventeen, Velazquez received the title of master. The career of the young painter was successful.

Country: Spain

El Greco
(1541-1614)
Country: Spain

El Greco, real name - Domenico Theotokopouli, great Spanish painter. Born into a poor but enlightened family in Candia on Crete. Crete at that time was the possession of Venice. He studied, in all likelihood, with local icon painters who still preserved the traditions of medieval Byzantine art. Around 1566 he moved to Venice, where he entered Titian's workshop.

Caravaggio Michelangelo Merisi
(1573-1610)
Country: Italy

Caravaggio Michelangelo Merisi, an outstanding Italian painter. The emergence and flourishing of the realistic movement in Italian painting of the late 16th and early 17th centuries is associated with the name of Caravaggio. The work of this remarkable master played a huge role in the artistic life of not only Italy, but also other European countries. Caravaggio's art attracts us with its great artistic expressiveness, deep truthfulness and humanism.

Carracci
Country: Italy

Carracci, a family of Italian painters from Bologna in the early 17th century, the founders of academicism in European painting. At the turn of the 16th - 17th centuries in Italy, as a reaction to mannerism, an academic movement in painting took shape. Its basic principles were laid down by the Carracci brothers - Lodovico (1555-1619), Agostino (1557-1602) and Annibale (1560-1609).

Bruegel Pieter the Elder
(between 1525 and 1530-1569)
Country: Netherlands

Anyone who has read Charles de Coster’s wonderful novel “The Legend of Till Eulenspiegel” knows that the entire people took part in the Dutch revolution, in the struggle against the Spaniards for their independence, a cruel and merciless struggle. Just like Eulenspiegel, the largest Dutch artist, draftsman and engraver, one of the founders of realistic Dutch and Flemish art, Pieter Bruegel the Elder, was a witness and participant in these events.

Van Dyck Anthonys
(1599- 1641)
Country: Netherlands

Van Dyck Antonis, an outstanding Flemish painter. Born in Antwerp into the family of a wealthy businessman. Initially he studied with the Antwerp painter Hendrik van Balen. In 1618 he entered Rubens' workshop. I started my work by copying his paintings. And soon he became Rubens’s main assistant in carrying out large orders. Received the title of master of the Guild of St. Luke in Antwerp (1618).

Poussin Nicolas
(1594-1665)
Country: France

Poussin Nicolas (1594-1665), an outstanding French painter, a leading representative of classicism. Born in the village of Andely in Normandy in the family of a small landowner. Initially he studied in his homeland with the little-known, but quite talented and competent wandering artist K. Varen. In 1612, Poussin went to Paris, and there J. Aallemant became his teacher. In Paris he became friends with the Italian poet Marine.

XVII (17th century)

Foreign artists

Cape Albert Gerrits is a Dutch painter and etcher.

He studied with his father, the artist J. Cuyp. His artistic style was formed under the influence of the paintings of J. van Goyen and S. van Ruisdael. Worked in Dordrecht. Cuyp's early works, close to the paintings of J. van Goyen, are monochrome. He paints hilly landscapes, country roads running into the distance, poor peasant huts. The paintings are most often made in a single yellowish tonality.

Ruisdael Jacob van
(1628/1629-1682)
Country: Holland

Ruisdael Jacob van (1628/1629-1682) - Dutch landscape painter, draftsman, etcher. He probably studied with his uncle, the artist Salomon van Ruisdael. Visited Germany (1640-1650s). He lived and worked in Haarlem, and in 1648 he became a member of the guild of painters. From 1656 he lived in Amsterdam, in 1676 he received the degree of Doctor of Medicine in the Treasury and was included in the list of Amsterdam doctors.

Rembrandt Harmens van Rijn
(1606-1669)
Country: Holland

Born in Leiden into a miller's family. The father's affairs went well during this period, and he was able to give his son a better education than other children. Rembrandt entered the Latin School. I studied poorly and wanted to take up painting. Nevertheless, he finished school and entered Leiden University. A year later I started taking painting lessons. His first teacher was J. van Swanenburg. After staying in his workshop for more than three years, Rembrandt went to Amsterdam to visit the historical painter P. Lastman. He had a strong influence on Rembrandt and taught him the art of engraving. Six months later (1623) Rembrandt returned to Leiden and opened his own workshop.

Terborch Gerard
(1617-1681)
Country: Holland

Terborch Gerard (1617-1681), famous Dutch painter. Born in Zwolle into a wealthy burgher family. His father, brother and sister were artists. Terborch's first teachers were his father and Hendrik Averkamp. His father forced him to copy a lot. He created his first work at the age of nine. At the age of fifteen, Terborch went to Amsterdam, then to Haarlem, where he came under the strong influence of Fr. Khalsa. Already at this time he was known as a master of the everyday genre, most willingly painting scenes from the life of military men - the so-called “guardhouses”.

Canalletto (Canale) Giovanni Antonio
(1697-1768)
Country: Italy

Canaletto's first teacher was his father, theater decorator B. Canale, whom he helped design performances in the theaters of Venice. He worked in Rome (1717-1720, early 1740s), Venice (from 1723), London (1746-1750, 1751-1756), where he performed works that formed the basis of his work. He painted vedotas - city landscapes, depicted streets, buildings, canals, boats gliding on the sea waves.

Magnasco Alessandro
(1667-1749)
Country: Italy

Magnasco Alessandro (1667-1749) - Italian painter, genre painter and landscape painter. He studied with his father, the artist S. Magnasco, then with the Milanese painter F. Abbiati. His style was formed under the influence of the masters of the Genoese school of painting, S. Rosa and J. Callot. Lived and worked in Milan, Florence, Genoa.

Watteau Antoine
(1684-1721)
Country: France

Watteau Antoine, an outstanding French painter, with whose work one of the significant stages in the development of household painting in France is associated. Watteau's fate is unusual. During the years when he wrote his best works, neither in France nor in neighboring countries was there a single artist who could compete with him. The titans of the 17th century did not live to see Watteau's era; those who followed him in glorifying the 18th century became known to the world only after his death. In fact, Fragonard, Quentin de La Tour, Perronneau, Chardin, David in France, Tiepolo and Longhi in Italy, Hogarth, Reynolds, Gainsborough in England, Goya in Spain - all this is the middle, or even the end of the 18th century.

Lorraine Claude
(1600-1682)
Country: France

Lorrain Claude (1600-1682) - French painter. At an early age he worked in Rome as a servant for A. Tassi, then became his student. The artist began receiving large orders in the 1630s; his clients were Pope Urban VIII and Cardinal Bentivoglio. From that time on, Lorrain became popular in Roman and French circles of art connoisseurs.

XVIII (18th century)

Foreign artists

Gainsborough Thomas, an outstanding English painter, creator of the national type of portrait. Born in Sudbury, Suffolk, into the family of a cloth merchant. The picturesque surroundings of the town, located on the River Stour, attracted Gainsborough from childhood, who endlessly depicted them in his childhood sketches. The boy's passion for drawing was so great that his father, without hesitation for long, sent his thirteen-year-old son to study in London, which at that time had already become the center of artistic life.

Turner Joseph Mallord William
(1775-1851)
Country: England

Turner Joseph Mallord William was an English landscape artist, painter, draftsman and engraver. He took painting lessons from T. Moulton (c. 1789), in 1789-1793. studied at the Royal Academy in London. In 1802 Turner became an academician, and in 1809 he became a professor in academic classes. The artist traveled extensively throughout England and Wales, visited France and Switzerland (1802), Holland, Belgium and Germany (1817), Italy (1819, 1828). His artistic style was formed under the influence of C. Lorrain, R. Wilson and Dutch marine painters.

Johannes Vermeer of Delft
(1632-1675)
Country: Holland

Jan Vermeer of Delft is a great Dutch artist. Almost no information about the artist has survived. Born in Delft into the family of a burgher who owned a hotel. He also produced silk and sold paintings. Perhaps that is why the boy became interested in painting early. Master Karel Fabritius became his mentor. Vermeer soon married Katherine Bolney, the daughter of a wealthy burgher, and already in 1653 he was accepted into the Guild of St. Luke.

Goya y Lucientes Francisco Josse
(1746-1828)
Country: Spain

One day, little Francisco, the son of a poor altar gilder from a village near the Spanish city of Zaragoza, painted a pig on the wall of his house. A stranger passing by saw genuine talent in the child's drawing and advised the boy to study. This legend about Goya is similar to those told about other Renaissance masters when the true facts of their biography are unknown.

Guardi Francesco Lazzaro
(1712-1793)
Country: Italy

Guardi Francesco Lazzaro is an Italian painter and draftsman, a representative of the Venetian school of painting. He studied with his older brother, the artist Giovanni Antonio, in whose workshop he worked with his younger brother Niccolo. He painted landscapes, paintings of religious and mythological themes, and historical compositions. He worked on the creation of decorative decorations for the interiors of the Manin and Fenice theaters in Venice (1780-1790).

Vernet Claude Joseph
(1714-1789)
Country: France

Vernet Claude Joseph - French artist. He studied first with his father A. Vernet, then with L. R. Viali in Aix and with B. Fergioni, from 1731 in Avignon with F. Sovan, and later in Italy with Manglars, Pannini and Locatelli. In 1734-1753. worked in Rome. During the Roman period, he devoted a lot of time to working from life in Tivoli, Naples, and on the banks of the Tiber. He painted landscapes and sea views (“The seashore near Anzio”, 1743; “View of the bridge and the castle of St. Angel”, “Ponte Rotto in Rome”, 1745 - both in the Louvre, Paris; “Waterfall at Tivoli”, 1747; “Morning in Castellamare”, 1747, Hermitage, St. Petersburg; “Villa Pamphilj”, 1749, Pushkin Museum, Moscow; “Italian Harbor”, “Sea Shore with Rocks”, 1751; “Rocks at the Seashore”, 1753 - all in the Hermitage, Saint Petersburg). These works amaze with their virtuosity in conveying the light-air environment and lighting, authenticity and subtle observation.

Vernet Horace
(1789-1863)
Country: France

Verne Horace is a French painter and graphic artist. He studied with his father, Karl Vernet. Writing during the heyday of the art of romanticism, the artist uses in his works the means inherent in the romantics. He is interested in people at the mercy of natural elements, in extreme situations. Vernet depicts warriors fiercely fighting in battles, hurricanes and shipwrecks (“Battle at Sea”, 1825, Hermitage, St. Petersburg).

Delacroix Eugene
(1798 - 186)
Country: France

Born in Charenton in the family of a prefect. Received an excellent education. He studied painting first at the School of Fine Arts in Paris, then in the workshop of P. Guerin (1816-22), whose cold skill had less influence on him than the passionate art of the romantic T. Géricault, with whom he became close at the School. A decisive role in the formation of Delacroix’s painting style was played by copying the works of old masters, especially Rubens, Veronese and D. Velazquez. In 1822 he made his debut at Talon with a painting "Dante's Rook"(“Dante and Virgil”) based on the plot from the first song of “Hell” (“The Divine Comedy”).

Gericault Theodore
(1791-1824)
Country: France

Born in Rouen into a wealthy family. He studied in Paris at the Imperial Lyceum (1806-1808). His teachers were K.J. Berne and P.N. Guerin. But they did not influence the formation of his artistic style - in the painting of Gericault, the tendencies of the art of A. J. Gros and J. L. David can be traced. The artist visited the Louvre, where he made copies of the works of old masters; he was especially admired by the paintings of Rubens.

Artvedia Art Gallery - biography of contemporary artists. Buy and sell contemporary paintings by artists from various countries.

Hiroshige Ando
(1797-1858)
Country: Japan

Born in Edo (now Tokyo) in the family of a minor samurai, Ando Genemon. His father held the position of foreman of city firefighters, and the family’s life was quite prosperous. Thanks to early training, he quickly learned to understand the properties of paper, brushes and ink. The general level of education at that time was quite high. Theaters, prints, and ikeba-fas were part of everyday life.

Hokusai Katsushika
(1760-1849)
Country: Japan

Hokusai Katsushika is a Japanese painter and draftsman, master of color woodcuts, writer and poet. He studied with the engraver Nakayama Tetsuson. He was influenced by the artist Shunsho, in whose workshop he worked. He painted landscapes in which the life of nature and its beauty are closely connected with the life and activities of man. In search of new experiences, Hokusai traveled a lot around the country, making sketches of everything he saw. The artist sought to reflect in his work the problem of the relationship between man and the nature around him. His art is permeated with the pathos of the beauty of the world and the awareness of the spiritual beginning that man brings to everything with which he comes into contact.

Foreign artists

Bonington Richard Parkes is an English painter and graphic artist. From 1817 he lived in France. He studied painting in Calais with L. Francia, and from 1820 he attended the School of Fine Arts in Paris, where his teacher was A. J. Gros. In 1822 he began exhibiting his paintings in the Paris Salons, and from 1827 he took part in exhibitions of the Society of Artists of Great Britain and the Royal Academy of Arts in London.

Ensor James
(1860-1949)
Country: Belgium

Ensor James (1860-1949) - Belgian painter and graphic artist. The artist was born and raised in the port city of Ostend, where he spent almost his entire life. The image of this seaside town with narrow streets inhabited by fishermen and sailors, with annual Maslenitsa carnivals and the unique atmosphere of the sea often appears in many of his paintings.

Van Gogh Vincent
(1853- 1890)
Country: Holland

Van Gogh Vincent, the great Dutch painter, representative of post-impressionism. Born in the Brabant Village of Groot Zundert in the family of a pastor. From the age of sixteen he worked at a company selling paintings, and then as an assistant teacher at a private school in England. In 1878 he got a job as a preacher in a mining district in southern Belgium.

Anker Mikael
(1849-1927)
Country: Denmark

Anker Mikael is a Danish artist. He studied at the Academy of Arts in Copenhagen (1871-1875), as well as in the workshop of the Danish artist P. Kreyer. Later in Paris he studied in the workshop of Puvis de Chavannes, but this period was not reflected in his work. Together with his wife Anna he worked in Skagen, in small fishing villages. In his works, the sea is inextricably linked with images of Jutland fishermen. The artist depicts people in moments of their difficult and dangerous work.

Modigliani Amedeo
(1884-1920)
Country: Italy

How subtly and elegantly Anna Akhmatova spoke about Amedeo Modigliani! Of course, she was a poet! Amedeo was lucky: they met in 1911 in Paris, fell in love, and these feelings became the property of the art world, expressed in his drawings and her poems.

Eakins Thomas
(1844-1916)
Country: USA

He studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia (Pennsylvania) and at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris (1866-1869). The formation of his artistic style was greatly influenced by the work of the old Spanish masters, which he studied in Madrid. Since 1870, the painter lived in his homeland, in Philadelphia, where he was engaged in teaching activities. Already in his first independent works, Eakins showed himself to be a realist (“Max Schmit in a Boat,” 1871, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; “On a Sailboat,” 1874; “Sailing Boats on the Delaware,” 1874).

Kent Rockwell
(1882-1971)
Country: USA

Kent Rockwell is an American landscape painter, draftsman, graphic artist, and writer. He studied with a representative of the plein air school of artist William Merritt Chace in Shinnecock on Long Island, then with Robert Henry at the School of Art in New York, where he also attended classes with Kenneth Miller.

Homer Winslow
(1836-1910)
Country: USA

Homer Winslow is an American painter and draftsman. He did not receive a systematic education, having only mastered the craft of lithographer in his youth. In 1859-1861 attended evening drawing school at the National Academy of Arts in New York. Since 1857, he made drawings for magazines; during the Civil War (1861-1865) he collaborated in the illustrated weekly publication Harpers Weekly, for which he made realistic drawings of battle scenes, distinguished by expressive and strict forms. In 1865 he became a member of the National Academy of Arts.

Bonnard Pierre
(1867-1947)
Country: France

Bonnard Pierre - French painter, draftsman, lithographer. Born in the vicinity of Paris. In his youth he studied law, while also studying drawing and painting at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts and the Académie Julian. He was interested in Japanese prints. Together with the artists E. Vuillard, M. Denis, P. Sérusier, they formed the core of a group that called itself “Nabi” - from the Hebrew word for “prophet”. The members of the group were supporters of a symbolism that was less complex and literary than the symbolism of Gauguin and his followers.

Marriage Georges
(1882-1963)
Country: France

Braque Georges - French painter, engraver, sculptor. In 1897-1899 studied at the École des Beaux-Arts in Le Havre, then at the Ambert Academy and at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris (1902-1903). His early work was marked by the influence of the Fauves, especially A. Derain and A. Matisse. It was during this period that the artist most often turned to the landscape genre: he painted harbors, sea bays with boats, and coastal buildings.

Gauguin Paul
(1848-1903)
Country: France

Gauguin Paul (1848-1903), outstanding French artist. Representative of impressionism. Born in Paris. His father was an employee of the moderate-republican newspaper Nacional. A change in political course forced him to leave his homeland in 1849. On a ship bound for South America, he died suddenly. Gauguin spent the first four years of his life in Lima (Peru) with his mother's relatives. At the age of 17-23 he served as a sailor, fireman, helmsman in the merchant and navy, sailed to Rio de Janeiro and other distant cities.

Degas Edgar
(1834-1917)
Country: France

Edgar Degas was a contradictory and strange person at first glance. Born into a banker's family in Paris. The scion of an aristocratic family (his real name was de Ha), he refused the noble prefix from a young age. He showed interest in drawing as a child. Received a good education. In 1853 he passed the exams for a bachelor's degree and began to study law. But already at that time he studied with the painter Barrias, then with Louis Lamothe. Like Edouard Manet, he was groomed for a brilliant career, but he dropped out of law school for the École des Beaux-Arts.

Derain Andre
(1880-1954)
Country: France

Derain Andre - French painter, book illustrator, engraver, sculptor, one of the founders of Fauvism. He began painting in Shatou in 1895, his teacher was a local artist. In 1898-1900 studied in Paris at the Career Academy, where he met A. Matisse, J. Puy and A. Marquet. Very soon Deren left the academy and began studying on his own.

Daubigny Charles Francois
(1817-1878)
Country: France

Daubigny Charles Francois - French landscape painter, graphic artist, representative of the Barbizon school. He studied with his father, the artist E. F. Daubigny, then with P. Delaroche. Was influenced by Rembrandt. In the Louvre he copied the paintings of Dutch masters; he was especially attracted to the works of J. Ruisdael and Hobbema. In 1835-1836 Daubigny visited Italy, and in 1866 he went to Holland, Great Britain and Spain. But these trips were practically not reflected in the artist’s work; almost all of his works are devoted to French landscapes.

Dufy Raoul
(1877-1953)
Country: France

Dufy Raoul - French painter and graphic artist. He studied in Le Havre, in evening classes at the Municipal Art School, where Luyer taught (1892-1897). Here Dufy met O. J. Braque and O. Fries. During this period, he painted portraits of his family members, as well as landscapes similar to the paintings of E. Boudin.

Isabey Louis Gabriel Jean
(1803-1886)
Country: France

Isabey Louis Gabriel Jean (1803-1886) - French painter of the romantic movement, watercolorist, lithographer. He studied with his father, the miniaturist J.-B. Izabe. He was influenced by the painting of English marine painters and the small Dutch of the 17th century. Worked in Paris. In search of new impressions, Isabey visited Normandy, Auvergne, Brittany, Southern France, Holland, England, and as an artist accompanied an expedition to Algeria.

Courbet Gustave
(1819-1877)
Country: France

Gustave Courbet is an outstanding French painter, a wonderful master of realistic portraiture. “...never belonged to any school, to any church... to any regime, other than the regime of freedom.”

Manet Edouard
(1832-1883)
Country: France

Edouard MANET (1832-1883), an outstanding French artist who rethought the traditions of narrative realistic painting. “Brevity in art is both necessity and elegance. A person who expresses himself concisely makes one think; a verbose person is boring.”

Marche Albert
(1875-1947)
Country: France

Marche Albert (1875-1947) - French painter and graphic artist. In 1890-1895 studied in Paris at the School of Decorative Arts, and from 1895 to 1898 - at the School of Fine Arts in the workshop of G. Moreau. He painted portraits, interiors, still lifes, landscapes, including views of the sea, images of harbors and ports. In the landscapes created by the artist from the late 1890s to the early 1900s. the strong influence of the Impressionists is noticeable, in particular A. Sisley (“Trees at Billancourt”, ca. 1898, Museum of Art, Bordeaux).

Monet Claude
(1840-1926)
Country: France

Claude Monet, French painter, founder of impressionism. “What I write is a moment.” Born in Paris in the family of a grocer. He spent his childhood in Le Havre. In Le Havre he began making caricatures, selling them in a stationery shop. E. Boudin drew attention to them and gave Monet his first lessons in plein air painting. In 1859, Monet entered the Paris School of Fine Arts, and then the Gleyer atelier. After a two-year stay in Algeria for military service (1860-61), he returned to Le Havre and met Ionkind. Ionkind's landscapes, full of light and air, made a deep impression on him.

Pierre Auguste Renoir
(1841-1919)
Country: France

Pierre Auguste Renoir was born into the family of a poor tailor with many children, and from early childhood he learned to “live happily” even when there was no piece of bread in the house. At the age of thirteen, he already mastered the craft - he painted cups and saucers at a porcelain factory. He was wearing his work blouse, stained with paint, when he arrived at the School of Fine Arts. In Gleyre's atelier, he picked up empty paint tubes thrown by other students. Squeezing them to the last drop, he hummed something carefree and cheerful under his breath.

Redon Odilon
(1840-1916)
Country: France

Redon Odilon is a French painter, draftsman and decorator. He studied architecture in Paris, but did not complete the course. For some time he attended the School of Sculpture in Bordeaux, then studied in Paris in the studio of Jerome. As a painter, he was formed under the influence of the art of Leonardo da Vinci, J. F. Corot, E. Delacroix and F. Goya. The botanist Armand Clavo played a big role in his life. Having a rich library, he introduced the young artist to the works of Baudelaire, Flaubert, Edgar Poe, as well as Indian poetry and German philosophy. Together with Clavo, Redon studied the world of plants and microorganisms, which was later reflected in his engravings.

Cezanne Paul
(1839-1906)
Country: France

Until now, one of the participants in the first exhibition on the Boulevard des Capucines, the most silent of the visitors to the Guerbois cafe, remained in the shadows - Paul Cézanne. It's time to get closer to his paintings. Let's start with self-portraits. Let's take a closer look at the face of this high-cheeked, bearded man, who looks either like a peasant (when he is wearing a cap) or like a scribe-sage (when his steep, powerful forehead is visible). Cézanne was both at the same time, combining the hard work of a peasant with the searching mind of a scientific researcher.

Toulouse Lautrec Henri Marie Raymond de
(1864-1901)
Country: France

Toulouse Lautrec Henri Marie Raymond de, an outstanding French artist. Born in Albi in the south of France into a family that belonged to the largest aristocratic family, which once led the Crusades. Since childhood, his talent as an artist has manifested itself. However, he took up painting after a fall from a horse (at the age of fourteen), as a result of which he became disabled. Soon after his father introduced him to Princeto, Henri began to regularly come to the workshop on the rue Faubourg Saint-Honoré. For hours he could watch the artist draw or write.

Foreign artists

Dali Salvador, the great Spanish artist, the largest representative of surrealism. Born in Figueres (Catalonia) in the family of a famous lawyer. At the age of sixteen, Dali was sent to a Catholic college in Figueres. The development of his personality was greatly influenced by the Pichot family. All family members owned musical instruments and organized concerts. Ramon Pichot is a painter who worked in Paris and knew P. Picasso closely. In the Pichots' house, Dali was engaged in drawing. In 1918, his first exhibition took place in Fegeras, which was favorably noted by critics.

Kalnins Eduardas
(1904-1988)
Country: Latvia

Kalnins Eduardas is a Latvian marine painter. Born in Riga into the family of a simple artisan, he began to draw early. Kalnins' first teacher was the artist Evgeniy Moshkevich, who opened a studio for aspiring painters in Tomsk, where the boy's family moved at the beginning of the First World War. After 1920, Kalnins returned to Riga with his parents and in 1922 entered the Latvian Academy of Arts. His teacher was Vilhelme Purvitis, a student of A.I. Kuindzhi.

Appearing in landscape and portrait.
In genre portrait the best inheritance Philippa Otto Runge(1777-1810), who worked in Hamburg, paid great attention to the problems of color, author of the treatise "The Color Wheel". In his works he built far-fetched, complex allegories, but he created truly living images by turning directly to nature. In his self-portrait he combines the vigilance of an analyst and the rigor of a precise drawing. In the painting “Portrait of Parents,” the landscape is executed with amazing subtlety and care, against which the artist’s old parents are presented, the wrinkled faces of anxious old people, in sharp contrast with the rosy-cheeked children, looking at the world with wide open eyes.

The main object is nature, in paintings Caspar David Friedrich(1774-1840). He admires the greatness of nature, and also thinks and worries about the rocky wastelands with their smooth outlines and the play of light and shadow, or the struggle of the German people against the Napoleonic conquest. The man in Friedrich's landscapes is a small, lonely figure, lost in the vast expanses of the world, or a passive observer contemplating the foggy distances.
Adolf Menzel(1815-1905) gave impetus to the flourishing of realism in German painting. An artist of broad ideas, Menzel strives to embrace life in all its diversity; he introduced the realistic method into the historical genre. In 1840, he created four hundred pen drawings to illustrate the Histories of Frederick the Great. What is especially attractive in illustrations is the authenticity in the depiction of the historical setting, costumes, and the ability to capture what is characteristic. Menzel also addresses this theme in painting, for example, the most lively of the series of paintings dedicated to Frederick II, depicting the refined society surrounding Frederick in his residence. The setting of the palace is masterfully depicted, with those gathered loosely grouped around the table.

During a trip to France, Menzel became acquainted with French art, which further strengthened the realistic orientation of his work. He creates one of the first Western European painting pictures of the life of the working class, industrial labor, where huge workshops, machine tools and workers’ furnaces illuminated by flames, their conditions of hard, exhausting labor, are accurately depicted. In the workshop, perched behind a sheet of iron, they hastily finish their meager breakfast.
Numerous preparatory drawings for paintings, made from life, meticulous drawings of details of costumes, furnishings, and lively sketches of people, landscapes, interiors, executed in charcoal and pencil, pen and brush, characterize Menzel as one of the largest, since the time of Dürer, draftsmen in Germany.

The tradition of realism in German painting continues Wilhelm Leibl(1844-1900). Interest in the life of working people, the problem of light and air environment and space, truthfully depicting the peasants of Bavarian villages, attracting with silver tonal painting.