Russian Painter, 1842-1910 Ukrainian painter, active in Russia. Initially self-taught as an artist, he twice failed the St Petersburg Academy's entrance examination, despite coaching by the marine painter Ivan Aivazovsky. In 1868, however, he was accepted as an external student. He persevered against conservative prejudice and poverty throughout his early career, supplementing his income by retouching photographs. In his early landscape paintings he often sought to capture seasonal moods, as in Autumn Mud (1872; St Petersburg, Rus. Mus.). A more human focus, however, is noticeable after 1874, when he joined the travelling exhibitions society the WANDERERS: the village houses dominate the landscape setting in Evening in Ukraine (1878; St Petersburg, Rus. Mus.). Kuindzhi's principal interest, however, was in lighting, and he obtained striking effects by using vivid colours, chiaroscuro contrasts and simple but cleverly conceived designs. Spectacular paintings, such as the Birch Grove (1879; Moscow, Tret'yakov Gal.), greatly moved contemporary viewers. Through years of experimentation, Kuindzhi developed a highly original technique, which he applied to an increasingly typical, at times almost visionary, treatment of subjects such as snow-covered mountains and moonlight (e.g. Elbnis: Moonlit Night, 1890-95; Moscow, Tret'yakov Gal.). Due to imperfections in the paints he used, many of his canvases soon darkened.  Related Paintings of Arkhip Ivanovich Kuindzhi :. | Birch Grove (nn02) | Landscape | Silver Birch | The Boat on the sea | The night of Ukraine |
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BEER, Jan de
Netherlandish Painter, ca.1475-1528 South Netherlandish painter and draughtsman. He is first mentioned in 1490 in the register of the Antwerp Guild of St Luke, apprenticed to the painter Gillis van Everen ( fl 1477-1513). In 1504 de Beer became a master. He subsequently served as alderman of the guild in 1509 and dean in 1515, although he found himself temperamentally unsuited to the position of dean, as is known from a lawsuit he filed in 1519 regarding guild administration. This document also reveals that de Beer participated in the preparations for Charles V's 'Joyous Entry' into Antwerp in 1515 and for the Antwerp Society of Rhetoricians' entry that year in the Malines landjuweel (regional competition of the rhetoricians). In 1510 and 1513 de Beer enrolled apprentices; his son Aert de Beer (c. 1509-before 6 Aug 1540) became an Antwerp master in 1529. The artist is undocumented between 1519 and 1528, by which date he was dead. In 1567 Guicciardini included de Beer in his list of famous Netherlandish painters.
James Edward Buttersworth
American Painter, 1817-1894
Peter Birmann
Swiss, 1758-1844,He began his career as a portrait painter in Basle and Pruntrut but in 1775 moved to Berne, where he took up landscape painting. From 1777 to 1781 he worked with Johann Ludwig Aberli and was also a colour-printer with the publisher Abraham Wagner (1734-82). In 1781 he went to Rome, where he remained for ten years working for Louis Ducros and for Giovanni Volpato. While in Rome he painted landscapes in watercolour and drew in bistre, using a soft brush and making little use of the pen. He also sketched in the Alban Hills, being particularly attracted to the waterfalls at Tivoli and Terni. He became a member of Goethe's circle in Rome, and, under the influence of its members, he adopted Claude as his model. His watercolours and bistre drawings, enlivened by Greco-Roman or contemporary staffage, became more tranquil, more classical in style and increasingly strengthened with pen outlines. In 1792 he returned to Basle to teach. He soon became an art dealer, opened his own shop and set up his own publishing house, and in 1802 he printed his best-known work, a series of aquatints of Voyage pittoresque de Basle ? Bienne par les vallons de Mottiers-Grandval. From 1802 to 1804 he showed at the annual exhibitions of the K?nstlergesellschaft in Zurich, and in 1804 and 1810 in Berne he exhibited work in oils, a medium that was becoming increasingly important for him. In 1805 he was commissioned by the publishing house of Artaria & Co. in Vienna to sketch the scenery in the region of the north Italian lakes. For the next 30 years he continued to paint and draw, but after 1834 he tended to repeat the locales and compositions of his earlier landscapes.