American Hudson River School Painter, 1837-1926 American painter and printmaker of English birth. His brothers Edward (1829-1901), John ( 1831-1902) and Peter (1841-1914) were also active as artists. His family emigrated from England and in 1844 settled in Philadelphia where Moran began his career as an illustrator. He was guided by his brother Edward, an associate of the marine painter James Hamilton, whose successful career afforded an example for Moran. Between the ages of 16 and 19 Moran was apprenticed to the Philadelphia wood-engraving firm Scattergood & Telfer; he then began to paint more seriously in watercolour and expanded his work as an illustrator. In the 1860s he produced lithographs of the landscapes around the Great Lakes. While in London in 1862 (the first of many trips to England), he was introduced to the work of J. M. W. Turner, which remained a vital influence on him throughout his career. Moran owned a set of the Liber studiorum and was particularly impressed by Turner's colour and sublime conception of landscape. With his wife, Mary Nimmo Moran (1842-99), an etcher and landscape painter, he participated in the Etching Revival, scraping fresh and romantic landscapes and reproductive etchings  Related Paintings of Moran, Thomas :. | Chicago World's Fair | Blue Spring,lower geyser basin,yellowstone | Children of the Mountain | Gathering Storm near Maravatio, Mexico | Slaves Escaping Through the Swamp |
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Prince, Jean-Baptiste le
French Painter, 1734-1781 was an important French etcher and painter. Le Prince first studied painting techniques in his native Metz. He then travelled to Paris around 1750 and became a leading student of the great painter, Francois Boucher (1703-1770). Le Prince's early paintings in both theme and style are comparable to his master's rococo techniques. In 1758 Le Prince journeyed to Russia to work for Catherine the Great at the Imperial Palace, St. Petersburg. He remained in Russia for five years and also travelled extensively throughout Finland, Lithuania and even Siberia. When Le Prince returned to Paris in December, 1763, he brought with him an extensive collection of drawings which he employed as the basis for a number of fine paintings and etchings. J. B. Le Prince was elected a full member of the Academie de peinture et de sculpture in 1765. Le Prince's graphic art of Russia and its peoples is significant in that he based his compositions entirely upon his own designs, lending a much more realistic portrayal to his views than other eighteenth century contemporaries. He is also credited with being the first artist (in 1768) to introduce aquatint into his etched and engraved plates. He may even have been the inventor of aquatint, the tonal graphic art that would later be so skillfully used by such masters as Goya,
LA TOUR, Maurice Quentin de
French Rococo Era Painter, 1704-1788 French pastellist. He was one of the greatest pastellists of the 18th century, an equal of Jean-Simeon Chardin and Jean-Baptiste Perronneau. Unlike them, however, he painted no works in oils. Reacting against the stately portraits of preceding generations and against the mythological portraits of many of his contemporaries, La Tour returned to a more realistic and sober style of work. The fundamental quality of his art lies in his ability to suggest the temperament and psychology of his subjects by means of their facial expression, and thereby to translate their fugitive emotions on to paper: 'I penetrate into the depths of my subjects without their knowing it, and capture them whole', as he himself put it. His considerable success led to commissions from the royal family, the court, the rich bourgeoisie and from literary, artistic and theatrical circles.
John Kensett
1816-1872 John Kensett Art Galleries Artist John Frederick Kensett was born on March 22, 1816 in Cheshire, Connecticut, and died on December 14, 1872 in New York City. He attended school at Cheshire Academy, and studied engraving with his immigrant father, Thomas Kensett, and later with his uncle, Alfred Dagget. He worked as engraver in the New Haven area until about 1838, after which he went to work as a bank note engraver in New York City. In 1840, along with Asher Durand and John William Casilear, Kensett traveled to Europe in order to study painting. There he met and traveled with Benjamin Champney. The two sketched and painted throughout Europe, refining their talents. During this period, Kensett developed an appreciation and affinity for 17th century Dutch landscape painting. Kensett and Champney returned to the United States in 1847. After establishing his studio and settling in New York, Kensett traveled extensively throughout the Northeast and the Colorado Rockies as well as making several trips back to Europe. Kensett is best known for his landscape of upstate New York and New England and seascapes of coastal New Jersey, Long Island and New England. He is most closely associated with the so-called "second generation" of the Hudson River School. Along with Sanford Robinson Gifford, Fitz Hugh Lane, Jasper Francis Cropsey, Martin Johnson Heade and others, the works of the "Luminists," as they came to be known, were characterized by unselfconscious, nearly invisible brushstrokes used to convey the qualities and effects of atmospheric light. It could be considered the spiritual, if not stylistic, cousin to Impressionism. Such spiritualism stemmed from Transcendentalist philosophies of sublime nature and contemplation bringing one closer to a spiritual truth. In 1851 Kensett painted a monumental canvas of Mount Washington that has become an icon of White Mountain art. Mount Washington from the Valley of Conway was purchased by the American Art Union, made into an engraving by James Smillie, and distributed to 13,000 Art Union subscribers throughout the country. Other artists painted copies of this scene from the print. Currier and Ives published a similar print in about 1860. This single painting by Kensett helped to popularize the White Mountain region of New Hampshire. Kensett's style evolved gradually, from the traditional Hudson River School manner in the 1850s into the more refined Luminist style in his later years. By the early 1870s Kensett was spending considerable time at his home on Contentment Island, on Long Island Sound near Darien, Connecticut.