James McNeill Whistler (1834-1903)

You should not say it is not good. You should say you do not like it; and then, you know, you're perfectly safe.

Books from Alibris: James McNeill Whistler

John William Waterhouse (1849-1917)

English painter. Early in his career he painted Greek and Roman subjects, but in the 1880s he turned to literary themes, painted in a distinctive, dreamily romantic style. In approach he was influenced by the Pre-Raphaelites, but his handling of paint is quite different from theirs--rich and sensuous. His work includes such classic Victorian anthology pieces as The Lady of Shalott (Tate Gallery, London, 1888) and Hylas and the Nymphs (City Art Gallery, Manchester, 1896). [Adapted from WebMuseum]

Books from Alibris: John William Waterhouse

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901)

In our time there are many artists who do something because it is new.. they see their value and their justification in this newness. They are deceiving themselves...novelty is seldom the essential. This has to do with one thing only.. making a subject better from its intrinsic nature.

Books from Alibris: Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec

James Tissot (1836-1902)

French draughtsman and painter, b. at Nantes, 15 Oct., 1836; d. at Buillon, Department of Doubs, 3 Aug., 1902. He studied at Paris at the Academy of Fine Arts and in the ateliers of Ingres and Flandrin. During this period of his career he became well acquainted with the darker side of the moral and political life of the city. The first paintings that he exhibited at the salon attracted great attention, especially the one picturing the meeting of Faust and Gretchen, now in the Luxemburg Museum. When the Commune came into power Tissot fled to England for fear of coming into conflict with the Government on account of the political intrigues of his brother. In England he gained a reputation as a portrait and genre painter. Tissot, however, was more of an illustrator than a painter, as is shown in the brilliant series of watercolours, La femme a Paris, in which in careful, correct work done with much dash he lashed the follies of modern Parisian life. Later he issued a similar series of aquarelles on high life in London. The picture of the former of these series entitled La femme qui chante dan l'eglise obliged him to go repeatedly to church during the service, and this suggested to him the conception of the picture, Christ Appears to console two Unfortunates in a Ruin. With this last-mentioned work a new epoch began in the life of the painter and, in the course of time, of the man. The figure of Christ had so attracted him that he was never afterwards able to put it out of his mind. He went to Palestine where he spent a year in the most careful geographical and ethnographic studies. After this he spent ten years in preparing the large number of aquarelles that compose his Life of Christ. The absolutely modern conception of this work shows a complete break with the past. The work was entitled La vie de notre Seigneur Jesus- Christ, 865 compositions d'apres les quatres evangiles, avec des notes et des dessins explicativs, par James Tissot (Tours, 1896). The price was high, 5000 francs for the edition on Japanese paper, and 1500 francs for that on vellum. A cheaper popular edition in English was issued later. Tissot also designed a series of illustrations for the Old Testament, which, however, are not as fine as the earlier ones. The aquarelles on the New Testament have been called "a revolution in religious art". - Malaspina Biography

Books from Alibris: James Tissot

Alfred Sisley (1839-1899)

The motif must always be set down in a simple way, easily grasped and understood by the beholder. By the elimination of superfluous detail, the spectator should be led along the road that the artist indicates to him, and from the first be made to notice what the artist has felt.

Books from Alibris: Alfred Sisley

John Singer Sargent (1856-1925)

Every time I paint a portrait I lose a friend.

Books from Alibris: John Singer Sargent

Henri Julien Felix Rousseau (1844-1910)

Nothing makes me so happy as to observe nature and to paint what I see.

Books from Alibris: Henri Rousseau

Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882)

My Sister's Sleep (1848)

For my part, I but hid my face, / And held my breath, and spoke no word: / There was none spoken; but I heard / The silence for a little space. / Our mother bowed herself and wept: / And both my arms fell, and I said, / 'God knows I knew that she was dead.' / And there, all white, my sister slept.

Books from Alibris: Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841-1919)

In painting, as in the other arts, there's not a single process, no matter how insignificant, which can be reasonably made into a formula. You come to nature with your theories, and she knocks them all flat.

Books from Alibris: Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Odilon Redon (1840-1916)

My drawings inspire and are not to be defined. They determine nothing. They place us, as does music, in the ambiguous world of the undetermined. They are a kind of metaphor.


Books from Alibris: Odilon Redon

Camille Pissarro (1830-1903)

Work at the same time on sky, water, branches, ground, keeping everything going on an equal basis... Don't be afraid of putting on colour... Paint generously and unhesitatingly, for it is best not to lose the first impression.

Books from Alibris: Camille Pissarro

Ludovic Piette (1826-1878)

A landscape-painter, who was a pupil of Couture before attending the Academie Suisse, where he became friendly with Pissarro and started to follow the tendancies of Impressionism. He participated in the third and fourth Impressionist exhibitions during a period when his works were almost indistinguishable from those of Pissarro, who often stayed with him in his house of Montfoucault in Brittany, and where Pissarro painted a number of landscapes. Around 1870 Piette painted a picture in gouache of Pissarro at work, which later belonged to Camille, the painter's son; now lost, it is known only through a photograph. - Malaspina Biography

Books from Alibris: Ludovic Piette

Lilla Cabot Perry (1848-1933)

The genuine artist has the impulse to communicate to others one’s own consciousness of the innate beauty that lies in emotion.

Books from Alibris: Lilla Cabot Perry

Berthe Morisot (1841-1895)

It is important to express oneself... provided the feelings are real and are taken from your own experience.

Books from Alibris: Berthe Morisot

Gustave Moreau (1826-1898)

When I want to render these fine nuances, I do not find them in the subject, but in the nature of women in real life who seek unhealthy emotions and are too stupid even to understand the horror in the most appalling situations.

Books from Alibris: Gustave Moreau

Jean Francois Millet (1814-1875)

Art will never come except from some small disregarded corner where an isolated and inspired man is studying the mysteries of nature.

Books from Alibris: Jean Francois Millet

Edouard Manet (1832-1883)

You would hardly believe how difficult it is to place a figure alone on a canvas, and to concentrate all the interest on this single and universal figure and still keep it living and real.

Books from Alibris: Edouard Manet

Alphonse Legros (1837-1911)

Painter and etcher, was born at Dijon on the 8th of May 1837. His father was an accountant, and came from the neighbouring village of Veronnes. Young Legros frequently visited the farms of his relatives, and the peasants and landscapes of that part of France are the subjects of many of his pictures and etchings. He was sent to the art school at Dijon with a view to qualifying for a trade, and was apprenticed to Maitre Nicolardo, house decorator and painter of images. In 1851 Legros left for Paris to take another situation; but passing through Lyons he worked for six months as journeyman wall-painter under the decorator Beuchot, who was painting the chapel of Cardinal Bonald in the cathedral. In Paris he studied with Cambon, scene-painter, an experience which developed a breadth of touch. At this time lie attended the drawing-school of Lecoq de Boisbaudran. In 1855 Legros attended the evening classes of the Ecole des Beatix Arts, and perhaps gained there his love of drawing from the antique, some of the results of which may be seen in the Print Room of the British Museum. He sent two portraits to the Salon of 1857: one was rejected, and formed part of the exhibition of protest organized by Bonvin in his studio; the other, which was accepted, was a profile portrait of his father. This work was presented to the museum at Tours by the artist when his friend Cazin was curator. Champfleury saw the work in the Salon, and sought out the artist to enlist him in the small army of so-called Realists, comprising (round the noisy glory of Courbet) all those who raised protest against the academic trifles of the degenerate Romantics. In 1859 Legros' Angelus was exhibited, the first of those quiet church interiors, with kneeling figures of patient women, by which he is best known as a painter. Ex Voto, a work of great power and Insight, painted in 1861, now in the museum at Dijon, was received by his friends with enthusiasm, but it only obtained a mention at the Salon. Legros came to England in I863 and in 1864 married Miss Frances Rosetta Hodgson. At first he lived by his etching and teaching. He then became teacher of etching at the South Kensington School of Art, and in 1876 Slade Professor at University College, London. He was naturalized as an Englishman in 1881, and remained at University College seventeen years. His influence there was exerted to encourage a certain distinction, severity and truth of character in the work of his pupils, with a simple technique and a respect for the traditions of the old masters, until then somewhat foreign to English art. He would draw or paint a torso or a head before the students in an hour or even less, so that the attention of the pupils might not be dulled. As students had been known to take weeks and even months over a single drawing, Legros ordered the positions of the casts in the Antique School to be changed once every week. In the painting school he insisted upon a good outline, preserved by a thin rub in of umber, and then the work was to be finished in a single painting, premier coup. Experiments in all varieties of art work were practiced; whenever the professor saw a fine example in the museum, or when a process interested him in a workshop, he never rested until he had mastered the technique and his students were trying their prentice hands at it. As he had casually picked up the art of etching by watching a comrade in Paris working at a commercial engraving, so he began the making of medals after a walk in the British Museum, studying the masterpieces of Pisanello, and a visit to the Cabinet des Medailles in Paris. Legros, considered the traditional journey to Italy a very important part of artistic training, and in order that his students should have the benefit of such study he devoted a part of his salary to augment the income available for a traveling studentship. His later works, after he resigned his professorship in 1892, were more in the free and ardent manner of his early days - imaginative landscapes, castles in Spain, and farms in Burgundy, etchings like the series of The Triumph of Death, and the sculptured fountains for the gardens of the duke of Portland at Welbeck.

Pictures and drawings by Legros, besides those already mentioned, may be seen in the following galleries and museums: Amende Honorable, Dead Christ, bronzes, medals and twenty-two drawings, in the Luxembourg, Paris; Landscape, Study of a Head, and portraits of Browning, Burne-Jones, Cassel, Huxley and Marshall, at the Victoria and Albert Museum, Kensington; Femmes en priere, National Gallery of British Art; The Tinker, and six other works from the lonides Collection, bequeathed to South Kensington; Christening, Barricade, The Poor at Meat, two portraits and several drawings and etchings, collection of Lord Carlisle; Two Priests at the Organ, Landscape and etchings, collection of Rev. Stopford Brooke Head of a Priest, collection of Mr Vereker Hamilton; The Weed-burner, some sculpture and a large collection of etching and drawings, Mr Guy Knowles; Psyche, collection of Mr L. W Hudson; Snow Scene, collection of Mr G. F. Watts, R.A. thirty-five drawings and etchings, the Print Room, British Museum Jacob's Dream and twelve drawings of the antique, Cambridge Saint Jerome, two studies of heads and some drawings, Man chester; The Pilgrimage and Study made before the Class, Liverpool Walker Art Gallery; Study of Heads, Peel Pan Museum, Salford. - Malaspina Biography

Books from Alibris: Alphonse Legros

Johan Barthold Jongkind (1819-1891)

Jongkind, Johan Barthold (b. June 3, 1819, Lattrop, Neth.--d. Feb. 9, 1891, Cote-Saint-Andre, Fr.), painter and printmaker whose small, informal landscapes continued the tradition of the Dutch landscapists while also stimulating the development of Impressionism. - Malaspina Biography

Books from Alibris: Johan Barthold Jongkind

Jean-Baptiste Armand Guillaumin (1841-1927)

The longest surviving Impressionist, the most loyal, and probably the least known, Guillaumin was born in Paris of a family that had recently moved there from central France, where as a boy he spent much of his time. At the age of 15 he started working in his uncle's shop, whilst studying drawing in the evenings. In 1860 he obtained a job on the Paris-Orleans railway, continuing to paint in his spare time. In 1861 he entered the Academie Suisse and met Cezanne and Pissarro, with whom he was to remain on close terms for the rest of his life.

They spent some time together at Pontoise, and Cezanne was greatly impressed by a view of the Seine that Guillaumin painted in 1871 (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston). At this time all three were frequent visitors to Gachet's house at Auvers, and it was there that Cezanne did a portrait-etching Guillaumin. Cezanne also copied a painting by him of the Seine at Bercy (1876-78; Kunsthalle, Hamburg). - Malaspina Biography

Books from Alibris: Armand Guillaumin