Camille Pissarro (10/071830 – 13/11/1903)
Camille Pissarro (July 10, 1830 – November 13, 1903) was a French
Impressionist painter. His importance resides not only in his visual contributions
to Impressionism and Post-Impressionism, but also in his patriarchal standing
among his colleagues, particularly Paul Cézanne.
acob-Abraham-Camille Pissarro was born in Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas,
to Abraham Gabriel Pissarro, a Portuguese Sephardic Jew, and Rachel Manzana-
Pomié, from the Dominican Republic. Pissarro lived in St. Thomas until age 12,
when he went to a boarding school in Paris. He returned to St. Thomas where he
drew in his free time. Pissarro was attracted to political anarchy, an attraction that
may have originated during his years in St. Thomas. In 1852, he travelled to
Venezuela with the Danish artist Fritz Melbye. In 1855, Pissarro left for Paris,
where he studied at various academic institutions (including the École des Beaux-
Arts and Académie Suisse) and under a succession of masters, such as Jean-
Baptiste-Camille Corot, Gustave Courbet, and Charles-François Daubigny. Corot
is sometimes considered Pissarro\'s most important early influence; Pissarro listed
himself as Corot’s pupil in the catalogues to the 1864 and 1865 Paris Salons.
His finest early works (See Jalais Hill, Pontoise, Metropolitan Museum of
Art, New York) are characterized by a broadly painted (sometimes with palette
knife) naturalism derived from Courbet, but with an incipient Impressionist palette.
While residing in London, Pissarro lived at Westow Hill and Palace Road,
Upper Norwood 1870-1. He painted local views including the new Dulwich
College, Lordship Lane Station and St Stephen\'s Church. In 1890 he returned to
England and painted some ten scenes of central London. He came back again in
1892, painting in Kew Gardens and Kew Green, and also in 1897, when he
produced several oils of Bedford Park, Chiswick. For more details of his British
visits, see Nicholas Reed, \"Camille Pissarro at Crystal Palace\" and \"Pissarro in
West London\", published by Lilburne Press.
Pissarro married Julie Vellay, a maid in his mother\'s household. Of their
eight children, one died at birth and one daughter died aged nine. The surviving
children all painted, and Lucien, the oldest son, became a follower of William

Morris. Camille Pissarro: Lettres à son fils Lucien, 1943 edited by Art historian
John Rewald reveals insights into the life of an artist, for both father and son.
Edward Hopper (22/07/1882 – 15/05/1967)
Edward Hopper (July 22, 1882 – May 15, 1967) was an American painter
and printmaker. His works represented light as it is reflected off of familiar objects.
While most popularly known for his oil paintings, he was equally proficient as a
watercolorist and printmaker in etching.
The best known of Hopper\'s paintings, Nighthawks (1942), shows
customers sitting at the counter of an all-night diner. The diner\'s harsh electric
light sets it apart from the gentle night outside, enhancing the mood and subtle
emotion of the painting.
Hopper\'s rural New England scenes, such as Gas (1940), are no less
meaningful. In terms of subject matter, he can be compared to his contemporary,
Norman Rockwell. Hopper\'s work exploits vast empty spaces, represented by a
gas station astride an empty country road and the sharp contrast between the
natural light of the sky, moderated by the lush forest, and glaring artificial light
coming from inside the gas station. All of Hopper\'s paintings have a concentration
on the subtle interaction of human beings with their environment and with each
other. Like stills for a movie or tableaux in a play, Hopper positions his characters
as if they have been captured just before or just after the climax of a scene.


Edward Lear (12/05/1812 – 29/01/1888)
Edward Lear (12 May 1812 – 29 January 1888) was an English artist,
illustrator and writer known for his literary nonsense, in poetry and prose, and
especially his limericks, a form which he popularised.
He was born in Highgate, a suburb of London, the 20th child of Ann and
Jeremiah Lear. He was raised by his eldest sister, Ann, twenty-one years his senior.
At the age of fifteen, he and his sister had to leave the family home and set up
house together. He started work as a serious illustrator and his first publication, at

the age of 19, was Illustrations of the Family of Psittacidae, or Parrots in 1830. His
paintings were well received and he was favourably compared with Audubon.
Throughout his life he continued to paint seriously. He had a lifelong ambition to
illustrate Tennyson\'s poems; near the end of his life a volume with a small
number of illustrations was published, but his vision for the work was never
realised. Lear briefly gave drawing lessons to Queen Victoria, leading to some
awkward incidents when he failed to observe proper court protocol.
He did not keep good health. From the age of six until the time of his death
he suffered frequent grand mal epileptic seizures, as well as bronchitis, asthma,
and in later life, partial blindness. Lear experienced his first epileptic fit while
sitting in a tree. Lear felt lifelong guilt and shame for his epileptic condition. His
adult diaries indicate that he always sensed the onset of a fit in time to remove
himself from public view. How Lear was able to anticipate his fits is not known,
but many people with epilepsy report a ringing in their ears or an \"aura\" before
the onset of a fit.
In 1846 Lear published A Book of Nonsense, a volume of limericks which
went through three editions and helped popularise the form. In 1865 The History
of the Seven Families of the Lake Pipple-Popple was published, and in 1867 his
most famous piece of nonsense, The Owl and the Pussycat, which he wrote for the
children of his patron Edward Stanley, 13th Earl of Derby. Many other works
followed.
Lear\'s nonsense books were quite popular during his lifetime, but a rumour
circulated that \"Edward Lear\" was merely a pseudonym, and the books\' true
author was the man to whom Lear had dedicated the works: his patron the Earl of
Derby. Adherents of this rumour offered as evidence the facts that both men were
named Edward, and that \"Lear\" is an anagram of \"Earl\".
Thomas Canty
Thomas Canty is an award-winning illustrator and book designer in the
field of fantasy literature, credited with pioneering a "New Romantic" style of
painting, influenced by such 19th century artists as Alphonse Mucha, Gustav

Klimt, and the Pre-Raphaelites. His paintings are featured each year on the cover
of the award-winning Year's Best Fantasy and Horror volumes, as well as on
numerous other books in the fantasy field and beyond, including: Michael
Moorcock's Elric series and Louise Cooper's Time Master and Indigo series.
He has worked an as art director and designer for Donald M. Grant
Publisher, and collaborated on many projects with editor/author Terri Windling,
such as the Fairy Tales series (Ace Books and Tor Books) and the Snow White,
Blood Red series (Avon). Canty has won two World Fantasy Awards, among other
honors. His work has been exhibited at the Society of Illustrators gallery in New
York, as well as in museums and galleries across the United States. He is a
member of The Endicott Studio.




Caspar David Friedrich (1774 – 1840)
Caspar David Friedrich (September 5, 1774 – May 7, 1840) was a 19th
century German Romantic painter, considered by many critics to be one of the
finest representatives of the movement.
Caspar David Friedrich was born in Greifswald, Hither Pomerania.
Relevant as a background to his work are the strict Lutheran creed of his father
and his early familiarity with death: his mother died when he was seven, his sister
succumbed to typhus fever and his brother drowned in a frozen lake, allegedly
while trying to save Friedrich, under whose feet the ice had cracked. In 1790 he
began studying art with Johann Gottfried Quistorp at the University of Greifswald
and literature and aesthetics from Swedish professor Thomas Thorbild.
In 1794 he entered the prestigious Academy of Copenhagen, and in 1798 he
settled in Dresden. He often painted with India ink, watercolor and sepia ink. It is
unclear when he finally took up oil painting, but it was surely after the age of 30.
Landscapes were his preferred subject. Mostly based on the landscapes of northern

Germany, his paintings depict woods, hills, harbors, morning mists and other light
effects based on a close observation of nature.
In 1808, a time when Friedrich was growing in popularity, he exhibited one
of his most controversial paintings, The Cross in the Mountains (Gemäldegalerie,
Dresden). For the first time in Christian art, a pure landscape was the panel of an
altarpiece. The cross risest highest in the composition, but is viewed obliquely and
at a distance. Friedrich said that the rays of the evening sun depicted the setting of
the old, pre-Christian world. The mountain symbolizes an immovable faith, while
the fir trees represent hope. Friedrich painted several other landscapes that
incorporate crosses.
He was acquainted with Philipp Otto Runge, another notable German
painter of the Romantic period, and gained the admiration of the poet Goethe. He
was also a friend of Norwegian painter Johann Christian Dahl and Georg Friedrich
Kersting. In 1810 he became a member of the Academy of Berlin. In addition to
Christianity, references to German folklore became increasingly prominent,
underscoring Friedrich\'s patriotism during the French occupation of Pomerania.
Following his marriage to Caroline Bommer in 1818, he began to portray feminine
characters in his paintings. Cretacic Rocks in Rügen, painted during his
honeymoon, is a good example of this development.
With dawns and dusks constituting important parts of his landscapes,
Friedrich\'s own dusk years were characterized by a growing pessimism. This is
reflected in his work, which becomes darker, showing a fearsome monumentalism.
The Sea of Ice perhaps summarizes Friedrich\'s ideas and aims at this point,
though in such a radical way that the painting was not well received. Between
1830 and 1835 he became more reclusive, and he dismissed the opinions of critics
and the public by only painting for his family and friends—yet his art from this
period can be considered among his finest. In 1835, a stroke caused him limb
paralysis and he was never able to paint again.