The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists (10 page)

(1744–96).
Scottish portrait and
genre
painter. He was in Italy 1764–7, studying with Gavin
Hamilton
and winning a prize for history painting at the Academy of St Luke in Rome. In 1770–80 he worked in London, then settled in Edinburgh as a painter of portraits and
conversation pieces
. When abroad he had made studies of French and Italian peasants and he painted scenes of Scottish life in a similar vein, which earned him the misleading title of ‘the Scottish
Hogarth
’. Such works influenced
Wilkie
.

 
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(1782–1850).
Scottish historical painter, who travelled extensively in Russia, the Middle East, and elsewhere, before settling in Edinburgh in 1814. His accuracy of detail and exotic subject-matter satisfied the same appetite as did the novels of Sir Walter Scott , who was Allan's enthusiastic supporter.
The Black Dwarf
(NG, Edinburgh) is an illustration to Scott's novel of that name. With
Wilkie
, Allan did much to establish the vogue for historical
genre
painting in Scotland.

 
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Method of painting, primarily in oils, in which the paint is applied directly to the ground, without underpainting, and the finished surface is achieved with a single application of
pigments
.
Alla prima
is Italian for ‘at first’; synonymous terms are ‘direct painting’, ‘wet on wet’, and the French
au premier coup
(at first stroke). Direct painting was practised from the 17th cent. (for example by
Hals
), but it was not until the middle of the 19th cent. that it became the chief method in oil painting. Its growing popularity was connected with the availability of commercial paints of a buttery consistency, as well as with Romantic ideas about spontaneity of expression.

 
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Allied Artists' Association
(AAA).

A society of British artists formed in London in 1908 by the critic Frank Rutter (1876–1937) and artists in
Sickert's
circle for the purpose of organizing annual exhibitions of independent progressive painters in the jury-free manner of the French
Salon
des Indépendants. It held annual exhibitions at the Albert Hall from 1908 (more than 3,000 works were shown at the first show) and then smaller shows at the Grafton Galleries between 1916 and 1920.
Brancusi
(1913),
Kandinsky
(1909), and
Zadkine
(1913) received the first British showing of their works at these exhibitions. The
Camden Town Group
, founded in 1911, was made up largely of members of, the Allied Artists Association.

 
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(1535–1607).
Florentine painter, the pupil and adopted son of
Bronzino
. An early visit to Rome added the influence of late
Michelangelo
paintings to that of his master's courtly
Mannerism
.
The Pearl Fishers
(Studiolo of Francesco I, Palazzo Vecchio , Florence ,
c.
1570) is generally considered his masterpiece; playful and full of artifice, it combines nude figures obviously drawn from Michelangelo with Bronzino's svelteness and enamelled colouring. He was one of the last notable exponents of Mannerism, painting in a style that had become outmoded by the time of his death. His son
Cristofano
(1577–1621) was one of the leading Florentine painters of his period, working in a style that was more naturalistic and
Baroque
than that of his father. He is remembered primarily for one work,
Judith with the Head of Holofernes
(
c.
1615, Pitti, Florence, and other versions), in which his
femme fatale
mistress is portrayed as Judith and he has depicted his own features in Holofernes' severed head. In the 18th and 19th cents. it was one of the most famous paintings in Italy. The Ashmolean Museum in Oxford possesses portraits by both Alessandro and Cristofano Allori .

 
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