The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists (129 page)

 
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(1530–76).
Italian sculptor, architect, theoretician, and poet, born in Perugia and active mainly in Florence. His work bears witness to his admiration for
Michelangelo
, for whose funeral ceremonies in 1564 he supplied sculpture and paintings. Danti's style, however, is more elegant and much less powerful than the master's. His best-known works are (in Florence) the bronze group of
The Execution of the Baptist
over the south door of the Baptistry (finished 1571), and (in Perugia) the bronze figure of Pope Julius II outside the Cathedral (1555). From 1573 he resided in Perugia, where he was one of the first professors at the newly founded Accademia del Disegno and city architect. He was the author of a treatise on proportion (1567), dedicated to the Grand Duke Cosimo de'
Medici
.

 
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Danube School
.

Term applied to a number of German painters working in the Danube valley in the early 16th cent. who were among the pioneers in depicting landscape for its own sake.
Altdorfer
,
Cranach
the Elder (in his earlier work), and
Huber
are the most important artists covered by the term. They worked independently of one another, so ‘Danube School’ (German
Donauschule
) is a term of convenience rather than an indication of any group affiliation.

 
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(1403/6–68 or later)
. Netherlandish painter from Tournai. From 1427 to 1432 he was apprenticed along with Rogelet de la Pâture (assumed to be identical with Rogier van der
Weyden
) to Robert Campin, and the similarity of Daret's style to that of the
Master of Flémalle
is one of the main reasons for thinking that Campin and this master are one and the same. Four panels survive from Daret's main work, an altarpiece for the Abbey of St Vaast in Arras (1433–5), and one of these—the
Nativity
(Thyssen Coll., Madrid)—is obviously based on the Master of Flémalle's painting of the subject in Dijon (Musée des Beaux-Arts). Two of the other three panels from the St Vaast Altarpiece are in Berlin (Staatliche Museen), and the fourth is in Paris (Petit Palais). Daret's other work included tapestry
cartoons
and manuscript
illuminations
.

 
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(1817–78).
French landscape painter of the
Barbizon School
, one of the earliest exponents of
plein air
painting in France. He received his introduction to painting from his father
Edmé-François
(1789–1843), also a landscape painter, and in 1838 joined the class of Paul
Delaroche
at the École des
Beaux-Arts
. Although closely associated with the Barbizon painters, he did not himself live at Barbizon. His landscapes reflect his love of rivers, beaches, and canals (he often painted from a specially fitted boat), and are notable for the uncrowded quality of the composition and an almost Dutch clarity of atmospheric effect. He seems to belong more to the generation of
Monet
and
Boudin
, who were in fact admirers of his work.

 
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(1808–79).
French
caricaturist
, painter, and sculptor. In his lifetime he was known chiefly as a political and social satirist, but since his death recognition of his qualities as a painter has grown. In 1830, after learning the still fairly new process of
lithography
, he began to contribute political cartoons to the anti-government weekly
Caricature
. He was an ardent Republican and was sentenced to six months' imprisonment in 1832 for his attacks on Louis-Philippe, whom he represented as ‘Gargantua swallowing bags of gold extorted from the people’. On the suppression of political satire in 1835 he began to work for
Charivari
and turned to satire of social life, but at the time of the 1848 revolution he returned to political subjects. He is said to have made more than 4,000 lithographs, wishing each time that the one he had just made could be his last. In the last years of his life he was almost blind and was saved from destitution by
Corot
. Daumier's paintings were probably done for the most part fairly late in his career. Although he was accepted four times by the
Salon
, he never exhibited his paintings otherwise and they remained practically unknown up to the time of an exhibition held at
Durand-Ruel's
gallery in 1878, the year before his death. The paintings are in the main a documentation of contemporary life and manners with satirical overtones, although he also did a number featuring Don Quixote as a larger-than-life hero. His technique was remarkably broad and free. As a sculptor he specialized in caricature heads and figures, and these too are in a very spontaneous style. In particular he created the memorable figure of ‘Ratapoil’ (meaning ‘skinned rat’), who embodied the sinister agents of the government of Louis Philippe. (A similar political type in his graphic art was ‘Robert Macaire’, who personified the unscrupulous profiteer and swindler.)
In the directness of his vision and the lack of sentimentality with which he depicts current social life Daumier belongs to the
Realist school
of which
Courbet
was the chief representative. As a caricaturist he stands head and shoulders above all others of the 19th cent. He had the gift of expressing the whole character of a man through physiognomy, and the essence of his satire lay in his power to interpret mental folly in terms of physical absurdity. Although he never made a commercial success of his art, he was appreciated by the discriminating and numbered among his friends and admirers
Delacroix
, Corot ,
Forain
, and
Baudelaire
.
Degas
was among the artists who collected his works.