The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists (360 page)

(1725–82). English painter and engraver who lived in Italy from 1747
. In Rome he first made a reputation, especially among the English tourists, as a view painter, but after settling in Florence in 1755 was best known for goodhumoured
caricature
conversation pieces
by which he is chiefly remembered today. Patch knew
Reynolds
, who included a portrait of him in his own well-known caricature of
Raphael's
School of Athens
(NG, Dublin, 1751), and it is uncertain who influenced whom in the genre.

 
Back
  -  
 
New Search

(
c.
1605–76).
French landscape painter. He was a pupil of
Vouet
but worked in the manner of
Claude
, with whose paintings his own have sometimes been confused. In his day he was well known for his panels set into the decoration of rooms, notably in the Cabinet de l'Amour of the Hôtel Lambert in Paris. His son,
Pierre-Antoine
(1648–1708), painted in his father's manner. Both men often featured classical ruins in their paintings, looking forward to the
Picturesque
.

 
Back
  -  
 
New Search

Patenier , Herri
.

See
BLES
.

 
Back
  -  
 
New Search

(d. 1524).
Netherlandish painter, a pioneer of landscape as an independent genre. Nothing is known of his early life, but in 1515 he became a member of the Antwerp Guild. In 1521 he met
Dürer
, who made a drawing of him and described him as a ‘good landscape painter’. There are only a very few signed paintings, but a great many others have been attributed to him with varying degrees of probability. Patenier also painted landscape backgrounds for other artists and
The Temptation of St Anthony
(Prado, Madrid) was done in collaboration with his friend Quentin
Massys
(who after Patenier's death became guardian of his children). Although landscape never constitutes the subject of his pictures, Patenier was the first Netherlandish artist to let it dwarf his figures in religious and mythological scenes. His style combines naturalistic observation of detail with a marvellous sense of fantasy, forming a link between
Bosch
and
Bruegel
.

 
Back
  -  
 
New Search

(1695–1736).
French painter, the only pupil of
Watteau
(a fellow native of Valenciennes), with whom he had a somewhat touchy relationship. An unlikely legend has it that Watteau dismissed him from his studio (
c.
1713) because he was disturbed by the threat offered by his progress to his own pre-eminence; whatever the reason for their differences, they were reconciled soon before Watteau's death. Like Watteau's other imitator,
Lancret
, Pater repeated the master's type of
fêtes galantes
(see
FÊTE CHAMPÊTRE
) in a fairly stereotyped fashion. He showed more originality in scenes of military life and groups of bathers (in which he gave freer rein to the suggestiveness often seen in his
fêtes galantes
). Examples of all types of his work are in the Wallace Collection, London.

 
Back
  -  
 
New Search

(1839–94).
English critic and essayist. A fellow of Brasenose College Oxford, he led an uneventful life and was regarded as an apostle of
Aestheticism
, which set a supreme value upon the enjoyment of beauty. His best-known book is
Studies in the History of the Renaissance
(1873), which includes essays on
Winckelmann
and the then neglected
Botticelli
, and his celebrated evocation of the
Mona Lisa
in his essay on
Leonardo
da Vinci : ‘She is older than the rocks among which she sits …’ This volume (which concludes ‘To burn always with this hard gem-like flame, to maintain this ecstasy, is success in life’), though attacked by some as unscholarly and morbid, had a profound influence on the undergraduates of the day and was acclaimed by Oscar Wilde as ‘the holy writ of beauty’.