The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists (502 page)

Vostell, Wolf
.

See
FLUXUS
.

 
Back
  -  
 
New Search

(1590–1649).
The leading French painter in the first half of the 17th cent. He spent the years 1613–27 in Italy (mainly in Rome) and achieved a considerable reputation, being made President of the Roman Academy of St Luke in 1624. His early work in Italy was much influenced by
Caravaggio
, but he later developed an
eclectic
style in which
Baroque
tendencies were tempered by the
classicism
of Guido
Reni
and
Domenichino
. In 1627 Louis XIII recalled Vouet to Paris and made him his court painter, launching him on an extremely busy and prosperous career. His compromise style proved exactly to the taste of a French public brought up in the
Mannerist
tradition and seeking something new, but unprepared for the dramatic naturalism of the Caravaggesque or the full emotionalism of the Baroque. Only when
Poussin
returned from Rome to Paris in 1640–2 was Vouet's dominance threatened. He painted religious and allegorical works and portraits and was employed on many important decorative schemes, sometimes in conjunction with Jacques
Sarrazin
. Little of his best decorative work survives, however. Vouet was a versatile and hard-working artist rather than a great one and his success and influence depended on his having hit upon a style which accorded with the taste of the day at a time when French painting was at a low ebb. He introduced new life and a tradition of solid competence and most of the leading members of the next generation of artists passed through his studio, including
Lebrun
,
Le Sueur
, and
Mignard
. Examples of Vouet's work are in many French museums.

 
Back
  -  
 
New Search

(active 1654–62).
Dutch
genre
painter, an enigmatic figure who has only recently gained recognition as one of the most charmingly idiosyncratic masters of his time. Nothing at all is known of his life, and his paintings—either sparse interiors or quiet street scenes—are very rare. They show a remarkably fresh, almost
naïve
vision and have a sense of tranquil poetry that has led them to be compared to the work of
Vermeer
. Several of his paintings have, indeed, formerly gone under Vermeer's name, for example
Street Scene
in the Getty Museum, Malibu, which was once owned by
Thoré
, who considered it a Vermeer. Because of the similarity of spirit, it is surmised that Vrel, too, worked in Delft.

 
Back
  -  
 
New Search

(
c.
1545–1626).
Netherlandish sculptor. He was born in The Hague, trained in Italy under
Giambologna
, and worked mainly in Central Europe, notably for the emperor Rudolf II in Prague, where he settled in 1601. He was a fine craftsman in bronze and his sleek and elegant figures imitated his master's style with great accomplishment; their popularity showed the international currency of the courtly
Mannerist
style. His major works included fountains for Augsburg (1598, 1602) and Copenhagen (1617). The figures made for the fountain in Copenhagen were taken by the Swedes as war booty in 1660 and are now in the Palace of Drottningholm near Stockholm. None of de Vries's commissions came from the Low Countries.

 
Back
  -  
 
New Search

(1526/7–1606).
Netherlandish painter, architect, engineer, and designer, active in Germany and Prague, as well as Amsterdam, Antwerp, and The Hague. He was famous in his lifetime for his skill in
illusionistic
architectural decoration, but much of his work was of a temporary nature (triumphal arches for festivities and so on) and few paintings are known by him (one of them is
Christ in the House of Mary and Martha
in the Royal Collection, which is set in an extremely elaborate interior). He is now remembered primarily for his many books and prints containing
perspective
studies of fanciful palaces, courts, gardens, furniture, and decorative work. They had wide circulation in northern Europe and had great influence on architecture and decoration.

 
Back
  -  
 
New Search