The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists (54 page)

(1811–79).
American painter. He worked mainly in Missouri (where he held several political posts), painting the life of the frontier people. Except for a short period studying at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, he was self-taught. His finest canvases, particularly the celebrated
Fur Traders Descending the Missouri
(Met. Mus., New York, 1845), distil visual poetry from the commonplace, but after a trip to study in Düsseldorf in 1856–8 his work lost much of its racy freshness and charm, becoming overlaid with sentimentality.

 
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biomorphic
.

A term applied to forms in abstract art that derive from organic rather than geometric shapes, as, for example, in the sculpture of Henry
Moore
.

 
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(1667–1731).
English sculptor. He trained in Brussels and later visited Rome and could work in a
Baroque
idiom more convincingly than most of his English contemporaries, as is seen in his best-known work,
The Conversion of St Paul
(1706) in the west pediment of St Paul's Cathedral, London. His work is uneven, but he ranks as the most significant figure in English sculpture between
Gibbons
(for whom he worked for a time) and
Rysbrack
.

 
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(1906–59).
Italian painter. who, because of his outspoken political views and his advanced and energetic artistic outlook, exercised an important influence on the Italian avant-garde. In 1938 he took a prominent part in founding the anti-Fascist
Corrente
association, and was persecuted and imprisoned for his political activities. In 1947 he joined the
Fronte Nuovo delle Arti
association. His work was varied in style, ranging from
Expressionist
pictures influenced by
Ensor
and van
Gogh
to abstracts reflecting his interest in the
Orphists
.

 
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(1888–1964).
French painter, born in the province of Lot-et-Garonne. He moved to Paris in 1910 and after a period of experimentation with
Cubism
, he was for a time associated with
Ozenfant
and
Le Corbusier
. From 1925 to 1938 he taught at the
Académie
Ranson, where his influence on many of the younger abstract artists, such as
Manessier
was great, but his own work during the 1920s and 1930s remained almost unknown. In 1938 he retired to Lot and during the war contracted an eye ailment that left him unable to paint. Instead, he produced compositions pieced together from tapestry and other materials. A successful operation in 1948 enabled him to resume painting and during the 1950s he achieved international recognition for his large, tapestry-like compositions in rich and glowing colours. Abstract in appearance, they resulted from the careful and sensitive reduction of natural scenes to scintillating patterns of interacting colours, and Bissière himself always refused to accept the term ‘abstract’ for his own work.

 
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bistre
.

A transparent brown
pigment
prepared by boiling the soot of burned wood. It is often used as a
wash
for pen-and-ink drawings, watercolours, and
miniatures
.
Rembrandt
and
Claude
were among the artists who exploited its potentialities.See also
SEPIA
.

 
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