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93-499: Franz Xaver Winterhalter (20 April 1805 – 8 July 1873) was a German painter and lithographer , known for his flattering portraits of royalty and upper-class society in the mid-19th century. His name has become associated with fashionable court portraiture . Among his best known works are Empress Eugénie Surrounded by her Ladies in Waiting (1855) and the portraits he made of Empress Elisabeth of Austria (1865). Franz Xaver Winterhalter

186-404: A CTP ( computer-to-plate ) device known as a platesetter. The positive image is the emulsion that remains after imaging. Non-image portions of the emulsion have traditionally been removed by a chemical process, though in recent times, plates have become available that do not require such processing. The plate is affixed to a cylinder on a printing press. Dampening rollers apply water, which covers

279-426: A brushed or roughened texture and are covered with a photosensitive emulsion . A photographic negative of the desired image is placed in contact with the emulsion and the plate is exposed to ultraviolet light . After development, the emulsion shows a reverse of the negative image, which is thus a duplicate of the original (positive) image. The image on the plate emulsion can also be created by direct laser imaging in

372-484: A category of his own in the hierarchy of painting. Winterhalter himself regarded his first royal commissions as a temporary intermission before returning to subject painting and the field of academic respectability, but he was a victim of his own success, and for the rest of his life he worked almost exclusively as a portrait painter. His success in this field made him rich. Winterhalter became an international celebrity enjoying Royal patronage. Among his many regal sitters

465-531: A center, and some of Géricault's prints were in fact produced there. Goya in Bordeaux produced his last series of prints by lithography— The Bulls of Bordeaux of 1828. By the mid-century the initial enthusiasm had somewhat diminished in both countries, although the use of lithography was increasingly favored for commercial applications, which included the prints of Daumier , published in newspapers. Rodolphe Bresdin and Jean-François Millet also continued to practice

558-523: A few portraits of the aristocracy in England, mostly members of court circles. The fall of Louis-Philippe in 1848 did not affect the painter's reputation. Winterhalter went to Switzerland and worked in Belgium and England. Persistence saw Winterhalter survive from the fall of one dynasty to the rise of another. Paris remained his home until a couple of years before his death. In the same year, his marriage proposal

651-482: A long time, especially during the French Revolution , history painting often focused on depictions of the heroic male nude. The large production, using the finest French artists, of propaganda paintings glorifying the exploits of Napoleon , were matched by works, showing both victories and losses, from the anti-Napoleonic alliance by artists such as Goya and J. M. W. Turner . Théodore Géricault 's The Raft of

744-404: A more congenial mentor in the fashionable portraitist Joseph Karl Stieler (1781–1858). During this time, he supported himself working as lithographer. Winterhalter entered court circles when in 1828 he became drawing master to Sophie Margravine of Baden , at Karlsruhe . His opportunity to establish himself beyond southern Germany came in 1832 when he was able to travel to Italy, 1833–1834, with

837-415: A printing technology, lithography is different from intaglio printing (gravure), wherein a plate is engraved , etched , or stippled to score cavities to contain the printing ink; and woodblock printing or letterpress printing , wherein ink is applied to the raised surfaces of letters or images. Lithography uses simple chemical processes to create an image. For instance, the positive part of an image

930-521: A rubber blanket , which squeezes away the water, picks up the ink and transfers it to the paper with uniform pressure. The paper passes between the blanket cylinder and a counter-pressure or impression cylinder and the image is transferred to the paper. Because the image is first transferred, or offset to the rubber blanket cylinder, this reproduction method is known as offset lithography or offset printing . Many innovations and technical refinements have been made in printing processes and presses over

1023-594: A series of increasingly ambitious works were produced, many still religious, but several, especially in Florence, which did actually feature near-contemporary historical scenes such as the set of three huge canvases on The Battle of San Romano by Paolo Uccello , the abortive Battle of Cascina by Michelangelo and the Battle of Anghiari by Leonardo da Vinci , neither of which were completed. Scenes from ancient history and mythology were also popular. Writers such as Alberti and

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1116-483: Is a planographic method of printing originally based on the immiscibility of oil and water. The printing is from a stone ( lithographic limestone ) or a metal plate with a smooth surface. It was invented in 1796 by the German author and actor Alois Senefelder and was initially used mostly for musical scores and maps. Lithography can be used to print text or images onto paper or other suitable material. A lithograph

1209-488: Is a water-repelling (" hydrophobic ") substance, while the negative image would be water-retaining ("hydrophilic"). Thus, when the plate is introduced to a compatible printing ink and water mixture, the ink will adhere to the positive image and the water will clean the negative image. This allows a flat print plate to be used, enabling much longer and more detailed print runs than the older physical methods of printing (e.g., intaglio printing, letterpress printing). Lithography

1302-407: Is above another who only produces fruit, flowers or seashells. He who paints living animals is more than those who only represent dead things without movement, and as man is the most perfect work of God on the earth, it is also certain that he who becomes an imitator of God in representing human figures, is much more excellent than all the others ... a painter who only does portraits still does not have

1395-514: Is also called an ink pyramid because the ink is transferred through several layers of rollers with different purposes. Fast lithographic 'web' printing presses are commonly used in newspaper production. The advent of desktop publishing made it possible for type and images to be modified easily on personal computers for eventual printing by desktop or commercial presses. The development of digital imagesetters enabled print shops to produce negatives for platemaking directly from digital input, skipping

1488-514: Is an elaboration of lithography in which the ink is transferred from the plate to the paper indirectly by means of a rubber plate or cylinder, rather than by direct contact. This technique keeps the paper dry and allows fully automated high-speed operation. It has mostly replaced traditional lithography for medium- and high-volume printing: since the 1960s, most books and magazines, especially when illustrated in colour, are printed with offset lithography from photographically created metal plates. As

1581-431: Is not difficult to explain. He created the image his sitters wished or needed to project to their subjects. He was not only skilled at posing his sitters to create almost theatrical compositions, but also was a virtuoso in the art of conveying the texture of fabrics, furs and jewellery, to which he paid no less attention than to the face. He painted very rapidly and very fluently, designing most of his compositions directly in

1674-441: Is something printed by lithography, but this term is only used for fine art prints and some other, mostly older, types of printed matter, not for those made by modern commercial lithography. Originally, the image to be printed was drawn with a greasy substance, such as oil, fat, or wax onto the surface of a smooth and flat limestone plate. The stone was then treated with a mixture of weak acid and gum arabic ("etch") that made

1767-482: Is still used for fine art printmaking. In modern commercial lithography, the image is transferred or created as a patterned polymer coating applied to a flexible plastic or metal plate. The printing plates, made of stone or metal, can be created by a photographic process, a method that may be referred to as "photolithography" (although the term usually refers to a vaguely similar microelectronics manufacturing process ). Offset printing or "offset lithography"

1860-415: Is still used on older presses, using rollers covered with molleton (cloth) that absorbs the water. This increased control of the water flow to the plate and allowed for better ink and water balance. Recent dampening systems include a "delta effect or vario", which slows the roller in contact with the plate, thus creating a sweeping movement over the ink image to clean impurities known as "hickies". This press

1953-793: The Impressionists (except for Édouard Manet ) and the Symbolists , and according to one recent writer " Modernism was to a considerable extent built upon the rejection of History Painting... All other genres are deemed capable of entering, in one form or another, the 'pantheon' of modernity considered, but History Painting is excluded". Initially, "history painting" and "historical painting" were used interchangeably in English, as when Sir Joshua Reynolds in his fourth Discourse uses both indiscriminately to cover "history painting", while saying "...it ought to be called poetical, as in reality it is", reflecting

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2046-520: The "Intimate Romantic", and in French it was known as the "peinture de genre historique" or "peinture anecdotique" ("historical genre painting" or "anecdotal painting"). Church commissions for large group scenes from the Bible had greatly reduced, and historical painting became very significant. Especially in the early 19th century, much historical painting depicted specific moments from historical literature, with

2139-501: The 19th century were the most common subjects for history paintings. History paintings almost always contain a number of figures, often a large number, and normally show some typical states on that is a moment in a narrative. The genre includes depictions of moments in religious narratives, above all the Life of Christ , Middle eastern culture as well as narrative scenes from mythology , and also allegorical scenes. These groups were for long

2232-703: The André family, including the art collector Édouard André , Henriette André Walther, and Ernest André, which now hang in the Musée Jacquemart-André in Paris. During the Second Mexican Empire in the 1860s, headed by Maximilian I of Mexico , Winterhalter was commissioned to paint portraits of the Imperial couple. The Empress consort of Mexico, Charlotte of Belgium was the daughter of Louise-Marie of France , Queen of

2325-819: The Belgians, whom Winterhalter painted at the beginning of his career in France. Some of Winterhalter's paintings of the Mexican monarchs still remain in their Mexico City palace, Chapultepec Castle , now the National Museum of History. To deal with those pressing for portrait commissions, many of whom were calling for multiple replicas, Winterhalter made extensive use of assistants. No portrait painter had ever enjoyed such an extraordinary royal patronage as Winterhalter; only Rubens , Van Dyck and Thomas Lawrence worked as he did in an international network. Winterhalter sought respite from

2418-875: The English Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood continued to regard history painting as the ideal for their most ambitious works. Others such as Jan Matejko in Poland, Vasily Surikov in Russia, José Moreno Carbonero in Spain and Paul Delaroche in France became specialized painters of large historical subjects. The style troubadour (" troubadour style") was a somewhat derisive French term for earlier paintings of medieval and Renaissance scenes, which were often small and depicting moments of anecdote rather than drama; Ingres , Richard Parkes Bonington and Henri Fradelle painted such works. Sir Roy Strong calls this type of work

2511-685: The French Empress in a pastoral setting gathering flowers in a harmonious circle with her ladies in waiting. The painting was acclaimed and exhibited in the universal exposition in 1855. It remains Winterhalter's most famous work. The composition shows a marked similarity to Florinda and this gave rise to scandalous gossip that the Empress and her ladies had posed déshabillé for the earlier painting. In 1852, he went to Spain to paint Queen Isabella II with her daughter . Russian aristocratic visitors to Paris also liked to have their portraits executed by

2604-554: The French state, but after the fall of Napoleon in 1815 the French governments were not regarded as suitable for heroic treatment and many artists retreated further into the past to find subjects, though in Britain depicting the victories of the Napoleonic Wars mostly occurred after they were over. Another path was to choose contemporary subjects that were oppositional to government either at home and abroad, and many of what were arguably

2697-530: The French term peinture historique , one equivalent of "history painting". The terms began to separate in the 19th century, with "historical painting" becoming a sub-group of "history painting" restricted to subjects taken from history in its normal sense. In 1853 John Ruskin asked his audience: "What do you at present mean by historical painting? Now-a-days it means the endeavour, by the power of imagination, to portray some historical event of past days." So for example Harold Wethey 's three-volume catalogue of

2790-488: The Medusa (1818–1819) was a sensation, appearing to update the history painting for the 19th century, and showing anonymous figures famous only for being victims of what was then a famous and controversial disaster at sea. Conveniently their clothes had been worn away to classical-seeming rags by the point the painting depicts. At the same time the demand for traditional large religious history paintings very largely fell away. In

2883-537: The Salon of 1836. Il Decameron a year later was also praised; both paintings are academic compositions in the style of Raphael . In the Salon of 1838 he exhibited a portrait of the Prince of Wagram with his young daughter. His career as a portrait painter was soon secured when in the same year he painted Louise Marie of Orleans , Queen of the Belgians, and her son . It was probably through this painting that Winterhalter came to

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2976-418: The artist. The serilith technique is used primarily to create fine art limited print editions. Subject painting In modern English, "historical painting" is sometimes used to describe the painting of scenes from history in its narrower sense, especially for 19th-century art, excluding religious, mythological, and allegorical subjects, which are included in the broader term "history painting", and before

3069-513: The artists' work. Grant Wood , George Bellows , Alphonse Mucha , Max Kahn , Pablo Picasso , Eleanor Coen , Jasper Johns , David Hockney , Susan Dorothea White , and Robert Rauschenberg are a few of the artists who have produced most of their prints in the medium. M. C. Escher is considered a master of lithography, and many of his prints were created using this process. More than other printmaking techniques, printmakers in lithography still largely depend on access to good printers , and

3162-633: The autumn of that year, he traveled to Vienna to execute the portraits of Emperor Franz Joseph and Empress Elisabeth that remain among his most well-known works. As he grew older, Winterhalter's links with France weakened while his interest in Germany grew. He was taking a cure in Switzerland at the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War , the war that ended the Second French Empire . After the war,

3255-552: The best-received. From 1760 onwards, the Society of Artists of Great Britain , the first body to organize regular exhibitions in London, awarded two generous prizes each year to paintings of subjects from British history. The unheroic nature of modern dress was regarded as a serious difficulty. When, in 1770, Benjamin West proposed to paint The Death of General Wolfe in contemporary dress, he

3348-402: The blank portions of the plate but is repelled by the emulsion of the image area. Hydrophobic ink, which is repelled by the water and only adheres to the emulsion of the image area, is then applied by the inking rollers. If this image were transferred directly to paper, it would create a mirror-type image and the paper would become too wet. Instead, the plate rolls against a cylinder covered with

3441-399: The canvas. His portraits are elegant, refined, lifelike, and pleasantly idealized. Concerning Winterhalter's method of working, it is thought that, practiced as he was at drawing and representing figures, he painted directly onto the canvas without making preliminary studies. He frequently decided upon the dress and pose of the sitter. His style was suave, cosmopolitan and plausible. Many of

3534-1153: The classic statement of the theory for the 18th century: Celui qui fait parfaitement des païsages est au-dessus d'un autre qui ne fait que des fruits, des fleurs ou des coquilles. Celui qui peint des animaux vivants est plus estimable que ceux qui ne représentent que des choses mortes & sans mouvement; & comme la figure de l'homme est le plus parfait ouvrage de Dieu sur la Terre, il est certain aussi que celui qui se rend l'imitateur de Dieu en peignant des figures humaines, est beaucoup plus excellent que tous les autres ... un Peintre qui ne fait que des portraits, n'a pas encore cette haute perfection de l'Art, & ne peut prétendre à l'honneur que reçoivent les plus sçavans. Il faut pour cela passer d'une seule figure à la représentation de plusieurs ensemble; il faut traiter l'histoire & la fable; il faut représenter de grandes actions comme les historiens, ou des sujets agréables comme les Poëtes; & montant encore plus haut, il faut par des compositions allégoriques, sçavoir couvrir sous le voile de la fable les vertus des grands hommes, & les mystères les plus relevez. He who produces perfect landscapes

3627-655: The development of the medium has been greatly influenced by when and where these have been established. An American scene for lithography was founded by Robert Blackburn in New York City. As a special form of lithography, the serilith or seriolithograph process is sometimes used. Seriliths are mixed-media original prints created in a process in which an artist uses the lithograph and serigraph (screen printing). Fine art prints of this type are published by artists and publishers worldwide, and are widely accepted and collected. The separations for both processes are hand-drawn by

3720-487: The durability of the image on the stone depends on the lipid content of the material being used, and its ability to withstand water and acid. After the drawing of the image, an aqueous solution of gum arabic , weakly acidified with nitric acid ( HNO 3 ) is applied to the stone. The function of this solution is to create a hydrophilic layer of calcium nitrate salt, Ca(NO 3 ) 2 , and gum arabic on all non-image surfaces. The gum solution penetrates into

3813-454: The eight brothers and sisters, only four survived infancy. Throughout his life Franz Xaver remained very close to his family, in particular to his brother Hermann (1808–1891), who was also a painter. After attending school at a Benedictine monastery in St. Blasien, Winterhalter left Menzenschwand in 1818 at the age of 13 to study drawing and engraving. He trained as a draughtsman and lithographer in

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3906-437: The famous master. As the "Painter of Princes", Winterhalter was thereafter in constant demand by the courts of Britain (from 1841), Spain, Belgium, Russia, Mexico, the German states, and France. During the 1850s and 1860s, Winterhalter painted a number of important portraits of Polish and Russian aristocrats. In 1857, he painted the portrait of Tsarina Maria Alexandrovna . During this time he also painted portraits of members of

3999-830: The finest models for the genre. In the Raphael Rooms in the Vatican Palace , allegories and historical scenes are mixed together, and the Raphael Cartoons show scenes from the Gospels, all in the Grand Manner that from the High Renaissance became associated with, and often expected in, history painting. In the Late Renaissance and Baroque the painting of actual history tended to degenerate into panoramic battle-scenes with

4092-598: The following century Giorgio Vasari in his Lives of the Artists , followed public and artistic opinion in judging the best painters above all on their production of large works of history painting (though in fact the only modern (post-classical) work described in De Pictura is Giotto 's huge Navicella in mosaic). Artists continued for centuries to strive to make their reputation by producing such works, often neglecting genres to which their talents were better suited. There

4185-465: The form of history painting moments of drama from recent or contemporary history, which had long largely been confined to battle-scenes and scenes of formal surrenders and the like. Scenes from ancient history had been popular in the early Renaissance , and once again became common in the Baroque and Rococo periods, and still more so with the rise of Neoclassicism . In some 19th or 20th century contexts,

4278-444: The greatest potential to move the viewer. He placed emphasis on the ability to depict the interactions between the figures by gesture and expression. This view remained general until the 19th century, when artistic movements began to struggle against the establishment institutions of academic art , which continued to adhere to it. At the same time, there was from the latter part of the 18th century an increased interest in depicting in

4371-410: The gum arabic surfaces and was repelled by the oily parts, while the oily ink used for printing did the opposite. Lithography works because of the mutual repulsion of oil and water . The image is drawn on the surface of the print plate with a fat or oil-based medium (hydrophobic) such as a wax crayon , which may be pigmented to make the drawing visible. A wide range of oil-based media is available, but

4464-425: The highest form of Western painting, occupying the most prestigious place in the hierarchy of genres , and considered the equivalent to the epic in literature. In his De Pictura of 1436, Leon Battista Alberti had argued that multi-figure history painting was the noblest form of art, as being the most difficult, which required mastery of all the others, because it was a visual form of history, and because it had

4557-423: The highest perfection of his art, and cannot expect the honour due to the most skilled. For that he must pass from representing a single figure to several together; history and myth must be depicted; great events must be represented as by historians, or like the poets, subjects that will please, and climbing still higher, he must have the skill to cover under the veil of myth the virtues of great men in allegories, and

4650-449: The intermediate step of photographing an actual page layout. The development of the digital platesetter during the late 20th century eliminated film negatives altogether by exposing printing plates directly from digital input, a process known as computer-to-plate printing. During the early years of the 19th century, lithography had only a limited effect on printmaking , mainly because technical difficulties remained to be overcome. Germany

4743-544: The last great generation of history paintings were protests at contemporary episodes of repression or outrages at home or abroad: Goya 's The Third of May 1808 (1814), Théodore Géricault 's The Raft of the Medusa (1818–19), Eugène Delacroix 's The Massacre at Chios (1824) and Liberty Leading the People (1830). These were heroic, but showed heroic suffering by ordinary civilians. Romantic artists such as Géricault and Delacroix, and those from other movements such as

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4836-501: The lives of the great, or of scenes centred on unnamed figures involved in historical events, as in the Troubadour style . At the same time scenes of ordinary life with moral, political or satirical content became often the main vehicle for expressive interplay between figures in painting, whether given a modern or historical setting. By the later 19th century, history painting was often explicitly rejected by avant-garde movements such as

4929-438: The medium in France, and Adolph Menzel in Germany. In 1862 the publisher Cadart tried to initiate a portfolio of lithographs by various artists, which was not successful but included several prints by Manet . The revival began during the 1870s, especially in France with artists such as Odilon Redon , Henri Fantin-Latour and Degas producing much of their work in this manner. The need for strictly limited editions to maintain

5022-467: The mid-nineteenth century there arose a style known as historicism , which marked a formal imitation of historical styles and/or artists. Another development in the nineteenth century was the treatment of historical subjects, often on a large scale, with the values of genre painting , the depiction of scenes of everyday life, and anecdote . Grand depictions of events of great public importance were supplemented with scenes depicting more personal incidents in

5115-537: The most frequently painted; works such as Michelangelo 's Sistine Chapel ceiling are therefore history paintings, as are most very large paintings before the 19th century. The term covers large paintings in oil on canvas or fresco produced between the Renaissance and the late 19th century, after which the term is generally not used even for the many works that still meet the basic definition. History painting may be used interchangeably with historical painting , and

5208-523: The mysteries they reveal". By the late 18th century, with both religious and mytholological painting in decline, there was an increased demand for paintings of scenes from history, including contemporary history. This was in part driven by the changing audience for ambitious paintings, which now increasingly made their reputation in public exhibitions rather than by impressing the owners of and visitors to palaces and public buildings. Classical history remained popular, but scenes from national histories were often

5301-512: The notice of Maria Amalia of the Two Sicilies , Queen of the French, mother of the Queen of the Belgians. In Paris, Winterhalter quickly became fashionable. He was appointed court painter of Louis-Philippe , the king of the French, who commissioned him to paint individual portraits of his large family. Winterhalter would execute more than thirty commissions for him. This success earned the painter

5394-756: The novels of Sir Walter Scott a particular favourite, in France and other European countries as much as Great Britain. By the middle of the century medieval scenes were expected to be very carefully researched, using the work of historians of costume, architecture and all elements of decor that were becoming available. An example of this is the extensive research of Byzantine architecture, clothing, and decoration made in Parisian museums and libraries by Moreno Carbonero for his masterwork The Entry of Roger de Flor in Constantinople . The provision of examples and expertise for artists, as well as revivalist industrial designers,

5487-459: The painter did not return to France, going instead to Baden . He was officially still accredited at the court of Baden, and he settled in Karlsruhe . In the last two years of his life, Winterhalter painted very little. During a visit to Frankfurt am Main in the summer of 1873, he contracted typhus and died on 8 July. He was 68 years old. Winterhalter came into his own as a portrait painter during

5580-433: The paintings of Titian (Phaidon, 1969–75) is divided between "Religious Paintings", "Portraits", and "Mythological and Historical Paintings", though both volumes I and III cover what is included in the term "History Paintings". This distinction is useful but is by no means generally observed, and the terms are still often used in a confusing manner. Because of the potential for confusion modern academic writing tends to avoid

5673-442: The parts of the stone's surface that were not protected by the grease more hydrophilic (water attracting). For printing, the stone was first moistened. The water adhered only to the gum-treated parts, making them even more oil-repellant. An oil-based ink was then applied, and would stick only to the original drawing. The ink would finally be transferred to a blank sheet of paper , producing a printed page. This traditional technique

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5766-470: The phrase "historical painting", talking instead of "historical subject matter" in history painting, but where the phrase is still used in contemporary scholarship it will normally mean the painting of subjects from history, very often in the 19th century. "Historical painting" may also be used, especially in discussion of painting techniques in conservation studies, to mean "old", as opposed to modern or recent painting. In 19th-century British writing on art

5859-410: The pores of the stone, completely surrounding the original image with a hydrophilic layer that will not accept the printing ink. Using lithographic turpentine , the printer then removes any excess of the greasy drawing material, but a hydrophobic molecular film of it remains tightly bonded to the surface of the stone, rejecting the gum arabic and water, but ready to accept the oily ink. When printing,

5952-411: The portraits were copied in his workshop or reproduced as lithographs. As an artist, he remained a difficult figure to place; there are few painters with whom to compare him, and he does not fit into any school. His early affinities were Neoclassical but his style can be described as Neo- Rococo . After his death, his painting fell out of favor, being considered romantic, glossy, and superficial. Little

6045-510: The pressures of his work with holidays abroad in Italy, Switzerland, and above all Germany. Despite the many years he lived in France, he remained deeply attached to his native country. For all his success and popularity, Winterhalter continued to live simply and abstemiously. In 1859 he bought a villa in Baden-Baden , his favorite vacation spot. In 1864, Winterhalter made his last visit to England. In

6138-422: The prevailing historical narrative of national history in the popular mind. In France, L'art Pompier ("Fireman art") was a derisory term for official academic historical painting, and in a final phase, "History painting of a debased sort, scenes of brutality and terror, purporting to illustrate episodes from Roman and Moorish history, were Salon sensations. On the overcrowded walls of the exhibition galleries,

6231-417: The price had now been realized, and the medium became more accepted. In the 1890s, color lithography gained success in part by the emergence of Jules Chéret , known as the father of the modern poster , whose work went on to inspire a new generation of poster designers and painters, most notably Toulouse-Lautrec , and former student of Chéret, Georges de Feure . By 1900 the medium in both color and monotone

6324-496: The printing of wallpaper; but it was transformed when the founder's grandson, Fernand Mourlot , invited a number of 20th-century artists to explore the complexities of fine art printing. Mourlot encouraged the painters to work directly on lithographic stones in order to create original artworks that could then be executed under the direction of master printers in small editions. The combination of modern artist and master printer resulted in lithographs that were used as posters to promote

6417-436: The reputation of a specialist in dynastic and aristocratic portraiture, skilled in combining likeness with flattery and enlivening official pomp with modern fashion. However, Winterhalter's reputation in artistic circles suffered. The critics, who had praised his debut in the salon of 1836, dismissed him as a painter who could not be taken seriously. This attitude persisted throughout Winterhalter's career, condemning his work to

6510-575: The second Empire and he painted his best work during the last two decades of his life. He matched his style to the luxury and relaxed atmosphere of the age, its hedonism and gaiety. His female sitters of the 1850s and 1860s inhabit a different physiological climate from those he painted earlier; they are not reticent and reserved. His male sitters inspired few original or memorable compositions. Winterhalter never received high praise for his work from serious critics, being constantly accused of superficiality and affectation in pursuit of popularity. However, he

6603-495: The stone and paper are run through a press that applies even pressure over the surface, transferring the ink to the paper and off the stone. Senefelder had experimented during the early 19th century with multicolor lithography; in his 1819 book, he predicted that the process would eventually be perfected and used to reproduce paintings. Multi-color printing was introduced by a new process developed by Godefroy Engelmann (France) in 1837 known as chromolithography . A separate stone

6696-404: The stone is kept wet with water. The water is naturally attracted to the layer of gum and salt created by the acid wash. Printing ink based on drying oils such as linseed oil and varnish loaded with pigment is then rolled over the surface. The water repels the greasy ink but the hydrophobic areas left by the original drawing material accept it. When the hydrophobic image is loaded with ink,

6789-605: The support of Grand Duke Leopold of Baden . In Rome he composed romantic genre scenes in the manner of Louis Léopold Robert and attached himself to the circle of the director of the French Academy, Horace Vernet . On his return to Karlsruhe he painted portraits of the Grand Duke Leopold of Baden and his wife, and was appointed painter to the grand-ducal court. Nevertheless, he left Baden to move to France, where his Italian genre scene Il dolce Farniente attracted notice at

6882-557: The term may refer specifically to paintings of scenes from secular history, rather than those from religious narratives, literature or mythology. The term is generally not used in art history in speaking of medieval painting, although the Western tradition was developing in large altarpieces , fresco cycles, and other works, as well as miniatures in illuminated manuscripts . It comes to the fore in Italian Renaissance painting , where

6975-455: The terms " subject painting " or "anecdotic" painting were often used for works in a line of development going back to William Hogarth of monoscenic depictions of crucial moments in an implied narrative with unidentified characters, such as William Holman Hunt 's 1853 painting The Awakening Conscience or Augustus Egg 's Past and Present , a set of three paintings, updating sets by Hogarth such as Marriage à-la-mode . History painting

7068-468: The victorious monarch or general perched on a horse accompanied with his retinue, or formal scenes of ceremonies, although some artists managed to make a masterpiece from such unpromising material, as Velázquez did with his The Surrender of Breda . An influential formulation of the hierarchy of genres, confirming the history painting at the top, was made in 1667 by André Félibien , a historiographer, architect and theoretician of French classicism became

7161-580: The workshop of Karl Ludwig Schüler (1785–1852) in Freiburg im Breisgau . In 1823, at the age of 18, he went to Munich, sponsored by the industrialist Baron von Eichtal (1775–1850). In 1825, he was granted a stipend by Ludwig I, Grand Duke of Baden (1763–1830) and began a course of study at the Academy of Arts in Munich with Peter von Cornelius (1783–1867), whose academic methods made him uncomfortable. Winterhalter found

7254-409: The years, including the development of presses with multiple units (each containing one printing plate) that can print multi-color images in one pass on both sides of the sheet, and presses that accommodate continuous rolls ( webs ) of paper, known as web presses. Another innovation was the continuous dampening system first introduced by Dahlgren, instead of the old method (conventional dampening) which

7347-737: Was a quick, cheap process and had been used to print British army maps during the Peninsular War . Most of the commercial maps of the second half of the 19th century were lithographed and unattractive, though accurate enough." High-volume lithography is used to produce posters, maps, books, newspapers, and packaging—just about any smooth, mass-produced item with print and graphics on it. Most books, indeed all types of high-volume text, are printed using offset lithography. For offset lithography, which depends on photographic processes, flexible aluminum , polyester , mylar or paper printing plates are used instead of stone tablets. Modern printing plates have

7440-521: Was also Queen Victoria . Winterhalter first visited England in 1842, and returned several times to paint Victoria, Prince Albert and their growing family, painting at least 120 works for them, a large number of which remain in the Royal Collection , on display to the public at Buckingham Palace and other royal residences. On display at Osborne House is Florinda , given by Victoria as a birthday present for Albert in 1852. Winterhalter also painted

7533-515: Was an accepted part of printmaking. During the 20th century, a group of artists, including Braque , Calder , Chagall , Dufy , Léger , Matisse , Miró , and Picasso , rediscovered the largely undeveloped artform of lithography thanks to the Mourlot Studios , also known as Atelier Mourlot , a Parisian printshop founded in 1852 by the Mourlot family. The Atelier Mourlot originally specialized in

7626-475: Was born in the small village of Menzenschwand (now part of Sankt Blasien ), in Germany's Black Forest in the Electorate of Baden , on 20 April 1805. He was the sixth child of Fidel Winterhalter (1773–1863), a farmer and resin producer in the village, and his wife Eva Meyer (1765–1838), a member of a long established Menzenschwand family. His father was of peasant stock and was a powerful influence in his life. Of

7719-447: Was especially so used before the 20th century. Where a distinction is made, "historical painting" is the painting of scenes from secular history, whether specific episodes or generalized scenes. In the 19th century, historical painting in this sense became a distinct genre. In phrases such as "historical painting materials", "historical" means in use before about 1900, or some earlier date. History paintings were traditionally regarded as

7812-400: Was firmly instructed to use classical costume by many people. He ignored these comments and showed the scene in modern dress. Although George III refused to purchase the work, West succeeded both in overcoming his critics' objections and inaugurating a more historically accurate style in such paintings. Other artists depicted scenes, regardless of when they occurred, in classical dress and for

7905-407: Was highly appreciated by his aristocratic patrons. The royal families of England, France, Spain, Russia, Portugal, Mexico, and Belgium all commissioned him to paint portraits. His monumental canvases established a substantial popular reputation, and lithographic copies of the portraits helped to spread his fame. Winterhalter's portraits were prized for their subtle intimacy; the nature of his appeal

7998-520: Was invented by Alois Senefelder in the Kingdom of Bavaria in 1796. In the early days of lithography, a smooth piece of limestone was used (hence the name "lithography": "lithos" ( λιθος ) is the Ancient Greek word for "stone"). After the oil-based image was put on the surface, a solution of gum arabic in water was applied, the gum sticking only to the non-oily surface. During printing, water adhered to

8091-628: Was known about him personally and his art was not taken seriously until recently. However, a major exhibition of his work at the National Portrait Gallery (United Kingdom) in London and the Petit Palais in Paris in 1987 brought him into the limelight again. His paintings are exhibited today in leading European and American museums. Lithography Lithography (from Ancient Greek λίθος ( líthos )  'stone' and γράφω ( gráphō )  'to write')

8184-535: Was one of the motivations for the establishment of museums like the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. New techniques of printmaking such as the chromolithograph made good quality reproductions both relatively cheap and very widely accessible, and also hugely profitable for artist and publisher, as the sales were so large. Historical painting often had a close relationship with Nationalism , and painters like Matejko in Poland could play an important role in fixing

8277-516: Was rejected, and Winterhalter remained a bachelor committed to his work. After the accession of Napoleon III , his popularity grew. From then on, under the Second Empire , Winterhalter became the chief portraitist of the imperial family and court of France. The French Empress Eugénie became a favorite sitter, and she treated him generously. In 1855 Winterhalter painted his masterpiece: The Empress Eugénie Surrounded by her Ladies in Waiting . He set

8370-415: Was some objection to the term, as many writers preferred terms such as "poetic painting" ( poesia ), or wanted to make a distinction between the "true" istoria , covering history including biblical and religious scenes, and the fabula , covering pagan myth, allegory, and scenes from fiction, which could not be regarded as true. The large works of Raphael were long considered, with those of Michelangelo, as

8463-457: Was the dominant form of academic painting in the various national academies in the 18th century, and for most of the 19th, and increasingly historical subjects dominated. During the Revolutionary and Napoleonic periods the heroic treatment of contemporary history in a frankly propagandistic fashion by Antoine-Jean, Baron Gros , Jacques-Louis David , Carle Vernet and others was supported by

8556-619: Was the main center of production in this period. Godefroy Engelmann , who moved his press from Mulhouse to Paris in 1816, largely succeeded in resolving the technical problems, and during the 1820s lithography was adopted by artists such as Delacroix and Géricault . After early experiments such as Specimens of Polyautography (1803), which had experimental works by a number of British artists including Benjamin West , Henry Fuseli , James Barry , Thomas Barker of Bath , Thomas Stothard , Henry Richard Greville , Richard Cooper , Henry Singleton , and William Henry Pyne , London also became

8649-444: Was used for each color, and a print went through the press separately for each stone. The main challenge was to keep the images aligned ( in register ). This method lent itself to images consisting of large areas of flat color, and resulted in the characteristic poster designs of this period. "Lithography, or printing from soft stone, largely took the place of engraving in the production of English commercial maps after about 1852. It

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