Rabine Oscar
Born in 1928 in Moscow, Oscar Yakovlevich
Rabine is a painter and graphic artist, and one of the organizers of
the nonconformist movement. From 1946 to 1948, he studied at the Riga
Academy of Arts, and from 1948 to 1949 at Moscow's Surikov State Art
Institute, from which he was expelled for "formalism." Rabin's
professional and moral development was strongly influenced by his
father-in-law, the artist and poet Ye. Kropivnitsky. Rabin was a
leading figure in the "Lianozovo Group," which took its name from the
small settlement in the Moscow region where the Kropivnitsky family
lived. In 1978, he was forced to emigrate from the USSR and was
deprived of his citizenship "for behavior discreditable to the title
of Soviet artist." He now lives and works in Paris. He has
participated in and initiated numerous exhibitions and political
actions by independent artists. He recently had a solo exhibition at
the Mimi Ferzt Gallery in New York (March/April 2001).
Rabuzin Ivan.
Ivan Rabuzin is Croatian Naive artist born in 1921. He began
painting in 1956, but his occupation was as a carpenter. He switched his
career to professional painting in 1962. His paintings included Avenue
and My Homeland. From 1993 to 1999 he was also a member of the
Croatian Parliament.
Raggi Antonio
(b Vico Morcote, nr Lugano,
1624; d Rome, 1 Aug 1686). Italian sculptor and stuccoist.
He arrived in Rome in 1645 and remained based there for the
rest of his life. He initially joined the workshop of
Alessandro Algardi, under whom he made three stucco reliefs
for S Giovanni in Laterano. In 1647 he joined 38 other
sculptors working under Gianlorenzo Bernini on decorations
at St Peter’s. Over the next few years he established
himself as Bernini’s most trusted assistant and chief
collaborator in both marble and stucco, working from
drawings and models supplied by the master. As such he
completed the over-life-size marble group of Christ and Mary
Magdalene Noli me tangere (1649) for the Alaleona Chapel of
SS Domenico e Sisto and the colossal Danube (1650–51) in
Bernini’s Four Rivers Fountain on the Piazza Navona, as well
as visiting the Este court at Modena in 1653 to make from
Bernini’s sketches terracotta models from which large-scale
sculptures for the Palazzo Ducale at Sassuolo could be
executed. He also collaborated with Bernini on the Cathedra
Petri (1657–64) in St Peter’s and on the redecoration of S
Maria del Popolo, where he contributed the stucco relief
sculptures of SS Barbara, Catherine, Thecla and Apollonia
(1655–7), as well as angels and putti.
Raimondi Marcantonio (c. 1480—after 1527). Italian engraver,
the first to specialize in the reproduction of original
paintings, etc. After studying under F. Francia at Bologna
he went to Venice where he copied Durer's engravings. In 1510 he moved to Rome and made engravings of works by
Raphael. It is for these that he is remembered.
Rainer Arnulf (1929— ). Austrian artist best known for his
expressive photographic self-portraits which are overpainted
and overdrawn with strong colours, or with black lines, to
accentuate and transform his own image in what he calls 'a
mixture of performing and visual art'.
Rajasthani miniature painting. Art of mid-16th—early I9th-c.
*Rajput courts in Rajasthan, N.W. India; notably Mewar,
Bundi, Kotah, Kishangar and Jaipur. Vivid, diverse styles
evolved but *Mughal miniature painting was
influential from the 1600s, especially in Jaipur and Bundi.
R. painters ill. religious works, e.g. the Gita Govmda
pastoral of Krishna and Radha, most beautiful of the gopis
(herds-women), produced 'music' paintings (* ragamala) and
secular works, e.g. hunting scenes.
Rajput miniature painting. Art of late 16th-18th-c. N.W.
Indian Rajput courts; the 2 main traditions are *Pahari and
*Rajasthani. The Rajputs, Hindu warrior princes, yielded to
the Mughal empire only in the 1610s. R. m. p. combined Hindu
symbolic imagery with *Mughal realism.
Ramboux
Johann Anton
(b Trier, 5 Oct 1790;
d Cologne, 2 Oct 1866).
German painter, draughtsman and museum curator. He was taught
drawing by Jean-Henri Gilson (1741–1809), before he went to Paris
for further training in the studio of Jacques-Louis David. In 1812
he returned to Trier, painting portraits until 1815, when he spent a
year at the Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Munich. In 1816 he went
to Rome, where he was part of the Nazarene circle without becoming a
member of the Lukasbrüder. Close association with these artists,
notably Peter Cornelius, Carl Philipp Fohr and Julius Schnorr von
Carolsfeld, had a more lasting influence on Ramboux’s artistic
development than his earlier studies with David, whose classical
concepts he gradually abandoned.
Ramos Mel (1935- ). U.S. *Pop artist. In the early 1960s,
comic book characters provided his images; subsequently he
did paintings of pin-up girls of increasing eroticism.
Randall Bill.
Pin
-Up Art
Ranson Paul
b
Limoges, 1864; d Paris, 20 Feb 1909.
French painter and designer. The son of a
successful local politician, Ranson was encouraged from the outset in his artistic
ambitions. He studied at the Ecoles des Arts Decoratifs in Limoges and Paris but
transferred in 1886 to the Acadйmie Julian. There he met Paul Sйrusier and in 1888
became one of the original members of the group known as the NABIS. From 1890 onwards,
Ranson and his wife France hosted Saturday afternoon meetings of the Nabis in their
apartment in the Boulevard du Montparnasse, jokingly referred to as ‘Le Temple’.
Ranson acted as linchpin for the sometimes dispersed group. Noted for his enthusiasm and
wit and for his keen interests in philosophy, theosophy and theatre, he brought an element
of esoteric ritual to their activities. For example he introduced the secret Nabi language
and the nicknames used familiarly within the group. He also constructed a puppet theatre
in his studio for which he wrote plays that were performed by the Nabis before a
discerning public of writers and politicians.
Raphael (1483-1520). Raffaello Sanzio, Italian painter, with
Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci one of the three masters
of the High Renaissance. Born at Urbino, already a
flourishing centre of the arts, and the son of a painter, R.
was brought into contact with the highest artistic
achievements from childhood. He was trained by Perugino, who
was then at the height of his own career. R.'s precocious
talent was recognized long before he was 20 and his early
Vision of a Knight shows an astonishing maturity. R. was
astute enough to realize that the art of Leonardo and
Michelangelo was transforming the whole conception of
painting and in 1S04 he went to Florence to study it.
Betrothal of life Virgin (1 S04) shows the transition
between the teaching of Perugino and the assertion of the
new influences. R.'s colour and the emotional qualities of
his work always remained within the tradition of Central
Italian painting, while his sense of composition and the
dynamic power of his draughtsmanship were learned from the
Florentines. Early portraits too, show how much he owed to
Leonardo's Mono Lisa, e.g. Maddalena Doni. In his Madonnas, e.g. La Bella Jardiniere (c.
1520), the influence of Fra Bartolommeo is combined with
that of Leonardo's drawings of St Anne with the Madonna and
Child, e.g. Madonna with the Goldfinch and Madonna del
Granduca. By 1508 R. was receiving offers from both the
French court and the Pope; late in that year he went to Rome
to take part in the grandiose decorative schemes of Pope
Julius II for the new Papal apartments in the Vatican. R.'s
response to the enormous artistic challenge his part of the
scheme presented is also one of those astonishing 'leaps
forward' in art history and is matched, perhaps, only by
Masaccio's painting of the frescoes in the Carmine church,
Florence, 100 years earlier, and the exactly contemporary
(1508—1 2) frescoes of Michelangelo in the Sistine Chapel.
When he found himself the peer and rival of Michelangelo R.
was 26. Considered for their composition alone, The School
of Athens, Parnassus and Disputa) (Disputation concerning
the Holy Sacrament) are probably supreme in art. They were
immediately studied by every artist in Rome and remained an
'art school in themselves'. At the same time R. was painting
portraits such as the celebrated Young Cardinal. The next 8
years were, indeed, a record of astonishing achievement: R.
and his assistants continued the Vatican frescoes — in the
Stanza d'Eliodoro there is a richer use of colour, esp. in
The Mass of Bolsena; while in the Stanza dell' Incendio del
Borgo the almost forced dramatic quality shows his study of
the Michelangelo frescoes. In 1514 R. was preferred to
Michelangelo by the new Pope, Leo X, as successor to Bramante, architect-in-charge of St Peter's. In 1518 he
was to be made, with A. da Sangallo, 'Superintendent of the
Streets of Romе', which made him responsible for town
planning as well as for the day-to-day upkeep of the entire
city. Before this, he had decorated the Farnesina Villa
(1514). The famous Galatea is, with Botticelli's Venus and
Primavera, the supreme Renaissance evocation of the
classical 'Golden Age'; it is also unmatched in its
interpretation of spontaneous and graceful female action.
The classical themes remind one too, that R. was also
responsible for the Papal colls of antiquities. In 1515—16, R. drew the cartoons for the tapestries which, woven m
Flanders, were hung in the Sistine Chapel. 7 of the
cartoons are preserved. Yet he also found time to paint
altarpieces, e.g. The Sistine Madonna and The
Transfiguration, a painting left unfinished when he died of
fever. It was completed by *Giuho Romano, one of
the founders of the Mannerist school which borrowed so much
from R.
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Rastrelli
Bartolomeo
(1700-1771).Count, an Italian by birth. Born in Paris. Son of architect and
sculptor Carl-Bartolomeo Rastrelli. Studied under his father. In 1716 came to
St. Petersburg with his father, who had concluded an agreement with Emperor
Petr I, and assisted him.
Beginning in 1722 worked independently as an architect. Between 1722 and 1730
traveled twice to Italy and France to improve his knowledge of architecture (one
time for 5 years). Carried out private orders in Saint Petersburg and Moscow.
When Elizabeth ascended the
throne in 1741, he became her favorite court architect. He bore the rank of
major general, the title of cavalier of the Order of St. Anne, and was an
academician of architecture (1770). He had a number of students and followers.
When Empress Catherine II
ascended the throne in 1762 Bartolomeo Francesco Rastrelli went into temporary
retirement, in 1763 he was dismissed completely and left for Switzerland. Most of Rastrelli's work has survived. This architect
is often referred to as the "master of Elizabeth an
Baroque." Most of his buildings are in Saint Petersburg:
the Smolny Monastery, Vorontsov Palace, Stroganov
Palace, Summer Palace of Elizabeth I (located at the
site of present Mikhailov or Engineer Palace), the Large
Peterhof Palace, the Winter Palace (interiors
reconstructed following the fire) and other buildings. Between late 1748 and 1756 during the reign of
Empress Elizabeth I, Bartolomeo Francesco Rastrelli
headed the construction of the Tzarskoje Selo residence.
During this period he rebuilt the entire Large
(Catherine) Palace. He also designed the Hermitage
(1746 - 1752) and the Grotto (1755 - 1756) in the
regular part of the Catherine Park. Between 1754 and
1757 the Slide Hill, disassembled in 1792-1795, was
constructed according to Rastrelli's designs. Later the
Granite Terrace still in existence today was constructed
on this hill according to plans by the architect Luigi
Rusca. In 1750 - 1752 the Mon Bijou pavilion of
Rastrelli's design was erected in the center of the
Menagerie, in place of which the landscape part of the
Alexander Park was later planned. The Arsenal designed
by Adam Menelaws was later built in place of the Mon
Bijou hunting lodge, which had been partially dismantled
during the early 19 century.
Rauschenberg
Robert(1925- ). U.S. painter. He studied, in
1948 and subsequently, at Black Mountain College, N.C. (with
*Albers), then at Art Students League. After travelling in
Italy, Casablanca, Morocco and Paris, he then settled, in
1952, in N.Y. Since 1955 he has designed sets and costumes
for the Merce Cunningham Dance Company. Influenced by the
Dadaists, Surrealists, and by De Kooning, R., inspired by
the composerjohn Cage and in association with *Johns, but
independently, helped revolutionize post-*Abstract
Expressionist U.S. art. He often used 'combines' — part
painting, part collage, part *readymades, as in Rebus
(1955), Monogram (1959) and Trophy II (1960-1). R. also used
*silk screen and photographic processes, and executed a
series of drawings for Dante's Inferno. Awarded 1st prize at
Venice Biennale 1964.
Rayonism. Art movement founded in 1911/ 12 by the Russian
painter *Larionov, in association with his wife
*Goncharova. According to Larionov, the 'subject' of Rayonist
paintings should be beams of colour, parallel or crossing at
an angle. Rayonist paintings are therefore quasi-abstract
and have links with Italian *Futurism and with experiments
made by *Delaunay in their emphasis on apparent movement and
lines of force.
Raysse
Martial (French, 1936).
Nouveau Realisme
Readymade. In 2oth-c. art, an everyday, usually
mass-produced object, selected by an artist with a creative
or thought-provoking purpose. *Duchamp distinguished r.s
from *found objects as being concerned neither with taste
nor aesthetics, the artist's mere act of selection defining
them as 'art'. Later artists (*Pop art) have used r.s as
elements in their works.
Realism. Term often used in a general sense, meaning
fidelity to life (as opposed to idealization, caricature,
etc.), but more usefully
confined to the 19th-c. movement in painting and
literature. This was a reaction against the subjectivity and
suggestiveness of Romanticism, insisting on the portrayal of
ordinary contemporary life and current manners and problems,
and in fact (as part of its anti-Romanticism) tending to
emphasize the baser human motives and more squalid
activities. In literature the novel became the predominant
form: Balzac, Stendhal and Dickens contain realistic
elements, but Flaubert and Tolstoy are considered the great
masters of R. *Naturalism was an extension of the principles
of R. Courbet was the 1st major Realist painter.
*Impressionism may be regarded as an off-shoot of R., and a
2Oth-c. version was *Social Realism.
Recondo Felix de was born in Aranjuez,
Spain, on 13 March 1932.
Red figure style. Style of Greek vase painting where the
figures are painted in ret! on a black ground; supposedly
invented by the Andokides painter (fl. 530—520 BC,), it
continued until the mid-4th с. ВС.
Redon Odilon (1 840-1916). French painter, draughtsman,
graphic artist and writer. Until about 1878 he painted
landscapes in oil and pastel under the influence of Courbet
and Corot; later he turned to charcoal drawing and
lithography. R. was concerned with the realities of the
imagination, in opposition to the visual emphasis of
Impressionism. His middle period, lasting till the turn ok the c, was an expression
of mysticism and the Symbolism of his friends Huysmans and
Mallarme; then he became associated with the *Nabis.
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Refuses. *Salon des Refuses
Regnault Jean-Baptiste (1754—11829). French Neoclassical
painter. He followed only the superficial features of
Neoclassicism, e.g. The Three Graces (1799).
Rego Paula (1935- ). Portuguese-born painter, ill. and print
maker, who has been living in Britain since 1976. R. has
said that her childhood play-room, a rich education in
traditional folk and fairy-tales, and an early interest in
illustrative art (e.g. *Tenniel's Alice in Wonderland and
Beatrix Potter) have been her greatest influences, but it
could be said that her work is similar in temperament to
that of *Goya and *Balthus. She made collages in the '60s
and '70s, e.g. Stray Dogs (The Dogs of Barcelona) and
Regicide (both 1965), but devoted herself to
painting and making prints from the '80s, with Red Monkey
Beats His Wife and Wife Cuts Off Red Monkey's Tail (both
1981). In her narrative work, R. explores power, sexuality
and the subversion of social codes; she has said that her
work 'is to do with half things. To do with cheating, lying,
the half-sins, the mediocre ones.' The Girl and Dog series
(1986) shows a young girl with ambivalent power to both
nurture and destroy a creature at her mercy, while The
Cadet and his Sister (1988) and The Policeman's Daughter
(1987) both present relationships between gender
stereotypes.
Reinhardt Ad (1913-67). U.S. abstract painter, art critic,
theoretician and teacher, and one of the pioneers of U.S.
abstraction. He joined the *American Abstract Artists (1930s)
and was later associated with *Abstract Expressionism. His
style moved from powerful colour and bold, *Hard-edged forms
of the late 1930s to 'all black' paintings from the 1950s.
R.'s 'ultimate' paintings, e.g. Abstract Painting (1960-2),
large canvases trisected into 3 barely distinguishable zones
of black, foreshadowed *Minimal art.
Relief. Sculpture executed on a surface so that the figures
project but are not freestanding; the projection may be
considerable (high relief) or slight (low relief or
bas-relief).
Reiss Winold
(1886-1953) early modernist in
20th Century American Art and Design. Winold Reiss
(1886-1953) was born in Karlsruhe, Germany. He was the
second son of Fritz Reiss (1857-1914) who as a well-known
landscape artist. Reiss was a portraitist and his philosophy
was that an artist must travel to find the most interesting
subjects.
In his early years he traveled within Germany with his
father who studied peasants of particular types that he
wanted to draw or paint. This helped form many of Reiss'
ideas about subject matter for portraiture. Reiss came to
America in 1913 and was captivated by Native Americans. It
was an interest and subject matter throughout his entire
career. He was a success very early, lecturing before the
Art Students League and even founding a publication, Modern
Art Collector. Reiss returned once to Germany in 1921 but
only as a visit; coming once again to New York City in 1922.
Reiss also illustrated Alain Locke's The New Negro, an
important book about African American culture. His most
outstanding commission was for the work performed on the
Cincinnati Union Terminal (now known as the Cincinnati
Museum Center) in 1933. He blended Art Deco with portraiture
which captured the history of Cincinnati through its people.
Fourteen murals from the passenger concourse were removed to
the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport in
1973, where they can be seen by airport users.
Winold Reiss was a leader who devoted most of his life
towards painting a much broader cross section of ethnic
diversity in America, in a compassionate and objective
manner, than any artist before him. He died on August 29,
1953 in New York City.
Rembrandt van Rijn (Harmensz van Rijn)
(1606—69). Dutch painter and etcher, born in Leyden. Until 1631 he worked there and in
The Hague and thereafter in Amsterdam. Son of a Calvinist
miller and a baker's daughter from a Catholic family. He
received a classical education at the Leyden Latin School,
which he left shortly before finishing the 6-year course.
R.'s 1st 2 masters both worked in Italy — firstly, Jacob
Isaacsz van Swanenburgh, the black sheep of a Leyden clan of
artists and civil servants and secondly, the Amsterdam
Catholic *Lastman. Due to his background and training, R.
began his career with a certain degree of learning,
considerable familiarity with early 17th-c. developments m
Italian art and a multi-sectarian perspective in a society
where religious affiliation was extremely important.
R.'s earliest major recognition came from Constantijn
Huygens, the secretary to the Prince of Orange, dilettante
musician and medallist, and an important poet and
correspondent in the Republic of Letters. Huygens saw R. as
the Dutch answer to Rubens — a local artist capable of
raising the reputation of Dutch painting to the highest
level. He declared the voting R. to be superior even to the
ancient Greeks with his ability to
integrate accurate observations of emotion into themes of
universal applicability. Thanks to Huygens, R. and his
Leyden colleague *Lievensz achieved fame when they were
still in their early twenties.
R. risked — and in the event lost — his connection at court
in order to pursue a commercial career in Amsterdam. There
he became the partner of the Mennonite art dealer Hendrick
Uylenburgh, whose studio earned money from art through
various activities. R. became the artistic director of this
workshop, which supplied the 'upper' end of the portrait
market. R. himself set a new standard for Amsterdam
portraiture with his Anatomy Lesson of Dr Nicolaes Tulp
(1632). The bond with Uylenburgh was consolidated when R.
married his niece Saskia (a Frisian Calvinist).
Between 1632 and 1636, R. attracted numerous lucrative
portrait commissions. From 1636 to 1642, after leaving
Uylenburgh's studio to set up on his own, he worked at a
slower pace on more ambitious compositions, such as the
Danae in St Petersburg. He moved beyond the emulation of
Rubens to vie with Titian, Leonardo and Michelangelo. In
1639 he bought a luxurious house near Uylenburgh. This stage
of his career culminated in 1642 with the Civic Guard Comраnу of
Frans Banning Cocq, known as The Night Watch. Saskia died this year after giving birth to their 4th child,
Titus, the only one to survive infancy. Saskia left her
entire fortune to Titus. Subsequently, R.'s affairs grew
increasingly desperate until his bankruptcy in 1656. In 1649
his mistress, Geertge Dircx, sued him for breach of promise
and he had her put away in a detention house for 12 years.
R. took a new mistress, the docile Hendrickje Stoffels, who
became his common-law wife. The liaison led to her expulsion
from the Calvinist church.
R. also experienced problems in his career. From 1642 to
1652, despite his great renown, he received no significant
portrait commissions. This may have been connected with an
incident in 1642. R. had painted a portrait for the
very-powerful Amsterdam patrician Andries de Graeff,
brother-in-law of Frans Banning Cocq. De Graeff refused to
accept delivery, so R. sued him, winning the case and
forcing the patron to pay. This Pyrrhic victory probably
cost R. the patronage that would otherwise have accrued to
him in the post-Night Watch period. He was then forced to
rely on money earned from
teaching and from selling his own finished work. His
position of financial insecurity is reflected in the subject
matter of his paintings. Rather than the large-scale
histories and grand mythological subjects of the 1630s, he
now painted sentimental cabinet pictures of familiar
biblical and household themes. The Dutch economy faltered
with the outbreak of the First English War in 1651 and in
1656 R. was forced to apply for voluntary bankruptcy. He
moved to a depressed quarter of Amsterdam.
R.'s artistic development in the 1650s was stimulated by a
new and interesting patron, the Amsterdam rentier Jan Six,
son-in-law of Nicolaes Tulp. R.'s painting of the patrician
(still owned by his family) is I of the most outstanding
achievements of European portraiture. Six, who was an
amateur playwright, asked R. to produce an etching for the
printed edition of his play Medea alongside other
conspicuous marks of favour. As with Huygens and Uylenburgh
R. lost the support of Six. Those who knew R. and wrote
about him considered him tactless, arrogant and
temperamental. This is borne out by the documents, which also suggest that he was
querulous and unreliable.
In the final years of his life, living modestly, R. suffered
the loss Ist of Hendrickje and then of Titus. He spent his
time with people considered by some to be socially inferior,
e.g. the melancholy shopkeeper-poet Jeremias de Decker and
other members of a circle of pietistic Calvinists. Some of
R.'s work, especially the biblical etchings and paintings,
seems to reflect this association. De Decker's Good Friday
is reflected in the monumental etchings Ecce Homo and Three
Crosses, which R. issued in successive states proceeding
from an open and transparent mode to one of mysterious
obscurity. The common belief that attributes to the young R.
a 'Baroque' outgomgness and to the late R. an acquired
innerness cannot therefore be dismissed out of hand.
R. was the Ist artist to practice self-portraiture as a
speciality. In so doing, he created a medium for
self-fashioning that has since inspired many artists. It is
hard to perform artistic introspection without thinking of
R.
If R.'s biography and his self-portraits confront us with
unfathomable problems concerning the relationship between
art and life, his ceuvre leaves us with intractable
questions of attribution. The connoisseurship of R.'s
etchings was never very embattled and seems to have reached
a stable condition unlike the situation regarding his
drawings and paintings. R. often entered extremely intimate
artistic relationships. His borrowings, lendings and
partnerships were never clear-cut transactions. As a result,
his work has been confused from the start with that of
Lievensz, the workshop assistants m the Uylenburgh studio
and some of his own later pupils. With the tempting
imitability of his manner, especially the brown studies in
suggestive *chiaroscuro and the legendarily economical pen
sketches there are the makings of an ceuvre with
intrinsically indefinable boundaries. The connoisseurship of
R.'s paintings and drawings has been in a permanent quandary
since the 17th c, allowing wishful thinking, ignorance and
unscrupulousness. A committee of Dutch art historians known
as the Rembrandt Research Project, founded in 1968, took it
upon itself to distinguish between authentic R. paintings
and all others. In 3 vols of the Corpus of Rembrandt
Paintings covering the period until 1642, the Project has
pronounced categorical judgment on 95% of the paintings
concerned. The results have met (as some R. specialists had
predicted
they would) with less acceptance than the Project
anticipated, and m 1993 it announced that in the remaining 2
vols it would give more scope to the doubts, uncertainties
and complexities attendant upon its enterprise.
R. has always been considered an artist of great importance,
but for what has, however, often been moot. There is his
position within the tradition of high art through the nature
and many-sidedness of his subject matter, his technical
proficiency, the name he earned as a master observer of man
and his moods, his emulation of *Rubens and the great
Italians. But, he also had qualities that were long
disdained by classicists — his irreverent flouting of
decorum, his stated preference for 'nature' above artistic
tradition, his excessive use of chiaroscuro and his personal
shortcomings. What classicists saw as faults became sterling
recommendations to 19th-c. Romantics. His dedication to
nature was m their eyes similar to that of Realism and they
saw his social mal-adroitness as laudable dissension from
the bourgeois norm. In the same period, Dutch nationalists
adopted R. as a hero while denying that he was the rebel or
misfit his Romantic admirers held him to be. The scholarly
study of R. and his popular reception has been caught since
1 850 m the meshes of this knot. Perhaps for the past
century and a half R. has had the best of both critical
worlds. This has given him enough credit to cover a
multitude of sins, even those of remote imitators, and to
frustrate the best efforts of conscientious biographers and
cataloguers.
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Renaissance. The cultural and artistic revolution which
originated in the N. Italian city-states of the 14th c. It
manifested a new confidence in the power and dignity of man
and was inspired by an increasingly intensive study of the
artists and thinkers of classical antiquity. The growing
importance of the secular order in European culture was
reflected in the very large part played by lay aristocratic
patronage in the R.; nobles such as Lorenzo de' *Medici
were, moreover, themselves artistically gifted.
Nevertheless, the Church continued as a great patron and the
sponsorship of such great artists as Michelangelo by Popes
Alexander VI, Julius
II and Leo X not only changed the face of Rome but also the
development of European art. As well as changes in the
pattern of patronage, the R. brought a radical change in the
position of the artist: hitherto regarded as a skilled, if
respected, craftsman, he began to be admired, sometimes with
awe, as a superior kind of man, an inspired creator. Besides
admiring great artistic inspiration, R. society also held
the ideal of 'universal' or 'many-sided' man — skilled in
every art, well read m the classics and an able scientist,
engineer, courtier, soldier, etc. The work of the greater
and lesser humanist scholars of the R. changed the character
of European literary culture. The scholar-writer, the
humanist Petrarch being perhaps the first, prided himself on
knowledge of the classics rather than the metaphysical
edifices of St Thomas Aqumas and the schoolmen. Good Latin
and Greek grammars and pedagogical imitative prose laid the
essential foundations of an elegant and formed style, Cicero
being the admired model. The work of men such as Erasmus
provided critical eds of classical texts and the Bible, and
the rediscovery of much of Plato's work gave a new impulse
to thought. The revolutionary invention of printing was
welcomed by the most enlightened humanists who collaborated,
as literary advisers, with such printers as Froben and
Amerbach in producing scholarly texts; the printer's art
too, in the work of such men, achieved standards of beauty
not surpassed since. In the arts of painting and sculpture
such masters as *Giotto, *Masaccio, *Donatello, *Sluter,
*Leonardo da Vinci and *Michelangelo originated and
perfected a new visual language in which, as in classical
art, the human figure and countenance became the most
important vehicle of the artist's intention. Growing
attention to anatomy and the formulation of the laws of
perspective produced figures expressive m movement and
gesture and with a bodily weighty 'presence', moving m a
well-modulated and coherent picture space or standing freely
and confidently in actual space.
Reni Guido (1575—1642). Bolognese painter, pupil of
*Carracci. A refined colourist and sensitive draughtsman, he
perfected an eclectic classicism. His melodramatic images of
such diverse subjects as Christ, Lucretia and Cleopatra were
much sought after, and he became the idol of the fashionable
circles of Rome and Bologna. The Massacre of the Innocents
at Bologna is his most dramatic and celebrated work. The
composition, of great dramatic power, owes much to Raphael
and the study of the antique. Aurora, a fresco painted for
the Casino Rospigliosi in Rome in 1613, is perhaps his
best-known work. Other work includes St John the Baptist
Preaching.
Renoir
Pierre-Auguste
(1841 — 1919). French painter born in Limoges, moved to
Paris in 1S45. He trained and worked with great facility as
a porcelain painter (1856—9). With his earnings he entered
the Ecole des Beaux-Arts (1862-4) and became a pupil of
Gleyre with Monet, Bazille and Sisley. Working with them in Paris and during summers
at Fontainebleau, he emerged as one of the most naturally
gifted of the future Impressionists. He exhibited in 4 of
the 8 Impressionist exhibitions. *Impressionism.
The character of Impressionism emerged from the paintings of
Monet and R. between 1867 and 1870. Mutually inspired, they
painted directly from the subject (poppyfields, figures under
trees, riverscapes) and to retain the momentariness of
nature's changing appearance developed a technique of
broadly painted broken brush-strokes. The living immediacy
of their landscapes was further emphasized by their
empirical use of complementary colour in shadows, clear
scintillating colour in Monet, more sensitive subtle
relationships in R., e.g. Use (1867). The difference between
them is evident in their paintings of La Grenouillere painted
side by side in 1869, Monet's in aggressive clean strokes
of fresh blue and ochre, R.'s in soft feathery areas of
muted green, pink and violet. The climax of R.'s important
contribution to Impressionism is in, e.g. The Swing and
Moulin de la Galette (both 1876) in which gay Paris life
flickers under a patchwork of mottled light.
Right through his career, R.'s work never reveals the
introspective seriousness of Monet or Cezanne (he shocked
Gleyre by saying 'if painting were not a pleasure to me I
should certainly not do it') and unlike Courbet, Pissarro or
Zola (of whom R. said 'he thinks he has
portrayed the people by saying that they stink') never dwelt
on any but the pleasing aspects of life. His lack of
intellectual seriousness led to a disturbing fluctuation in
his early work from the pure Impressionism (1869—76), to
Salon-conscious academicism, e.g. Diana (1867) and a
literary anecdotal element present in La loge (1874). The
constants in his work are his superb touch and his unfailing colour sense.
In the late 1870s he scored a great Salon success with works
like the sweet and charming Mme Charpenlier and Daughters
(1878), but with the end of his Impressionist phase he felt
uncertain. Such paintings as Dance at Bougival (1883) and
Les Parapluies (c. 1883) show him attempting to organize his
forms with a more sculptural strength. The major work of
this 'maniere aigre' was the Grandes Baigneuses (1884—7):
the figures very tightly drawn and modelled against the
softness of the landscape. The classical character of this
period reflects his visit to Italy m 1881 and his current
admiration for Raphael, Ingres and French Renaissance
sculpture.
His later works are at once more freely painted and strongly
coloured (oppressively hot reds and oranges), but retain
this sense of monumentality, e.g. Seated Bather (1914). The
transition to sculpture in his last years was almost
predictable. The bronze Venus Victrix (1914) is a typical
example.
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Repin Ilya (1844—1930). Russian painter, the best known and
probably the most brilliant of the *Wanderers group. His
work is considered a model for the *Socialist Realist school
in Russia. The Volga Boatmen (1870—3), one of his most
famous works, is typical in having the poorest and most
miserable Russian peasants as subject. Apart from social
themes, R. was a talented portraitist and landscape painter.
Replica. An exact copy of a painting either by the painter
of the original or under his direction. The word is
frequently used to describe identical works when it is not
known which was produced first.
Reproduction. Copy of a painting or drawing made by some
means which renders it capable of being printed m large
numbers for the purpose of popularization. From the 17th to
the late 19th c. engraving was the means of г., mezzotint
being the most widely used technique; this has been
superseded by photographic processes.
Revoil Pierre-Henri
(b Lyon, 12 June 1776; d Lyon, 19 March 1842).
French painter and collector. He entered the Ecole de Dessin in Lyon
around 1791 as a pupil of Alexis Grognard (1752–1840). He then
became a designer in a wallpaper factory. In 1795 he began working
in Jacques-Louis David’s studio, where, with Fleury Richard, Comte
Auguste de Forbin, François-Marius Granet and Louis Ducis, he
belonged to what David’s pupils called the ‘parti aristocratique’.
In 1800 he published with Forbin, who remained a friend, a comedy
that was performed at the Théâtre du Vaudeville, Sterne à Paris,
ou le voyageur sentimental. In 1802, on the occasion of the
laying of the first stone of the Place Bellecoeur in Lyon by the
First Consul, Révoil executed a large and elaborately allegorical
drawing, Bonaparte Rebuilding the Town of Lyon (preparatory
drawings, Paris, Louvre, and Lyon, Mus. B.-A.), which was the basis
for a painting exhibited in the Salon of 1804 (destr. by the artist,
1816). During the same period he composed a number of religious
paintings, for example In Honour of the Sacred Heart of Jesus
and Christ on the Cross (both Lyon, St Nizier). In 1807
Révoil was appointed a teacher in the recently founded Ecole des
Beaux-Arts in Lyon. His teaching was marked by considerable
erudition and contributed to the birth of the ‘Lyon school’, which
came to the fore in the 1820s.
Reynolds Joshua (1723—92). British painter of portraits
and genre allegorical subjects, founder-member and 1st
president of the R.A. (1768). R.. studied with Thomas
Hudson, and, under Admiral Keppel's patronage, visited
Europe (1749—52). His portrait of Keppel (1753—4) 'ed to
many other portrait commissions, great wealth and influence,
and he painted portraits of George III and Queen Charlotte
(1779). R. himself became an art collector and also founded
the R.A. schools. Friendly with and accepted in aristocratic
circles, he was also friendly with Dr Johnson, Sheridan and
theatrical and literary circles in London. R. also painted
somewhat sentimental pictures of children, and, especially
in his later years, mythological and allegorical paintings.
Among his works are: Mrs Siddons as the Tragic Muse, The
Infant Samuel and The Age of Innocence. R.'s views on art
and paintings were publ. as Discourses Delivered to the
Students of the Royal Academy by Sir Joshua Reynolds.
Ribalta Francisco (1565—1628). One of the 1st
Spanish painters to use *tenebrist effects in scenes of
intense religious fervour. He was trained in Madrid,
probably under Navarrete, then settled in Valencia. His
paintings include The Vision of Father Simon (1612) and The
Vision of St Francis (c. 1620). His son Juan (c. 1596—
1628) was his pupil and collaborator.
Ribera, Jusepe de
(c. 1590—1652). Spanish painter and
etcher. In 1616 he settled in Italy; his life was full of
dramatic incidents and this is reflected in the violent
subject matter of his paintings, the contrasted modelling of
his figures and the theatrical lighting of his compositions.
He was strongly influenced by Caravaggio and Correggio and
his own powerful style we associate today with the Spanish
Baroque. His uncompromising realism is demonstrated in the
Boy with a Club Foot. In his last paintings he
achieved a mastery Velazquez's.
Ricci Marco
(1676—1729). Venetian landscape painter, nephew
and collaborator of Sebastiano R. He was often employed to
paint landscape backgrounds in his uncle's religious works.
He was the originator of romantic landscape painting in
18th-c. Venice and N. Italy. R. also produced remarkable
etchings.
Ricci Sebastiano
(1659—1734). Venetian painter active in
Vienna, Pans and London. He painted the Resurrection in
Chelsea Hospital chapel and left decorations in Burlington
House unfinished. He was chiefly influenced by Veronese but
had a looser lighter style which in turn influenced G. B.
Tiepolo.
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