Arts and Crafts movement, 1850-1900

Arts and Crafts movement, English aesthetic movement of the second half of the 19th century that represented the beginning of a new appreciation of the decorative arts throughout Europe.

By 1860 a vocal minority had become profoundly disturbed by the level to which style, craftsmanship, and public taste had sunk in the wake of the Industrial Revolution and its mass-produced and banal decorative arts.

Among them was the English reformer, poet, and designer William Morris, who, in 1861, founded a firm of interior decorators and manufacturers - Morris, Marshall, Faulkner, and Company (after 1875, Morris and Company) - dedicated to recapturing the spirit and quality of medieval craftsmanship.

William Morris (1834-1896) | English textile designer

Frank Markham Skipworth | Portrait /Genre painter

Frank Markham Skipworth (1854 in Castor, Lincolnshire - 1929 in London) was an British portrait painter.

He painted also genre and historical subjects.

He studied for two years at the Lincoln School of Art, then under Sir Edward John Poynter (1836-1919) at the Royal Academy Schools for three years and became a pupil of William-Adolphe Bouguereau in Paris. | Source: © Wikipedia

Léon Perrault | Genre / Academic painter

Painter of genre, history, religion and portrait stands in peril of not being remembered as distinctively as his successes might merit.

For our part, we may narrow this great artist’s claims at once by rejecting his religious painting, and we may be inclined to go on and deny him the title of historical painter, so that, although we shall have paintings of religious subjects and of historical subjects to consider, we shall in truth be considering them as work of a painter of genre and portrait.

Maxfield Parrish | Fantasy / Romantic painter

Maxfield Parrish (1870-1966)° was an American painter* and illustrator, active in the first half of the 20th century.

Parrish is best known for his depictions of fantasy landscapes populated by attractive young women.

For biographical notes -in english and italian- and other works by Parrish see:

• Maxfield Parrish | Golden Age painter / Illustrator ⥅
• Maxfield Parrish | Romantic Painter / Illustrator ⥅

Catrin Welz-Stein | Surrealist Digital painter

Catrin Welz-Stein graduated from Graphic Design in Darmstadt, Germany and then worked for different advertising agencies in Germany, USA and Switzerland. Three years ago Catrin started to create digital images by collaging old illustrations and photographs.

At the same time she discovered online social networks and her private images were then open to the public. The positive responses Catrin got there were her motivation to go on with her art until now.

Keith Mallett, 1948 | Jazz painting

Keith Duncan Mallett* is an American artist who has worked as a painter, etcher and ceramic artist. His subject matter ranges from figurative to still life and abstracts. Mallett's work has been exhibited worldwide and is featured in corporate and private collections.

For biographical notes -in english and italian- and other works by Mallett see:

• Keith Mallett, 1948 | Abstract Figurative painter ⎘

Alfred Sisley: "I always start a painting with the sky"

▻ "Every picture shows a spot with which the artist has fallen in love".

▻ "Ogni immagine mostra un elemento del quale l'artista si è innamorato".

Alfred Sisley | Works

Sisley's student works are lost.

His first landscape paintings are sombre, coloured with dark browns, greens, and pale blues.

They were often executed at Marly and Saint-Cloud. Little is known about Sisley's relationship with the paintings of J. M. W. Turner and John Constable, which he may have seen in London, but some have suggested that these artists may have influenced his development as an Impressionist painter, as may have Gustave Courbet and Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot.