Blagoy Kiroff: 53 books

Auguste Rodin was a French sculptor, usually considered the progenitor of modern sculpture. But actually Rodin did not set out to revolutionary against the past. He was educated traditionally, took a craftsman-like advance to his work, and desired academic respect, although he was never accepted into...

Paul Cézanne forms the connection linking late 19th century Impressionism and the early 20th century's new contour of Cubism. Matisse and Picasso together recognize that "Cezanne is the father of all us," so that his contribution to modern art just can not be rejected. Cézanne, who exhibited...

Paul Gauguin was French painter, sculptor, and printmaker. His style developed from Impressionism through a brief cloisonnist phase towards a highly personal brand of Symbolism, which sought within the tradition of Pierre Puvis de Chavannes to combine and contrast an idealized vision of primitive...

Ingres's style was formed early in life and changed comparatively little. His earliest drawings, such as the Portrait of a Man (1797) already show a suavity of outline and an extraordinary control of the parallel hatchings which model the forms. His portrait drawings, of which about 450 are extant,...

Giovanni Antonio Canal (1697 – 1768) better known as Canaletto, was an Italian painter of landscapes of Venice. He was also an important printmaker in etching. He was born in Venice as the son of the painter Bernardo Canal, hence his mononym Canaletto ("little Canal"), and Artemisia...

Giambattista Tiepolo was the last of the great Venetian decorators, the purest exponent of the Italian Rococo, and arguably the greatest painter of the 18th century. Tiepolo was equally prized as a draftsman: his powers of invention were boundless and his facility without equal. His enormous output...

Sir Edward Burne-Jones was the greatest of the second generation Pre-Raphaelites. Burne-Jones's aim in art is best given in some of his own words, written to a friend: "I mean by a picture a beautiful, romantic dream of something that never was, never will be - in a light better than any light...

Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones, (1833 –1898) was a British artist and designer closely associated with the later phase of the Pre-Raphaelite movement. He was closely involved in the renewal of the tradition of stained glass art in Britain. In addition to painting and stained glass, Burne-Jones worked...

Henry Fuseli is famous for his paintings and drawings of nude figures caught in strained and violent poses suggestive of intense emotion. He also had a affinity for inventing chilling fantasies. His sketches or designs numbered about 800; they have admirable qualities of invention and design, and...

François Boucher (1703 – 1770) was a French painter, a proponent of Rococo taste, known for his idyllic and voluptuous paintings on classical themes, decorative allegories representing the arts or pastoral occupations, intended as a sort of two-dimensional furniture. He was perhaps the most celebrated...

François Boucher was French Rococo painter, engraver, and designer, who best represent the frivolity and elegant showiness of French court at the 18th century. His career was hugely successful and he received many honours. He was the favourite artist of Louis XV most famous mistress, Mme de Pompadour,...

John Constable was English painter, ranked with Turner as one of the greatest British landscape artists. After spending some years working in the Picturesque tradition of landscape and the manner of Gainsborough, Constable developed his own original treatment from the attempt to render scenery more...

Giovanni Boldini was known as the "Master of Swish" because of his flowing style of painting. His paintings and drawings showed his subject in soft-focus, elongated, in movement, alive, and sophisticated. He painted mostly portraits and also landscapes in the naturalistic style of his day,...

Lucas Cranach the Elder (1472 – 1553) was a German Renaissance painter and printmaker in woodcut and engraving. He was court painter to the Electors of Saxony for most of his career, and is known for his portraits, both of German princes and those of the leaders of the Protestant Reformation, whose...