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James Huneker
James Gibbons Huneker (January 31, 1857 – February 9, 1921) was an American art, book, music, and theater critic. A colorful individual and an ambitious writer, he was "an American with a great mission," in the words of his friend, the critic Benjamin De Casseres, and that mission was to educate Americans about the best cultural achievements, native and European, of his time. From 1892 to 1899, he was the husband of the sculptor Clio Hinton. Biography Huneker was born in Philadelphia. Forced by his parents to study law, he knew that a legal career was not what he wanted; he was passionately interested in music and writing, hoping one day to be a concert pianist and a novelist. At twenty-one, he abandoned his office job and Philadelphia ties and (with his pregnant girlfriend, then wife) left for Paris, telling his parents that he was departing only the night before the ship sailed. On a tight budget supplemented with money his parents sent, he studied piano under Leopold D ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Napoleon Sarony
Napoléon Sarony (March 9, 1821 – November 9, 1896) was an American lithography, lithographer and photography, photographer. He was a highly popular portrait photographer, best known for his portraits of the stars of late-19th-century American theater. His son, Otto Sarony, continued the family business as a theater and film star photographer. Life Sarony was born in 1821 in Quebec City, Quebec, then in the British colony of Lower Canada, and moved to New York City around 1833. He worked as an illustrator for Currier and Ives before joining with James Major and starting his own lithography business, Sarony & Major, in 1843. In 1845, James Major was replaced in Sarony & Major by Henry B. Major, and the firm continued operating under that name until 1853. From 1853 to 1857, the firm was known as Sarony and Company, and from 1857 to 1867, as Sarony, Major & Knapp. Sarony left the firm in 1858 and traveled abroad for the next eight years. During that time, he learned the photograph ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Richard Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner ( ; ; 22 May 181313 February 1883) was a German composer, theatre director, essayist, and conductor who is chiefly known for his operas (or, as some of his mature works were later known, "music dramas"). Unlike most opera composers, Wagner wrote both the libretto and the music for each of his stage works. Initially establishing his reputation as a composer of works in the romantic vein of Carl Maria von Weber and Giacomo Meyerbeer, Wagner revolutionised opera through his concept of the ''Gesamtkunstwerk'' ("total work of art"), whereby he sought to synthesise the poetic, visual, musical and dramatic arts, with music subsidiary to drama. The drama was to be presented as a continuously sung narrative, without conventional operatic structures like Aria, arias and Recitative, recitatives. He described this vision in a List of prose works by Richard Wagner, series of essays published between 1849 and 1852. Wagner realised these ideas most fully in the first ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Henri De Toulouse-Lautrec
Count, ''Comte'' Henri Marie Raymond de Toulouse-Lautrec-Monfa (24 November 1864 – 9 September 1901), known as Toulouse-Lautrec (), was a French painter, printmaker, draughtsman, caricaturist, and illustrator whose immersion in the colourful and theatrical life of Paris in the late 19th century allowed him to produce a collection of enticing, elegant, and provocative images of the sometimes decadent affairs of those times. Born into the aristocracy, Toulouse-Lautrec broke both his legs during adolescence, leaving him with a stunted appearance. In later life, he developed an affinity for brothels and prostitutes that directed the subject matter for many of his works, which record details of the late-19th-century bohemian lifestyle in Paris. He is among the painters described as being Post-Impressionism, Post-Impressionists, with Paul Cézanne, Vincent van Gogh, Paul Gauguin, and Georges Seurat also commonly considered as belonging in this loose group. In a 2005 auction at ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vincent Van Gogh
Vincent Willem van Gogh (; 30 March 185329 July 1890) was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter who is among the most famous and influential figures in the history of Western art. In just over a decade, he created approximately 2,100 artworks, including around 860 oil paintings, most of them in the last two years of his life. His oeuvre includes Trees and Undergrowth (Van Gogh series), landscapes, Still life paintings by Vincent van Gogh (Paris), still lifes, Portraits by Vincent van Gogh, portraits, and Portraits of Vincent van Gogh, self-portraits, most of which are characterised by bold colours and dramatic Paintwork, brushwork that contributed to the rise of expressionism in modern art. Van Gogh's work was only beginning to gain critical attention before he died from a self-inflicted gunshot at age 37. During his lifetime, only one of Van Gogh's paintings, ''The Red Vineyard'', was sold. Born into an upper-middle-class family, Van Gogh drew as a child and was serious, qui ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Paul Gauguin
Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin (; ; 7 June 1848 – 8 May 1903) was a French painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramist, and writer, whose work has been primarily associated with the Post-Impressionist and Symbolist movements. He was also an influential practitioner of wood engraving and woodcuts as art forms. While only moderately successful during his life, Gauguin has since been recognized for his experimental use of color and Synthetist style that were distinct from Impressionism. Gauguin was born in Paris in 1848, amidst the tumult of Europe's revolutionary year. In 1850, Gauguin's family settled in Peru, where he experienced a privileged childhood that left a lasting impression on him. Later, financial struggles led them back to France, where Gauguin received formal education. Initially working as a stockbroker, Gauguin started painting in his spare time, his interest in art kindled by visits to galleries and exhibitions. The financial crisis of 1882 significantly impact ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jan Van Eyck
Jan van Eyck ( ; ; – 9 July 1441) was a Flemish people, Flemish painter active in Bruges who was one of the early innovators of what became known as Early Netherlandish painting, and one of the most significant representatives of Early Northern Renaissance art. According to Vasari and other art historians including Ernst Gombrich, he invented oil painting, Gombrich, The Story of Art, page 240 though most now regard that claim as an oversimplification. The surviving records indicate that he was born around 1380 or 1390, in Maaseik (then Maaseyck, hence his name), Limburg (Belgium), Limburg, which is located in present-day Belgium. He took employment in The Hague around 1422, when he was already a master painter with workshop assistants, and was employed as painter and ''valet de chambre'' to John III, Duke of Bavaria, John III the Pitiless, ruler of the counties of County of Holland, Holland and County of Hainaut, Hainaut. After John's death in 1425, he was later appointed a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hans Memling
Hans Memling (also spelled Memlinc; – 11 August 1494) was a German-Flemish people, Flemish painter who worked in the tradition of Early Netherlandish painting. Born in the Middle Rhine region, he probably spent his childhood in Mainz. During his apprenticeship as a painter he moved to the Netherlands and spent time in the Brussels workshop of Rogier van der Weyden. In 1465 he was made a citizen of Bruges, where he became one of the leading artists and the master of a large workshop. A tax document from 1480 lists him among the wealthiest citizens. Memling's religious works often incorporated donor portraits of the clergymen, aristocrats, and burgher (title), burghers (bankers, merchants, and politicians) who were his patrons. These portraits built upon the styles which Memling learned in his youth. He married Anna de Valkenaere sometime between 1470 and 1480, and they had three children. Memling's art was rediscovered in the 19th century, attaining wide popularity. Life and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sergei Prokofiev
Sergei Sergeyevich Prokofiev; alternative transliterations of his name include ''Sergey'' or ''Serge'', and ''Prokofief'', ''Prokofieff'', or ''Prokofyev''. , group=n ( – 5 March 1953) was a Russian composer, pianist, and conductor who later worked in the Soviet Union. As the creator of acknowledged masterpieces across numerous music genres, he is regarded as one of the major composers of the 20th century. His works include such widely heard pieces as the March from ''The Love for Three Oranges,'' the suite Lieutenant Kijé (Prokofiev), ''Lieutenant Kijé'', the ballet Romeo and Juliet (Prokofiev), ''Romeo and Juliet''—from which "Dance of the Knights" is taken—and ''Peter and the Wolf.'' Of the established forms and genres in which he worked, he created—excluding juvenilia—seven completed operas, seven Symphony, symphonies, eight Ballet (music), ballets, five piano concertos, two violin concertos, a Cello Concerto (Prokofiev), cello concerto, a Symphony-Concerto ( ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Giacomo Puccini
Giacomo Puccini (22 December 1858 29 November 1924) was an Italian composer known primarily for List of compositions by Giacomo Puccini#Operas, his operas. Regarded as the greatest and most successful proponent of Italian opera after Verdi, he was descended from a long line of composers, stemming from the late Baroque music, Baroque era. Though his early work was firmly rooted in traditional late-nineteenth-century Romantic Italian opera, it later developed in the realistic ''verismo'' style, of which he became one of the leading exponents. His most renowned works are ''La bohème'' (1896), ''Tosca'' (1900), ''Madama Butterfly'' (1904), and the unfinished ''Turandot'' (posthumously completed by Franco Alfano), all of which are among the most List of important operas, frequently performed and recorded in the entirety of the operatic repertoire. Family and education Born in Lucca in the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, in 1858; he was the sixth of nine children of Michele Puccini (1813� ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thaïs (opera)
''Thaïs'' () is an opera, a ''comédie lyrique'' in three acts and seven tableaux, by Jules Massenet to a French libretto by Louis Gallet, based on the novel ''Thaïs (novel), Thaïs'' by Anatole France. It was first performed at the Palais Garnier, Opéra Garnier in Paris on 16 March 1894, starring the American soprano Sibyl Sanderson, for whom Massenet had written the title role. The original production was directed by Alexandre Lapissida, with costumes designed by Charles Bianchini and sets by Marcel Jambon (act 1, scene 1; act 3) and Eugène Carpezat (act 1, scene 2; act 2). The opera was later revised by the composer and was premiered at the same opera house on 13 April 1898. The work was first performed in Italy at the Teatro Lirico (Milan), Teatro Lirico Internazionale in Milan on 17 October 1903 with Lina Cavalieri in the title role and Francesco Maria Bonini as Athanaël. In 1907, the role served as Mary Garden's American debut in New York in the U.S. premiere performance ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pelléas And Mélisande
''Pelléas and Mélisande'' () is a Symbolism (movement), Symbolist play by the Belgian playwright and author Maurice Maeterlinck. The play is about the forbidden, doomed love of the title characters and was first performed in 1893 in literature, 1893. The work never achieved great success on stage, apart from the Pelléas et Mélisande (opera), operatic setting by Claude Debussy, but was at the time widely read and admired by the symbolist literary elite, such as August Strindberg, Strindberg and Rainer Maria Rilke, Rilke. It inspired other contemporary composers, like Gabriel Fauré, Arnold Schoenberg, Jean Sibelius, and Mélanie Bonis, Mel Bonis. Synopsis Golaud finds Mélisande by a stream in the woods. She has lost her crown in the water but does not wish to retrieve it. They marry, and she instantly wins the favor of Arkël, Golaud's grandfather and king of Allemonde, who is ill. She begins to be drawn to Pelléas, Golaud's brother. They meet by the fountain, where Mélisan ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mary Garden
Mary Garden (20 February 1874 – 3 January 1967) was a Scottish-American operatic lyric soprano, then mezzo-soprano, with a substantial career in France and America in the first third of the 20th century. She spent the latter part of her childhood and youth in the United States and eventually became an American citizen, although she lived in France for many years and eventually retired to Scotland, where she spent the last 30 years of her life and died. Described as "the Sarah Bernhardt of opera", Garden was an exceptional actress as well as a talented singer. She was particularly admired for her nuanced performances which employed interesting uses of vocal color. Possessing a beautiful Lyric soprano, lyric voice that had a wide vocal range and considerable amount of flexibility, Garden first arose to success in Paris during the first decade of the 20th century. She became the leading soprano at the Opéra-Comique; notably portraying roles in several world premieres, including ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
