The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists (153 page)

easel
.

Stand on which a painting is supported while the artist works on it. The oldest representation of an easel is on an Egyptian relief of the Old Kingdom (
c.
2600–2150 BC).
Renaissance
illustrations of the artist at work show all kinds of contrivances, the commonest being the three-legged easel with pegs such as we still use today. Light folding easels were not made until the 18th and 19th cents., when painters took to working out of doors. The studio easel, a 19th-cent. invention, is a heavy piece of furniture which runs on castors or wheels, and served to impress the clients of portrait painters. Oil painters need an easel which will support the canvas almost vertically or tip it slightly forward to prevent reflection from the wet paint, whereas the watercolourist must be able to lay his paper nearly flat so that the wet paint will not run down. The term ‘easel-painting’ is applied to any picture small enough to have been painted on a standard easel.

 
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(1793–1865).
English painter, art historian, and administrator. He studied under
Haydon
and early became famous with his
Napoleon on board the Bellerophon
(Earl of Roseberry Coll., 1815), made from sketches when he witnessed Napoleon on board ship (in Eastlake's native Plymouth)
en route
to exile in St Helena . Using the proceeds from the sale of this work he lived in Rome 1816–30, and there painted picturesque scenes of the Roman Campagna, often peopled by
banditti
, that became very popular in England. After his return to England, however, he turned increasingly to administration and achieved a remarkable record as a public servant. Most notably he was President of the Royal Academy from 1850 and Director of the National Gallery (the first holder of this post) from 1855 until his death. Among his writings,
Materials for a History of Oil Painting
(1847) was a pioneer work. His informed purchases of early Italian paintings for the National Gallery were largely responsible for its outstanding representation in this area. His wife,
Elizabeth
,
née
Rigby (1809–93), was in her own right a figure in the literary-artistic world of the day. She wrote several books on art and also translated Gustav
Waagen's
Treasures of Art in Great Britain
. Eastlake's nephew,
Charles Lock Eastlake
(1836–1906), was Keeper of the National Gallery, 1878–98, and published several works on art and decoration, the best known of which was
Hints on Household Taste
(1868), in which he advocated quality of materials and workmanship. It was highly influential in England and even more so in America, although so-called ‘Eastlake furniture’ often has little to do with his ideas.

 
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(1783–1853).
Danish painter. After being trained in Copenhagen and studying in Paris (1810–13) under J. L.
David
, he continued his studies in Rome (1814), where he executed a masterly portrait of his friend
Thorvaldsen
(Royal Academy, Copenhagen, 1815). Returning to Copenhagen in 1816, he occupied himself mainly with portraits, minutely rendering the features of his models with a
Neoclassic
feeling for clarity and purity of line. He also painted many landscapes, however (as he had done in Rome), and as an influential teacher at the Copenhagen Academy (from 1818) he introduced painting from nature into the curriculum. His pupils included J. C.
Dahl
and Christen
Købke
.

 
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eclectic
,
eclecticism
.

Terms in criticism for a person or style which conflates features borrowed from various sources. Such a style often arises from the overt or tacit doctrine that the excellences of great masters can be selected and combined in one work of art. After
Vasari
had praised
Raphael
for his skill in selecting the best from the art of his predecessors, it became commonplace to use the same formula in eulogies of other artists. Thus it was said that
Tintoretto
had set himself to combine the drawing of
Michelangelo
with the colour of
Titian
. In the 18th cent. ‘eclectics’ became a label for the
Carracci
family and their Bolognese followers, and gradually the term came to be used mainly pejoratively, implying lack of originality. Such usage has been abandoned in serious criticism, and it is clear that the Carracci never adopted eclecticism as the fundamental principle of their school. As Denis
Mahon
has said: ‘Annibale Carracci, the greatest member of the family and one of the founders of 17th-cent. painting, was…contemptuous of art theory, and (far from being a dispenser of learned recipes and synthetic systems) was in practice one of the most insatiable experimentalists known to the history of art.’

 
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École de Paris
.

See
PARIS, SCHOOL OF
.

 
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