The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists (155 page)

Eidophusikon
.

An ingenious system of moving pictures within a proscenium arch which, by a clever disposition of lights, coloured gauzes, and the like imitated landscape and townscape views with varying atmospheric effects at different times of day, to the accompaniment of appropriate musical effects. The inventor was J. P.
de Loutherbourg
, who exhibited the Ediophusikon (meaning ‘image of nature’) in London in 1782 with immediate popular success, appealing to lovers of romantic and
Picturesque
scenery and deeply impressing both
Gainsborough
and
Reynolds
.

 
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Eight, The
.

A group of American painters who exhibited together in 1908, united by opposition to the conservative
National Academy of Design
and a determination to bring painting back into direct touch with life. The group consisted of: Arthur B.
Davies
, Maurice
Prendergast
, Ernest
Lawson
, Robert
Henri
, George
Luks
, William J.
Glackens
, John
Sloan
, and Everett
Shinn
. It came into being when the National Academy of Design rejected work by Luks , Sloan , and Glackens , whereupon Henri , the dominant personality in the group, in protest withdrew his own pictures from the exhibition of 1907. Arthur B. Davies was then asked to organize an independent exhibition at the Macbeth Gallery in New York. This exhibition, which took place in February 1908 and was the only occasion on which The Eight exhibited together, was subsequently shown by the Pennsylvania Academy and circulated to eight other museums over a period of a year. The members of the group were not unified stylistically, but they mainly painted contemporary urban life. The exhibition is regarded as an important step in the development of a vigorous native school of American painting in the 20th cent. Glackens , Henri , Luks , Shinn , and Sloan went on to become part of the
Ash-can School
.
The Eight was also the name of a group of progressive Czech artists formed in Prague in 1907, and of a group of Hungarian painters, inspired by
Post-Impressionism
, founded in Budapest in 1909.

 
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Elementarism
.

A modified form of
Neo-Plasticism
propounded by van
Doesburg
in the mid 1920s. While continuing
Mondrian's
restriction to the right angle, Elementarism abandoned his insistence on the use of strict horizontals and verticals. By introducing inclined lines and forms, van Doesburg sought to achieve a quality of dynamic tension. Mondrian was so offended by this ‘heresy’ that he left De
Stijl
.

 
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Elgin Marbles
.

A collection of Greek sculpture from the Acropolis in Athens acquired by the British diplomat Thomas Bruce , 7th Earl of Elgin (1766–1841), in 1801–3, when he was Ambassador to the Sultan of Turkey, who at this time ruled Greece. The collection consisted mainly of sculptures from the Parthenon (most of what had survived), but included other pieces, notably a
caryatid
from the Erechtheum. They were shipped to Britain over a period of several years and in 1816 they were sold to the nation and installed in the
British Museum
. Elgin was paid £35,000, which was only about half the total they had cost him. By their exhibition in London original Greek sculpture of the
Classical age
first became generally accessible in modern times; until then people had been familiar only with Roman and late
Hellenistic
copies. Their first impact was enormous:
Flaxman
was bowled over, declaring that compared with the figure of Theseus (now usually identified as Dionysus or Herakles) from the Parthenon the
Apollo Belvedere
was ‘a dancing master’, and
Haydon
wrote ‘I consider it truly the greatest blessing that ever happened to this country their being brought here.’ Earlier, when asked to restore them,
Canova
said ‘it would be a sacrilege in him or any man to presume to touch them with a chisel.’ Many other artists voiced similar opinions, although certain connoisseurs, led by Richard Payne
Knight
, were unenthusiastic or even disparaging. ‘You have lost your labour, my Lord Elgin’, said Payne Knight . ‘Your marbles are overrated: they are not Greek: they are Roman of the time of Hadrian.’ Although the supporters of the marbles won the day and the sculptures have come to be universally recognized as one of the summits of ancient art, they have continued to be the subject of controversy on another count—that of the morality or legality of their removal when Greece was under the dominion of a foreign power. Byron wrote of them as ‘poor plunder from a bleeding land’ (
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage
, Canto ii, 1812), and a campaign to have them restored to Greece is strongly active today. See also
PHIDIAS
.

 
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(1578–1610).
German painter, etcher, and draughtsman, active mainly in Italy. Although he died young and his output was small he played a key role in the development of 17th-cent. landscape painting. He was born in Frankfurt, where he absorbed the
Coninxloo
tradition, and moved to Italy in 1598. In Venice he worked with his countryman
Rottenhammer
, then settled in Rome in 1600. His early
Mannerist
style gave way to a more direct manner in which he showed great sensitivity to effects of light; his nocturnal scenes are particularly original, bringing out the best in his lyrical temperament, and he is credited with being the first artist to represent the constellations of the night sky accurately (
The Flight into Egypt
, Alte Pinakothek, Munich, 1609). He painted a few pictures in which figures predominate, but generally they are fused into a harmonious unity with their landscape settings. They are invariably on a small scale and on copper (the only exception is a self-portrait in the Uffizi, Florence, of doubtful attribution), but although exquisitely executed they have a grandeur out of all proportion to their size. Elsheimer achieved fame during his lifetime and there are numerous contemporary copies of his works. His paintings were engraved by his pupil and patron, the Dutch amateur artist Count Hendrick Goudt (1573–1648), and Elsheimer himself made a number of etchings. In spite of his popularity he was personally unsuccessful and died in poverty.
Sandrart
says he suffered from melancholia and was often unable to work; apparently he was imprisoned for debt.
Rubens
was a friend of Elsheimer and after his death lamented his ‘sin of sloth, by which he has deprived the world of the most beautiful things’; he also wrote ‘I have never seen his equal in the realm of small figures, of landscapes, and of so many other subjects’. Both Rubens (Staatliche Kunstsammlungen , Kassel ) and
Rembrandt
(NG, Dublin) made paintings of
The Flight into Egypt
inspired by Elsheimer's masterpiece, and his influence is apparent in the work of many other 17th-cent. artists.