The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists (348 page)

(1761–1807).
English painter. He was something of a child prodigy and was discovered by the political satirist John Wolcot (better known by his pen name Peter Pindar), who in 1781 successfully launched him in London as an untaught genius (‘The Cornish Wonder’). Opie was then painting strongly modelled portraits and rustic
fancy pictures
with rich
Rembrandtesque
lighting. He soon lost the rather rugged freshness of his early work and his later paintings were undistinguished and repetitive. His career continued to flourish, however, and he became Professor of Painting at the
Royal Academy
in 1805, his lectures being posthumously published in 1809 (prefaced with a memoir by his wife, the novelist and poet Amelia Opie ). Apart from portraits and
genre
scenes, he also painted history pictures, notably for
Boydell's
Shakespeare Gallery.

 
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See
NEW BRITISH SCULPTURE
.

 
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(1913–85)
. German-Swiss painter, sculptor, and maker of objects, born in Berlin. In 1932 she moved to Paris, where she was introduced to the
Surrealist
group by
Giacometti
and became for a while the model and disciple of
Man Ray
. He described her as ‘one of the most uninhibited women I have ever known’ and she became celebrated among the Surrealists as the ‘fairy woman’ whom all men desire. She had a long career, but she is remembered mainly for one early work:
Object
(MOMA, New York, 1936), a fur-lined tea cup and saucer. This became famous as a symbol of artistic anarchy after being shown at major Surrealist exhibitions in London and New York in 1936.

 
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orant
.

See
GISANT
.

 
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(d. 1368/9).
The leading Florentine artist of the third quarter of the 14th cent., a painter, sculptor, architect, and administrator. His nickname ‘Orcagna’ was apparently local slang for ‘Archangel’ (
Arcangelo
). In 1343/4 he was admitted to the guild of the painters and nine years later to that of the masons. His only certain work as a painter is the altarpiece of
The Redeemer with the Madonna and Saints
(1354–7) in the Strozzi Chapel of Sta Maria Novella. This is the most powerful Florentine painting of its period, and in spite of the massiveness of the figures it represents a reversion from
Giotto's
naturalism to the hieratic ideals of
Byzantine art
. Colours are resplendent, with lavish use of gold, and the figures are remote and immobile. The major work attributed to Orcagna is a fragmentary fresco trilogy of the
Triumph of Death, Last Judgement
, and
Hell
in Sta Croce. As a sculptor and architect he is known through one work, the tabernacle in Or San Michele (finished 1359), a highly elaborate ornamental structure housing a painting of the
Virgin Enthroned
by Bernardo
Daddi
. Orcagna was
capomaestro
of Orvieto Cathedral from 1358 to 1362, supervising the mosaic decoration of the façade. He was also an adviser on the construction of Florence Cathedral. During 1368 Orcagna fell mortally ill while painting the
St Matthew
altarpiece (Uffizi, Florence) and this work was finished by his brother
Jacopo di Cione
(active 1365–98), who worked in his style and continued it to the end of the century. Another brother,
Nardo di Cione
(active 1343/6–65/6), was also a painter.
Ghiberti
attributes to him the series of frescos of
The Last Judgement
,
Hell
, and
Paradise
in the Strozzi Chapel, Sta Maria Novella, which houses Andrea's great altarpiece. Orcagna's style was the dominant influence in late 14th-cent. Florentine painting.

 
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