The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists (389 page)

 
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(1866–1941).
British painter and designer. In the 1890s he designed posters with his brother-in-law William
Nicholson
under the name
Beggarstaff Brothers
and these are probably his most famous works. Pryde sometimes supplemented his income at this time by taking small parts on the stage. As a painter he is best known for dramatic and sinister architectural views, with figures dwarfed by their gloomy surroundings. They have something of the spirit of
Piranesi's
prison etchings, but they are broadly brushed. Pryde—‘tall and handsome’, but ‘dilatory, extravagant, and unproductive for long periods’ (
DNB
)—produced little after 1925. However, in 1930 he designed the sets for Paul Robeson's memorable
Othello
at the Savoy Theatre, London.

 
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psalter
.

A manuscript (particularly one for liturgical use) or a printed book containing the text of the Psalms. The great popularity and copious illustration of the psalter make it the most important
illuminated
book from the 11th to the 14th cents. Thereafter the
Book of Hours
became the most important channel for illuminations.

 
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(
c.
1300–
c.
1350).
French manuscript
illuminator
. Little is known of his career, but his large workshop dominated Parisian painting in the first half of the 14th cent. He enjoyed court patronage and his work commanded high prices. Certain features of his work—particularly his mastery of space—indicate that he probably travelled in Italy early in his career, and he was also familiar with Flemish developments. It was the synthesis of these two elements, allowing for an increasing penetration of naturalistic representation into traditional
iconography
, which formed the basis for Pucelle's individual style.

 
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(1620–94).
The greatest French sculptor of the 17th cent. He worked mainly in his native Marseilles and in Toulon, for although he sought success at court, his work was much too impassioned to fit into the scheme of
Lebrun's
artistic dictatorship. Moreover, he was arrogant and headstrong in temperament and he fell victim to the intrigues of fellow artists. His
Baroque
style was formed in Italy, where in 1640–3 he worked with Pietro da
Cortona
in Rome and Florence. Subsequently he made several journeys to Genoa, where he established a considerable reputation. His first major work was a pair of
atlas
figures for the entrance to Toulon Town Hall (1656) and in these he showed the physical vigour and emotional intensity that were the hallmarks of his style. They occur most memorably in his celebrated
Milo of Crotona
(Louvre, Paris, 1671–82), which was one of his few works accepted for the palace at Versailles. Puget spent his final years embittered by his failures. He worked as a painter, architect, and decorator of ships as well as a sculptor, and was an outstanding draughtsman. His son
François
(1651–1707) was a painter, working mainly in Toulon and Marseilles. He did a few religious works but was mainly a portraitist; a portrait by him of his father is in the Louvre.

 
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Purism
.

A movement in French painting linked with the new aesthetic of ‘machine art’ and flourishing
c.
1918–25. Its founders and protagonists were Amédée
Ozenfant
and
Le Corbusier
, who met in Paris in 1918. Feeling that
Cubism
had missed its path and was degenerating into an art of decoration, they regarded their association as ‘a campaign for the reconstitution of a healthy art’, and held that emotion and expressiveness should be strictly excluded apart from the ‘mathematical lyricism’ which is the proper response to a well-composed picture. Their characteristic paintings are still lifes—cool, clear, and impersonally finished. Despite the anti-emotionalism of this functionalist outlook, it was advocated by Ozenfant with passionate missionary fervour. The Purist aesthetic was expounded in the books
Après le Cubisme
(1918) and
La Peinture Moderne
(1925), joint works of Ozenfant and Le Corbusier, and in the journal
L'Esprit Nouveau
, which they ran from 1920 to 1925. It won a considerable measure of support from artists and writers of widely different persuasions, but Purism did not establish a continuing school of painting. Both the main protagonists seemed to realize that it represented something of a dead end pictorially and moved in to much looser styles. Its main sequel is to be found in the architectural theories and achievements of Le Corbusier and more generally in the field of design.