The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists (390 page)

BOOK: The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists
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Purser , Sarah
(1848–1943).
Irish painter, designer, patron, collector, and administrator. She was a successful society portraitist, who in her own words ‘went through the British aristocracy like the measles’, but she is more important for her other roles in Irish art. She knew everyone who mattered (from 1911 she held regular social gatherings for Dublin's intelligentsia at her home, Mespil House) and in 1924 she founded the Friends of the National Collections of Ireland. One of its aims was to campaign for the return of Sir Hugh
Lane 's
pictures from London to Dublin and she helped to secure Charlemont House as the home for what became the Hugh Lane Municipal Gallery of Modern Art. Perhaps most importantly, she was the founder of the stained-glass workshop An Túr Gloine (The Tower of Glass), which operated in Dublin from 1903 to 1944; the work it produced, which can be seen in so many Irish churches, is her finest memorial. Most of the leading Irish stained glass designers of the day worked there at one time or another, among them Evie
Hone
.
putto
(Italian: ‘little boy’). Term applied to a representation of a chubby, naked child, sometimes winged, appearing—usually as a subsidiary figure—in a work of art. Putti have been a frequent motif of decorative art since classical antiquity and may have a pagan, human, or divine status. They derived from a type of figure used in ancient art to represent Eros, the Greek god of love, and from the
Renaissance
onwards a putto has often been used to represent his Roman counterpart, Cupid. More commonly, putti are anonymous figures pictured attending classical gods, or, for example, the Virgin Mary.
Puvis de Chavannes , Pierre
(1824–98).
The foremost French mural painter of the second half of the 19th cent. He decorated many public buildings in France (for example, the Panthéon, the Sorbonne, and the Hôtel de Ville, all in Paris) and also Boston Public Library (
Abbey
and
Sargent
did murals here too). His paintings were done on canvas and then affixed to the walls (see
MAROUFLAGE
), but their pale colours imitated the effect of
fresco
. He had only modest success early in his career (when a private income enabled him to work for little payment), but he went on to achieve an enormous reputation, and he was universally respected even by artists of very different aims and outlook from his own.
Gauguin
,
Seurat
, and
Toulouse-Lautrec
were among his professed admirers. His reputation has since declined, his idealized depictions of antiquity or allegorical representations of abstract themes now often seeming rather anaemic. He remains important, however, because of his influence on younger artists. His simplified forms, respect for the flatness of the picture surface, rhythmic line, and use of non-naturalistic colour to evoke the mood of the painting appealed to both the
Post-Impressionists
and the
Symbolists
.
Pyle , Howard
.
Pynacker , Adam
(1620/1–73).
Dutch landscape painter, active chiefly in Delft (he was born in nearby Pijnacker) and in Amsterdam. He was in Italy for three years (before 1649) and he was one of the outstanding Dutch exponents of Italianate landscapes. His style resembles that of Jan
Both
and Jan
Asselyn
, but his mature work often has a distinctive and attractive silvery tonality. A splendid example of his work, showing his ability to compose boldly on a large scale, is
Landscape with Sportsmen and Game
(Dulwich College Picture Gallery), which features some unnaturalistically (but attractively) blue leaves, caused by yellow pigment fading in the greens.
BOOK: The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists
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