The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists (416 page)

(1903–70).
Russian-born American painter, one of the outstanding figures of
Abstract Expressionism
and one of the creators of
Colour Field painting
. He emigrated to the USA as a child in 1913. After dropping out of Yale University in 1923 he moved to New York and studied at the
Art Students League
under Max
Weber
, but he regarded himself as essentially self-taught as a painter. In the 1930s and 1940s he went through phases influenced by
Expressionism
and
Surrealism
, but from about 1947 he began to develop his mature and distinctive style. Typically his paintings feature large rectangular expanses of colour arranged parallel to each other, usually in a vertical format. The edges of these shapes are softly uneven, giving them a hazy, pulsating quality as if they were floating on the canvas. The paintings are often very large and the effect they produce is one of calmness and contemplation, but in spite of their tranquillity, they cost Rothko enormous emotional effort: ‘I'm not an abstract artist…I'm not interested in the relationship of colour or form or anything else. I'm interested only in expressing basic human emotions—tragedy, ecstasy, doom and so on. And the fact that a lot of people break down and cry when confronted with my pictures shows that I can communicate these basic human emotions…The people who weep before my pictures are having the same religious experience as I had when I painted them.’
Rothko was poor for much of his career (from 1929 to 1959 he earned at least part of his living by teaching art), but his reputation grew in the 1950s and in 1961 he was given a major retrospective exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, that sealed his success. In spite of his soaring fame (and the money it brought), Rothko was plagued by depression. He had a prickly temperament, drank heavily, took barbiturates to excess, was fearful and suspicious of younger artists, had two unhappy marriages, and felt he was misunderstood (he disliked having his paintings discussed in
formalist
terms). His early works had often been bright and vivid in colour, but from the 1950s they became increasingly sombre, typically employing blacks, browns, and maroon. He regarded his fourteen paintings for a non-denominational chapel in Houston, Texas (now known as the Rothko Chapel), 1967–9, as his masterpieces. His last paintings were a series of stark black on grey canvases that evoke his painful state of mind leading up to his suicide (he slashed his veins in his studio).

 
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(1564–1625).
German painter. In 1589–96 he worked in Rome and in 1596–1606 in Venice. He specialized in mythological scenes in landscape settings, working on a small scale and often on copper, and his paintings form a link between the styles of Paul
Bril
, whom he knew in Rome, and Adam
Elsheimer
, with whom he worked in Venice.

 
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(1871–1958).
French painter, graphic artist, and designer who created a personal kind of
Expressionism
that gives him a highly distinctive place in modern art. In his youth he was apprenticed in a stained-glass workshop, his work including the restoration of medieval glass; the vivid colours and strong outlines characteristic of the medium left a strong imprint on his work. In 1892 he became a fellow pupil of
Matisse
and
Marquet
under Gustave
Moreau
at the École des
Beaux-Arts
. He was Moreau's favourite pupil and in 1898 became the first curator of the Musée Moreau in Paris. At about the same time he underwent a psychological crisis and although he continued to associate with the group of artists around Matisse who were later known as
Fauves
, he did not adopt their brilliant colour or characteristic subjects; instead he painted clowns, prostitutes, outcasts, and judges in sombre but glowing tones. These subjects expressed his hatred of cruelty, hypocrisy, and vice, depicting the ugliness and degradation of humanity with passionate conviction. Initially they disturbed the public, but during the 1930s he gained international popularity. From about 1940 he devoted himself almost exclusively to religious art. He was a prolific painter, and his work also included numerous book illustrations, ceramics, designs for tapestry and stained glass and for
Diaghilev's
ballet
The Prodigal Son
(1929). By the time of his death he was a much honoured figure and he was given a state funeral.

 
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(
c.
1705–62).
French-born sculptor, active in England for virtually his entire career. Little is known of his life before he settled in London in the early 1730s, although he is said to have trained under Balthasar
Permoser
in Saxony and Nicolas
Coustou
in Paris. He made his reputation with a full-length seated statue of the composer Handel (V&A, London, 1738), remarkable for its lively informality, and quickly became recognized as the most brilliant portrait sculptor of the day. His busts have great vivacity, stressing small forms and rippling movement in a manner very different from the broader treatment of his contemporary Michael
Rysbrack
. He was especially successful with portraits of old and ugly men, and in his series of busts at Trinity College, Cambridge, and the celebrated statue of Newton (1755) there, he showed a remarkable gift for producing lively portraits of men long dead. Roubiliac was also outstanding as a tomb sculptor, several notable examples being in Westminster Abbey, including the marvellously dramatic tomb of Lady Elizabeth Nightingale (1761), who is shown being attacked with a spear by Death (a hideous skeleton emerging from a vault), while her husband vainly tries to keep him at bay (the skeleton was carved by Roubiliac 's assistant Nicholas Read ,
c.
1733–87). The Nightingale monument clearly shows the influence of
Bernini
, whose work so impressed Roubiliac when he visited Rome in 1752; he said that compared to Bernini's his own sculptures looked ‘meagre and starved, as if made of nothing but tobacco pipes’. Roubiliac is generally regarded as one of the greatest sculptors ever to work in England, certainly the greatest of his period. He had a vivid imagination, he was a superb craftsman, and, as Gerald Randall observes (
Church Furnishing and Decoration in England and Wales
, 1980), ‘Unlike even the best of his rivals, Roubiliac seems to have been incapable of indifferent work, and even his most modest commissions are designed and executed with a master's touch.’

 
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