The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists (92 page)

BOOK: The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists
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Carreño de Miranda, Juan
(1614–85).
Spanish painter, active mainly in Madrid. Until he was appointed one of the royal painters in 1669 he concentrated on religious works, but thereafter he worked mainly as a portraitist. Except for his friend
Velázquez
, he was the most important court painter of 17th-cent. Spain; he was of noble birth and his paintings have an aristocratic dignity and something of Velázquez's sensitivity and taste. His religious paintings (which include several frescos, notably in Toledo Cathedral) are, however, more extravagantly
Baroque
.
Carriera , Rosalba
(1675–1757).
Venetian
pastel
portraitist and
miniaturist
, the sister-in-law of
Pellegrini
. She made pastel portraits fashionable and achieved spectacular success throughout the capital cities of Europe, her visits to Paris (1721–2) and to Vienna (1730) being in the nature of royal progresses. She had considerable influence in France and converted Maurice Quentin de
La Tour
to the pastel medium. It is now hard to appreciate why her work, which is highly accomplished but generally rather insipid, should have aroused such enthusiasm. After becoming blind in 1745, she had her sight temporarily restored by an operation, but lost it permanently in 1749 and retired into a state of melancholy dejection.
Carrière , Eugène
.
Carrington , Dora
.
Carrington , Leonora
.
See
ERNST
.
Carstens , Asmus Jacob
(1754–98).
Danish-born German draughtsman and painter. Apart from some initial training at the Copenhagen Academy he was largely self-educated. He moved to Berlin in 1787 and taught at the Academy. After 1792 he lived in Rome with the help of a grant from the Prussian State. Carstens was totally committed to
Neoclassicism
and concentrated on heroic figure compositions. He was uninterested in colour and was much more prolific as a draughtsman than as a painter. His work has a pompous seriousness in tune with his own inflated idea of his genius, but he is a significant figure because of the strictness of his ideals and the influence he had on the next generation of artists, notably
Thorvaldsen
and the
Nazarenes
.

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