Turned To Portrait Painting: QUIDOR, ke-dor', John, American painter: b. Tappan, N.Y., Jan. 26, 1801; d. Jersey City, N.J., Dec. 13, 1881. He moved to New York, N.Y., in 1826 and studied painting for a short time with John Wesley Jarvis (q.v.). He at first earned a living by painting decorations on fire engines and coaches, then turned to portrait painting. Quidor never became a first-rate painter, although many of his works show considerable talent. He is best known for his series of large romanticized scenes inspired by the writings of Washington Irving, whom he knew personally. His Return of Rip Van Winkle was shown at the National Academy of Design in 1839.
A few spots of paint would turn the edge of the plate into the rows of spectators who were watching the spectacle in the arena, the bottom of the plate, where the torero and the bull were about to have their encounter. Thus, by using the specific shape of a pfate and painting it in a certain way, Picasso accomplished the metamorphosis from an everyday article into a work of art. With only very little brushwork he turned a traditional and highly functional object into a painting.
The first artistic success with the calotype process was that of David Octavius Hill and Robert Adamson. Hill was a well-known painter in Edinburgh, and Secretary of the Scottish Academy of Painting. In 1843 he set himself a colossal task: to paint a group portrait of 457 men and women present at the convention in Edinburgh when the Free Church of Scotland was founded. At the suggestion of his friend Sir David Brewster, who had learned the process from Talbot, he turned to photography as an aid in securing likenesses of the many delegates and obtained the services of Robert Adamson, who had recently opened a professional studio in Edinburgh.
|
|
Photography
