The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists (143 page)

BOOK: The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists
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Donner , Georg Raphael
(1693–1741).
The outstanding Austrian
Baroque
sculptor, active mainly in Salzburg, Bratislava, and Vienna. His masterpieces are acknowledged to be the figures from the fountain in the Mehlmarkt, Vienna (Österreichisches Barockmuseum, Vienna, 1737–9), and the group of
St Martin and the Beggar
(Bratislava Cathedral,
c.
1735), in which the saint is dressed in hussar's uniform rather than the traditional armour. These works are in lead, which Donner preferred to the Austrian speciality of wood, and his smooth surfaces have led some critics to see his work as presaging
Neoclassicism
, although his elongated figures seem to place him closer to Italian
Mannerism
.
donor
.
The commissioner of a work of religious art whose portrait is incorporated in the work. By having themselves included in the picture donors sought to associate themselves in a special way with the sacred figures portrayed there, either in thanks for favours received, or in the hope of future protection and salvation.
Doré , Gustave
(1832–83).
The most popular and successful French book illustrator of the mid 19th cent. Doré became very widely known for his illustrations to such books as Dante's
Inferno
(1861),
Don Quixote
(1862), and the Bible (1866), and he helped to give European currency to the illustrated book of large format. He was so prolific that at one time he employed more than forty wood engravers. His work is characterized by a rather naïve but highly spirited love of the
grotesque
and represents a commercialization of the
Romantic
taste for the bizarre. Drawings of London done in 1869–71 were more sober studies of the poorer quarters of the city and captured the attention of van
Gogh
. In the 1870s he also took up painting (doing some large and ambitious religious works) and sculpture (the monument to the dramatist and novelist Alexandre Dumas in the Place Malesherbes in Paris, erected in 1883, is his work).
Doryphorus
.
Dossi , Dosso
(Giovanni Luteri )
(
c.
1490?–1542).
The outstanding painter of the Ferrarese School in the 16th cent. His early life and training are obscure, but
Vasari's
assertion that he was born around 1474 is now thought unlikely. He is first recorded in 1512 at Mantua (the name ‘Dosso’ probably comes from a place near Mantua—he is not called ‘Dosso Dossi’ until the 18th cent.). By 1514 he was in Ferrara, where he spent most of the rest of his career, combining with the poet Ariosto in devising entertainments, triumphs, tapestries, etc. for the
Este
court. Dosso painted various kinds of pictures—mythological and religious works, portraits, and decorative frescos—and he is perhaps most important for the part played in his work by landscape, in which he continues the romantic pastoral vein of
Giorgione
and
Titian
. The influence from these two artists is indeed so strong that it is thought he must have been in Venice early in his career. Dosso's work, however, has a personal quality of fantasy and an opulent sense of colour and texture that gives it an individual stamp (
Melissa
, Borghese Gal., Rome,
c.
1523). His brother
Battista Dossi
(
c.
1497–1548) often collaborated with him, but there is insufficient evidence to know whether he made an individual contribution.
dotted manner
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