The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists (322 page)

BOOK: The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists
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Monticelli , Adolphe
(1824–86).
French painter, active in his native Marseilles and in Paris. He was a pupil of Paul
Delaroche
, but he learned more from his studies of Old Masters in the Louvre; he was also influenced by his friends
Delacroix
and
Diaz de la Peña
. His subjects included landscapes, portraits, still lifes,
fêtes galantes
in the spirit of
Watteau
, and scenes from the circus, painted in brilliant colours and thick impasto that influenced van
Gogh
. He enjoyed great success in the 1860s, but after the Siege of Paris in 1870 he returned to Marseilles and led a retiring life. His work is represented in many French museums, and he has been much forged.
Moore , Albert
(1841–93).
English painter, son of a portrait painter,
William Moore
(1790–1851). His early works were in a
Pre-Raphaelite
vein, but in the mid 1860s, under the influence particularly of the
Elgin Marbles
, he turned to classical subjects. He specialized in elaborately, and sometimes diaphanously, draped female figures, singly or in groups—‘subjectless’ pictures akin to those of his friend
Whistler
. The two men met in 1865 and influenced each other. Like Whistler, Moore was a colourist of great sensitivity, although his colours tend to be much higher-keyed, and he ranks with him as one of the leading figures of
Aestheticism
. Moore's brother,
Henry
(1831–95), was a successful marine painter.
Moore , Henry
(1898–1986).
English sculptor and graphic artist. He is recognized as one of the greatest sculptors of the 20th cent. and from the late 1940s until his death was unchallenged as the most celebrated British artist of his time. He was born in Yorkshire, the son of a miner, and after service in the British Army in the First World War, he trained at Leeds School of Art and from there obtained a scholarship to the
Royal College of Art
in 1919. After completing his training in 1924, he taught there until 1931. From 1932 to 1939 he was the first head of sculpture in a new department at Chelsea School of Art. During the 1930s he lived in Hampstead in the same area as Ben
Nicholson
, Barbara
Hepworth
, the critic Herbert
Read
, and others of the avant-garde. In 1940, after the bombing of his studio, he moved to Much Hadham in Hertfordshire, where he lived for the rest of his life. Most of Moore's early work was carved, rejecting the academic tradition of modelling in favour of the doctrine of truth to material, according to which the nature of the stone or wood—its shape, texture, and so on—was part of the conception of the work. He also rejected the
classical
and
Renaissance
conception of beauty and put in its place an ideal of vital force and formal vigour which he found exemplified in much ancient sculpture (Mexican, Sumerian, etc.), which he studied in the British Museum, and also in the frescos of
Giotto
and
Masaccio
, which he saw in Italy in 1925 in the course of a travelling scholarship. During the 1930s his work was more directly influenced by European avant-garde art particularly the
Surrealism
of
Arp
. Although he produced some purely abstract pieces, his work was almost always based on forms in the natural world—often the human figure, but also, for example, bones, pebbles, and shells. The reclining female figure and the mother and child were among his perennial themes. By the late 1930s Moore was well known in informed circles as the leading avant-garde sculptor in England (Kenneth
Clark
and Jacob
Epstein
were among his early supporters), but his wider fame was established by the poignant drawings he did as an
Official War Artist
(1940–2) of people sheltering from air-raids in underground stations. Subsequently his reputation grew rapidly (particularly after he won the International Sculpture Prize at the 1948 Venice
Biennale
), and from the 1950s he carried out many public commissions in Britain and elsewhere. During this time there were major changes in his way of working. Bronze took over from stone as his preferred medium and he often worked on a very large scale. There was a tendency also for his works to be composed of several elements grouped together rather than made up of a single object. Some critics discerned a falling away of his powers in his later work, marked in particular by a tendency towards inflated rhetoric, but for others he remained a commanding figure to the end. A man of great integrity and unaffected charm, Moore was held in almost universally high regard. The tributes paid after his death made it clear that he was widely regarded not only as one of the greatest artists of the century, but also as one of the greatest Englishmen. He was a lucid and perceptive commentator on his own and other people's sculpture, and his writings have been collected as
Henry Moore on Sculpture
(1966). His work is represented in collections of modern art throughout the world; among those with particularly fine holdings are the Tate Gallery, London, and the Moore Sculpture Gallery (opened in 1982) at Leeds City Art Gallery.
Mor , Anthonis
(
c.
1517/20–1576/7).
Netherlandish portrait painter, a pupil of Jan van
Scorel
in his native Utrecht. He was the most successful court portraitist of his day, leading an international career that took him to England, Germany, Italy, Portugal, and Spain. In England he painted a portrait of Mary Tudor (Prado, Madrid, 1554, and other versions), for which he is said to have been knighted—he is sometimes known as Sir Anthony More (it is thus he appears in
The Dictionary of National Biography
) and the Spanish version of his name, Antonio Moro, is also commonly used. His work shows little variation throughout his career; sitters are shown life-size or a little larger, half-, three-quarter-, or full-length, turned slightly to the side, with an air of unruffled dignity. His composition is simple and strong and his grasp of character firm but undemonstrative. He owed much to
Titian
, but his surfaces are much more detailed and polished in the northern manner. Mor had great influence on the development of royal and aristocratic portraiture, particularly in Spain, where his ceremonious but austere style ideally suited the rigorous etiquette of the court.
Sánchez Coello
was his pupil. From 1568 Mor worked mainly in Antwerp, where he died.

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