The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists (405 page)

Rietveld , Gerald
.

See
STIJL
.

 
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(1659–1743).
French portrait painter, the friend and rival of
Largillière
. He was born in Perpignan and after working in Montpellier he settled in Paris in 1681. His reputation was established in 1688 with a portrait (now lost) of Monsieur , Louis XIV's brother, and he became the outstanding court painter of the latter part of Louis's reign, retaining his popularity after the king's death. He was less interested in showing individual character than in depicting the rank and condition of the sitter by nobility of attitude and expressiveness of gesture. These qualities are seen most memorably in his celebrated state portrait of Louis XIV (Louvre, Paris, 1701), one of the classic images of royal majesty. Louis so admired this portrait that, although he had intended it as a present to Philip V of Spain, he kept it himself. Rigaud's unofficial portraits are much more informal and show a debt to
Rembrandt
(
The Artist's Mother
, Louvre, 1695), several of whose works he owned. The output from Rigaud's studio was vast and examples are in many collections.

 
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Rijksmuseum
, Amsterdam.

The Dutch national art collection. It had its origin in the Royal Museum erected by Louis Bonaparte (Napoleon's brother) as King of Holland in 1808. The idea of the Royal Museum was to assemble Netherlandish paintings of national importance and also to stimulate contemporary art. In 1815 the collection was transferred to the Trippenhuis, where it was opened in 1817 as the Rijksmuseum (State Museum). The present building, a large Gothic Revival structure designed by P. J. H. Cuypers , the outstanding Dutch architect of the 19th century, was opened in 1885. In 1922 F. Schmidt Degener , formerly of the Boymans Museum at Rotterdam, became Director of the Rijksmuseum, modernized the display, and began the acquisition of foreign works of art. The Rijksmuseum has the most comprehensive collection of 17th-cent. Dutch art in the world, and although representation in other areas is uneven, it is strong in certain fields, such as oriental art. Associated with the Rijksmuseum is the Rijksprentenkabinet, which possesses one of the world's finest collections of prints and drawings.

 
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(1931– ).
English painter and designer, the leading British exponent of
Op art
. Her interest in optical effects came partly through her study of
Seurat's
technique of
pointillism
, but when she took up Op art in the early 1960s she worked initially in black and white. She turned to colour in 1966. By this time she had attracted international attention (one of her paintings was used for the cover to the catalogue of the exhibition ‘The Responsive Eye’ at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, in 1965, the exhibition that gave currency to the term ‘Op art’), and the seal was set on her reputation when she won the International Painting Prize at the
Venice Biennale
in 1968. Her work shows a complete mastery of the effects characteristic of Op art, particularly subtle variations in size, shape, or placement of serialized units in an all-over pattern. It is often on a large scale and she frequently makes use of assistants for the actual execution. Although her paintings often create effects of vibration and dazzle, her decorative scheme for the interior of the Royal Liverpool Hospital (1983) uses soothing bands of blue, yellow, pink, and white and is reported to have caused a drop in vandalism and graffiti. She has also worked in theatre design, making sets for a ballet called
Colour Moves
(first performed at the Edinburgh Festival in 1983). Unusually, the sets preceded the composition of the music and the choreography. Riley has travelled widely (a visit to Egypt in 1981 was particularly influential on her work, as she was inspired by the colours of ancient Egyptian art) and she has studios in London, Cornwall, and Provence.

 
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(1646–91).
English portrait painter. His early career is obscure, but he emerged as the most distinguished figure in English portraiture in the interval between the death of
Lely
in 1680 and the domination of
Kneller
. Although he was appointed Principal Painter to William III and Mary II jointly with Kneller in 1688, his finest works are not court portraits but depictions of sitters from humble callings; the two best known are
The Scullion
(Christ Church, Oxford) and
Bridget Holmes
(Royal Coll., 1686), a full-length portrayal of a nonagenarian royal housemaid who brandishes her broom at a mischievous pageboy. He was generally more successful painting men than women (he was no rival to Lely in depicting fine clothes and soft complexions) and his unassuming sincerity of presentation exemplifies a typically English approach to portraiture that he passed on to his pupil
Richardson
.

 
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