Charles Lock Eastlake
Sir Charles Lock Eastlake PRA ( born November 17 1793 in Plymouth, † December 24, 1865 in Pisa ) was an English painter and art scholar and the first director of the National Gallery.
Life
Eastlake attended the Charterhouse School, one of seven famous private schools in England. Then he turned to the arts and was trained by Benjamin Robert Haydon. He studied at the Royal Academy of Arts ( London) under Henry Fuseli and could make his debut in an exhibition there. So also the art collector and patron Jeremiah Harman became aware of him and enabled him in 1815 for a longer period of study in Paris, where he studied the local masterpieces in the Louvre. The political events could Eastlake but return to London after a short time again. He achieved his first major success with the painting Napoleon on board the Bellerophon in Plymouth Sound (1815, now in the National Maritime Museum, London).
1816 East Lake was the first time in Rome and in 1818 he undertook together with William Brockedon ( 1787-1854 ) and Charles Barry, a trip to Greece. End of 1818 Eastlake was back in Rome. One of his most important works of this period was his " Byron Image". On 10 February 1830, he was elected to the Royal Academy of Arts, which he was president from 1850 to 1865.
He lived for 12 years in Rome and led to the British colony of artists, after traveling on the Kontiment could be made. Focus of their interest was the ancient architecture and Eastlake where he created many sketches, which he later used as the basis for his genre pieces and landscapes. During this time, Eastlake oriented nor the style of Titian. His friends called him " Carlo Salamander " because he spent so much time outdoors.
In 1830 he returned to London via Vienna. Following the pattern of the Munich frescoes he started since 1841 the decoration of the newly built English Houses of Parliament. His paintings express artistic sense, study and refinement, but little creative power; the most praiseworthy thing about them is the beauty of coloring and the care of the art.
In 1849 he married in London the writer Elzabeth Rigby. The following year he was called Eastlake, succeeding Mr. Shee (1769-1850) as President of the Royal Academy of Arts. As such, he was beaten by Queen Victoria knighted. In 1853 he was the first president of the Royal Photographic Society. In 1855 he was appointed the first official director of the National Gallery in London. Due to this, more administrative and representative tasks conditionally, originated from this time now hardly any significant images.
For this, he began to press writing. In addition to his main work materials for a history of oilpainting he also translated Goethe's color theory. Along with his personal assistant, the art historian Nicholas Ralph Wornum, Eastlake has created a catalog, a scientific inventory of all the stocks entrusted to him.
Equipped with a generous budget, it was Eastlake possible each year to travel for several months through Europe and to purchase images. On his last tour, he died, nearly five weeks after his 72nd birthday, on 23 December 1865 in Pisa. At the request of the Royal Academy, he should be honored with an honorary grave in St Paul's Cathedral. But his widow was able to prevail with their desire and so he was quietly laid to rest at Kensal Green Cemetery.
The sculptor John Gibson designed by Eastlake a bust, which can be visited in the National Portrait Gallery in London today, and John Prescott Knight (1803-1881) created a portrait Eastlakes, which later by George Thomas Doo (1800-1886) in copper engraved widely distributed.
Works
- Digitized by Charles Lock Eastlake at the Internet Archive
- Materials for a history of oilpainting. Murray, London 1847/1869 ( 2 vols )
- Contributions to the literature of the fine arts. Murray, London 1848 ( 2 vols )
- 1840 translation of Goethe's Theory of Colours - " Theory of Colours "
- 1851 translation by Franz Kugler: History of the Italian School of Painting
- 1855 translation by Franz Kugler: Handbook of Painting
Many of his oil paintings were reproduced by engravings and was widely disseminated.