CLAUDE GILLOT
Langres 1673 -Paris 1722
Gillot, whose first teacher was his father, Andre-Jacques,
a painter and embroiderer, moved to Paris around 1691
and studied there with Jean-Baptiste Corneille. In 1710
he became a provisional member of the Academic as a
peintre de sujets modernes, and he was elected a full member
in 1715. Gillot gained a reputation as a decorator and
painter of arabesques; he was also a prolific engraver. A
versatile artist, he designed vignettes for book illustra-
tions, including the Fables nouvelles of A. H. de la Motte
(1719); tapestry cartoons; and sets and costumes for the
grand opera, including productions of Amadis and The-
see by Jean-Bap tiste Lully. Gillot was inspired by the
commedia dell'arte, banned in France from 1697 to 1716,
whose lively characters and memorable stories he de-
picted in paintings and drawings throughout his career,
as can be seen in Scene of Two Coaches and Tomb ofMaitre
Andre (both Paris, Louvre). Most were etched by himself
and Gabriel Huquier. Gillot is best remembered today as
a teacher of Watteau.
ANNE-LOUIS GIRODET DE ROUCY
TRIOSON
Montargis 1767-Paris 1824
Girodet entered the studio of Jacques-Louis David in
1785 and won the Prix de Rome in 1789. In 1790 he
moved to Rome. Following political riots related to the
French Revolution, Girodet fled to Naples and then to
Venice before returning to Paris in 1795. The Sleep ofEn-
dymion (1793; Paris, Louvre), an enormous success in
Rome and Paris, illustrates the artist's departure from
David's classicism toward a more romantic, poetic
expression. A prolific and ambitious draughtsman, Gi-
rodet created illustrations for the Didot family of printers
and publishers and also worked as a portrait painter. He
received official and private commissions from Napo-
leon, including Ossian (1801) for the chateau at Malmai-
son. In 1815 Girodet was elected to the Academic des
Beaux-Arts. The Scene from the Deluge (1806; Paris,
Louvre) established him as a forerunner of Romanti-
cism. Having inherited a large fortune from his adoptive
father in 1812, he abandoned painting to devote his time
to writing artistic theory and poetry on aesthetics.GIULIO ROMANO (GiulioPippi)
Rome circa 1499-Mantua 1546
Giulio Romano trained as an assistant in Raphael's work-
shop and later collaborated with the master on several
projects, including the Stanza dell'Incendio in the Vati-
can, which was finished in 1519, and the Loggia di Psiche
(1518-1519) in the Villa Farnesina. In 1524 he moved to
Mantua to work for the court of Federico> II Gonzaga.
There the artist created his most celebrated works, in-
cluding the construction and decoration of the pleasure
palace of the Mantuan court, the Palazzo del Te (1524-
1536). The bizarre narrative decorations, such as those in
the Sala dei Giganti, are prime examples of Mannerist art
in Italy. In 1536 Giulio began the reconstruction and dec-
oration of portions of the Palazzo Ducale, including the
Sala di Troia and the Sala dei Cavalli. The construction
of his own palace (1544) was one of the last projects he
completed before his death.VINCENT VAN GOGH
Groot-Zundert i853-Auvers-sur-Oise 1890
Born the son of a pastor in rural Brabant, van Gogh left
school in 1868. He was a clerk at an art firm until 1876.
After teaching in England, he worked in a bookshop in
Dordrecht in 1877, studied for the ministry in Amster-
dam, and in 1878 became a missionary in a poor mining
district in Belgium. In 1880 van Gogh decided to become
an artist and worked with Anton van Rappard in Brus-
sels. He later worked with Anton Mauve in The Hague.
During a period in the isolated Dutch province of
Drenthe and in the town of Nuenen outside Amsterdam,
van Gogh concentrated on the production of landscapes,
paintings of weavers, and powerful, grim scenes of peas-
ant life, such as The Potato Eaters (1885; Amsterdam,
Rijksmuseum Vincent van Gogh). After a brief enroll-
ment in the Koninklijke Academic voor Schone Kun-
sten, Antwerp, he went to Paris in 1886 to join his
brother, Theo, an art dealer; there he came under the in-
fluence of Impressionist and Neo-Impressionist painters
such as Pissarro and Seurat. From February 1888 to May
1889 he spent a productive period in Aries in the south of
France during which he was visited by Gauguin. He be-
gan to suffer a series of mental collapses, entering asy-
lums in Aries and, later, Saint-Remy-de-Provence,
where he painted Starry Night (1889; New York, Mu-
seum of Modern Art). Thereafter, van Gogh moved to
Auvers near Paris, dying in July 1890 after an apparent
suicide attempt. The extraordinary body of letters he
wrote to Theo provides an almost daily account of his
life and artistic production.HENDRICK GOLTZIUS
Muhlbracht 1558-Haarlem 1617
Goltzius was trained by his father and in 1575 became an
apprentice to the engraver Dirk Volkertsz. Coornhert in
Xanten. In 1576/77 he moved to Haarlem, where he,
Carel van Mander, and Cornelis van Haarlem founded340 ARTISTS BIOGRAPHIES