rative painter, Greuze combined the intimate views and
realistic details of Chardin with the lighter overtones of
Boucher. His favorite themes, love and the family, often
had moral and sentimental content, as can be seen in The
Broken Eggs (1756; New York, Metropolitan Museum of
Art), A Marriage Contract (1761), or The Son Punished
(1778; both Paris, Louvre). Diderot especially admired
Greuze's selection of modern dramas rather than subjects
from classical mythology as the subject of his paintings.
Although he aspired to be recognized as a history painter,
his election to the Academic des Beaux-Arts in 1769 was
to the rank of genre painter. As a portraitist he combined
naturalism and grace and, in his portrayals of children, a
charming tenderness. Memorable paintings include Ma-
dame de Porcin (1769-1774; Musee d Angers) and Boy with
a Dog (London, Wallace Collection). The incisive char-
acterization Greuze brought to the masculine portrait is
fully evidenced in the Portrait ofjohann Georg Wille (1763;
Paris, Musee Jacquemart-Andre). Following the Revo-
lution he suffered many personal setbacks, and he died in
obscurity.ANTOINE-JEAN GROS
Paris I77i-Meudon 1835
Gros, the son of miniature painters, became the pupil of
David in 1785. In 1793 he traveled to northern Italy,
where he studied the work of Venetian and Milanese art-
ists as well as that of Rubens. Josephine Bonaparte,
whom he met in Genoa, presented him to Napoleon, and
thereafter Gros served as the official chronicler of the
Empire. In Bonaparte at the Arcole Bridge (1796; Musee
National du Chateau de Versailles), Napoleon Visiting the
Plague-Stricken at Jaffa (1804), and Napoleon at the Battle-
field of Eylau (1808; both Paris, Louvre), Gros gave
greater weight to color than did his Neoclassical contem-
poraries. Following the Restoration and David's exile to
Brussels, Gros worked for the French Crown, receiving
the title of baron from Charles X, and assumed direction
of David's large studio. Toward the end of his career,
Gros returned to antique allegorical subjects.
G U E R CIN O (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri)
Cento I59i-Bologna 1666
Guercino was for the most part a self-taught artist. As a
youth, he admired the work of Ludovico Carracci,
whose paintings could be seen in Cento and nearby Bo-
logna. In 1617 Guercino moved to Bologna, where he
painted several important works for Cardinal Alessan-
dro Ludovisi, later Pope Gregory XV; these included the
Raising of Tabitha (1617; Florence, Pitti). Between 1617
and 1621 Guercino produced a series of powerful Ba-roque altarpieces, including his early masterpiece Saint
William ofAquitaine Receiving the Habit (1620; Bologna,
Pinacoteca). From 1621 on, Guercino worked for Pope
Gregory XV in Rome. There he began a number of proj-
ects, including the lyrical, illusionistic ceiling painting of
Aurora in the Palazzo Ludovisi. He returned to Cento in
1623 to head an active studio and, following the death of
Guido Reni in 1642, moved to Bologna to assume a pre-
eminent artistic position in that city.HANS HOLBEIN THE YOUNGER
Augsburg 1497-London 1543
Holbein, who trained in his father's studio in Augsburg,
moved in 1515 to Basel, where he designed prints for
book illustrations. In 1517 he was active in Lucerne,
where he decorated the Hertenstein house with illusion-
istic frescoes. From Lucerne Holbein probably traveled
to Italy. In 1519 he joined the painters' guild in Basel, ex-
ecuting large-scale altarpieces, such as the Passion Altar-
piece (Kunstmuseum Basel), as well as portraits of the cir-
cle of patricians and humanists of which he was a part.
Holbein traveled to France in 1524 and to Antwerp and
England in 1526. On the recommendation of Erasmus
of Rotterdam, he was introduced to Sir Thomas More,
whom he portrayed in the well-known portrait of 1527
in the Frick Collection, New York. Holbein returned to
Basel in 1528 and moved to England permanently in
1532. In 1536 he became court painter to King Henry
VIII, a position he held until his death.WOLF HUBER
Feldkirch circa 1480/85-Passau 1553
Huber probably apprenticed in Feldkirch in the Austrian
province of Vorarlberg. Around 1505 he traveled to Inns-
bruck, Salzburg, and possibly Vienna and Augsburg. He
was active in Passau and had a workshop by 1515, the date
of the commission for his most important painting, the
Anna Altarpiece (Biihrle collection, on loan to the Vor-
arlberger Landesmuseum, Bregenz). In Passau he was
court painter to Duke Ernest of Bavaria and Wolfgang
von Salm, bishop of Passau. A number of Huber's draw-
ings of specific places document trips up the Danube and
to Germany in 1513/14 and down the Danube to Vienna
in 1529/31. Around 1541 he became city architect of Pas-
sau. Huber was important as a painter of portraits and
religious subjects, a designer of woodcuts, and a
draughtsman. He is best known for his landscape draw-
ings, which often show trees and mountain vistas and
stress the vitality of nature and its dominance over man.
Together with Albrecht Altdorfer, Huber was the most
prominent artist of the Danube school.342 ARTISTS BIOGRAPHIES