Egide Charles Gustave Wappers

painter (1803-1874)

Egide Charles Gustave, Baron Wappers (23 August 1803 Antwerp – 6 December 1874 Paris), better known as Gustave Wappers, was a Belgian painter.

Gustave Wappers
Self-Portrait
Born
Egide Charles Gustave Wappers

(1803-08-23)23 August 1803
Died16 December 1874(1874-12-16) (aged 71)
NationalityBelgian
EducationRoyal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp
Known forPainting
MovementRomanticism

Biography change

He studied at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp, and during 1826 in Paris. The Romantic movement with its new ideas about art and politics was happening in France. Wappers was the first Belgian artist to use this form. His first painting, "The Devotion of the Burgomaster of Leiden," appeared at the right time. It had much success in the Brussels Salon during 1830, the year of the Belgian Revolution.

 
Episode of the Belgian Revolution of 1830 (1834), Museum of Ancient Art, Brussels.

Wappers was invited to the court at Brussels. In 1832 the city of Antwerp made him Professor of Painting.[1]

He showed his masterpiece, "Episode of the Belgian Revolution of 1830" at the Antwerp Salon in 1834. He was then made painter to Leopold, King of the Belgians. At the death of Matthieu-Ignace Van Brée in 1839 he was raised to director of the Antwerp Academy. One of his students was Ford Madox Brown, another was the Czech history painter Karel Javůrek.

He has many works. Some of them in traditional devotional modes, while others show the Romantic view of history.

After retiring as director of the Antwerp Academy, he lived in 1853 in Paris. He died in 1873.

References change

  1. "Gustaf Wappers Biography – (b Antwerp, 23 Aug. 1803; d Paris, 6 Dec. 1874)". The Arts: Fine Art, Contemporary Art & Music. Net Industries. Retrieved 16 February 2011.

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