The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists (262 page)

(1732–1810).
Italian art historian, archaeologist, and philologist. As a pioneer in the systematic study of the art of antiquity he ranks next to
Winckelmann
, but he is best known for his history of Italian painting from the 13th cent. until his own time,
Storia pittorica dell' Italia…
(1792; 2nd edn., 1795–6; 3rd edn. 1800). Lanzi classified his material by regional schools and based his work on a thorough knowledge of previous writings on the subject and of the paintings themselves (he was keeper of the galleries of Florence from 1773 and also visited churches and collections throughout central and northern Italy in the course of his work). His methodical arrangement and his synthesis of solid research with sensitive analysis of style make his work a landmark in art historical writing, and Rudolf
Wittkower
has described it as ‘still unequalled for knowledge of the material and breadth of approach’. There have been several English translations and editions (the first in 1828), as well as numerous other Italian editions published after Lanzi's death. Lanzi published scholarly but controversial works on the Etruscan language and also a book on ancient vases (1806) in which he correctly perceived that vases traditionally called Etruscan were in fact Greek in origin.

 
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Laocoön
.

An antique marble group (Vatican Mus.) representing the Trojan priest Laocoön and his two sons being crushed to death by snakes as a penalty for warning the Trojans against the wooden horse of the Greeks, an incident related by Virgil in the
Aeneid
ii. 264–95. It is usually dated to the 2nd or 1st cent. BC or the 1st cent. AD, although whether it is an original
Hellenistic
piece or a Roman copy has long been a matter of dispute.
Pliny
states that in his time it stood in the palace of the emperor Titus in Rome, records that it was made by the sculptors Hagesander, Polydorus, and Athenodorus of Rhodes, and describes it as ‘a work to be preferred to all that the arts of painting and sculpture have produced’. This praise echoed long after the sculpture had disappeared, and its dramatic rediscovery in a vineyard in Rome in 1506 made an overwhelming impression, notably on
Michelangelo
, who went to see it immediately. Its liberating influence for the expression of the emotions continued to be important for
Baroque
sculpture and until the 19th cent. it was ranked (with the
Apollo Belvedere
and the
Belvedere Torso
) as one of the greatest works of antiquity. (As early as about 1530
Titian
satirized the adulation it received in a woodcut showing the figures changed to monkeys.) It was given a new aesthetic significance by
Winckelmann
, who saw it as a supreme symbol of the moral dignity of the tragic hero and the most complete exemplification of the ‘noble simplicity and quiet majesty’ which he regarded as the essence of Greek idealistic art and the key to true beauty. In 1766
Lessing
chose
Laokoon
as the title of the book in which he attacked Winckelmann's ideas. The sculpture was one of the prizes taken from Italy by Napoleon and was in Paris 1798–1815. Although no longer considered one of the world's greatest masterpieces, the
Laocoön
has slipped in esteem much less than some once-revered antique statues; it continues to be a work with a powerful hold over the imagination and still finds a place in almost all general histories of art. It has been restored several times since its discovery, and a complete renovation was made in the 1950s, when Laocoön's original right arm was returned to the figure and replaced in its correct position behind his head.
Study of the
Laocoön
was revolutionized in 1957 by one of the most spectacular archaeological discoveries of the 20th cent., when several groups of marble figures representing events in Homer's
Odyssey
were found at Sperlonga near Naples; the names Hagesander, Polydoros, and Athenodoros are inscribed on one of the groups (now in the museum at Sperlonga), which are close in style to the
Laocoön
. The cave in which these sculptures were found was evidently used as a banqueting hall by the Emperor Tiberius (reigned AD 14–37), and there is other evidence linking them with the 1st cent. AD, so this date is now finding favour among classical archaeologists for the
Laocoön
also.

 
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(1656–1746).
French painter, mainly of portraits. He spent his youth in Antwerp and
c.
1674–80 worked as assistant to
Lely
in London. Returning to Paris in 1682, he soon established his position as a leading portraitist, rivalled only by
Rigaud
, his almost exact contemporary. The two men were friends and seldom in direct competition, for Largillière specialized in portraits of the rich middle classes and Rigaud painted the aristocracy. Largillière's long and successful career culminated when he was made Director of the
Academy
in 1743 at the age of 87. His output of portraits was prodigious (contemporary sources indicate he painted about 1,500), and he also did religious works (once highly regarded), still lifes, and landscapes. At his best, his paintings are vigorous, forthright, and colourful; at his worst, they are pompous and vacuous.

 
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(1881–1964).
Russian painter and designer, one of the leading figures in the development of modernism in Russia in the period before the First World War. His early work was influenced by
Post-Impressionism
, but from 1908, together with Natalia
Goncharova
(his life long companion and collaborator), he developed a form of cultivated
primitivism
—his style more aggressive than hers—based upon an interest in Russian folk art. In a series of ‘Soldier’ and ‘Prostitute’ pictures done in 1908–13 this primitivism was exaggerated into crude distortions and a deliberate flouting of conventional good taste. Larionov was involved in avant-garde groups such as the
Knave of Diamonds
, and he helped to organize major shows of progressive art, including the
Donkey's Tail
exhibition in 1912 and the
Target exhibition
in 1913, at which he launched
Rayonism
, a near abstract movement that was a counterpart to Italian
Futurism
. In May 1914 Larionov and Goncharova accompanied
Diaghilev's
Ballets Russes
to Paris. They returned to Russia in July on the outbreak of the First World War, and Larionov served in the army and was wounded. After being invalided out, he and Goncharova left Russia permanently in 1915, moving first to Switzerland and then settling in Paris in 1919 (they became French citizens in 1938). In Paris he practically abandoned easel painting and concentrated on theatrical designing for the
Ballets Russes
. After Diaghilev's death in 1929 Larionov gradually sank into obscurity, but his reputation was revived shortly before his death with retrospective exhibitions (jointly with Goncharova) in London (Arts Council, 1961) and Paris (Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, 1963).

 
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