The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists (278 page)

(
c.
1597–1631).
German painter, active mainly in Italy. He trained in the Netherlands (probably in Amsterdam, possibly with
Goltzius
) and visited Paris before moving to Italy
c.
1620. Venice seems to have been the main centre of his activity, but he also worked in Rome, and
Caravaggesque
influence is clearly seen in such vivid and strongly lit works as
Judith and Holofernes
(NG, London). His work enjoyed considerable popularity in Venice (where there was a dearth of talented native painters at this time) and his
Vision of St Jerome
in the church of S. Nicolo da Tolentino was much copied. It shows the remarkably free brushwork and brilliant use of high-keyed colour that were the salient features of his style and which were influential on Venetian painting when its glory revived in the 18th cent. It was formerly assumed that Liss, who ranks second only to
Elsheimer
as the most brilliant German painter of the 17th cent., perished in the Venetian plague of 1629–30, but it is now known that he died in Verona in 1631.

 
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(1890–1941).
Russian painter, designer, graphic artist, and architect. After studying engineering at Darmstadt and architecture in Moscow he worked in an architect's office and collaborated with
Chagall
on the illustration of Jewish books (he was an expert lithographer). In 1918 Chagall became head of the art school at Vitebsk and in the following year he appointed Lissitzky as Professor of Architecture and Graphic Art. One of his colleagues at Vitebsk was
Malevich
, whose advocacy of the use of pure geometric form greatly influenced Lissitzky, notably in his series of abstract paintings to which he gave the collective name ‘Proun’ and which he referred to as ‘the interchange station between painting and architecture’. They do indeed look like plans for three-dimensional constructions, and at the same time Lissitzky made ambitious architectonic designs that were never realized. In 1921, after a brief period as professor at the state art school in Moscow, he went to Berlin, where he arranged and designed the important exhibition of abstract art at the Van Diemen Gallery that first comprehensively presented the modern movement in Russia to the West (it was later shown also in Amsterdam). While in Berlin he made contact with van
Doesburg
and members of
De Stijl
and with
Moholy-Nagy
, who spread Lissitzky's ideas through his teaching at the
Bauhaus
. In 1923 he went with
Gabo
to a Bauhaus exhibition at Weimar and there met
Gropius
. From 1923 to 1925 he lived in Switzerland, and (after a short visit to Russia) from 1925 to 1928 in Hanover. He returned to Russia in 1928 and settled in Moscow. By this time he had abandoned painting and devoted himself mainly to typography and industrial design. His work included several propaganda and trade exhibitions, notably the Soviet Pavilion of the 1939 World's Fair in New York, and his dynamic techniques of
photomontage
, printing, and lighting had wide influence. For a considerable time Lissitzky was the best known of the Russian abstract artists in the West. In his mature work he achieved a fusion between the
Suprematism
of Malevich (often using his diagonal axis), the
Constructivism
of
Tatlin
and
Rodchenko
, and features of the
Neo-Plasticism
of
Mondrian
.

 
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lithography
.

A method of printing from a design drawn directly onto a slab of stone or other suitable material. The most recent of the major graphic techniques, it was invented in 1798 by Aloys
Senefelder
. The process is based on the antipathy of grease and water, the design being drawn with a greasy crayon. After this has been chemically fixed, the stone is wetted and then rolled with oily ink, which adheres only to the greasy drawing, the rest of the surface, being damp, repelling the ink. Prints can then be taken in a press. Only certain types of stone are suitable for use in lithography, and zinc (from about 1830) and aluminium (from about 1890) have been employed as substitutes. The results they produce are usually identical. Colour lithography, using a different stone for each ink, was introduced in the 1830s. Many distinguished artists of the 19th and 20th cents. have worked in the lithographic technique (beginning with
Goya
in his old age), attracted by the freedom it allows (the artist need do nothing more than draw on the stone—the printer can handle all the technicalities), and
Daumier
was the first great figure to execute the major part of his life's work in lithography.
Toulouse-Lautrec
was another great master of the process; he sometimes created tonal effects by spattering ink on the stone with a toothbrush.

 
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(active 1442–51).
German painter, the leading master of his time in Cologne, where he worked from 1442 until his death. His early life is obscure, but stylistic evidence, particularly his eye for naturalistic detail, suggests he trained in the Netherlands. The most important of his surviving works is
The Adoration of the Magi
, painted for Cologne's town hall (where in 1520
Dürer
saw it ‘with wonder and astonishment’), but now in the city's cathedral. It shows the exquisite colouring and delicate sentiment that was characteristic of his work.

 
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(1633–92).
Polish-born British engraver and draughtsman. He is best known for his books
Oxonia Illustrata
(1675) and
Cantabrigia Illustrata
(1688) topographical studies of the Universities, but he also made sensitive portrait drawings.