Джордж Классен был сыном художника-декоратора датского происхождения и родился в Лондоне. С 1873 по 1875 гг. Джордж Классен учился в школе искусств (South Kensington School of Art), потом посетил Бельгию и Голландию в 1875-1876 гг.

Influenced initially by Dutch painting and Whistler during the 1870s, he transferred his allegiance to Jules Bastien-Lepage and the French plein-air school of painting in the early 1880s. Closely identifying with English rural life, he favoured naturalism during this period as a technique of what he called 'studied impartiality' with its emphasis on literal representation rather than narrative content. For a few months in 1883, he studied at the Academie Julian under Adolphe William Bouguereau. During the 1890s, Clausen became increasingly aware of the limitation of rustic naturalism. Influenced by the French Impressionists, he developed a more fluent style, showing a renewed interest in figural expression and movement, and a preoccupation with the play of sunlight and shade. Following his marriage in 1881, he settled first in Berkshire and then in Essex where the surrounding scenery inspired much of his work. From 1876-1943, he exhibited regularly at the royal Academy; he was a founder member of the New English Art Club in 1886 although he ceased to exhibit there following his election as an Associate of the Royal Academy in 1895 and a Royal Academician in 1908.

Зимние работы

 

In the 1880s Clausen devoted himself to painting realistic scenes of rural work after seeing such pictures by the French artist Jules Bastien-Lepage (1848-84). In this picture he shows a family of field workers topping and tailing swedes for sheep fodder. It was painted at Chilwick Green near St Albans, where the artist had moved in 1881. He uses subdued colouring to capture the dull light and cold of winter, and manages to convey the hard reality of country work. Such unromanticised scenes of country life were often rejected by the selectors of the Royal Academy annual exhibitions.

The Mowers, 1885

 

Возвращение с поля, 1896

 

Сад в мае

Gaywood Almshouses, Kings-Lynn, 1881

View of a lady in pink standing in a cornfield, 1881

Цыганка-цветочница, 1883

Голова крестьянки

Старуха

Маленькая Роза

Карие глаза, 1891

his is a portrait of a local girl from the village of Cookham in Berkshire, where the artist was living in 1891. Clausen started painting open-air ‘rural naturalist’ subjects from 1880, in imitation of the French painter Jules Bastien-Lepage. His Poor Fauvette of 1881 may have influenced the wide-eyed stare and passive immobility of this girl.

Голова девочки, 1890

Сельская девочка

 

Полдень на сенокосе

Study for Head of a Girl (Emmy Wright)

Девушка у ворот, 1889

This picture was painted at Cookham Dean in Berkshire, where George Clausen lived. Mary Baldwin modelled for the woman at the gate. She was from Cookham Dean village and worked as the Clausen family’s nanny. Clausen was one of the ‘rural naturalists’, a young generation of predominantly French-trained painters who painted realistic scenes of everyday country life, in the late nineteenth century. Like others in this group Clausen was greatly influenced by the French painter Jules Bastien-Lepage, who painted in a similar style.

Серия сообщений "Англия":
Часть 1 - Английский пейзажист Джордж Коул
Часть 2 - Эльфы Cicely Mary Barker
...
Часть 5 - Лондон Rose Barton
Часть 6 - Английская художница Rolinda Sharples
Часть 7 - Творчество Джорджа Классена (George Clausen) (заготовка)
Часть 8 - Сказочный мир Артура Рэкема
Часть 9 - Затеряные сады Хэлигана
...
Часть 43 - Chatsworth House. Поместье, где снимали "Гордость и Предубеждение"
Часть 44 - Дом Джейн Остин, деревня Чоутон и Винчестерский собор
Часть 45 - Вера Линн