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Urfé, Honoré d'

(Encyclopedia)Urfé, Honoré d' ōnōrāˈ dürfāˈ [key], 1567–1625, French novelist. He was the author of L'Astrée (5 vol., 1607–10), the principal French pastoral novel. It portrays shepherds and shepherde...

Welhaven, Johan Sebastian

(Encyclopedia)Welhaven, Johan Sebastian yōhänˈ sābäsˈtyän vĕlˈhävən [key], 1807–73, Norwegian poet and critic. His charming and reflective poetry, tending toward the classical in style, drew much inspi...

Mondrian, Piet

(Encyclopedia)Mondrian, Piet pēt mônˈdrēän [key], 1872–1944, Dutch painter. He studied at the academy in Amsterdam and passed through an early naturalistic phase. In 1910 he went to Paris, where the influenc...

art nouveau

(Encyclopedia)art nouveau ärˌ no͞ovōˈ [key], decorative-art movement centered in Western Europe. It began in the 1880s as a reaction against the historical emphasis of mid-19th-century art, but did not survive...

Lorenzetti

(Encyclopedia)Lorenzetti lōrān-tsĕtˈtē [key], two brothers who were major Sienese painters. Pietro Lorenzetti, c.1280–c.1348, was first influenced by Duccio di Buoninsegna and Giovanni Pisano. His earliest k...

Kano, family or school of Japanese painters

(Encyclopedia)Kano käˈnō [key], family or school of Japanese painters. Kano Masanobu, c.1434–c.1530, the forerunner of the school, was attached to the shogun Yoshimasa's court. He painted landscapes, birds, an...

Mo Yan

(Encyclopedia)Mo Yan, 1955–, Chinese novelist, pen name of Guan Moye, b. Shandong prov. Mo is one of contemporary China's most prolific and popular writers. He left school in the fifth grade and did farm and fact...

Gluck, Christoph Willibald von

(Encyclopedia)Gluck, Christoph Willibald von krĭsˈtôf vĭlˈēbält fən glo͝ok [key], 1714–87, German-born operatic composer. Gluck revolutionized opera by establishing lyrical tragedy as a unified vital art...

Góngora y Argote, Luis de

(Encyclopedia)Góngora y Argote, Luis de lo͞oēsˈ dā gōnˈgōrä ē ärgōˈtā [key], 1561–1627, poet of the Spanish Golden Age, b. Cordova. Of a cultured family, he studied in Salamanca and became a prebend...

Chippendale, Thomas

(Encyclopedia)Chippendale, Thomas chĭpˈəndālˌ [key], 1718–79, celebrated English cabinetmaker. His designs were so widely followed that a whole general category of 18th-century English furniture is commonly ...