George Dawe - Pozzo di Borgo, France, 19th century

By the last decades of the 16th century, the refined Mannerism style had ceased to be an effective means of religious art expression. Catholic Church fought against Protestant Reformation to re-establish its dominance in European art by infusing Renaissance aesthetics enhanced by a new exuberant extravagance and penchant for the ornate. The new style was coined Baroque and roughly coincides with the 17th century. Baroque emphasizes dramatic motion, clear, easily interpreted grandeur, sensuous richness, drama, dynamism, movement, tension, emotional exuberance, and details, and often defined as being bizarre, or uneven. The term Baroque likely derived from the Italian word barocco, used by earlier scholars to name an obstacle in schematic logic to denote a contorted idea or involuted process of thought. Another possible source is the Portuguese word barroco (Spanish barrueco), used to describe an irregular or imperfectly shaped pearl, and this usage still survives in the jeweler’s term baroque pearl. Baroque spread across Europe led by the Pope in Rome and powerful religious orders as well as Catholic monarchs to Northern Italy, France, Spain, Flanders, Portugal, Austria, southern Germany, and colonial South America.

George Dawe (1781-1829) was an English portrait painter, best known for his portraits of Russian generals during the Napoleonic Wars. He was born in Kent, England, and trained at the Royal Academy Schools in London. Dawe gained recognition for his ability to capture the likeness and character of his sitters, and was particularly sought after by Russian patrons. In 1819 Dawe was invited by Tsar Alexander I to St Petersburg, Russia, to work on a series of portraits for the Military Gallery of the Winter Palace. Over the course of about a decade, Dawe painted over 300 portraits of Russian generals who had distinguished themselves in the Napoleonic Wars. These portraits, known as the 'Dawe portraits', are notable for their detailed depictions of military uniforms and the personalities of the sitters. Despite his success in Russia, Dawe's health began to fail and he returned to England in 1828. He died the following year in Kent.