Born in Shanghai, China during the “Cultural Revolution” (a time in China that could more accurately be called the “Cultural Wasteland”), Lucong (Cong Hua Lu) moved with his family to the American midwest at the age of 11. [Correction, he grew up in the period just after the Cultural Revolution, see this post’s comments.]

He was always interested in drawing and art, but in following the expectation that he would go into the sciences, his BA in art was earned at the University of Iowa while simultaneously pursuing a degree in Biology.

Lucong followed his desire to be an artist first on leaving school, moving to Denver and teaching himself to paint in oil, and achieving recognition relatively quickly.

His oil portraits have a fascinating feeling of delicacy in their Ingres-like attention to line, and the use of muted value and hue relationships within the faces. His faces are often set against a subdued background in similar tones, leaving the subjects’ hair in striking, almost graphic, contrast.

At other times, he uses more dramatic value contrasts between the face and background, but still keeps the color carefully restrained. He sometimes poses his subjects in front of other works of art.

I noticed an almost Gothic simplification of the shapes of eyes; which, along with the sometimes formal poses, gives the portraits some of the penetrating stillness found in pre-Renaissance art.

The portfolio of works on the site is divided into painting and drawings. The drawings, though apparently drawn from life, are more interpretive, almost caricatures, with heads large in proportion to bodies and a pleasantly cartoon-like handling of line.

On Lucong’s blog, you will find the works described in more detail, with dates and sizes. Clicking on the blog images reveals larger versions of the images (lacking in the regular portfolio) that let you appreciate the handling of the surface and marvelous details of the work. There are also pieces there that are not in the portfolio section.

There is a wistfulness to the expressions of his sitters, perhaps exemplifying what he describes in his statement as a longing for something undefined that can never be fully obtained.

[Contains some images that could be considered NSFW]

[Update 2014: Lucong seems to have discontinued his website and blog, and is using a new Tumblr blog: http://lucong.tumblr.com/]

Ford Madox Brown was a Victorian painter who is often mentioned or included in books and articles on the Pre-Raphaelites.

Though he was lifelong friends with Dante Gabriel Rossetti, the leader of the Pre-aphaelite Brotherhood, and was philosophically in keeping with many of their ideals and artistic aims, he was never actually a member of the Brotherhood. He got on less well, evidently, with other members William Holman Hunt and John Everett Millais.

Brown’s artistic predilections came largely from the influence of the Nazarenes, a group of German painters, including Johann Overbeck and Peter von Cornelius, who were established prior to the Pre-Raphaelites and who shared many characteristics with them in style and artistic philosophy.

Brown was in opposition to the Royal Academy, which dictated artistic acceptance in England at the time, and was one of the first painters to mount one-man exhibitions. Rossetti was actually a student of Brown’s for a short time, but quickly changed to study under William Holman Hunt. It seemed to have little effect on their friendship.

Brown’s most renowned painting, Work (image above, top, larger version here, detail here), is notable for it’s detail and technique, but to my mind is weighted down with its ambitious attempt to essentially represent all aspects of life in Victorian England. The subjects within the painting and its historical context are fascinating, though. The city of Manchester Art Gallery has an interesting interactive, aimed at grade schoolers, that examines some of the social aspects the painting.

One of the notable characteristics of Work is that it was painted in part on location, an unusual practice particularly for work of this kind. The painting took thirteen years to finish.

It was also in Manchester that Brown completed the series of murals that would be the major achievement of his later career (many are viewable on Wikimedia Commons).

Another notable painting of Brown’s was The Last of England, showing a family forced to leave the difficult conditions in England in search of a life elsewhere, a situation facing Brown himself until sale of the painting kept him afloat.

A notable earlier work is The Pretty Baa-Lambs (image above, middle with detail, bottom, large version here), which is mentioned as a pre-Pre-Raphaelaite work (if you’ll excuse the expression), debuting in 1852 and painted on a white ground, instead of the customary browns, for unusual vibrancy of color. The same painting is sometimes mentioned as a precursor to Impressionism as well, in that it was painted largely on location and with an uncanny fidelity to the look of natural daylight.