Page:Imperial Dictionary of Universal Biography Volume 1.pdf/665

BLO  to the literature of his profession are few and unimportant. The following is a list of the more important of them—"Observations on the Uses of Electricity in Deafness," 1790; "Hunterian Orations," 1815, 1823, 1828, "An Address to the Chairman and Members of the House Committee to the London Hospital on the Subject of Cholera," 1831; "Desultory Reflections on Police, with an Essay on the Means of Preventing Crimes and Amending Criminals," 1788. He also wrote several papers in the Philosophical Transactions.—E. L.  * BLOCH (in Hungarian BALLAGI),, a Hungarian writer, was born of Jewish parents at Ternova in Hungary in 1815. In order to complete his studies he went to Paris and afterwards to Germany, where he embraced protestantism. In 1845 he became professor at, and some years later headmaster of, the gymnasium at Szarvas. During the revolution of 1848 he acted as secretary to the Hungarian minister at war. He has published a Hungarian translation of the Pentateuch and of Joshua, a Hungarian grammar and dictionary, a collection of Hungarian proverbs, and other valuable works.—K. E.  BLOCH,, a Danish botanist, bishop of Ripen in Denmark, was born in 1717, and died in 1773. He devoted his special attention to botany, and endeavoured to elucidate the plants of scripture. He published at Copenhagen, in 1767, a dissertation on the palm-tree of the Bible.—J. H. B.  BLOCH,, a Danish gardener, published at Copenhagen in 1647 a treatise on Danish horticulture.—J. H. B.  BLOCH,, a celebrated naturalist, practised medicine at Berlin, where he died in 1799, at the age of seventy-six. He was a native of Anspach, and professed the Jewish religion. His "Allgemeine Naturgeschichte der Fische" (Natural History of Fishes), described by Dr. Whewell as "the magnificent work," and his "Systema Ichthyologiæ iconibus CX illustratum," edited, after the author's death, by Schneider, have acquired the highest authority in the scientific world. His valuable collection of specimens was purchased by the late king of Prussia, Frederick-William III., and presented to the Berlin Academy of Sciences.—T. T.  BLOCHMANN,, a distinguished German educator, was born at Reichstädt in Saxony, 19th February, 1786, and died at Château Lanoy, near Geneva, 21st May, 1855. He studied theology at Leipzig, and from 1809-1816 was teacher at the famous school of Pestalozzi at Yverdun. He is widely known as the founder of the celebrated Blochmann' sche Institut at Dresden. See "Blochmann, Über die Grundsätze, Zwecke und Mittel meiner Erziehungsanstalt," Dresden, 1826.—K. E.  BLOCHWITZ,, a German medical man and botanist, was born at Oschatz in Saxony, and lived at the beginning of the seventeenth century. He published a work "On the Anatomy of the Elder," which was printed at Leipzig in 1631, and was reprinted in English in London in 1650. he was also the author of an essay on palsy.—J. H. B.  BLOCK,, a Pomeranian portrait painter, born in 1580. He studied under Jacob Scherer, and soon surpassed his master. He became court painter at the courts of Denmark, Sweden, and Mecklenberg, and perpetuated the mortal aspects of Christian IV. and the great warrior Gustavus, whom our old friend Dalgetty served under. He sat forty-four years in happy brooding observation over the Mecklenberg court easel, and during that time perpetuated the full length likenesses of all the ducal family, robing them in antique dresses. His agreeable colour, and easy graceful posing soon made him fashionable, and as he now ministered to a fashionable vanity he grew rich. A sudden swoop of German black riders, however, stripped him of all but life, and he died poor in 1661, cursing war and its results. His son,, was born at Lubeck in 1631, and his first success was a pen-and-ink likeness of the duke of Mecklenberg, fine as an engraving. The duke sent him to Rome to study, and he also visited Venice and Florence, where he spent some years copying—procuring access to the most curious cabinets. He became also known as a portrait painter at the Saxon court, the nobles all turning in flocks to where the elector came.—He also painted altarpieces for many German and Hungarian churches, where they still hang and gather dust. His chef d'oeuvre was a portrait of Kircher, the learned jesuit.—W. T. <section end="665H" /> <section begin="665I" />BLOCK,, an architectural painter, born at Gouda in 1580. He learned the mysteries of perspective in Rome, where he became renowned for a grand and elegant style. Rubens, always generous in judgment, came to see him, and declared that in his walk he had no superiors. His architectural subjects recommended him to the archduke Leopold, who gave him a pension, and kept him on his staff as military architect and engineer, his spare time being devoted to working up his sketches of Roman ruins, for he was essentially a painting builder, just as Martin was a painting arithmetician, Veronese a painting decorator, and Angelico a painting religionist. In 1632, as he was riding to reconnoitre the works of St. Vinox in Flanders, and crossing a plank-bridge. Block was drowned.—W. T. <section end="665I" /> <section begin="665J" />BLOCKLAND,, born of a noble family at Montfort in 1532, and a pupil and imitator of Francis Floris. His outline has been compared to that of Parmegiano, who died when Blockland was young. He died at Utrecht, which he adorned with so many pictures, in 1583. His best works are a "Venus," and a "Joseph and his Brethren"—almost of the grand Florentine school. Delft and Utrecht have many of his treasures. The "Birth of the Virgin," the "Annunciation" and "Assumption" were at Utrecht, the "Dedication of St. John" at Gouda (where our Dutch cheeses come from), and his "Scenes of the Passion at Utrecht." Hubert Goltzius engraved some of his works. His colour and composition were both good, his nude drawing correct, and he excelled in portrait.—W. T. <section end="665J" /> <section begin="665K" />BLOEMAERT,, a Dutch painter and engraver, born at Gorcum in 1564 or 1567, and died at Utrecht in 1647. He was the son of an architect (a good stock for an artist), and studied under De Bier and Floris. His pictures, though fanciful, are good, his touch is free and bold, his draperies simple and unaffected, his chiaro-scuro unimpeachable. He excelled in cattle, landscapes, history, and religious subjects—a wide margin for any one. His great work was a "Destruction of Niobe," the figures as large as life, painted for the emperor Rodolph; for the count de la Lippe he painted a "Feast of the Gods." His other works were the "Wise Men's Offering" for the jesuit church at Brussels, the "Glory of the Virgin" for the Mechlin cathedral, and a "Nativity" for Leliendale. His etchings are bold and free, and often imitations of pen drawings. His chiaroscuro prints are clever. The outlines are not in wood, but are etched in copper. His son, Henry, was a heavy portrait painter. His second son, Adrian, travelled to Italy, went to Vienna, became known, and was killed in a duel at Salzburg. The third son, Frederick, was an engraver of his father's works. His youngest son, Cornelius, studied under De Passe, and became a first-rate engraver, living at Rome. He died in 1680. In 1630 he went to Paris, and worked for the Temple of the Muses. He introduced a softer middle tint and less spotty light than had been before known, together with much more variety and gradation of colour.—W. T. <section end="665K" /> <section begin="665L" />BLOEMEN,, a Flemish painter, born at Antwerp in 1656, but who studied and resided his life long in Rome. The jovial Bentrogel Society gave him the name of "Orizonte," from his Turnerian power of conveying a sense of distance and recession. Almost his first work, after the toil of copying to get a taste had passed over, made him known and hailed as a man of promise. The pope and the red-hatted flock of cardinals began to buy his works, whether he imitated Vander Cabel, Poussin, or nature relieved from vulgarity by alteration. The ruined, wasted region he visited, and brought home his sketches to work out here a mountain and there a waterfall. The tints in water, and the opacity of collective air, he excelled in representing. He died in 1740. His pictures are in all the hill palaces of Rome. He etched, Bryan says, five views of Rome in a (old) masterly manner. Conca sometimes painted his figures.—W. T. <section end="665L" /> <section begin="665Zcontin" />BLOEMEN,, surnamed —a dashing military sobriquet he earned by his pictures of sweeping storms of cavalry. He was the brother of Orizonte, and like him was born at Antwerp and educated in Rome. A master of colour, composition, and drawing, the noble exile returned to his Spanish city in 1699 to become director of the Academy. Peter painted feather-dancing trains of cavaliers, noisy encampments, whirlwind battles, Italian fairs and festas, torch scenes, broken statues, basso relievos, and other Pousinnish side dishes, taken from museums to be placed where they never were, in ruined Arcadias. Ernest Pilkington, the eclectic all over, calls his compositions rich and filled with figures, his horses graceful and spirited, his ruins "in a noble taste, his colour of a good tone, and his figures excellent, though sometimes laboured, stiff, and smelling of the palette." , the younger brother, <section end="665Zcontin" />