John Smart

John Smart (c. 1740–1811), was an English painter of portrait miniatures. He was a contemporary of Richard Cosway, George Engleheart, William Wood and Richard Crosse.

Biography

Smart was born in Norfolk, but not much is known of his early life. It is recorded that in 1755 he was runner up to Richard Cosway in a drawing competition for under-14s held by the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce. In the same year he began attending the new drawing school of William Shipley in London, along with Cosway and Richard Crosse.

He exhibited at the Society of Artists, in London, from 1762 onwards; and became its president in 1778. He went to India in 1788 and obtained a number of commissions in that country. He settled down in London in 1797, and died there in 1811.

He was a man of simple habits, and a member of the Society of Sandemanians.

Work

Smart mainly painted watercolour miniatures on ivory, and often clearly signed and dated his work. A number of his preparatory drawings and sketches survive.

John Smart (landscape artist)

John Smart (R.S.A.),(R.S.W.)(October 16, 1838 in Leith, Scotland – June 1, 1899 in Edinburgh, Scotland) was a Scottish landscape painter. He also tackled genre subjects, and painted in both oils and watercolour.

Smart played golf at Leith Links. He is now perhaps best known for his early paintings of golf courses in Scotland, "The Golf Greens of Scotland".

Life

John Smart was born in Leith, the son of Robert Campbell Smart (d.1871), an engraver operating from 20 Elm Row. His mother was Emily Margaret Morton.

He was educated at Leith High School, and then studied art at the School of Manufacturers, with the intention of becoming an engraver himself. After showing talent for landscape painting, he instead became a pupil of Horatio McCulloch. He was one of the founder members of the Royal Scottish Society of Painters in Watercolour (R.S.W.) and he was elected to the Royal Scottish Academy (R.S.A.) in 1877 after first being elected an associate (A.R.S.A.)in 1871.

Smart's paintings depicted scenery from across the Lowlands and highlands of Scotland. The critic James Caw said of Smart's landscape paintings, "If coarse in handling and wanting in subtlety of feeling, they are simple and effective in design, vivid in effect and powerful in execution, and breathe an ardent passion for the landscape of his native land."

John Smart (futurist)

John M. Smart (born 10 September 1960) is a futurist and scholar of accelerating change. He is founder and president of the Acceleration Studies Foundation, an organization that does "outreach, education, research, and advocacy with respect to issues of accelerating change". Smart has an MS in futures studies from the University of Houston, an MS equivalency (two years of med school and USMLE-I) in medicine from UCSD School of Medicine, and a BS in business administration from U.C. Berkeley. He also did graduate studies at UCSD under systems theorist James Grier Miller.

Ideas

Smart is the principal advocate of the concept of “STEM compression,” (formerly "MEST compression") the idea that the most (ostensibly) complex of the universe’s extant systems at any time (galaxies, stars, habitable planets, living systems, and now technological systems) use progressively less space, time, energy and matter (“STEM”) resources, and more dense arrangements of these resources, to create the next level of complexity in their evolutionary development. A similar perspective on the increasing efficiency of resource use, but not discussing increasing resource density, is found in Buckminster Fuller’s writings on ephemeralization.

John Smart (disambiguation)

John Smart (1740–1811) was an English painter of portrait miniatures.

John Smart may also refer to:

See also

John Smart (skier)

John Warren Smart (born 20 February 1965) is a Canadian freestyle skier. He was born in Témiscamingue. He competed at the 1992 Winter Olympics in Albertville, where he placed fifth in mouguls, and at the 1994 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer, where he placed seventh in moguls.

References