Which Artists Have Influenced You?

Most of my heroes died before I was born, which allows them to expand to fill my imagination.

Andrew of Fine Art Today wanted to know:

Which artists, historical or contemporary, have influenced you the most and why? Is it purely conceptual or aesthetic? Both?

When I was a student, I read everything I could find about Salon and Royal Academy artists like Lawrence Alma Tadema, William-Adolphe Bouguereau, and Jean-Léon Gérôme (1824-1904. Below, his 1…