Vincent van Gogh, Paul Cezanne
and that greatest of aesthetes, Oscar Wilde,
were inspired by Adolphe Joseph Thomas Monticelli.
Wikipedia tells us:
Adolphe Joseph Thomas Monticelli (October 14, 1824 – June 29, 1886) was a French painter of the generation preceding the Impressionists.
In its painterly freedom Monticelli’s work prefigures that of Vincent van Gogh, who greatly admired his work after seeing it in Paris when he arrived there in 1886. Van Gogh immediately adopted a brighter palette and a bolder attack, and later remarked, “I sometimes think I am really continuing that man.” In 1890, Van Gogh and his brother Theo were instrumental in publishing the first book about Monticelli.
Monticelli’s reputation grew after his death. Among his collectors was Oscar Wilde who, after going to prison in 1895, wrote of his bankruptcy in a letter to Lord Alfred Douglas, “De Profundis”: “That all my charming things were to be sold: my Burne-Jones drawings: my Whistler drawings: my Monticelli: my Simeon Solomons: my china: my Library…