1.
1660s in architecture
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1660 - Completion of Moti Masjid in the Red Fort of Delhi. Tilya-Kori Madrasah in the Registan of Samarkand,1661 - Work begins on Versailles, near Paris. 1662 King Charles Court of the Greenwich Hospital in London, designed by John Webb, coleshill House in the Vale of White Horse, England, designed by Roger Pratt, completed. 1663-1665 - Kingston Lacy in Dorset and Horseheath Hall in Cambridgeshire, 1664-1667 - Clarendon House in London, designed by Roger Pratt, built. 1665 September 21 - New chapel at Pembroke College, Cambridge, England, chapel of Brasenose College, Oxford is consecrated. SantAndrea al Quirinale in Rome, designed by Bernini, is completed,1667 January 27 - The Opernhaus am Taschenberg in Dresden, designed by Wolf Caspar von Klengel, is opened. Saint Peters Square in the Vatican City, designed by Bernini, is completed,1669 July 9 - Sheldonian Theatre in Oxford, England, designed by Christopher Wren for University ceremonial, is inaugurated. September 28 - Second Royal Exchange, London, designed by Edward Jarman, is opened for business,1666, September 2–5 - The Great Fire of London destroys most of the city including Old St Pauls Cathedral. 1668 - Roger Pratt becomes the first person knighted for services to architecture,1669 - Christopher Wren appointed Surveyor of the Kings Works in England
2.
Philip IV of Spain
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Philip IV of Spain was King of Spain and Portugal as Philip III. He ascended the thrones in 1621 and reigned in Spain until his death, Philip is remembered for his patronage of the arts, including such artists as Diego Velázquez, and his rule over Spain during the challenging period of the Thirty Years War. Philip IV was born in Valladolid, and was the eldest son of Philip III and his wife, Philip had seven children by Elisabeth, with only one being a son, Balthasar Charles, who died at the age of sixteen in 1646. The death of his son deeply shocked the king, who appears to have been a father by the standards of the day. Philip remarried in 1646, following the deaths of both Elisabeth and his legitimate heir. Perceptions of Philips personality have altered considerably over time, victorian authors were inclined to portray him as a weak individual, delegating excessively to his ministers, and ruling over a debauched Baroque court. Victorian historians even attributed the death of Baltasar to debauchery. The doctors who treated the Prince at that time in fact diagnosed smallpox, Philip was idealised by his contemporaries as the model of Baroque kingship. Philip was a horseman, a keen hunter and a devotee of bull-fighting. Privately, Philip appears to have had a lighter persona, when he was younger, he was said to have a keen sense of humour and a great sense of fun. He privately attended academies in Madrid throughout his reign — these were lighthearted literary salons, aiming to analyse contemporary literature, a keen theatre-goer, he was sometimes criticised by contemporaries for his love of these frivolous entertainments. Others have captured his private personality as naturally kind, gentle and affable and those close to him claimed he was academically competent, with a good grasp of Latin and geography, and could speak French, Portuguese and Italian well. Like many of his contemporaries, including Olivares, he had a keen interest in astrology and his handwritten translation of Francesco Guicciardinis texts on political history still exists. Although Philips Catholic beliefs no longer attract criticism from English language writers, notably, from the 1640s onwards he sought the advice of a noted cloistered abbess, Sor María de Ágreda, exchanging many letters with her. By the end of the reign, and with the health of Carlos José in doubt, there was a possibility of Juan Josés making a claim on the throne. Philip IV came to power as the influence of the Sandovals was being undermined by a new noble coalition, over the course of at least a year, however, the relationship became very close, with Philips tendency towards underconfidence and diffidence counteracted by Olivares drive and determination. Philip retained Olivares as his confidant and chief minister for the twenty years. Philip himself argued that it was appropriate for the king himself to go house to house amongst his ministers to see if his instructions were being carried out
3.
Court painter
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A court painter was an artist who painted for the members of a royal or noble family, sometimes on a fixed salary and on an exclusive basis where the artist was not supposed to undertake other work. Especially in the late Middle Ages, they were given the office of valet de chambre. Usually they were given a salary and formal title, and often a pension for life, in England the role of Serjeant Painter was set up for this, leaving the Kings painter free to paint mostly portraits. See category of Italian art collectors for lists that included non-aristocratic patrons, some artists, like Jan van Eyck or Diego Velázquez, were used in other capacities at court, as diplomats, functionaries, or administrators. In Islamic cultures, especially between the 14th and 17th centuries, similar arrangements operated for miniaturists and artists in other media. In the Persian miniature, the shah and other rulers typically maintained a workshop or atelier, of calligraphers, miniaturists, binders and other crafts. The name by which Riza Abbasi is usually includes the honorific title Abbasi. Abd as-Samad, a Persian painter who moved to the Mughal Empire, was given a number of significant administrative jobs, the court remained the focus of patronage of painting in the sub-Mughal princely courts of India, whether Muslim or Hindu. At many periods rulers owned or controlled royal workshops or factories making high-quality tapestries, porcelain or pottery, silks and this was especially the case in China and in the Byzantine Empire. Le Brun dominated, and largely created, the style found throughout Louis XIVs palaces, by the 20th century court painters was an obsolete position. Commonly more artists were granted permission by royalty who would sit for official portraits whether for private of patron purposes, Artists of the Tudor Court 21st Century Court Artists Michael Levey, Painting at Court, Weidenfeld and Nicholson, London,1971
4.
Restoration (England)
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The term Restoration is used to describe both the actual event by which the monarchy was restored, and the period of several years afterwards in which a new political settlement was established. It is very used to cover the whole reign of Charles II. Richard Cromwells main weakness was that he did not have the confidence of the army, after seven months, an army faction known as the Wallingford House party removed him on 6 May 1659 and reinstalled the Rump Parliament. Charles Fleetwood was appointed a member of the Committee of Safety and of the Council of State, on 9 June 1659, he was nominated lord-general of the army. However, his leadership was undermined in Parliament, which chose to disregard the armys authority in a fashion to the post-First Civil War Parliament. A royalist uprising was planned for 1 August 1659, but it was foiled, however, Sir George Booth gained control of Cheshire, Charles II hoped that with Spanish support he could effect a landing, but none was forthcoming. Booth held Cheshire until the end of August when he was defeated by General Lambert, the Commons, on 12 October 1659, cashiered General John Lambert and other officers, and installed Fleetwood as chief of a military council under the authority of the Speaker. The next day Lambert ordered that the doors of the House be shut, on 26 October a Committee of Safety was appointed, of which Fleetwood and Lambert were members. Lambert was appointed major-general of all the forces in England and Scotland, the Committee of Safety sent Lambert with a large force to meet George Monck, who was in command of the English forces in Scotland, and either negotiate with him or force him to come to terms. It was into this atmosphere that Monck, the governor of Scotland under the Cromwells, lamberts army began to desert him, and he returned to London almost alone. The Presbyterian members, excluded in Prides Purge of 1648, were recalled, Fleetwood was deprived of his command and ordered to appear before Parliament to answer for his conduct. On 3 March 1660, Lambert was sent to the Tower of London, Lambert was incarcerated and died in custody on Guernsey in 1694, Ingoldsby was indeed pardoned. On 4 April 1660, Charles II issued the Declaration of Breda, Monck organised the Convention Parliament, which met for the first time on 25 April. On 8 May it proclaimed that King Charles II had been the monarch since the execution of Charles I on 30 January 1649. Constitutionally, it was as if the last nineteen years had never happened, Charles returned from exile, leaving the Hague on 23 May and landing at Dover on 25 May. He entered London on 29 May, his birthday, to celebrate his Majestys Return to his Parliament,29 May was made a public holiday, popularly known as Oak Apple Day. He was crowned at Westminster Abbey on 23 April 1661, some contemporaries described the Restoration as a divinely ordained miracle. The sudden and unexpected deliverance from usurpation and tyranny was interpreted as a restoration of the natural, the Cavalier Parliament convened for the first time on 8 May 1661, and it would endure for over 17 years, finally being dissolved on 24 January 1679
5.
Charles II of England
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Charles II was king of England, Scotland and Ireland. He was king of Scotland from 1649 until his deposition in 1651, Charles IIs father, Charles I, was executed at Whitehall on 30 January 1649, at the climax of the English Civil War. Cromwell defeated Charles II at the Battle of Worcester on 3 September 1651, Cromwell became virtual dictator of England, Scotland and Ireland, and Charles spent the next nine years in exile in France, the Dutch Republic and the Spanish Netherlands. A political crisis followed the death of Cromwell in 1658 resulted in the restoration of the monarchy. On 29 May 1660, his 30th birthday, he was received in London to public acclaim, after 1660, all legal documents were dated as if he had succeeded his father as king in 1649. Charless English parliament enacted laws known as the Clarendon Code, designed to shore up the position of the re-established Church of England, Charles acquiesced to the Clarendon Code even though he favoured a policy of religious tolerance. The major foreign policy issue of his reign was the Second Anglo-Dutch War. In 1670, he entered into the treaty of Dover. Louis agreed to aid him in the Third Anglo-Dutch War and pay him a pension, Charles attempted to introduce religious freedom for Catholics and Protestant dissenters with his 1672 Royal Declaration of Indulgence, but the English Parliament forced him to withdraw it. In 1679, Titus Oatess revelations of a supposed Popish Plot sparked the Exclusion Crisis when it was revealed that Charless brother, the crisis saw the birth of the pro-exclusion Whig and anti-exclusion Tory parties. Charles sided with the Tories, and, following the discovery of the Rye House Plot to murder Charles and James in 1683, Charles dissolved the English Parliament in 1681, and ruled alone until his death on 6 February 1685. He was received into the Roman Catholic Church on his deathbed, Charless wife, Catherine of Braganza, bore no live children, but Charles acknowledged at least twelve illegitimate children by various mistresses. He was succeeded by his brother James, Charles II was born in St Jamess Palace on 29 May 1630. His parents were Charles I and Henrietta Maria, Charles was their second son and child. Their first son was born about a year before Charles but died within a day, England, Scotland and Ireland were respectively predominantly Anglican, Presbyterian and Roman Catholic. At birth, Charles automatically became Duke of Cornwall and Duke of Rothesay, at or around his eighth birthday, he was designated Prince of Wales, though he was never formally invested. During the 1640s, when Charles was still young, his father fought Parliamentary, by spring 1646, his father was losing the war, and Charles left England due to fears for his safety. Charles I surrendered into captivity in May 1646, at The Hague, Charles had a brief affair with Lucy Walter, who later falsely claimed that they had secretly married
6.
Peter Lely
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Sir Peter Lely was a painter of Dutch origin, whose career was nearly all spent in England, where he became the dominant portrait painter to the court. Lely was born Pieter van der Faes to Dutch parents in Soest in Westphalia, Lely studied painting in Haarlem, where he may have been apprenticed to Pieter de Grebber. He became a master of the Guild of Saint Luke in Haarlem in 1637 and he is reputed to have adopted the surname Lely from a heraldic lily on the gable of the house where his father was born in The Hague. He arrived in London in around 1641, which was marked by the death of Anthony van Dyck in December and his early English paintings, mainly mythological or religious scenes, or portraits set in a pastoral landscape, show influences from Anthony van Dyck and the Dutch baroque. Lelys portraits were well received, and he succeeded Anthony van Dyck as the most fashionable portrait artist in England and he became a freeman of the Painter-Stainers Company in 1647 and was portrait artist to Charles I. His talent ensured that his career was not interrupted by Charless execution, and he served Oliver Cromwell, whom he painted warts and all, in the years around 1650 the poet Sir Richard Lovelace wrote two poems about Lely – Peinture and See what a clouded majesty. After the English Restoration in 1660, Lely was appointed as Charles IIs Principal Painter in Ordinary in 1661, with a stipend of £200 per year, Lely became a naturalised English subject in 1662. The young Robert Hooke came to London to follow an apprenticeship with Lely before being given a place at Westminster School by Richard Busby, demand was high, and Lely and his large workshop were prolific. After Lely painted a head, Lelys pupils would often complete the portrait in one of a series of numbered poses. As a result, Lely is the first English painter who has left a mass of work. On Lely’s death in 1680 his executors employed a dozen such slaves to complete for sale the many unfinished canvases stacked about his studio and his most famous non-portrait work is probably Nymphs by a fountain in Dulwich Picture Gallery. Lely played a significant role in introducing the mezzotint to Britain and he encouraged Dutch mezzotinters to come to Britain to copy his work, laying the foundations for the English mezzotint tradition. He died soon afterwards at his easel in Covent Garden, while painting a portrait of the Duchess of Somerset, and was buried at St Pauls Church, Covent Garden. Some items in it which had acquired by Lely from the Commonwealth dispersal of Charles Is art collections. He was replaced as court portraitist by Sir Godfrey Kneller, also a German-born Dutchman, whose style drew from Lelys, between them they established the basic English portrait style followed by less fashionable painters for decades. Amongst Lelys pupils were John Greenhill and Willem Wissing, a horse was also named after him, finishing fourth in the 1996 Grand National. Peter Lelys works Millar, Oliver Lely, Sir Peter Grove Dictionary of Art,19, pp. 119–125 Millar, Oliver Sir Peter Lely 1618-80, National Portrait Gallery,1978. Painting in Britain 1530 to 1790, fourth Edition, New York, Viking Penguin,1978
7.
Jan van Kessel the Elder
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Jan van Kessel the Elder or Jan van Kessel was a Flemish painter active in Antwerp in the mid 17the century. Jan van Kessel the Elder was born in Antwerp as the son of Hieronymus van Kessel the Younger and he was thus Jan Brueghel the Elders grandson, Pieter Bruegel the Elders great-grandson and the nephew of Jan Brueghel the Younger). His direct ancestors in the van Kessel family line were his grandfather Hieronymus van Kessel the Elder and his father Hieronymus van Kessel the Younger, very little is known about the work of these van Kessel ancestors. At the age of only 9, Jan van Kessel was sent to study with the history painter Simon de Vos and he further trained with family members who were artists. He was a pupil of his father and his uncle Jan Brueghel the Younger, in 1644 he became a member of the Antwerp Guild of Saint Luke where he was recorded as a blomschilder. He married Maria van Apshoven on 11 June 1646, the couple had 13 children of whom two, Jan and Ferdinand, were trained by him and became successful painters. He was captain of a local schutterij in Antwerp, Jan van Kessel was financially successful as his works commanded high prices. He bought in 1656 a house called the Witte en Roode Roos in central Antwerp, by the time his wife died in 1678 his fortune seems to have turned for the worse. In 1679 he had to mortgage his house and he had become too ill to paint and died on 17 April 1679 in Antwerp. He trained other painters and also his own family members and his pupils included his sons Jan and Ferdinand. Jan van Kessel the Elders dated works range from 1648 to 1676, attribution of work to Jan van Kessel the Elder has been difficult due to confusion with other artists with a similar name all active around the same time. In addition to his son Jan, there was another Antwerp painter with the name Jan van Kessel who painted still lifes, another problem for attributions has been the fact that Jan van Kessel the Elder used two different styles of signature on his work. He used a cursive, more decorative signature for larger formats and this practice lead to the erroneous assumption that these works were made by two different painters. Obsessed with picturesque detail, van Kessel worked from nature and used illustrated scientific texts as sources for filling his pictures with objects represented with almost scientific accuracy. Jan van Kessel produced a number of studies of animals such as insects, caterpillars and reptiles as well as images of flowers. He showed himself to be an observer and his animal studies were praised in his day for their meticulousness. His work in this field reflects the worldview in which the appreciation of art. An important influence on his studies was the scientific naturalism of the Flemish artist Joris Hoefnagel known primarily for his illuminated manuscripts
8.
Filippo Abbiati
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Born in Milan, he was a pupil of the painter Antonio Busca. Alessandro Magnasco was one of his pupils along with Pietro Maggi, Ticozzi claims he trained, along with Federigo Bianchi, with Carlo Francesco Nuvolone. Along with Bianchi, he painted the cupola of SantAlessandro Martire in Milan, abbiati also painted a St. John preaching in the Wilderness for a church in Saronno. The Solemn Entrance of Charles Borromeo in Milan, from the Quadroni of St. Ticozzi, dizionario degli architetti, scultori, pittori, intagliatori in rame ed in pietra, coniatori di medaglie, musaicisti, niellatori, intarsiatori d’ogni etá e d’ogni nazione. Gaetano Schiepatti, Digitized by Googlebooks, Jan 24,2007
9.
Gerrit Dou
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Gerrit Dou, also known as Gerard and Douw or Dow, was a Dutch Golden Age painter, whose small, highly polished paintings are typical of the Leiden fijnschilders. He specialised in genre scenes and is noted for his trompe loeil niche paintings and he was a student of Rembrandt. Dou was born in Leiden, where his father was a manufacturer of stained-glass and he studied drawing under Bartholomeus Dolendo, and then trained in the stained-glass workshop of Pieter Couwenhorn. In February 1628, at the age of fourteen, his father sent him to painting in the studio of Rembrandt who lived nearby. At a comparatively early point in his career, however, he developed a manner of his own which diverged considerably from Rembrandts. He is said to have spent five days in painting a hand, notwithstanding the minuteness of his touch, the general effect was harmonious and free from stiffness, and his colour was always fresh and transparent. He often represented subjects in lantern or candle light, the effects of which he reproduced with an unparalleled fidelity and he often painted with the aid of a concave mirror, and to obtain exactness looked at his subject through a frame crossed with squares of silk thread. His practice as a painter, which was at first considerable, gradually declined. His pictures were small in size. More than 200 are attributed to him, and examples are to be found in most of the public collections of Europe. His chef-doeuvre is generally considered to be The dropsical woman, and The Dutch Housewife, the Evening School, in the Amsterdam Rijksmuseum, is the best example of the candlelight scenes in which he excelled. In the National Gallery, London, favorable specimens are to be seen in the Poulterers Shop, and a self-portrait. Queen Christina of Sweden owned eleven paintings by Dou, and Cosimo III de Medici visited his house, the Dutch royal court itself, however, preferred work of a more classical tendency. His most noted pupils were Frans van Mieris the Elder. angels also stresses how Dou’s paintings expressed the paragone debate current around that time. The debate was a competition between painting, sculpture and poetry as to which was the best representation of nature. It was especially popular in Leiden where the painters were seeking to obtain the rights of a guild from the council in order to have laws for their economic protection. The paragone debate is not only addressed in writings from that time but is reflected in the subject matter of several of Dou’s paintings. An example of this is the Old Painter at work, in which an old painter is shown working on a canvas behind a table displaying objects that show his capabilities of imitation
10.
Reinier Nooms
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Reinier Nooms, also known as Zeeman, was a maritime painter known for his highly detailed paintings and etchings of ships. Nooms was probably born and died in Amsterdam and he started painting and drawing in his later years, following a rough, drunken life as a sailor. It is not known how he acquired his skill as an artist and his knowledge of ships is evident from his work, ships and foreign locations are depicted with high accuracy and in great detail, and served as an example to other artists of how to depict ships. A widely traveled artist, Nooms visited Paris, Venice and possibly Berlin, a favourite subject of his paintings were the Dutch victories in the Anglo-Dutch Wars. For instance, he painted the Amalia, the flagship of admiral Maarten Tromp and this painting now hangs in the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, UK. His painting of the Battle of Leghorn in 1653 is in the collection of the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, in the 1650s, Nooms made a series of etchings of ships and topographical views characterized by a high degree of detail and precision. These etchings served as an example to many artists, the 19th century French etcher Charles Méryon was highly influenced by Nooms, whose etchings of Paris cityscapes inspired Méryon to his own series of Paris etchings. Méryon even dedicated some of work to Nooms in poetic form. One of Nooms final works, from 1664, shows a view of the Amsterdam harbour, with the IJ bay, appropriately, this work now hangs in the Netherlands Maritime Museum. Maritime Art Greenwich Artcyclopedia Rijksmuseum Hollsteins Dutch and Flemish Etchings, Engravings and Woodcuts 1450-1700 - Reinier Zeeman, parts I and II
11.
Rembrandt
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Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn was a Dutch draughtsman, painter, and printmaker. A prolific and versatile master across three media, he is considered one of the greatest visual artists in the history of art. Having achieved youthful success as a painter, Rembrandts later years were marked by personal tragedy. Yet his etchings and paintings were popular throughout his lifetime, his reputation as an artist remained high, Rembrandts portraits of his contemporaries, self-portraits and illustrations of scenes from the Bible are regarded as his greatest creative triumphs. His self-portraits form a unique and intimate biography, in which the artist surveyed himself without vanity and his reputation as the greatest etcher in the history of the medium was established in his lifetime, and never questioned since. Few of his paintings left the Dutch Republic whilst he lived, but his prints were circulated throughout Europe, because of his empathy for the human condition, he has been called one of the great prophets of civilization. Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn was born on 15 July 1606 in Leiden, in the Dutch Republic and he was the ninth child born to Harmen Gerritszoon van Rijn and Neeltgen Willemsdochter van Zuijtbrouck. His family was quite well-to-do, his father was a miller, religion is a central theme in Rembrandts paintings and the religiously fraught period in which he lived makes his faith a matter of interest. His mother was Roman Catholic, and his father belonged to the Dutch Reformed Church, unlike many of his contemporaries who traveled to Italy as part of their artistic training, Rembrandt never left the Dutch Republic during his lifetime. He opened a studio in Leiden in 1624 or 1625, which he shared with friend, in 1627, Rembrandt began to accept students, among them Gerrit Dou in 1628. In 1629, Rembrandt was discovered by the statesman Constantijn Huygens, as a result of this connection, Prince Frederik Hendrik continued to purchase paintings from Rembrandt until 1646. He initially stayed with an art dealer, Hendrick van Uylenburgh, Saskia came from a good family, her father had been a lawyer and the burgemeester of Leeuwarden. When Saskia, as the youngest daughter, became an orphan, Rembrandt and Saskia were married in the local church of St. Annaparochie without the presence of Rembrandts relatives. In the same year, Rembrandt became a burgess of Amsterdam and he also acquired a number of students, among them Ferdinand Bol and Govert Flinck. In 1635 Rembrandt and Saskia moved into their own house, renting in fashionable Nieuwe Doelenstraat, in 1639 they moved to a prominent newly built house in the upscale Breestraat, today known as Jodenbreestraat in what was becoming the Jewish quarter, then a young upcoming neighborhood. The mortgage to finance the 13,000 guilder purchase would be a cause for later financial difficulties. Rembrandt should easily have been able to pay the house off with his income, but it appears his spending always kept pace with his income. It was there that Rembrandt frequently sought his Jewish neighbors to model for his Old Testament scenes, in 1640, they had a second daughter, also named Cornelia, who died after living barely over a month
12.
Johannes Vermeer
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Johannes, Jan or Johan Vermeer was a Dutch painter who specialized in domestic interior scenes of middle-class life. Vermeer was a successful provincial genre painter in his lifetime. He evidently was not wealthy, leaving his wife and children in debt at his death, Vermeer worked slowly and with great care, and frequently used very expensive pigments. He is particularly renowned for his treatment and use of light in his work. Vermeer painted mostly domestic interior scenes and he was recognized during his lifetime in Delft and The Hague, but his modest celebrity gave way to obscurity after his death. He was barely mentioned in Arnold Houbrakens major source book on 17th-century Dutch painting, since that time, Vermeers reputation has grown, and he is now acknowledged as one of the greatest painters of the Dutch Golden Age. Relatively little was known about Vermeers life until recently and he seems to have been devoted exclusively to his art, living out his life in the city of Delft. Until the 19th century, the sources of information were some registers, a few official documents. John Michael Montias added details on the family from the city archives of Delft in his Artists and Artisans in Delft, Johannes Vermeer was baptized in the Reformed Church on 31 October 1632. His father Reijnier Janszoon was a worker of silk or caffa. As an apprentice in Amsterdam, Reijnier lived on fashionable Sint Antoniesbreestraat, in 1615, he married Digna Baltus. The couple moved to Delft and had a daughter named Geertruy who was baptized in 1620, in 1625, Reijnier was involved in a fight with a soldier named Willem van Bylandt who died from his wounds five months later. Around this time, Reijnier began dealing in paintings, in 1631, he leased an inn, which he called The Flying Fox. In 1635, he lived on Voldersgracht 25 or 26, in 1641, he bought a larger inn on the market square, named after the Flemish town Mechelen. The acquisition of the inn constituted a financial burden. When Vermeers father died in October 1652, Vermeer took over the operation of the art business. In April 1653, Johannes Reijniersz Vermeer married a Catholic girl, the blessing took place in the quiet nearby village of Schipluiden. Vermeers new mother-in-law Maria Thins was significantly wealthier than he, according to art historian Walter Liedtke, Vermeers conversion seems to have been made with conviction
13.
View of Delft
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View of Delft is an oil painting by Johannes Vermeer, painted ca. The painting of the Dutch artists hometown is among his most popular and it is one of three known paintings of Delft by Vermeer, along with The Little Street and the lost painting House Standing in Delft. The use of pointillism in the work suggests that it postdates The Little Street, the technical analysis shows that Vermeer used a limited choice of pigments for this painting, lead white, yellow ochre, natural ultramarine and madder lake are the main painting materials. His painting technique on the hand is very elaborate and meticulous. In 2011, the painting was featured on gold and silver coins issued by the Royal Dutch Mint. The painting also features in Marcel Prousts novel In Search of Lost Time, proust himself greatly admired Vermeer, particularly a View of Delft. Liedtke, Walter A. Vermeer and the Delft School, arthur K. Wheelock Jr. and C. J. Kaldenbach, Vermeer’s View of Delft and His Vision of Reality, Artibus et Historiae, Vol.3, No. Http, //kalden. home. xs4all. nl/verm/view/Vermeer_main. html Johannes Vermeer, View of Delft, ColourLex Janson, J. Critical Assessments, View of Delft, Essential Vermeer, essays about this painting by several scholars quoted from books on Vermeer
14.
John Michael Wright
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John Michael Wright was a portrait painter in the Baroque style. There he was admitted to the Accademia di San Luca, and was associated with some of the artists of his generation. He was engaged by Archduke Leopold Wilhelm of Austria, the governor of the Spanish Netherlands and he took up permanent residence in England from 1656, and served as court painter before and after the English Restoration. A convert to Roman Catholicism, he was a favourite of the restored Stuart court, perhaps due to the unusually cosmopolitan nature of his experience, he was favoured by patrons at the highest level of society in an age in which foreign artists were usually preferred. Wrights paintings of royalty and aristocracy are included amongst the collections of leading galleries today. John Michael Wright, who at the height of his career would interchangeably sign himself Anglus or Scotus, is of uncertain origin, the diarist John Evelyn called him a Scotsman, an epithet repeated by Horace Walpole and tentatively accepted by his later biographer, Verne. What is known is that, on 6 April 1636, the 19-year-old Wright was apprenticed to George Jamesone, the Edinburgh Register of Apprentices records him as Michaell, son to James W, tailor, citizen of London. The reasons for this move to Scotland are unclear, but may have to do with familial connections or the advent of plague in London, during his apprenticeship, Wright is likely to have lodged at the High Street tenement near the Netherbow Gate that served as Jamesons workplace. The apprenticeship was contracted for five years, but may have been curtailed by Jamesons imprisonment in late 1639, there is no record of any independent work by Wright from this period. It is also possible that Wright met his wife during his Scottish residency, nothing is known of her, except from a statement of thirty years later which describes her as related to the most noble and distinguished families of Scotland. If this is accurate, it may explain how Wright was later able to find aristocratic patronage, all that is known for certain is that Wright had at least one child by her, a son, Thomas. There is evidence to suggest that Wright went to France following his apprenticeship and it is possible that he arrived in Rome as early as 1642 in the entourage of James Alban Gibbes, but he was certainly resident there from 1647. Although details of his time there are sketchy, his skills, at that time, the Accademia included numbers of established Italian painters as well as illustrious foreigners including the French Nicolas Poussin and Spaniard Diego Velázquez. Wright was to more than ten years in Rome. During that time became an accomplished linguist as well as an art connoisseur. He acquired some forty paintings – perhaps as much dealing as collecting. Richard Symonds, the painter and royalist, catalogued Wrights collection in the early 1650s. In 1654, after a decade in Rome, Wright travelled to Brussels where his abilities were recognised by Archduke Leopold Wilhelm of Austria then governor of the Spanish Netherlands, Leopold employed him not as an artist, but as an advisor on antiquities
15.
Spain
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By population, Spain is the sixth largest in Europe and the fifth in the European Union. Spains capital and largest city is Madrid, other urban areas include Barcelona, Valencia, Seville, Bilbao. Modern humans first arrived in the Iberian Peninsula around 35,000 years ago, in the Middle Ages, the area was conquered by Germanic tribes and later by the Moors. Spain is a democracy organised in the form of a government under a constitutional monarchy. It is a power and a major developed country with the worlds fourteenth largest economy by nominal GDP. Jesús Luis Cunchillos argues that the root of the span is the Phoenician word spy. Therefore, i-spn-ya would mean the land where metals are forged, two 15th-century Spanish Jewish scholars, Don Isaac Abravanel and Solomon ibn Verga, gave an explanation now considered folkloric. Both men wrote in two different published works that the first Jews to reach Spain were brought by ship by Phiros who was confederate with the king of Babylon when he laid siege to Jerusalem. This man was a Grecian by birth, but who had given a kingdom in Spain. He became related by marriage to Espan, the nephew of king Heracles, Heracles later renounced his throne in preference for his native Greece, leaving his kingdom to his nephew, Espan, from whom the country of España took its name. Based upon their testimonies, this eponym would have already been in use in Spain by c.350 BCE, Iberia enters written records as a land populated largely by the Iberians, Basques and Celts. Early on its coastal areas were settled by Phoenicians who founded Western Europe´s most ancient cities Cadiz, Phoenician influence expanded as much of the Peninsula was eventually incorporated into the Carthaginian Empire, becoming a major theater of the Punic Wars against the expanding Roman Empire. After an arduous conquest, the peninsula came fully under Roman Rule, during the early Middle Ages it came under Germanic rule but later, much of it was conquered by Moorish invaders from North Africa. In a process took centuries, the small Christian kingdoms in the north gradually regained control of the peninsula. The last Moorish kingdom fell in the same year Columbus reached the Americas, a global empire began which saw Spain become the strongest kingdom in Europe, the leading world power for a century and a half, and the largest overseas empire for three centuries. Continued wars and other problems led to a diminished status. The Napoleonic invasions of Spain led to chaos, triggering independence movements that tore apart most of the empire, eventually democracy was peacefully restored in the form of a parliamentary constitutional monarchy. Spain joined the European Union, experiencing a renaissance and steady economic growth
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