1.
Anthony van Dyck
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Sir Anthony van Dyck was a Flemish Baroque artist who became the leading court painter in England, after enjoying great success in Italy and Flanders. He also painted biblical and mythological subjects, displayed outstanding facility as a draughtsman, the Van Dyke beard is named after him. Antoon van Dyck was born to parents in Antwerp. By the age of fifteen he was already an accomplished artist, as his Self-portrait, 1613–14. He was admitted to the Antwerp painters Guild of Saint Luke as a master by February 1618. His influence on the young artist was immense, Rubens referred to the nineteen-year-old van Dyck as the best of my pupils. At the same time the dominance of Rubens in the small and declining city of Antwerp probably explains why, despite his periodic returns to the city, van Dyck spent most of his career abroad. In 1620, at the instigation of George Villiers, Marquess of Buckingham, van Dyck went to England for the first time where he worked for King James I of England, receiving £100. After about four months he returned to Flanders, but moved on in late 1621 to Italy and he was already presenting himself as a figure of consequence, annoying the rather bohemian Northern artists colony in Rome, says Giovan Pietro Bellori, by appearing with the pomp of Zeuxis. He was mostly based in Genoa, although he travelled extensively to other cities. In 1627, he went back to Antwerp where he remained for five years, a life-size group portrait of twenty-four City Councillors of Brussels he painted for the council-chamber was destroyed in 1695. He was evidently very charming to his patrons, and, like Rubens, well able to mix in aristocratic and court circles, by 1630 he was described as the court painter of the Habsburg Governor of Flanders, the Archduchess Isabella. In this period he produced many religious works, including large altarpieces. King Charles I was the most passionate and generous collector of art among the British monarchs, and saw art as a way of promoting his elevated view of the monarchy. In 1628, he bought the collection that the Gonzagas of Mantua were forced to dispose of. In 1626, he was able to persuade Orazio Gentileschi to settle in England, later to be joined by his daughter Artemisia and some of his sons. Rubens was a target, who eventually came on a diplomatic mission, which included painting, in 1630. He was very well-treated during his visit, during which he was knighted
2.
Spice
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A spice is a seed, fruit, root, bark, or other plant substance primarily used for flavoring, coloring or preserving food. Spices are distinguished from herbs, which are the leaves, flowers, sometimes, spices may be ground into a powder for convenience. Spices are sometimes used in medicine, religious rituals, cosmetics or perfume production, the spice trade developed throughout South Asia and Middle East by at least 2000 BCE with cinnamon and black pepper, and in East Asia with herbs and pepper. The Egyptians used herbs for mummification and their demand for exotic spices and herbs helped stimulate world trade. The word spice comes from the Old French word espice, which became epice, and which came from the Latin root spec, by 1000 BCE, medical systems based upon herbs could be found in China, Korea, and India. Early uses were connected with magic, medicine, religion, tradition, archaeological excavations have uncovered clove burnt onto the floor of a kitchen, dated to 1700 BCE, at the Mesopotamian site of Terqa, in modern-day Syria. The ancient Indian epic Ramayana mentions cloves, the Romans had cloves in the 1st century CE, as Pliny the Elder wrote about them. In the story of Genesis, Joseph was sold into slavery by his brothers to spice merchants, in the biblical poem Song of Solomon, the male speaker compares his beloved to many forms of spices. The earliest written records of spices come from ancient Egyptian, Chinese, the Ebers Papyrus from Early Egyptians that dates from 1550 B. C. E. Describes some eight hundred different medicinal remedies and numerous medicinal procedures, historians believe that nutmeg, which originates from the Banda Islands in Southeast Asia, was introduced to Europe in the 6th century BCE. Indonesian merchants traveled around China, India, the Middle East, Arab merchants facilitated the routes through the Middle East and India. This resulted in the Egyptian port city of Alexandria being the trading center for spices. The most important discovery prior to the European spice trade were the monsoon winds, sailing from Eastern spice cultivators to Western European consumers gradually replaced the land-locked spice routes once facilitated by the Middle East Arab caravans. Spices were among the most demanded and expensive available in Europe in the Middle Ages. Given medieval medicines main theory of humorism, spices and herbs were indispensable to balance humors in food, in addition to being desired by those using medieval medicine, the European elite also craved spices in the Middle Ages. An example of the European aristocracys demand for spice comes from the King of Aragon and he was specifically looking for spices to put in wine, and was not alone among European monarchs at the time to have such a desire for spice. Spices were all imported from plantations in Asia and Africa, which made them expensive, from the 8th until the 15th century, the Republic of Venice had the monopoly on spice trade with the Middle East, and along with it the neighboring Italian city-states. The trade made the region rich and it has been estimated that around 1,000 tons of pepper and 1,000 tons of the other common spices were imported into Western Europe each year during the Late Middle Ages
3.
Guild
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A guild /ɡɪld/ is an association of artisans or merchants who control the practice of their craft in a particular town. The earliest types of guild were formed as confraternities of tradesmen and they were organized in a manner something between a professional association, trade union, a cartel, and a secret society. A lasting legacy of traditional guilds are the guildhalls constructed and used as meeting places, an important result of the guild framework was the emergence of universities at Bologna, Oxford and Paris, they originated as guilds of students as at Bologna, or of masters as at Paris. Usually the founders were free independent master craftsmen who hired apprentices, there were several types of guilds, including the two main categories of merchant guilds and craft guilds but also the frith guild and religious guild. In many cases became the governing body of a town. The Freedom of the City, effective from the Middle Ages until 1835, gave the right to trade, Trade guilds arose in the 14th century as craftsmen united to protect their common interest. The occasion for these oaths were drunken banquets held on December 26, gregory of Tours tells a miraculous tale of a builder whose art and techniques suddenly left him, but were restored by an apparition of the Virgin Mary in a dream. Michel Rouche remarks that the story speaks for the importance of practically transmitted journeymanship, in France, guilds were called corps de métiers. According to Viktor Ivanovich Rutenburg, Within the guild itself there was little division of labour. Thus, according to Étienne Boileaus Book of Handicrafts, by the century there were no less than 100 guilds in Paris. In Catalan towns, specially at Barcelona, guilds or gremis were a basic agent in the society, a shoemakers guild is recorded in 1208. In England, specifically in the City of London Corporation, more than 110 guilds, referred to as companies, survive today. Other groups, such as the Worshipful Company of Tax Advisers, have been formed far more recently, membership in a livery company is expected for individuals participating in the governance of The City, as the Lord Mayor and the Remembrancer. The guild system reached a state in Germany circa 1300 and held on in German cities into the 19th century. In the 15th century, Hamburg had 100 guilds, Cologne 80, the latest guilds to develop in Western Europe were the gremios of Spain, e. g. Valencia or Toledo. Not all city economies were controlled by guilds, some cities were free, in order to become a Master, a Journeyman would have to go on a three-year voyage called Journeyman years. The practice of the Journeyman years still exists in Germany and France, in Ghent, as in Florence, the woolen textile industry developed as a congeries of specialized guilds. The appearance of the European guilds was tied to the emergent money economy, before this time it was not possible to run a money-driven organization, as commodity money was the normal way of doing business
4.
Cabinet of curiosities
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Cabinets of curiosities were encyclopedic collections of objects whose categorical boundaries were, in Renaissance Europe, yet to be defined. Modern terminology would categorize the objects included as belonging to natural history, geology, ethnography, archaeology, religious or historical relics, works of art, the Kunstkammer was regarded as a microcosm or theater of the world, and a memory theater. The Kunstkammer conveyed symbolically the patrons control of the world through its indoor, the term cabinet originally described a room rather than a piece of furniture. The classic cabinet of curiosities emerged in the century, although more rudimentary collections had existed earlier. The earliest pictorial record of a natural history cabinet is the engraving in Ferrante Imperatos DellHistoria Naturale, some of the volumes doubtless represent his herbarium. Every surface of the ceiling is occupied with preserved fishes, stuffed mammals and curious shells. Examples of corals stand on the bookcases, above them, stuffed birds stand against panels inlaid with square polished stone samples, doubtless marbles and jaspers or fitted with pigeonhole compartments for specimens. Below them, a range of cupboards contain specimen boxes and covered jars, two of the most famously described seventeenth-century cabinets were those of Ole Worm, known as Olaus Wormius, and Athanasius Kircher. Often they would contain a mix of fact and fiction, including apparently mythical creatures, Worms collection contained, for example, what he thought was a Scythian Lamb, a woolly fern thought to be a plant/sheep fabulous creature. However he was responsible for identifying the narwhals tusk as coming from a whale rather than a unicorn. The specimens displayed were often collected during exploring expeditions and trading voyages, Cabinets of curiosities would often serve scientific advancement when images of their contents were published. The catalog of Worms collection, published as the Museum Wormianum, used the collection of artifacts as a point for Worms speculations on philosophy, science, natural history. Cabinets of curiosities were limited to those who could afford to create, many monarchs, in particular, developed large collections. A rather under-used example, stronger in art than other areas, was the Studiolo of Francesco I, frederick III of Denmark, who added Worms collection to his own after Worms death, was another such monarch. A third example is the Kunstkamera founded by Peter the Great in Saint Petersburg in 1714, many items were bought in Amsterdam from Albertus Seba and Frederik Ruysch. The fabulous Habsburg Imperial collection included important Aztec artifacts, including the feather head-dress or crown of Montezuma now in the Museum of Ethnology, similar collections on a smaller scale were the complex Kunstschränke produced in the early seventeenth century by the Augsburg merchant, diplomat and collector Philipp Hainhofer. The best preserved example is the one given by the city of Augsburg to King Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden in 1632, the curio cabinet, as a modern single piece of furniture, is a version of the grander historical examples. In 1714, Michael Bernhard Valentini published an early work, Museum Museorum
5.
Albert VII, Archduke of Austria
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Albert VII was the ruling Archduke of Austria for a few months in 1619 and, jointly with his wife, Isabella Clara Eugenia, sovereign of the Habsburg Netherlands between 1598 and 1621. Prior to this, he had been a cardinal, archbishop of Toledo, viceroy of Portugal and he succeeded his brother Matthias as reigning archduke of Lower and Upper Austria, but abdicated in favor of Ferdinand II the same year, making it the shortest reign in Austrian history. Archduke Albert was the son of Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian II and Maria of Spain, daughter of Holy Roman Emperor Charles V. He was sent to the Spanish Court at the age of eleven, initially he was meant to pursue an ecclesiastical career. On 3 March 1577 he was appointed cardinal by Pope Gregory XIII, with a dispensation because of his age of eighteen, and was given Santa Croce in Gerusalemme as his titular church. Philip II planned to make Albert archbishop of Toledo as soon as possible, in the meantime Albert only took lower orders. He was never ordained priest or bishop, and thus he resigned the See of Toledo in 1598 and he resigned the cardinalate in 1598. His clerical upbringing did however have an influence on his lifestyle. After the dynastic union with Portugal, Albert became the first viceroy of the kingdom, at the same time he was appointed Papal Legate and Grand Inquisitor for Portugal. As viceroy of Portugal he took part in the organization of the Great Armada of 1588, in 1593 Philip II recalled him to Madrid, where he would take a leading role in the government of the Spanish Monarchy. Two years later, the rebellious Hugh ONeill, Earl of Tyrone, after the death of Archduke Ernst in 1595, Albert was sent to Brussels to succeed his elder brother as Governor General of the Habsburg Netherlands. He made his entry in Brussels on 11 February 1596 and his first priority was restoring Spains military position in the Low Countries. Spain was facing the forces of the Dutch Republic, England and France and had known nothing. During his first campaign season, Albert surprised his enemies by capturing Calais and nearby Ardres from the French and these successes were however offset by the third bankruptcy of the Spanish crown later that year. As a consequence,1597 was marked by a series of military disasters, stadholder Maurice of Orange captured the last Spanish strongholds that remained north of the great rivers, as well as the strategic town of Rheinberg in the Electorate of Cologne. Finally the Spanish Army of Flanders lost Amiens in September the same year to King Henry IV of France despite desperate efforts to relieve the place by Albert, with no more money to pay the troops, Albert was also facing a series of mutinies. While pursuing the war as well as he could, Albert made overtures for peace with Spains enemies, under the mediation of the papal legate Cardinal Alessandro deMedici — the future Pope Leo XI — Spain and France concluded the Peace of Vervins on 2 May 1598. Spain gave up its conquests, thereby restoring the situation of Cateau Cambrésis, France tacitly accepted the Spanish occupation of the prince-archbishopric of Cambray and pulled out of the war, but maintained the financial support for the Dutch Republic
6.
Isabella Clara Eugenia
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Isabella Clara Eugenia was sovereign of the Spanish Netherlands in the Low Countries and the north of modern France, together with her husband Albert VII, Archduke of Austria. In some sources, she is referred to as Clara Isabella Eugenia, by birth, she was an infanta of Spain and Portugal. Isabella Clara Eugenia of Austria was born in the Palacio del bosque de Valsaín, Segovia on 12 August 1566, daughter of Philip II of Spain and her paternal grandparents were Emperor Charles V and Isabella of Portugal. Her maternal grandparents were Henry II of France and Catherine de Medici and her father, Philip II, was reportedly overjoyed at her birth and declared himself to be happier on the occasion than he would have been at the birth of a son. Isabellas mother, Elisabeth of Valois, had originally been betrothed to Don Carlos, despite the significant age difference between them, Philip was very attached to Elisabeth, staying close by her side even when she was ill with smallpox. Elisabeths first pregnancy in 1564 ended in a miscarriage of twin daughters and she later gave birth to Isabella Clara Eugenia on 12 August 1566, and then to Isabellas younger sister Infanta Catherine Michelle of Spain 10 October 1567. Elisabeth miscarried a daughter in 1568 and died the same day, Isabella grew up with her sister Infanta Catherine Michelle of Spain, beloved by her father and her stepmother Anna of Austria, Queen of Spain, Philips fourth wife. Philip ultimately fathered five children by Anna, all of whom died in childhood except his heir. Isabella was also the person whom Philip permitted to help him with his work, sorting his papers. Since 1568, at the age of two, Isabella Clara Eugenia was promised to marry Rudolf II, Holy Roman Emperor, son of Maximilian II, Holy Roman Emperor, Maria was a daughter of her paternal grandparents Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, and Isabella of Portugal. Isabella Clara Eugenia, however, had to wait for more than 20 years before the eccentric Rudolf declared that he had no intention of marrying anybody, at any rate, Isabella Clara Eugenias mother had ceded any claim to the French crown with her marriage to Philip II. However the Parlement de Paris, in power of the Catholic party and her father decided to cede the Spanish Netherlands to her on condition that she marry her cousin, Albert VII, Archduke of Austria. They were to reign over the Netherlands jointly as duke/count and duchess/countess and it was also stipulated that, should they have no children, the Netherlands would revert to the King of Spain upon the death of either spouse. On 18 April 1599, being 33 years old, she married Albert, Albert was the joint sovereign of the Seventeen Provinces and the former viceroy of Portugal. As Albert also was the Archbishop of Toledo, he had to be released from his religious commitments by Pope Clement VIII before the wedding could take place. Shortly before Philip II died on 13 September 1598, he renounced his rights to the Netherlands in favor of his daughter Isabella and her fiancé. Beginning in 1601, the couple ruled the Spanish Netherlands together, a false anecdote links Isabella, the siege of Ostend, and the horse coat colour isabelline. The reign of Albert and Isabella is considered the Golden Age of the Spanish Netherlands, the reign of the Archduke Albert of Austria and Archduchess Isabella Clara Eugenia is a key period in the history of the Spanish Netherlands
7.
Quentin Matsys
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Quentin Matsys was a painter in the Flemish tradition and a founder of the Antwerp school. He was born at Leuven, where legend states he was trained as an ironsmith before becoming a painter, Matsys was active in Antwerp for over 20 years, creating numerous works with religious roots and satirical tendencies. Most early accounts of Matsys life are composed primarily of legend, according to J. Molanus Historiae Lovaniensium Matsys is known to be a native of Leuven with humble beginnings as an ironsmith. One of four children, Matsys was born to Joost Matsys, documented donations and possessions of Joost Matsys indicate that the family had a respectable income and that financial need was most likely not the reason Matsys turned to painting. During the period in which Matsys was active in Antwerp he took only four apprentices, Arian van Overbeke, Willem Muelenbroec, Eduart Portugalois and it is widely believed that Joachim Patinir studied with Matsys at some point during his career and contributed to several of his landscapes. Lack of guild records during this time leaves Matsys travels to Italy, for the most part, foreign influences on Matsys are inferred from his paintings and are considered to be a large portion of the artists training during the 16th century. During the greater part of the 15th century, the centres in which the painters of the Low Countries most congregated were Tournai, Bruges, Ghent, Leuven gained prominence toward the close of this period, employing workmen from all of the crafts including Matsys. Not until the beginning of the 16th century did Antwerp take the lead which it afterward maintained against Bruges, Ghent, Brussels, as a member of Antwerps Guild of Saint Luke, Matsys is considered to be one of its first notable artists. Although the roots of Matsys training are unknown, his style reflects the qualities of Dirk Bouts. When Matsys settled at Antwerp at the age of twenty-five, his own style contributed importantly to reviving Flemish art along the lines of Van Eyck, Matsys departed from Leuven in 1491 when he became a master in the guild of painters at Antwerp. He also painted altarpieces and triptych panels, the most famous of which was built for the Church of Saint Peter in Leuven. Matsys work is considered to contain strong religious feeling—characteristic of traditional Flemish works—and is accompanied by a realism that often favored the grotesque, Matsys works generally reflect earnestness in expression, minutely detailed renderings, and subdued effects in light and shade. Like most Flemish artists of the time he paid a great deal of attention to jewelry, edging of garments, strenuous effort is devoted to the expression of individual character. A satirical tendency may be seen in the pictures of merchant bankers, revealing their greed and avarice. His other impulse, dwelling on the feelings of tenderness, may be noted in two replicas of the Virgin and Child at Berlin and Amsterdam, where the ecstatic kiss of the mother seems rather awkward. An expression of acute despair may be seen in a Lucretia in the museum at Vienna, the remarkable glow of the colour in these works, however, makes the Mannerist exaggerations palatable. Matsys had considerable skill as a portrait painter and his Ægidius which drew from Thomas More a eulogy in Latin verse, is but one of many, to which one may add the portrait of Maximilian of Austria in the gallery in Amsterdam. In this branch of his practice, Matsys was greatly influenced by his fellow countryman Jan Mabuse, Matsys portraiture exhibits highly personal and individual emotional characteristics that reflect his adherence to realism as a technique
8.
Jan van Eyck
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Jan van Eyck was a Flemish/Netherlandish painter active in Bruges. He is often considered one of the founders of Early Netherlandish painting school, the few surviving records of his early life indicate that he was born c. After Johns death in 1425 he was employed in Lille as court painter to Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, until 1429 before moving to Bruges, where he lived until his death. Apart from the Ghent Altarpiece and the miniatures of the Turin-Milan Hours, about 20 surviving paintings are confidently attributed to him. Ten, including the Ghent altarpiece, are dated and signed with a variation of his motto, ALS IK KAN always written in Greek characters, Van Eyck painted both secular and religious subject matter, including altarpieces, single panel religious figures and commissioned portraits. His work includes single panels, diptychs, triptychs, and polyptych panels and he was well paid by Philip, who sought that the painter was secure financially and had artistic freedom and could paint whenever he pleased. Van Eycks work comes from the International Gothic style, but he soon eclipsed it, through his developments in the use of oil paint he achieved a new level of virtuosity. Van Eyck was highly influential and his techniques and style were adopted and refined by the Early Netherlandish painters, little is known of Jan van Eycks early life and neither the date nor place of his birth is documented. This suggests a date of birth of 1395 at the latest, however, his apparent age in the London probable self-portrait of 1433 suggests to most scholars a date closer to 1380. He was identified in the late 1500s as having been born in Maaseik and this claim is still considered credible on etymological grounds, considering that Van Eyck means of Eyck which is an old variant spelling of eik. He had a sister Margareta, and at least two brothers, Hubert and Lambert, both painters, but the order of their births has not been established. Another significant, and rather younger, painter who worked in Southern France and it is not known where Jan was educated, but he had knowledge of Latin and used the Greek and Hebrew alphabets in his inscriptions, indicating that he was schooled in the classics. This level of education was rare among painters, and would have made him attractive to the cultivated Philip. Van Eyck served John of Bavaria-Straubing, ruler of Holland, Hainault, by this time van Eyck had assembled a small workshop and was involved in redecorating the Binnenhof palace in The Hague. After Johns death in 1425 he moved to Bruges and came to the attention of Philip the Good c and his emergence as a collectable painter generally follows his appointment to Philips court, and from this point his activity in the court is comparatively well documented. He served as court artist and diplomat, and a was a member of the Tournai painters guild. On 18 October 1427, the Feast of St. Luke, he travelled to Tournai to attend a banquet in his honour, also attended by Robert Campin, a court salary freed him from commissioned work, and allowed a large degree of artistic freedom. Over the following decade van Eycks reputation and technical ability grew, unlike most of his peers his reputation never diminished and he remained well regarded over the following centuries
9.
Frans Snyders
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Frans Snyders or Frans Snijders was a Flemish painter of animals, hunting scenes, market scenes and still lifes. He was one of the earliest specialist animaliers and he is credited with initiating a wide variety of new still-life and he was a regular collaborator with leading Antwerp painters such as Peter Paul Rubens, Anthony van Dyck and Jacob Jordaens. Snyders was born in Antwerp as the son of Jan Snijders, according to legend the famous 16th century painter Frans Floris squandered his fortune in the inn. His brother Michiel also became a painter but no works of him are known, Snyders was recorded as a student of Pieter Brueghel the Younger in 1593, and subsequently trained with Hendrick van Balen, who was the first master of Anthony van Dyck. Snyders became a master of the Antwerp Guild of Saint Luke in 1602 and he travelled to Italy in 1608-9 where he first resided in Rome. The artist subsequently traveled from Rome to Milan, Jan Brueghel the Elder had introduced him there by letter to the famous art collector Cardinal Borromeo. Brueghel asked Snyders to paint a copy after a portrait by Titian in the Borromeo collection and this is regarded as evidence that Snyders was a skilled figure painter before he turned his attention to still life painting. Snyders had returned to Antwerp in the spring of 1609, in 1611 he married Margaretha, the sister of Cornelis de Vos and Paul de Vos, two leading painters in Antwerp. His collaboration with Rubens started in the 1610s, Snyders had many patrons including the Ghent Bishop Antonius Triest who commissioned four paintings of market scenes around 1615. He was a friend of van Dyck who painted Snyders and his more than once. Snyders was commercially successful and was able to purchase a house on the high-end Keizerstraat in Antwerp, in 1628 he became the dean of the Guild of Saint Luke. In the period 1636-1638 he was one of the Antwerp artists who assisted Rubens in a commission for decorations for the hunting pavilion Torre de la Parada of Philip IV of Spain. The two artists worked together on decorations for the Royal Alcazar of Madrid and the royal Buen Retiro Palace in Madrid. Snyders painted about 60 hunting paintings and animal pieces after designs by Rubens, in 1639 Rubens and Snyders received a follow-up commission for an additional 18 paintings for the hunting pavilion. After Peter Paul Rubens death Snyders acted as one of the appraisers of the inventory of Rubens collection, in the years 1641 and 1642 Snyders traveled with other artists to the Dutch Republic. In 1646 Snyders was probably in Breda working on a commission, Snyders became a widower in 1647. He died himself on 19 August 1657 in Antwerp and he died childless and bequeathed his fortune to his sister, a beguine. His pupils are believed to have included Nicasius Bernaerts, Peter van Boucle, Juriaen Jacobsze, Jan Roos, Jan Fyt was a student, and then assistant of Snyders from 1629
10.
Adam Elsheimer
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Adam Elsheimer was a German artist working in Rome who died at only thirty-two, but was very influential in the early 17th century in the field of Baroque paintings. His relatively few paintings were small scale, nearly all painted on copper plates and they include a variety of light effects, and an innovative treatment of landscape. He was an influence on other artists, including Rembrandt. Elsheimer was born in Frankfurt am Main, one of ten children and his fathers house was a few metres from the church where Albrecht Dürers Heller Altarpiece was then displayed. He was apprenticed to the artist Philipp Uffenbach and he probably visited Strasbourg in 1596. At the age of twenty, he travelled to Italy via Munich and his stay in Venice is undocumented, but the influence on his style is clear. He probably worked as an assistant to Johann Rottenhammer, some of whose drawings he owned, Rottenhammer was a German who had been living in Italy for some years, and was the first German painter to specialize in cabinet paintings. In early 1600, Elsheimer arrived in Rome and quickly made friends with contacts of Rottenhammer, notably Giovanni Faber, a Papal doctor, botanist and collector originally from Bamberg. He was Curator of the Vatican Botanical Garden, and a member of the Accademia dei Lincei, a small intellectual coterie founded in 1603, like Faber, Bril was a long-term resident in Rome who had converted from Lutheranism to Catholicism, as Elsheimer did later. Both Faber and Bril knew Rubens, who was in Rome in 1601, and he knew David Teniers the Elder, recently Rubens pupil, and there is evidence that they lodged together. In 1604 Karel van Mander, a Dutchman recently returned from Rome, published his Schilder-Boeck which praised Elsheimers work and he also spent much time in churches, studying the works of the masters. Other writers mention his exceptional memory, his melancholy and his kind-heartedness. In 1606, Elsheimer married Carola Antonia Stuarda da Francoforte, the son was not mentioned in a census a year later, possibly because he had been put out to a wet-nurse. She was the recent widow of the artist Nicolas de Breul and after Elsheimers death remarried an Italian artist, Ascanio Quercia, Elsheimer converted to Catholicism by 1608. He was admitted to the Accademia di San Luca, the Roman painters Guild, in 1606, in spite of his fame and talents, he appears to have both lived and died in difficult financial circumstances. Elsheimers painting of Tobias and the Angel was especially well received because of its new conception of landscape and this picture was engraved by Count Hendrick Goudt and as a result was published across Europe. However, his association with Goudt, who lodged and trained him for several years, was difficult. Elsheimer seems to have borrowed money from Goudt, which according to one account resulted in his incarceration in Debtors prison
11.
Peter Paul Rubens
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Sir Peter Paul Rubens was a Flemish/Netherlandish draughtsman and painter. He is widely considered as the most notable artist of Flemish Baroque art school, the catalogue of his works by Michael Jaffé lists 1,403 pieces, excluding numerous copies made in his workshop. His commissioned works were mostly history paintings, which included religious and mythological subjects and he painted portraits, especially of friends, and self-portraits, and in later life painted several landscapes. Rubens designed tapestries and prints, as well as his own house and he also oversaw the ephemeral decorations of the royal entry into Antwerp by the Cardinal-Infante Ferdinand in 1635. His drawings are mostly extremely forceful but not overly detailed and he also made great use of oil sketches as preparatory studies. For altarpieces he painted on slate to reduce reflection problems. Rubens was born in the city of Siegen to Jan Rubens and he was named in honour of Saint-Peter and Paul, because he was born on their solemnety. His father, a Calvinist, and mother fled Antwerp for Cologne in 1568, after increased religious turmoil and persecution of Protestants during the rule of the Spanish Netherlands by the Duke of Alba. Jan Rubens became the adviser of Anna of Saxony, the second wife of William I of Orange. Following Jan Rubens imprisonment for the affair, Peter Paul Rubens was born in 1577, the family returned to Cologne the next year. In 1589, two years after his fathers death, Rubens moved with his mother Maria Pypelincks to Antwerp, religion figured prominently in much of his work and Rubens later became one of the leading voices of the Catholic Counter-Reformation style of painting. In Antwerp, Rubens received a Renaissance humanist education, studying Latin, by fourteen he began his artistic apprenticeship with Tobias Verhaeght. Subsequently, he studied under two of the leading painters of the time, the late Mannerist artists Adam van Noort. Much of his earliest training involved copying earlier works, such as woodcuts by Hans Holbein the Younger. Rubens completed his education in 1598, at time he entered the Guild of St. Luke as an independent master. In 1600 Rubens travelled to Italy and he stopped first in Venice, where he saw paintings by Titian, Veronese, and Tintoretto, before settling in Mantua at the court of Duke Vincenzo I Gonzaga. The colouring and compositions of Veronese and Tintoretto had an effect on Rubenss painting. With financial support from the Duke, Rubens travelled to Rome by way of Florence in 1601, there, he studied classical Greek and Roman art and copied works of the Italian masters
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