1.
Nicolaes Maes
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Nicolaes Maes, also known as Nicolaes Maas was a Dutch Golden Age painter of genre and portraits. Maes was born in Dordrecht, the son of Gerrit Maes, a prosperous merchant, in about 1648 he went to Amsterdam, where he entered Rembrandts studio. In his best period, from 1655 to 1665, Maes devoted himself to domestic genre on a smaller scale, only on rare occasions did he treat scriptural subjects, as in Hagars Departure, which has been ascribed to Rembrandt. His favorite subjects were women spinning, or reading the Bible and he had a particular fascination with the subject of lacemaking and made almost a dozen versions on this subject. While he continued to reside in Dordrecht until 1673, when he settled in Amsterdam and his Antwerp period coincides with a complete change in style and subject. He devoted himself almost exclusively to portraiture, and abandoned the intimacy, so great indeed was the change, that it gave rise to the theory of the existence of another Maes, of Brussels. His registered pupils were Justus de Gelder, Margaretha van Godewijk, Jacob Moelaert, Maes is well represented at the London National Gallery by five paintings, The Cradle, The Dutch Housewife, The Idle Servant, The Card Players, and a mans portrait. At Amsterdam, besides the splendid examples to be found at the Rijksmuseum, is the Inquisitive Servant of the Six collection, at Buckingham Palace is The Listening Girl, and at Apsley House Selling Milk and The Listener. Other notable examples are at the Berlin, Brussels, St Petersburg, the Hague, Frankfort, Hanover, Ottawa and Munich galleries
2.
Genre
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Genre is any form or type of communication in any mode with socially-agreed upon conventions developed over time. Genres form by conventions that change over time as new genres are invented, often, works fit into multiple genres by way of borrowing and recombining these conventions. Stand alone texts, works, or pieces of communication may have individual styles, some genres may be rigid with strictly adhered to guidelines while others may be very flexible. Genre began as a classification system for ancient Greek literature. Poetry, prose, and performance each had a specific and calculated style that related to the theme of the story. Speech patterns for comedy would not be appropriate for tragedy, in later periods genres proliferated and developed in response to changes in audiences and creators. Genre became a tool to help the public make sense out of unpredictable art. Because art is often a response to a state, in that people write/paint/sing/dance about what they know about. Genre suffers from the ills of any classification system. Genre is to be reassessed and scrutinized and to works on their unique merit. While the genre of storytelling has been relegated as lesser form of art because of the heavily borrowed nature of the conventions, proponents argue that the genius of an effective genre piece is in the variation, recombination, and evolution of the codes. The term genre is used in the history and criticism of visual art. These are distinguished from staffage, incidental figures in what is primarily a landscape or architectural painting, Genre painting may also be used as a wider term covering genre painting proper, and other specialized types of paintings such as still-life, landscapes, marine paintings and animal paintings. The concept of the hierarchy of genres was a one in artistic theory. It was strongest in France, where it was associated with the Académie française which held a role in academic art. Genres may be determined by technique, tone, content. Genre should not be confused with age category, by which literature may be classified as adult, young adult. They also must not be confused with format, such as novel or picture book
3.
Romance novel
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The romance novel or romantic novel discussed in this article is the mass-market literary genre. Novels of this type of genre fiction place their primary focus on the relationship, there are many subgenres of the romance novel including fantasy, historical romance, paranormal fiction, and science fiction. Walter Scott defined the literary form of romance as a fictitious narrative in prose or verse. Austen inspired Georgette Heyer, the British author of historical romance set around the time Austen lived, Heyers first romance novel, The Black Moth, was set in 1751. The British company Mills and Boon began releasing escapist fiction for women in the 1930s and their books were sold in North America by Harlequin Enterprises Ltd, which began direct marketing to readers and allowing mass-market merchandisers to carry the books. An early American example of a romance was Kathleen Woodiwiss The Flame. Nancy Coffey was the editor who negotiated a multi-book deal with Woodiwiss. In North America, romance novels are the most popular literary genre, the genre is also popular in Europe and Australia, and romance novels appear in 90 languages. Most of the books, however, are written by authors from English-speaking countries, despite the popularity and widespread sales of romance novels, the genre has attracted significant derision, skepticism, and criticism. Romance erotica seems to be on the rise as more women explore this new subgenre, erotica is a term used to describe scenes in the novel that are risqué but not pornographic. According to the Romance Writers of America, the plot of a romance novel must revolve about the two people as they develop romantic love for each other and work to build a relationship. Furthermore, a novel must have an emotionally satisfying and optimistic ending. Others, including Leslie Gelbman, a president of Berkley Books, define the genre more simply, stating only that a romance must make the romantic relationship between the hero and the heroine. Bestselling author Nora Roberts sums up the genre, saying, The books are about the celebration of falling in love and emotion and commitment, some romance novel authors and readers believe the genre has additional restrictions, from plot considerations, to avoiding themes. While the majority of romance novels meet the criteria, there are also many books widely considered to be romance novels that deviate from these rules. Therefore, the definition, as embraced by the RWA and publishers, includes only the focus on a developing romantic relationship. As long as a romance novel meets those criteria, it can be set in any time period. There are no restrictions on what can or cannot be included in a romance novel
4.
Visual arts
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The visual arts are art forms such as ceramics, drawing, painting, sculpture, printmaking, design, crafts, photography, video, filmmaking, literature, and architecture. Many artistic disciplines involve aspects of the arts as well as arts of other types. Also included within the arts are the applied arts such as industrial design, graphic design, fashion design, interior design. Current usage of the visual arts includes fine art as well as the applied, decorative arts and crafts. The distinction was emphasized by artists of the Arts and Crafts Movement, Art schools made a distinction between the fine arts and the crafts, maintaining that a craftsperson could not be considered a practitioner of the arts. The increasing tendency to painting, and to a lesser degree sculpture. The Western hierarchy of genres reflected similar attitudes, training in the visual arts has generally been through variations of the apprentice and workshop systems. Visual arts have now become a subject in most education systems. Drawing is a means of making an image, using any of a variety of tools. Digital tools that simulate the effects of these are also used, the main techniques used in drawing are, line drawing, hatching, crosshatching, random hatching, scribbling, stippling, and blending. An artist who excels in drawing is referred to as a draftsman or draughtsman, drawing goes back at least 16,000 years to Paleolithic cave representations of animals such as those at Lascaux in France and Altamira in Spain. In ancient Egypt, ink drawings on papyrus, often depicting people, were used as models for painting or sculpture, drawings on Greek vases, initially geometric, later developed to the human form with black-figure pottery during the 7th century BC. Painting taken literally is the practice of applying pigment suspended in a carrier, like drawing, painting has its documented origins in caves and on rock faces. The finest examples, believed by some to be 32,000 years old, are in the Chauvet, in shades of red, brown, yellow and black, the paintings on the walls and ceilings are of bison, cattle, horses and deer. Paintings of human figures can be found in the tombs of ancient Egypt, in the great temple of Ramses II, Nefertari, his queen, is depicted being led by Isis. The Greeks contributed to painting but much of their work has been lost, one of the best remaining representations are the hellenistic Fayum mummy portraits. Another example is mosaic of the Battle of Issus at Pompeii, Greek and Roman art contributed to Byzantine art in the 4th century BC, which initiated a tradition in icon painting. Apart from the manuscripts produced by monks during the Middle Ages
5.
Dutch Golden Age painting
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The new Dutch Republic was the most prosperous nation in Europe, and led European trade, science, and art. Most work, including that for which the period is best known, a distinctive feature of the period is the proliferation of distinct genres of paintings, with the majority of artists producing the bulk of their work within one of these. The full development of specialization is seen from the late 1620s. A distinctive feature of the period, compared to earlier European painting, was the amount of religious painting. Dutch Calvinism forbade religious painting in churches, and though biblical subjects were acceptable in private homes, the development of many of these types of painting was decisively influenced by 17th-century Dutch artists. The widely held theory of the hierarchy of genres in painting, whereby some types were regarded as more prestigious than others, however this was the hardest to sell, as even Rembrandt found. Many were forced to produce portraits or genre scenes, which much more easily. In descending order of status the categories in the hierarchy were, history painting, including allegories, most paintings were relatively small – the only common type of really large paintings were group portraits. Painting directly onto walls hardly existed, when a wall-space in a public building needed decorating fitted framed canvas was normally used, painted delftware tiles were very cheap and common, if rarely of really high quality, but silver, especially in the auricular style, led Europe. With this exception, the best artistic efforts were concentrated on painting and printmaking, the volume of production meant that prices were fairly low, except for the best known artists, as in most subsequent periods there was a steep price gradient for more fashionable artists. In particular the French invasion of 1672, brought a depression to the art market. The distribution of pictures was very wide, yea many tymes, blacksmithes, cobblers etts. will have some picture or other by their Forge, such is the generall Notion, enclination and delight that these Countrie Native have to Painting reported an English traveller in 1640. There were for virtually the first time many professional art dealers, several significant artists, like Vermeer and his father, Jan van Goyen. Rembrandts dealer Hendrick van Uylenburgh and his son Gerrit were among the most important, typically workshops were smaller than in Flanders or Italy, with only one or two apprentices at a time, the number often being restricted by guild regulations. In many cases involved the artists extricating themselves from medieval groupings where they shared a guild with several other trades. Several new guilds were established in the period, Amsterdam in 1579, Haarlem in 1590, the Leiden authorities distrusted guilds and did not allow one until 1648. The Hague, with the court, was an early example, there were many dynasties of artists, and many married the daughters of their masters or other artists. Many artists came from families, who paid fees for their apprenticeships
6.
Flemish Baroque painting
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Flemish Baroque painting refers to the art produced in the Southern Netherlands during Spanish control in the 16th and 17th centuries. Antwerp, home to the prominent artists Peter Paul Rubens, Anthony van Dyck, Rubens, in particular, had a strong influence on seventeenth-century visual culture. By the seventeenth century, however, Antwerp was the city for innovative artistic production. Brussels was important as the location of the court, attracting David Teniers the Younger later in the century, between 1585 and the early 17th century they made many new altarpieces to replace those destroyed during the iconoclastic outbreaks of 1566. Also during this time Frans Francken the Younger and Jan Brueghel the Elder became important for their small cabinet paintings, often depicting mythological and history subjects. Following his return to Antwerp he set up an important studio, training such as Anthony van Dyck. Most artists active in the city during the first half of the 17th century were influenced by Rubens. Flemish art is notable for the amount of collaboration that took place between independent masters, which was partly related to the local tendency to specialize in a particular area. Frans Snyders, for example, was a painter and Jan Brueghel the Elder was admired for his landscapes. Both artists worked with Rubens, who often painted the figures. In Antwerp, however, this new genre also developed into a specifically Catholic type of painting, history painting, which includes biblical, mythological and historical subjects, was considered by seventeenth-century theoreticians as the most noble art. Abraham Janssens was an important history painter in Antwerp between 1600 and 1620, although after 1609 Rubens was the leading figure, both Van Dyck and Jacob Jordaens were active painting monumental history scenes. Following Rubenss death, Jordaens became the most important Flemish painter, during the second half of the century, history painters combined a local influence from Rubens with knowledge of classicism and Italian Baroque qualities. Artists in the vein include Erasmus Quellinus the Younger, Jan van den Hoecke, Pieter van Lint, Cornelis Schut, later in the century, many painters turned to Anthony van Dyck as a major influence. Among them were Pieter Thijs, Lucas Franchoys the Younger, and artists who were inspired by Late Baroque theatricality such as Theodoor Boeyermans. Additionally, a Flemish variant of Caravaggism was expressed by Theodoor Rombouts, Rubens is closely associated with the development of the Baroque altarpiece. He also exerted an influence on Baroque portraiture through his student Anthony van Dyck. Van Dyck became court painter for Charles I of England and was influential on subsequent English portraiture, other successful portraitists include Cornelis de Vos and Jacob Jordaens
7.
Marine art
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Marine art or maritime art is any form of figurative art that portrays or draws its main inspiration from the sea. Maritime painting is a genre that depicts ships and the sea—a genre particularly strong from the 17th to 19th centuries, as landscape art emerged during the Renaissance, what might be called the marine landscape became a more important element in works, but pure seascapes were rare until later. In this, as in much else, specialist and traditional marine painting has largely continued Dutch conventions to the present day. With Romantic art, the sea and the coast was reclaimed from the specialists by many landscape painters, vessels on the water have featured in art from the earliest times. The earliest known works are petroglyphs from 12,000 BCE showing reed boats in the Gobustan Petroglyph Reserve in modern Azerbaijan, which was then on the edge of the much larger Caspian Sea. Rock carvings and carved objects depicting ships have been found on islands of the Aegean as well as mainland Greece. The central cult image in Egyptian temples was usually a figure of the god. Ships sometimes appear in Ancient Greek vase painting, especially relevant in a narrative context. As in Egyptian painting, the surface of the water may be indicated by a series of parallel wavy lines, the water is usually calm, and objects that are submerged, or partly so, may be shown through the water. The large Nile mosaic of Palestrina is a version of such compositions, Marine highlights in Medieval art include the 11th century Bayeux Tapestry showing the Norman Invasion of England. From the 12th century onwards, seals of ports often featured a ship portrait, there was also a true seascape, the Voyage of St Julian & St Martha, but both pages were destroyed in a fire in 1904, and only survive in black and white photographs. Scenes of small boats on rivers sometimes feature in the calendar miniatures from books of hours by artists such as Simon Bening. During the Gothic period the nef, a piece of goldsmiths work in the shape of a ship, used for holding cutlery, salt or spices. Initially just consisting of the hull, from the 15th century the most elaborate had masts, sails, as the exotic nautilus shell began to reach Europe, many used these for their hull, like the Burghley Nef of about 1528. Lower down the scale, interest in shipping was reflected in many early prints of ships. They also usually anticipated the low horizon that painting would not achieve until the 17th century, the first print of a naval battle is an enormous woodcut of the Battle of Zonchio in 1499 between the Venetians and the Turks. The only surviving impression is coloured with stencils, most were probably pasted onto walls, the earliest comparable painting to survive comes from several decades later. At the same artists were often involved in the expansion of Western cartography
8.
Architectural painting
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Architectural painting is a form of genre painting where the predominant focus lies on architecture, both outdoors views and interiors. While architecture was present in many of the earliest paintings and illuminations, in the Renaissance, architecture was used to emphasize the perspective and create a sense of depth, like in Masaccios Holy Trinity from the 1420s. In Western art, architectural painting as an independent genre developed in the 16th century in Flanders and the Netherlands, later, it developed in a tool for Romantic paintings, with e. g. views of ruins becoming very popular. Closely related genres are architectural fantasies and trompe-loeils, especially illusionistic ceiling painting, the 16th century saw the development of architectural painting as a separate genre in Western art. The main centers in this period were Flanders and the Netherlands, the first important architectural painter was Dutch Hans Vredeman de Vries, who was both an architect and a painter. Students of Hans Vredeman de Vries, both in Flanders and in the Netherlands, include his sons Salomon and Paul, and Hendrik van Steenwijk I. Through them the genre was popularized and their family and students turned it into one of the domains of Dutch Golden Age painting. Notable Dutch painter of the include, Hendrik van Steenwijk II Bartholomeus van Bassen Pieter van der Stock Pieter Jansz. Saenredam Gerard Houckgeest Susanna van Steenwijk Dirck van Delen Daniël de Blieck Hendrick Cornelisz, another genre closely related to architectural painting proper were the capriccios, fantasies set in and focusing on an imaginary architecture. Known masters of the include the 10th century painter Guo Zhongshu, and Wang Zhenpeng
9.
Hierarchy of genres
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A hierarchy of genres is any formalization which ranks different genres in an art form in terms of their prestige and cultural value. Below that came lyric poetry, and comic poetry, with a ranking for drama. The novel took a time to establish a firm place in the hierarchy. In music, settings of words were accorded a higher status than merely instrumental works, at least until the Baroque period, any element of comedy reduced the status of a work, though, as in other art forms, often increasing its popularity. The hierarchies in figurative art are those initially formulated for painting in 16th century Italy, idealism was privileged over realism in line with Renaissance Neo-Platonist philosophy. The term is used within the field of painting, and from the High Renaissance onwards. This had not been the case in Medieval art and the sectors of society took a considerable period to fully accept this view. The Raphael Cartoons are an example of the continuing status of tapestry. Until the 19th century the most extravagant objéts dart remained more expensive and these matters were considered of great importance by artist-theorists such as Leon Battista Alberti, Leonardo da Vinci, and Giorgio Vasari. He placed emphasis on the ability to depict the interactions between the figures by gesture and expression, theorists of the Early and High Renaissance accepted the importance of representing nature closely, at least until the later writings of Michelangelo, who was strongly influenced by neoplatonism. By the time of Mannerist theorists such as Gian Paolo Lomazzo, ideas of decorum also fed into the hierarchy, comic, sordid or merely frivolous subjects or treatment ranked lower than elevated and moral ones. On the other hand, numbers of courtly sitters and their parents, the question of decorum in religious art became the focus of intense effort by the Catholic Church after the decrees on art of the Council of Trent of 1563. Paintings depicting biblical events as if they were occurring in the households of wealthy contemporary Italians were attacked, until the challenge of Caravaggio at the end of the century, religious art became thoroughly ideal. Although similar developments occurred in all advanced European countries, they were most evident in the enormously productive schools of Dutch Golden Age painting and Flemish Baroque painting. The unhappy history of Rembrandts last history commission, The Conspiracy of Claudius Civilis illustrates both his commitment to the form and the difficulties he had in finding an audience. In Flanders, as well as quantities of pure genre works, there was a trend towards history paintings with a major genre element, whether animals. Often the different elements were painted by different artists, Rubens and Frans Snyders often co-operated in this way, the size of paintings, and very often the prices they realized, increasingly tended to reflect their position in the hierarchy in this period. Until the Romantic period the price and saleability of what were essentially landscapes could be increased by adding small mythological or religious figures, a practice that went back to the beginnings of landscape painting in the Flemish world landscapes of Joachim Patinir in the early 16th century
10.
History painting
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History painting is a genre in painting defined by its subject matter rather than artistic style. History paintings usually depict a moment in a story, rather than a specific and static subject. The term is derived from the senses of the word historia in Latin and Italian, meaning story or narrative. Most history paintings are not of scenes from history, especially paintings from before about 1850, History paintings almost always contain a number of figures, often a large number, and normally show some type of action that is a moment in a narrative. The genre includes depictions of moments in religious narratives, above all the Life of Christ, as well as scenes from mythology. These groups were for long the most frequently painted, works such as Michelangelos Sistine Chapel ceiling are therefore history paintings, History painting may be used interchangeably with historical painting, and was especially so used before the 20th century. Where a distinction is made historical painting is the painting of scenes from secular history, in the 19th century historical painting in this sense became a distinct genre. In phrases such as historical painting materials, historical means in use before about 1900 and he placed emphasis on the ability to depict the interactions between the figures by gesture and expression. This view remained general until the 19th century, when artistic movements began to struggle against the establishment institutions of academic art, which continued to adhere to it. Scenes from ancient history had been popular in the early Renaissance, and once again became common in the Baroque and Rococo periods, and still more so with the rise of Neoclassicism. In some 19th or 20th century contexts, the term may refer specifically to paintings of scenes from history, rather than those from religious narratives. Scenes from ancient history and mythology were also popular, artists continued for centuries to strive to make their reputation by producing such works, often neglecting genres to which their talents were better suited. The large works of Raphael were long considered, with those of Michelangelo, un Peintre qui ne fait que des portraits, na pas encore cette haute perfection de lArt, & ne peut prétendre à lhonneur que reçoivent les plus sçavans. He who produces perfect landscapes is above another who only produces fruit, a painter who only does portraits still does not have the highest perfection of his art, and cannot expect the honour due to the most skilled. By the late 18th century, with religious and mytholological painting in decline, there was an increased demand for paintings of scenes from history. Classical history remained popular, but scenes from national histories were often the best-received, the unheroic nature of modern dress was regarded as a serious difficulty. When, in 1770, Benjamin West proposed to paint The Death of General Wolfe in contemporary dress and he ignored these comments and showed the scene in modern dress. Although George III refused to purchase the work, West succeeded both in overcoming his critics objections and inaugurating a more historically accurate style in such paintings. M. W, conveniently their clothes had been worn away to classical-seeming rags by the point the painting depicts
11.
Decorative arts
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The decorative arts are arts or crafts concerned with the design and manufacture of beautiful objects that are also functional. It includes interior design, but not usually architecture, the decorative arts are often categorized in opposition to the fine arts, namely, painting, drawing, photography, and large-scale sculpture, which generally have no function other than to be seen. The distinction between the decorative and the arts has essentially arisen from the post-Renaissance art of the West. This distinction is less meaningful when considering the art of other cultures and periods. For example, Islamic art in many periods and places consists entirely of the arts, often using geometric and plant forms. The distinction between decorative and fine arts is not very useful for appreciating Chinese art, and neither is it for understanding Early Medieval art in Europe, large-scale wall-paintings were much less regarded, crudely executed, and rarely mentioned in contemporary sources. They were probably seen as a substitute for mosaic, which for this period must be viewed as a fine art. The term ars sacra is sometimes used for medieval Christian art done in metal, ivory, textiles, illuminated manuscripts have a much higher survival rate, especially in the hands of the church, as there was little value in the materials and they were easy to store. Most European art during the Middle Ages had been produced under a different set of values. The lower status given to works of art in contrast to fine art narrowed with the rise of the Arts and Crafts Movement. This aesthetic movement of the half of the 19th century was born in England and inspired by William Morris. The movement represented the beginning of an appreciation of the decorative arts throughout Europe. Many converts, both professional artists ranks and from among the intellectual class as a whole, helped spread the ideas of the movement. The influence of the Arts and Crafts Movement led to the arts being given a greater appreciation and status in society. Until the enactment of the Copyright Act 1911 only works of art had been protected from unauthorised copying. The 1911 Act extended the definition of a work to include works of artistic craftsmanship
12.
Rococo
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Rococo artists and architects used a more jocular, florid, and graceful approach to the Baroque. Their style was ornate and used light colours, asymmetrical designs, curves, unlike the political Baroque, the Rococo had playful and witty themes. By the end of the 18th century, Rococo was largely replaced by the Neoclassic style. In 1835 the Dictionary of the French Academy stated that the word Rococo usually covers the kind of ornament, style and design associated with Louis XVs reign and it includes therefore, all types of art from around the middle of the 18th century in France. The word is seen as a combination of the French rocaille and coquilles, the term may also be a combination of the Italian word barocco and the French rocaille and may describe the refined and fanciful style that became fashionable in parts of Europe in the 18th century. The Rococo love of shell-like curves and focus on decorative arts led some critics to say that the style was frivolous or merely modish, when the term was first used in English in about 1836, it was a colloquialism meaning old-fashioned. While there is some debate about the historical significance of the style to art in general. Italian architects of the late Baroque/early Rococo were wooed to Catholic Germany, Bohemia and Austria by local princes, an exotic but in some ways more formal type of Rococo appeared in France where Louis XIVs succession brought a change in the court artists and general artistic fashion. By the end of the long reign, rich Baroque designs were giving way to lighter elements with more curves. These elements are obvious in the designs of Nicolas Pineau. During the Régence, court life moved away from Versailles and this change became well established, first in the royal palace. The delicacy and playfulness of Rococo designs is seen as perfectly in tune with the excesses of Louis XVs reign. The 1730s represented the height of Rococo development in France, the style had spread beyond architecture and furniture to painting and sculpture, exemplified by the works of Antoine Watteau and François Boucher. The Rococo style was spread by French artists and engraved publications, william Hogarth helped develop a theoretical foundation for Rococo beauty. Though not intentionally referencing the movement, he argued in his Analysis of Beauty that the lines and S-curves prominent in Rococo were the basis for grace. The development of Rococo in Great Britain is considered to have connected with the revival of interest in Gothic architecture early in the 18th century. The beginning of the end for Rococo came in the early 1760s as figures like Voltaire and Jacques-François Blondel began to voice their criticism of the superficiality, Blondel decried the ridiculous jumble of shells, dragons, reeds, palm-trees and plants in contemporary interiors. By 1785, Rococo had passed out of fashion in France, replaced by the order, in Germany, late 18th century Rococo was ridiculed as Zopf und Perücke, and this phase is sometimes referred to as Zopfstil
13.
Porcelain
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Porcelain /ˈpɔːrsəlᵻn, ˈpɔːrslᵻn/ is a ceramic material made by heating materials, generally including kaolin, in a kiln to temperatures between 1,200 and 1,400 °C. Porcelain was first developed in China around 2,000 years ago, then spread to other East Asian countries, and finally Europe. It combines well with both glazes and paint, and can be modelled very well, allowing a range of decorative treatments in tablewares, vessels. It also has uses in technology and industry. The European name, porcelain in English, come from the old Italian porcellana because of its resemblance to the translucent surface of the shell, Porcelain is also referred to as china or fine china in some English-speaking countries, as it was first seen in imports from China. Porcelain has been described as being completely vitrified, hard, impermeable, white or artificially coloured, translucent, however, the term porcelain lacks a universal definition and has been applied in a very unsystematic fashion to substances of diverse kinds which have only certain surface-qualities in common. Terms such as porcellaneous or near-porcelain may be used in such cases, a high proportion of modern porcelain is made of the variant bone china. Kaolin is the material from which porcelain is made, even though clay minerals might account for only a small proportion of the whole. The word paste is an old term for both the unfired and fired material, a more common terminology these days for the unfired material is body, for example, when buying materials a potter might order an amount of porcelain body from a vendor. The composition of porcelain is highly variable, but the mineral kaolinite is often a raw material. Other raw materials can include feldspar, ball clay, glass, bone ash, steatite, quartz, petuntse, the clays used are often described as being long or short, depending on their plasticity. Long clays are cohesive and have high plasticity, short clays are cohesive and have lower plasticity. Clays used for porcelain are generally of lower plasticity and are shorter than many other pottery clays and they wet very quickly, meaning that small changes in the content of water can produce large changes in workability. Thus, the range of content within which these clays can be worked is very narrow. The following section provides information on the methods used to form, decorate, finish, glaze. Many types of glaze, such as the iron-containing glaze used on the wares of Longquan, were designed specifically for their striking effects on porcelain. Porcelain wares may be decorated under the glaze using pigments that include cobalt and copper or over the glaze using coloured enamels. Like many earlier wares, modern porcelains are often biscuit-fired at around 1,000 °C, coated with glaze, another early method is once-fired where the glaze is applied to the unfired body and the two fired together in a single operation
14.
Wallpaper
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It is usually sold in rolls and is put onto a wall using wallpaper paste. Wallpapers can come plain as lining paper, textured, with a repeating pattern design, or, much less commonly today. Wallpaper printing techniques include surface printing, gravure printing, silk screen-printing, rotary printing, Wallpaper is made in long rolls, which are hung vertically on a wall. The number of times the pattern repeats horizontally across a roll does not matter for this purpose, a single pattern can be issued in several different colorways. The worlds most expensive wallpaper, Les Guerres DIndependence, was priced at £24,896.50 for a set of 32 panels, the wallpaper was designed by Zuber in France and is very popular in the United States. The main historical techniques are, hand-painting, woodblock printing, stencilling, the first three all date back to before 1700. Wallpaper, using the technique of woodcut, gained popularity in Renaissance Europe amongst the emerging gentry. The social elite continued to hang large tapestries on the walls of their homes and these tapestries added color to the room as well as providing an insulating layer between the stone walls and the room, thus retaining heat in the room. However, tapestries were extremely expensive and so only the rich could afford them. Less well-off members of the elite, unable to buy tapestries due either to prices or wars preventing international trade, turned to wallpaper to brighten up their rooms. Prints were very often pasted to walls, instead of being framed and hung, and the largest sizes of prints, some important artists made such pieces - notably Albrecht Dürer, who worked on both large picture prints and also ornament prints - intended for wall-hanging. The largest picture print was The Triumphal Arch commissioned by the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I, very few samples of the earliest repeating pattern wallpapers survive, but there are a large number of old master prints, often in engraving of repeating or repeatable decorative patterns. These are called ornament prints and were intended as models for wallpaper makers, England and France were leaders in European wallpaper manufacturing. Among the earliest known samples is one found on a wall from England and is printed on the back of a London proclamation of 1509, without any tapestry manufacturers in England, English gentry and aristocracy alike turned to wallpaper. During the Protectorate under Oliver Cromwell, the manufacture of wallpaper, in 1712, during the reign of Queen Anne, a wallpaper tax was introduced which was not abolished until 1836. By the mid-eighteenth century, Britain was the wallpaper manufacturer in Europe. However this trade was disrupted in 1755 by the Seven Years War and later the Napoleonic Wars. In 1748 the British Ambassador to Paris decorated his salon with blue flock wallpaper, in the 1760s the French manufacturer Jean-Baptiste Réveillon hired designers working in silk and tapestry to produce some of the most subtle and luxurious wallpaper ever made
15.
Pieter Bruegel the Elder
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He also painted no portraits, the other mainstay of Netherlandish art. After his training and travels to Italy, he returned in 1555 to settle in Antwerp and he does the same with the fantastic and anarchic world developed in Renaissance prints and book illustrations. He is sometimes referred to as Peasant Bruegel, to him from the many later painters in his family. From 1559, he dropped the h from his name and signed his paintings as Bruegel, the two main early sources for Bruegels biography are Lodovico Guicciardinis account of the Low Countries and Karel van Manders 1604 Schilder-boeck. Guicciardini recorded that Bruegel was born in Breda, but van Mander specified that Bruegel was born in a village near Breda called Brueghel, nothing at all is known of his family background. Van Mander seems to assume he came from a peasant background, in keeping with the over-emphasis on Bruegels peasant genre scenes given by van Mander and many art historians. Breda was already a significant centre as the base of the House of Orange-Nassau, with a population of some 8,000, from the fact that Bruegel entered the Antwerp painters guild in 1551, it is inferred that he was born between 1525 and 1530. His master, according to van Mander, was the Antwerp painter Pieter Coecke van Aelst, between 1545 and 1550 he was a pupil of Pieter Coecke, who died on 6 December 1550. Bruegel possibly got this work via the connections of Mayken Verhulst, maykens father and eight siblings were all artists or married an artist, and lived in Mechelen. In 1551 Bruegel became a master in the Guild of Saint Luke of Antwerp. He set off for Italy soon after, probably by way of France. He visited Rome and, rather adventurously for the period, by 1552 he had reached Reggio Calabria at the tip of the mainland. He probably continued to Sicily, but by 1553 was back in Rome, there he met the miniaturist Giulio Clovio, whose will of 1578 lists paintings by Bruegel, in one case a joint work. These works, apparently landscapes, have not survived, but marginal miniatures in manuscripts by Clovio are attributed to Bruegel, with one exception, Bruegel did not work the plates himself, but produced a drawing which Cocks specialists worked from. In 1563 he was married in Brussels, where he lived for the rest of his life, while Antwerp was the capital of Netherlandish commerce as well as the art market, Brussels was the centre of government. Van Mander tells a story that his mother-in-law pushed for the move to him from his established servant girl mistress. By now painting had become his main activity, and his most famous come from these years. His paintings were sought after, with patrons including wealthy Flemish collectors and Cardinal Granvelle, in effect the Habsburg chief minister
16.
Everyday life
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Everyday life, daily life or routine life comprises the ways in which people typically act, think, and feel on a daily basis. Everyday life may be described as mundane, routine, natural, habitual, human diurnality means most people sleep at least part of the night and are active in daytime. Most eat two or three meals in a day, working time mostly involves a daily schedule, beginning in the morning. This produces the daily rush hours experienced by millions. Bathing every day is a custom for many, beyond these broad similarities, lifestyles vary and different people spend their days differently. Nomadic life differs from sedentism, and among the sedentary, urban people live differently from rural folk, differences in the lives of the rich and the poor, or between factory workers and intellectuals, may go beyond their working hours. Many women spend their day in activities greatly different from those of men, Everyday life is a key concept in cultural studies and is a specialized subject in the field of sociology. Other theorists dispute this argument based on a history of writings about daily life which can be seen in works from Ancient Greece, Medieval Christianity. In the study of everyday life gender has been an important factor in its conceptions, some theorists regard women as the quintessential representatives and victims of everyday life. It is the reality that exists amongst all social groupings without discrimination and is an unavoidable basis for which all human endeavor exists. Daily life is studied by sociologists to investigate how it is organised. A sociological journal called the Journal of Mundane Behavior, published 2000 -2004, daily entertainment once consisted mainly of telling stories in the evening. This custom developed into the theatre of ancient Greece and other professional entertainments, reading later became less a mysterious specialty of scholars, and more a common pleasure for people who could afford books. During the 20th century mass media became prevalent in countries, creating among other things a daily prime time to consume fiction. Many people have increased their daily use of the Internet. These concerns did not prevent the progressively wider popularity of these innovations, peoples everyday lives are shaped through language and communication. They choose what to do with their time based on opinions, much of the dialogue people are subject to comes from the mass media, which is an important factor in what shapes human experience. The media uses language to make an impact on everyday life
17.
Portrait
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A portrait is a painting, photograph, sculpture, or other artistic representation of a person, in which the face and its expression is predominant. The intent is to display the likeness, personality, and even the mood of the person, for this reason, in photography a portrait is generally not a snapshot, but a composed image of a person in a still position. A portrait often shows a person looking directly at the painter or photographer, nonetheless, many subjects, such as Akhenaten and some other Egyptian pharaohs, can be recognised by their distinctive features. The 28 surviving rather small statues of Gudea, ruler of Lagash in Sumeria between c.2144 -2124 BC, show a consistent appearance with some individuality. Some of the earliest surviving painted portraits of people who were not rulers are the Greco-Roman funeral portraits that survived in the dry climate of Egypts Fayum district. These are almost the only paintings from the world that have survived, apart from frescos, though many sculptures. Although the appearance of the figures differs considerably, they are considerably idealized, the art of the portrait flourished in Ancient Greek and especially Roman sculpture, where sitters demanded individualized and realistic portraits, even unflattering ones. During the 4th century, the portrait began to retreat in favor of a symbol of what that person looked like. In the Europe of the Early Middle Ages representations of individuals are mostly generalized, true portraits of the outward appearance of individuals re-emerged in the late Middle Ages, in tomb monuments, donor portraits, miniatures in illuminated manuscripts and then panel paintings. Moche culture of Peru was one of the few ancient civilizations which produced portraits and these works accurately represent anatomical features in great detail. The individuals portrayed would have been recognizable without the need for other symbols or a reference to their names. The individuals portrayed were members of the elite, priests, warriors. They were represented during several stages of their lives, the faces of gods were also depicted. To date, no portraits of women have been found, there is particular emphasis on the representation of the details of headdresses, hairstyles, body adornment and face painting. One of the portraits in the Western world is Leonardo da Vincis painting titled Mona Lisa. What has been claimed as the worlds oldest known portrait was found in 2006 in the Vilhonneur grotto near Angoulême and is thought to be 27,000 years old. Profile view, full view, and three-quarter view, are three common designations for portraits, each referring to a particular orientation of the head of the individual depicted. Such terms would tend to have greater applicability to two-dimensional artwork such as photography, in the case of three-dimensional artwork, the viewer can usually alter their orientation to the artwork by moving around it
18.
Bourgeoisie
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A legally defined class of the Middle Ages to the end of the Ancien Régime in France, that of inhabitants having the rights of citizenship and political rights in a city. This bourgeoisie destroyed aristocratic privilege and established civic equality after the French monarchy collapsed, the aristocracy crumbled because it refused to reform institutions and financial systems. An affluent and often opulent stratum of the class who stand opposite the proletariat class. In English, bourgeoisie identified a social class oriented to economic materialism and hedonism, hence, since the 19th century, the term bourgeoisie usually is politically and sociologically synonymous with the ruling upper class of a capitalist society. The 18th century saw a partial rehabilitation of bourgeois values in such as the drame bourgeois and bourgeois tragedy. The bourgeoisie emerged as a historical and political phenomenon in the 11th century when the bourgs of Central and this urban expansion was possible thanks to economic concentration due to the appearance of protective self-organisation into guilds. Guilds arose when individual businessmen conflicted with their feudal landlords who demanded greater rents than previously agreed. In English, the bourgeoisie is often used to denote the middle classes. In fact, the French term encompasses both the upper and middle classes, a misunderstanding which has occurred in other languages as well. The bourgeoisie in France and many French-speaking countries consists of four evolving social layers, petite bourgeoisie, moyenne bourgeoisie, grande bourgeoisie, the petite bourgeoisie consists of people who have experienced a brief ascension in social mobility for one or two generations. It usually starts with a trade or craft, and by the second and third generation, the petite bourgeois would belong to the British lower middle class and would be American middle income. They are distinguished mainly by their mentality, and would differentiate themselves from the proletariat or working class and this class would include artisans, small traders, shopkeepers, and small farm owners. They are not employed, but may not be able to afford employees themselves, the moyenne bourgeoisie or middle bourgeoisie contains people who have solid incomes and assets, but not the aura of those who have become established at a higher level. They tend to belong to a family that has been bourgeois for three or more generations, some members of this class may have relatives from similar backgrounds, or may even have aristocratic connections. The moyenne bourgeoisie is the equivalent of the British and American upper-middle classes, the grande bourgeoisie are families that have been bourgeois since the 19th century, or for at least four or five generations. Members of these tend to marry with the aristocracy or make other advantageous marriages. This bourgeoisie family has acquired an established historical and cultural heritage over the decades, the names of these families are generally known in the city where they reside, and their ancestors have often contributed to the regions history. These families are respected and revered and they belong to the upper class, and in the British class system are considered part of the gentry
19.
Art of ancient Egypt
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Ancient Egyptian art is the painting, sculpture, architecture and other arts produced by the civilization of ancient Egypt in the lower Nile Valley from about 3000 BC to 30 AD. Ancient Egyptian art reached a level in painting and sculpture. It was famously conservative, and Egyptian styles changed remarkably little over more than three thousand years, much of the surviving art comes from tombs and monuments and thus there is an emphasis on life after death and the preservation of knowledge of the past. Ancient Egyptian art included paintings, sculpture in wood, stone and ceramics, drawings on papyrus, faience, jewelry, ivories and it displays an extraordinarily vivid representation of the ancient Egyptians socioeconomic status and belief systems. This appears as early as the Narmer Palette from Dynasty I, other conventions make statues of males darker than females ones. Egyptian art uses hierarchical proportion, where the size of figures indicates their relative importance, symbolism can be observed throughout Egyptian art and played an important role in establishing a sense of order. The pharaohs regalia, for example, represented his power to maintain order, animals were also highly symbolic figures in Egyptian art. Not all Egyptian reliefs were painted, and less prestigious works in tombs, Stone surfaces were prepared by whitewash, or if rough, a layer of coarse mud plaster, with a smoother gesso layer above, some finer limestones could take paint directly. Pigments were mostly mineral, chosen to withstand sunlight without fading. The binding medium used in painting remains unclear, egg tempera and various gums and it is clear that true fresco, painted into a thin layer of wet plaster, was not used. Instead the paint was applied to dried plaster, in what is called fresco a secco in Italian, small objects including wooden statuettes were often painted using similar techniques. Many ancient Egyptian paintings have survived in tombs, and sometimes temples, the paintings were often made with the intent of making a pleasant afterlife for the deceased. The themes included journey through the afterworld or protective deities introducing the deceased to the gods of the underworld, some tomb paintings show activities that the deceased were involved in when they were alive and wished to carry on doing for eternity. In the New Kingdom and later, the Book of the Dead was buried with the entombed person and it was considered important for an introduction to the afterlife. Egyptian paintings are painted in such a way to show a profile view, for example, the painting to the right shows the head from a profile view and the body from a frontal view. Their main colors were red, blue, green, gold, black, the monumental sculpture of ancient Egypts temples and tombs is world-famous, but refined and delicate small works exist in much greater numbers. The Egyptians used the technique of sunk relief, which is well suited to very bright sunlight. The distinctive pose of standing statues facing forward with one foot in front of the other was helpful for the balance and it was adopted very early and remained unchanged until the arrival of the Greeks
20.
Peiraikos
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Peiraikos, or Piraeicus, was an Ancient Greek painter of uncertain date and location. None of his work is known to have survived and he is only from a brief discussion by the Latin author Pliny the Elder. He painted barbers shops, cobblers stalls, asses, eatables and similar subjects, in these subjects he could give consummate pleasure, selling them for more than other artists received for their large pictures. In the terms of art history, he painted cabinet paintings of genre subjects. From his tone, it seems that Pliny does not know how to judge Piraeicus, early Modern commentators were to take both approving and disapproving attitudes to later artists compared to him, often assuming that Plinys meaning followed their own. Peiraikos subjects may well have given a comic treatment. The ambiguous tone of Plinys comments allowed later writers to enlist Pliny on either side of the argument for, pieter van Laer was a Dutch Golden Age painter of genre scenes, active for over a decade in Rome, where his nickname was Il Bamboccio. Artists working in his style, who often painted just such scenes of life as Pliny lists, became known as the Bamboccianti. A reference by the Jesuit writer Baltasar Gracián, comparing Peiraikos to a contemporary painter also seems to refer to Velasquez. In France, André Félibien was an influential codifier of the theory of the hierarchy of genres in art, a passage in the diary of Paul Klee meditates on Peiraikos as an artist-martyr. In literature, Rabelais in Gargantua and Pantagruel compares himself to Peiraikos as a specialist in low subjects, the term used by Pliny has been anglicized as rhyparographer, A painter of low or mean subjects, which the OED first records in 1656, with rhyparography in 1678. Courtwright, Nicola, Origins and Meanings of Rembrandts Late Drawing Style, The Art Bulletin, Vol.78, grove Art Online, Oxford Art Online, Oxford University Press, accessed February 22,2013, subscriber link Kettering. Men at Work in Dutch Art, or Keeping Ones Nose to the Grindstone, The Art Bulletin, Vol.89, the Roman Limekilns of the Bamboccianti, The Art Bulletin, Vol.70, No. 1, pp. 98–99, Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Classical Association, JSTOR Saporta, Lawrence L.84, No. 3, pp. 449–468, JSTOR Sullivan, Margaret A. Aertsens Kitchen and Market Scenes, Audience and Innovation in Northern Art, The Art Bulletin, Vol.81, No
21.
Pliny the Elder
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In the latter number will be my uncle, by virtue of his own and of your compositions. Pliny is referring to the fact that Tacitus relied on his uncles now missing work on the History of the German Wars. The wind caused by the sixth and largest pyroclastic surge of the eruption would not allow his ship to leave the shore, and Pliny probably died during this event. Plinys dates are pinned to the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD79 and a statement of his nephew that he died in his 56th year, Pliny was the son of an equestrian, Gaius Plinius Celer, and his wife, Marcella. Neither the younger nor the elder Pliny mention the names and their ultimate source is a fragmentary inscription found in a field in Verona and recorded by the 16th century Augustinian monk Onofrio Panvinio at Verona. The reading of the inscription depends on the reconstruction, but in all cases the names come through, whether he was an augur and whether she was named Grania Marcella are less certain. Jean Hardouin presents a statement from a source that he claims was ancient, that Pliny was from Verona. Hardouin also cites the conterraneity of Catullus, additional efforts to connect Celer and Marcella with other gentes are highly speculative. Hardouin is the scholar to use his unknown source. He kept statues of his ancestors there, a statue of Pliny on the facade of the Duomo of Como celebrates him as a native son. He had a sister, Plinia, who married into the Caecilii and was the mother of his nephew, Pliny the Younger, whose letters describe his work and study regimen in detail. In one of his letters to Tacitus, Pliny the Younger details how his uncles breakfasts would be light and simple following the customs of our forefathers. This shows that Pliny the Younger wanted it to be conveyed that Pliny the Elder was a good Roman and this statement would have pleased Tacitus. Two inscriptions identifying the hometown of Pliny the Younger as Como take precedence over the Verona theory, one commemorates the youngers career as imperial magistrate and details his considerable charitable and municipal expenses on behalf of the people of Como. Another identifies his father Lucius village as Fecchio near Como and it is likely therefore that Plinia was a local girl and Pliny the Elder, her brother, was from Como. Gaius was a member of the Plinii gens and he did not take his fathers cognomen, Celer, but assumed his own, Secundus. As his adopted son took the same cognomen, Pliny founded a branch, no earlier instances of the Plinii are known. In 59 BC, only about 82 years before Plinys birth, Julius Caesar founded Novum Comum as a colonia to secure the region against the Alpine tribes, whom he had been unable to defeat
22.
Hellenistic period
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It is often considered a period of transition, sometimes even of decadence or degeneration, compared to the enlightenment of the Greek Classical era. The Hellenistic period saw the rise of New Comedy, Alexandrian poetry, the Septuagint, Greek science was advanced by the works of the mathematician Euclid and the polymath Archimedes. The religious sphere expanded to include new gods such as the Greco-Egyptian Serapis, eastern deities such as Attis and Cybele, the Hellenistic period was characterized by a new wave of Greek colonization which established Greek cities and kingdoms in Asia and Africa. This resulted in the export of Greek culture and language to new realms. Equally, however, these new kingdoms were influenced by the cultures, adopting local practices where beneficial, necessary. Hellenistic culture thus represents a fusion of the Ancient Greek world with that of the Near East, Middle East and this mixture gave rise to a common Attic-based Greek dialect, known as Koine Greek, which became the lingua franca through the Hellenistic world. Scholars and historians are divided as to what event signals the end of the Hellenistic era, Hellenistic is distinguished from Hellenic in that the first encompasses the entire sphere of direct ancient Greek influence, while the latter refers to Greece itself. The word originated from the German term hellenistisch, from Ancient Greek Ἑλληνιστής, from Ἑλλάς, Hellenistic is a modern word and a 19th-century concept, the idea of a Hellenistic period did not exist in Ancient Greece. Although words related in form or meaning, e. g, the major issue with the term Hellenistic lies in its convenience, as the spread of Greek culture was not the generalized phenomenon that the term implies. Some areas of the world were more affected by Greek influences than others. The Greek population and the population did not always mix, the Greeks moved and brought their own culture. While a few fragments exist, there is no surviving historical work which dates to the hundred years following Alexanders death. The works of the major Hellenistic historians Hieronymus of Cardia, Duris of Samos, the earliest and most credible surviving source for the Hellenistic period is Polybius of Megalopolis, a statesman of the Achaean League until 168 BC when he was forced to go to Rome as a hostage. His Histories eventually grew to a length of forty books, covering the years 220 to 167 BC, another important source, Plutarchs Parallel Lives though more preoccupied with issues of personal character and morality, outlines the history of important Hellenistic figures. Appian of Alexandria wrote a history of the Roman empire that includes information of some Hellenistic kingdoms, other sources include Justins epitome of Pompeius Trogus Historiae Philipicae and a summary of Arrians Events after Alexander, by Photios I of Constantinople. Lesser supplementary sources include Curtius Rufus, Pausanias, Pliny, in the field of philosophy, Diogenes Laertius Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers is the main source. Ancient Greece had traditionally been a collection of fiercely independent city-states. After the Peloponnesian War, Greece had fallen under a Spartan hegemony, in which Sparta was pre-eminent but not all-powerful
23.
Mosaic
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A mosaic is a piece of art or image made from the assemblage of small pieces of colored glass, stone, or other materials. It is often used in art or as interior decoration. Most mosaics are made of small, flat, roughly square, pieces of stone or glass of different colors, some, especially floor mosaics, are made of small rounded pieces of stone, and called pebble mosaics. Others are made of other materials, mosaics have a long history, starting in Mesopotamia in the 3rd millennium BC. Pebble mosaics were made in Tiryns in Mycenean Greece, mosaics with patterns and pictures became widespread in classical times, Early Christian basilicas from the 4th century onwards were decorated with wall and ceiling mosaics. Mosaic fell out of fashion in the Renaissance, though artists like Raphael continued to practise the old technique, Roman and Byzantine influence led Jews to decorate 5th and 6th century synagogues in the Middle East with floor mosaics. Mosaic was widely used on buildings and palaces in early Islamic art, including Islams first great religious building, the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem. Mosaic went out of fashion in the Islamic world after the 8th century, modern mosaics are made by professional artists, street artists, and as a popular craft. Many materials other than stone and ceramic tesserae may be employed, including shells, glass. The earliest known examples of made of different materials were found at a temple building in Abra, Mesopotamia. They consist of pieces of colored stones, shells and ivory, excavations at Susa and Chogha Zanbil show evidence of the first glazed tiles, dating from around 1500 BC. However, mosaic patterns were not used until the times of Sassanid Empire, mythological subjects, or scenes of hunting or other pursuits of the wealthy, were popular as the centrepieces of a larger geometric design, with strongly emphasized borders. Pliny the Elder mentions the artist Sosus of Pergamon by name, describing his mosaics of the left on a floor after a feast. Both of these themes were widely copied, most recorded names of Roman mosaic workers are Greek, suggesting they dominated high quality work across the empire, no doubt most ordinary craftsmen were slaves. Splendid mosaic floors are found in Roman villas across North Africa, in such as Carthage. The tiny tesserae allowed very fine detail, and an approach to the illusionism of painting, often small panels called emblemata were inserted into walls or as the highlights of larger floor-mosaics in coarser work. The normal technique was opus tessellatum, using larger tesserae, which was laid on site, there was a distinct native Italian style using black on a white background, which was no doubt cheaper than fully coloured work. In Rome, Nero and his architects used mosaics to cover surfaces of walls and ceilings in the Domus Aurea, built 64 AD
24.
Pompeii
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Pompeii was an ancient Roman town-city near modern Naples, in the Campania region of Italy, in the territory of the comune of Pompei. Pompeii, along with Herculaneum and many villas in the area, was mostly destroyed and buried under 4 to 6 m of volcanic ash. Researchers believe that the town was founded in the seventh or sixth century BC by the Osci or Oscans. It came under the domination of Rome in the 4th century BC, by the time of its destruction,160 years later, its population was estimated at 11,000 people, and the city had a complex water system, an amphitheatre, gymnasium, and a port. The eruption destroyed the city, killing its inhabitants and burying it under tons of ash, the site was lost for about 1,500 years until its initial rediscovery in 1599 and broader rediscovery almost 150 years later by Spanish engineer Rocque Joaquin de Alcubierre in 1748. The objects that lay beneath the city have been preserved for centuries because of the lack of air and these artefacts provide an extraordinarily detailed insight into the life of a city during the Pax Romana. During the excavation, plaster was used to fill in the voids in the ash layers that once held human bodies and this allowed archaeologists to see the exact position the person was in when he or she died. Pompeii has been a tourist destination for over 250 years, today it has UNESCO World Heritage Site status and is one of the most popular tourist attractions in Italy, with approximately 2.5 million visitors every year. Pompeii in Latin is a second declension plural, the ruins of Pompeii are located near the modern suburban town of Pompei. It stands on a formed by a lava flow to the north of the mouth of the Sarno River. Today it is some distance inland, but in ancient times was nearer to the coast, Pompeii is about 8 km away from Mount Vesuvius. It covered a total of 64 to 67 hectares and was home to approximately 11,000 to 11,500 people on the basis of household counts and it was a major city in the region of Campania. Three sheets of sediment have been found on top of the lava that lies below the city and, mixed in with the sediment, archaeologists have found bits of bone, pottery shards. Carbon dating has placed the oldest of these layers from the 8th–6th centuries BC, the other two strata are separated either by well-developed soil layers or Roman pavement, and were laid in the 4th century BC and 2nd century BC. It is theorized that the layers of the sediment were created by large landslides. The town was founded around the 7th-6th century BC by the Osci or Oscans and it had already been used as a safe port by Greek and Phoenician sailors. According to Strabo, Pompeii was also captured by the Etruscans, and in recent excavations have shown the presence of Etruscan inscriptions. Pompeii was captured for the first time by the Greek colony of Cumae, allied with Syracuse, in the 5th century BC, the Samnites conquered it, the new rulers imposed their architecture and enlarged the town
25.
Illuminated manuscript
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An illuminated manuscript is a manuscript in which the text is supplemented with such decoration as initials, borders and miniature illustrations. Comparable Far Eastern and Mesoamerican works are described as painted, islamic manuscripts may be referred to as illuminated, illustrated or painted, though using essentially the same techniques as Western works. This article covers the technical, social and economic history of the subject, for an art-historical account, the earliest surviving substantive illuminated manuscripts are from the period 400 to 600, produced in the Kingdom of the Ostrogoths and the Eastern Roman Empire. The significance of these works lies not only in their inherent artistic and historical value, had it not been for the monastic scribes of Late Antiquity, most literature of Greece and Rome would have perished in Europe. As it was, the patterns of textual survivals were shaped by their usefulness to the severely constricted literate group of Christians, the majority of surviving manuscripts are from the Middle Ages, although many survive from the Renaissance, along with a very limited number from Late Antiquity. The majority of manuscripts are of a religious nature. However, especially from the 13th century onward, a number of secular texts were illuminated. Most illuminated manuscripts were created as codices, which had superseded scrolls, a very few illuminated manuscript fragments survive on papyrus, which does not last nearly as long as vellum or parchment. Most medieval manuscripts, illuminated or not, were written on parchment, beginning in the late Middle Ages manuscripts began to be produced on paper. Illuminated manuscripts continued to be produced in the early 16th century, Manuscripts are among the most common items to survive from the Middle Ages, many thousands survive. They are also the best surviving specimens of medieval painting, indeed, for many areas and time periods, they are the only surviving examples of painting. There are a few examples from later periods, the type of book that was most often heavily and richly illuminated, sometimes known as a display book, varied between periods. In the first millennium, these were most likely to be Gospel Books, such as the Lindisfarne Gospels, the Romanesque period saw the creation of many huge illuminated complete Bibles – one in Sweden requires three librarians to lift it. Many Psalters were also illuminated in both this and the Gothic period. Finally, the Book of Hours, very commonly the personal book of a wealthy layperson, was often richly illuminated in the Gothic period. Other books, both liturgical and not, continued to be illuminated at all periods, the Byzantine world also continued to produce manuscripts in its own style, versions of which spread to other Orthodox and Eastern Christian areas. See Medieval art for other regions, periods and types, reusing parchments by scraping the surface and reusing them was a common practice, the traces often left behind of the original text are known as palimpsests. The Gothic period, which saw an increase in the production of these beautiful artifacts, also saw more secular works such as chronicles
26.
Labours of the Months
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The term Labours of the Months refers to cycles in Medieval and early Renaissance art depicting in twelve scenes the rural activities that commonly took place in the months of the year. They are often linked to the signs of the Zodiac, and are seen as response to Gods ordering of the Universe. The Labours of the Months are frequently found as part of large sculptural schemes on churches, the manuscripts are important for the development of landscape painting, containing most of the first painting where this was given prominence. The most famous cycle is that painted in the early 15th century by Hermann, Pol, in the 16th century, late in the history of the theme, Simon Bening produced especially fine cycles which link the Limbourgs with the landscape paintings of Peter Breughel the Elder. The contents of cycles varied with date, location, and the purpose of the work. The Tres Riches Heures du Duc de Berry was designed for the use of a great magnate. Italian cycles often advance the agricultural scenes a month earlier than ones from the Low countries or England, the impact of the onset of the Little Ice Age has been detected in differences between early and late examples. A few sculpted examples of the many surviving are, Chartres cathedral, west, otranto Cathedral, Zodiac signs and labours form part of the mosaic scenes which cover the entire floor. Carlisle Cathedral, the capitals of the twelve piers of the choir each contain a figure representing one of the labours of the months. The Labours of the months occur in those rose windows that are dedicated to the Creation. In these windows, the months are part of a complex iconographical scheme, other windows have the Labours of the Months specifically as their subject matter. Basilica of Saint Denis, rose window of Creation in the north transept, webster, The Labors of the Months in Antique and Mediaeval Art to the End of the Twelfth Century. Bridget Ann Henisch, The Medieval Calendar Year
27.
Book of hours
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The book of hours is a Christian devotional book popular in the Middle Ages. It is the most common type of surviving medieval illuminated manuscript, Books of hours were usually written in Latin, although there are many entirely or partially written in vernacular European languages, especially Dutch. The English term primer is usually now reserved for books written in English. Tens of thousands of books of hours have survived to the present day, in libraries, the typical book of hours is an abbreviated form of the breviary which contained the Divine Office recited in monasteries. It was developed for lay people who wished to incorporate elements of monasticism into their devotional life, reciting the hours typically centered upon the reading of a number of psalms and other prayers. The Marian prayers Obsecro te and O Intemerata were frequently added, as were devotions for use at Mass, the book of hours has its ultimate origin in the Psalter, which monks and nuns were required to recite. By the 12th century this had developed into the breviary, with cycles of psalms, prayers, hymns, antiphons. Eventually a selection of texts was produced in much shorter volumes, many books of hours were made for women. There is some evidence that they were given as a wedding present from a husband to his bride. Frequently they were passed down through the family, as recorded in wills, the earliest surviving English example was apparently written for a laywoman living in or near Oxford in about 1240. It is smaller than a modern paperback but heavily illuminated with major initials, by the 15th century, there are also examples of servants owning their own Books of Hours. In a court case from 1500, a woman is accused of stealing a domestic servants prayerbook. Very rarely the books included prayers specifically composed for their owners, some include images depicting their owners, and some their coats of arms. These, together with the choice of saints commemorated in the calendar, eamon Duffy explains how these books reflected the person who commissioned them. He claims that the character of these books was often signaled by the inclusion of prayers specially composed or adapted for their owners. Furthermore, he states that as many as half the surviving manuscript Books of Hours have annotations, such additions might amount to no more than the insertion of some regional or personal patron saint in the standardized calendar, but they often include devotional material added by the owner. By at least the 15th century, the Netherlands and Paris workshops were producing books of hours for stock or distribution and these were sometimes with spaces left for the addition of personalized elements such as local feasts or heraldry. The book’s goal was to help his devout patroness to structure her daily life in accordance with the eight canonical hours, Matins to Compline
28.
Merry company
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Merry company is the term in art history for a painting, usually from the 17th century, showing a small group of people enjoying themselves, usually seated with drinks, and often music-making. These scenes are a common type of genre painting of the Dutch Golden Age and Flemish Baroque. The term is the translation of the Dutch geselschapje, or vrolijk gezelschap, and is capitalized when used as a title for a work. The scenes may be set in the home, a garden, or a tavern, such subjects in painting are most common in Dutch art between about 1620 and 1670. The definition of a company is far from rigid. Musical party or concert is used when some of the main figures are playing instruments. More generally such works may be referred to as company paintings or company subjects, in La Main Chaud male participants just got smacked. Paintings showing the parable of the Prodigal Son in his prodigal phase are conceived as merry company scenes of the type, though they are often larger. Others seem merely to celebrate the pleasures of sociability, often with a socially aspirational element, scenes with prostitutes do not reflect the realities of 17th century prostitution in many ways, but offer a conventionalized visual code. The madam or procuress is always an aged crone, whereas court records for Amsterdam show that most were still fairly young, the presence of a procuress figure is by itself sufficient to justify interpreting a painting as a brothel scene. Fine clothes and in particular feathers in headresses are said to be signifiers of prostitutes, as well as the more obvious loosened clothes, low cleavages, and a provocative frontal stance. Of one painting by Jacob Ochtervelt, Wayne Franits says, At first glance, the picture exudes an aura of calmness and finesse. Nevertheless, the series of portraits on the wall behind the figures discloses the true nature of its subject. There is strong evidence that actual brothels displayed portraits like these to assist clients in selecting their partners and it would be futile to attempt to distinguish between scenes of good homely fun and public-house dissipation, because the figurative and actual territories were themselves deliberately mixed up. Jan Steen owned a tavern for a period, living on the premises, the exceptional freedom allowed to Dutch women amazed and usually horrified foreign visitors, according to the visiting Englishman Fynes Moryson. And this they do out of a customed liberty without prejudice to their fame whereas the Italian women, strictly kept, many may illustrate the endless supply of moralistic Dutch proverbs. The Feast in the House of Levi by Paolo Veronese is another famous, the courtly company scene with anonymous genre figures developed in the first years of the 17th century in both the Northern and Southern Netherlands, now separated by the Eighty Years War. Dutch painting concentrated on a spectrum that might all be called middle-class, though ranging from elegant patrician companies to scruffy
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Low Countries
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Most of the Low Countries are coastal regions bounded by the North Sea or the English Channel. The countries without access to the sea have linked themselves politically and economically to those with access to one union of port. The Low Countries were the scene of the northern towns, newly built rather than developed from ancient centres. In that period, they rivaled northern Italy for the most densely populated region of Europe, all of the regions mainly depended on trade, manufacturing and the encouragement of the free flow of goods and craftsmen. Germanic languages such as Dutch and Luxembourgish were the predominant languages, secondary languages included French, Romance-speaking Belgium, the Romance Flanders, and Namur. Governor Mary of Hungary used both the expressions les pays de par deça and Pays dEmbas, which evolved to Pays-Bas or Low Countries, today the term is typically fitted to modern political boundaries and used in the same way as the term Benelux, which also includes Luxembourg. The name of the country the Netherlands has the same meaning. The same name of countries can be found in other European languages, for example German Niederlande, French, les Pays-Bas, and so on. In the Dutch language itself no plural is used for the name of the modern country, so Nederland is used for the modern nation and de Nederlanden for the 16th century domains of Charles V. In Dutch, and to an extent in English, the Low Countries colloquially means the Netherlands and Belgium, sometimes the Netherlands. For example, a Derby der Lage Landen, is an event between Belgium and the Netherlands. Belgium was renamed only in 1830, after splitting from the Kingdom of the Netherlands, politically, before the Napoleonic wars, it was referred to as the Southern, Spanish or later Austrian Netherlands. It is still referred to as part of the low countries, the region politically had its origins in Carolingian empire, more precisely, most of it was within the Duchy of Lower Lotharingia. After the disintegration of Lower Lotharingia, the Low Countries were brought under the rule of various lordships until they came to be in the hands of the Valois Dukes of Burgundy. Hence, a part of the low countries came to be referred to as the Burgundian Netherlands also called the Seventeen Provinces up to 1581. Even after the secession of the autonomous Dutch Republic in the north. The Low Countries were part of the Roman provinces of Gallia Belgica, Germania Inferior and they were inhabited by Belgic and Germanic tribes. In the 4th and 5th century, Frankish tribes had entered this Roman region and they came to be ruled by the Merovingian dynasty, under which dynasty the southern part was re-Christianised
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Renaissance
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The Renaissance was a period in European history, from the 14th to the 17th century, regarded as the cultural bridge between the Middle Ages and modern history. It started as a movement in Italy in the Late Medieval period and later spread to the rest of Europe. This new thinking became manifest in art, architecture, politics, science, Early examples were the development of perspective in oil painting and the recycled knowledge of how to make concrete. Although the invention of movable type sped the dissemination of ideas from the later 15th century. In politics, the Renaissance contributed to the development of the customs and conventions of diplomacy, the Renaissance began in Florence, in the 14th century. Other major centres were northern Italian city-states such as Venice, Genoa, Milan, Bologna, the word Renaissance, literally meaning Rebirth in French, first appeared in English in the 1830s. The word also occurs in Jules Michelets 1855 work, Histoire de France, the word Renaissance has also been extended to other historical and cultural movements, such as the Carolingian Renaissance and the Renaissance of the 12th century. The Renaissance was a movement that profoundly affected European intellectual life in the early modern period. Renaissance scholars employed the humanist method in study, and searched for realism, however, a subtle shift took place in the way that intellectuals approached religion that was reflected in many other areas of cultural life. In addition, many Greek Christian works, including the Greek New Testament, were back from Byzantium to Western Europe. Political philosophers, most famously Niccolò Machiavelli, sought to describe life as it really was. Others see more competition between artists and polymaths such as Brunelleschi, Ghiberti, Donatello, and Masaccio for artistic commissions as sparking the creativity of the Renaissance. Yet it remains much debated why the Renaissance began in Italy, accordingly, several theories have been put forward to explain its origins. During the Renaissance, money and art went hand in hand, Artists depended entirely on patrons while the patrons needed money to foster artistic talent. Wealth was brought to Italy in the 14th, 15th, and 16th centuries by expanding trade into Asia, silver mining in Tyrol increased the flow of money. Luxuries from the Eastern world, brought home during the Crusades, increased the prosperity of Genoa, unlike with Latin texts, which had been preserved and studied in Western Europe since late antiquity, the study of ancient Greek texts was very limited in medieval Western Europe. One of the greatest achievements of Renaissance scholars was to bring this entire class of Greek cultural works back into Western Europe for the first time since late antiquity, Arab logicians had inherited Greek ideas after they had invaded and conquered Egypt and the Levant. Their translations and commentaries on these ideas worked their way through the Arab West into Spain and Sicily and this work of translation from Islamic culture, though largely unplanned and disorganized, constituted one of the greatest transmissions of ideas in history
31.
Jan Sanders van Hemessen
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Jan Sanders van Hemessen was a leading Flemish Renaissance painter, belonging to the group of Italianizing Flemish painters called the Romanists, who were influenced by Italian Renaissance painting. Hemessen played an important role in the development of painting, through his large scenes with religious or worldly subjects, set in towns with contemporary dress. These focused on human failings such as greed and vanity, one of his best known works, the Parable of the Prodigal Son now in Brussels, was also a key forerunner of the later merry company tradition, and he painted a pure genre painting set in tavern. He also painted a number of portraits, some of exceptional quality. He was based in Antwerp between 1519 and 1550, joining the artists Guild of Saint Luke there in 1524, after 1550 he may have moved to Haarlem. He painted several subjects, and many others may have been destroyed in the Beeldenstorm that swept through Antwerp in the year of his death. Jan Sanders van Hemessen was born in Hemiksem, then called Hemessen or Heymissen and he was an apprentice of Hendrick van Cleve I in Antwerp. He traveled to Italy early in his career, around 1520, here he studied both models from classical antiquity, such as the Laocoön as well as the contemporary works of Michelangelo and Raphael. He returned to Antwerp where he entered the local Guild of Saint Luke as a master in 1524, van Hemessen is believed to have worked early in his career at the royal court in Mechelen. Here he may have first encountered Jan Gossaert, a court painter, although the early biographer Karel van Mander wrote that van Hemessen spent time in Haarlem, there is no evidence for this statement. Van Hemessen was married to Barbara de Fevre with whom he had two daughters, after his wifes death, he had an illegitimate son called Peeter with his maid Betteken. After the death of Jan Sanders van Hemessen and Betteken, Peeter was legitimised in 1579, Jan Sanders van Hemessen trained his daughter Catharina van Hemessen who became a successful portrait painter. It is not known where van Hemessen died, van Hemessen was one of the earliest Netherlandish artists to exploit the genre character of biblical subjects often for a moralizing purpose. Van Hemessen specialized in scenes of human character flaws such as vanity and his pictures often have a religious subject. His style helped found the Flemish traditions of genre painting, van Hemessen was also a portrait painter. His Mannerist style is characterised by muscular and palpably three-dimensional figures, a densely packed foreground of abruptly cropped forms, Jan Sanders van Hemessen is associated with the development of the tavern scene or merry company in Flemish genre painting. He commenced his compositions on this theme with a 1536 painting on a religious subject, the foreground of the composition shows the prodigal son during his days of high living in the company of prostitutes, music, wine and gambling. Van Hemessen produced more tavern scenes that stress the theme of unbridled living where drinking causes more sinfulness such as the Loose Company, the subject matter provided van Hemessen with another occasion to use a religious subject to convey a moral message
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Mannerism
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Mannerism is a style in European art that emerged in the later years of the Italian High Renaissance around 1520, lasting until about 1580 in Italy, when the Baroque style began to replace it. Northern Mannerism continued into the early 17th century, stylistically, Mannerism encompasses a variety of approaches influenced by, and reacting to, the harmonious ideals associated with artists such as Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, and early Michelangelo. Where High Renaissance art emphasizes proportion, balance, and ideal beauty, Mannerism exaggerates such qualities, Mannerism is notable for its intellectual sophistication as well as its artificial qualities. Mannerism favors compositional tension and instability rather than the balance and clarity of earlier Renaissance painting, Mannerism in literature and music is notable for its highly florid style and intellectual sophistication. The definition of Mannerism and the phases within it continue to be a subject of debate among art historians, for example, some scholars have applied the label to certain early modern forms of literature and music of the 16th and 17th centuries. The term is used to refer to some late Gothic painters working in northern Europe from about 1500 to 1530. Mannerism also has been applied by analogy to the Silver Age of Latin literature, the word mannerism derives from the Italian maniera, meaning style or manner. Like the English word style, maniera can either indicate a type of style or indicate an absolute that needs no qualification. Vasari was also a Mannerist artist, and he described the period in which he worked as la maniera moderna, james V. Mirollo describes how bella maniera poets attempted to surpass in virtuosity the sonnets of Petrarch. This notion of bella maniera suggests that artists thus inspired looked to copying and bettering their predecessors, in essence, bella maniera utilized the best from a number of source materials, synthesizing it into something new. As a stylistic label, Mannerism is not easily defined, “High Renaissance” connoted a period distinguished by harmony, grandeur and the revival of classical antiquity. The term Mannerist was redefined in 1967 by John Shearman following the exhibition of Mannerist paintings organised by Fritz Grossmann at Manchester City Art Gallery in 1965. The label “Mannerism” was used during the 16th century to comment on social behaviour, however, for later writers, such as the 17th-century Gian Pietro Bellori, la maniera was a derogatory term for the perceived decline of art after Raphael, especially in the 1530s and 1540s. From the late 19th century on, art historians have used the term to describe art that follows Renaissance classicism. By the end of the High Renaissance, young artists experienced a crisis, no more difficulties, technical or otherwise, remained to be solved. The young artists needed to find a new goal, and they sought new approaches, at this point Mannerism started to emerge. The new style developed between 1510 and 1520 either in Florence, or in Rome, or in both cities simultaneously and this period has been described as a natural extension of the art of Andrea del Sarto, Michelangelo, and Raphael. Michelangelo from an early age had developed a style of his own, one of the qualities most admired by his contemporaries was his terribilità, a sense of awe-inspiring grandeur, and subsequent artists attempted to imitate it
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Antwerp
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Antwerp is a city in Belgium, the capital of Antwerp province in the region of Flanders. With a population of 510,610, it is the most populous city proper in Belgium and its metropolitan area houses around 1,200,000 people, which is second behind Brussels. Antwerp is on the River Scheldt, linked to the North Sea by the Westerschelde estuary, the Port of Antwerp is one of the biggest in the world, ranking second in Europe and within the top 20 globally. Antwerp has long been an important city in the Low Countries, the inhabitants of Antwerp are nicknamed Sinjoren, after the Spanish honorific señor or French seigneur, lord, referring to the Spanish noblemen who ruled the city in the 17th century. The city hosted the 1920 Summer Olympics, according to folklore, notably celebrated by a statue in front of the town hall, the city got its name from a legend about a giant called Antigoon who lived near the Scheldt river. He exacted a toll from passing boatmen, and for those who refused, he severed one of their hands, eventually the giant was killed by a young hero named Silvius Brabo, who cut off the giants own hand and flung it into the river. Hence the name Antwerpen, from Dutch hand werpen, akin to Old English hand and wearpan, a longstanding theory is that the name originated in the Gallo-Roman period and comes from the Latin antverpia. Antverpia would come from Ante Verpia, indicating land that forms by deposition in the curve of a river. Note that the river Scheldt, before a period between 600 and 750, followed a different track. This must have coincided roughly with the current ringway south of the city, however, many historians think it unlikely that there was a large settlement which would be named Antverpia, but more something like an outpost with a river crossing. However, John Lothrop Motley argues, and so do a lot of Dutch etymologists and historians, aan t werp is also possible. This warp is a hill or a river deposit, high enough to remain dry at high tide. Another word for werp is pol hence polders, historical Antwerp allegedly had its origins in a Gallo-Roman vicus. Excavations carried out in the oldest section near the Scheldt, 1952–1961, produced pottery shards, the earliest mention of Antwerp dates from the 4th century. In the 4th century, Antwerp was first named, having been settled by the Germanic Franks, the name was reputed to have been derived from anda and werpum. The Merovingian Antwerp was evangelized by Saint Amand in the 7th century, at the end of the 10th century, the Scheldt became the boundary of the Holy Roman Empire. Antwerp became a margraviate in 980, by the German emperor Otto I, in the 11th century Godfrey of Bouillon was for some years known as the marquis of Antwerp. In the 12th century, Norbert of Xanten established a community of his Premonstratensian canons at St. Michaels Abbey at Caloes
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Joachim Patinir
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Joachim Patinir, also called Patenier, was a Flemish Renaissance painter of history and landscape subjects. He was Flemish, from the area of modern Wallonia, but worked in Antwerp, Patinir was a pioneer of landscape as an independent genre and he was the first Flemish painter to regard himself primarily as a landscape painter. He effectively invented the world landscape, a style of panoramic northern Renaissance landscapes which is Patinirs important contribution to Western art. There are only five paintings signed by Patinir, but many works have been attributed to him or his workshop with varying degrees of probability. The ones that are signed read, Joachim D. Patinier, the 2007 exhibition at the Museo del Prado in Madrid contained 21 pictures listed as by Patinir or his workshop, and catalogued a further 8 which were not in the exhibition. Patinir was the friend of not only Dürer, but with Quentin Metsys as well, the Temptation of St Anthony was done in collaboration with Metsys, who added the figures to Patinirs landscape. His career was contemporary with that of the other major pioneer of paintings dominated by landscape, Albrecht Altdorfer. He was probably the uncle of Herri met de Bles, who was his follower in establishing the world landscape and he may have studied with Gerard David at Bruges, who had been registered as a guild member in the same year as Patinir. In 1511, Patinir is believed to have travelled to Genoa with David, in 1521, Patinirs friend Albrecht Dürer attended his second wedding and painted his portrait. Dürer called Patinir der gute Landschaftsmaler, thus creating a neologism translated later into the French, Patinir often let his landscapes dwarf his figures, which are of very variable quality. The larger ones were at least sometimes painted by other artists, such specialisation had become common in the Low Countries at the time. Many of his works are large for Netherlandish panel paintings of the time, as are those of Hieronymus Bosch, another painter of large landscapes. Patinirs immense vistas combine observation of detail with lyrical fantasy. His landscapes use a high viewpoint with a horizon. He uses a consistent and effective colour scheme in his landscapes, examples of his work include The Rest on the Flight into Egypt, The Baptism of Christ, St. John at Patmos, Landscape with the Shepherds, and the Rest on the Flight to Egypt. There is also a triptych attributed to him called The Penitence of St. Jerome, Patinir died in Antwerp in 1524, and Quentin Metsys became the guardian of his children. Early Renaissance painting Renaissance in the Netherlands Grove, Hans Devisscher, subscription required Koch, Robert A. Joachim Patinir. Symbols & Allegories in Art, The Hereafter, los Angeles, The J. Paul Getty Museum,2005
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Landscape painting
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In other works, landscape backgrounds for figures can still form an important part of the work. Sky is almost always included in the view, and weather is often an element of the composition, detailed landscapes as a distinct subject are not found in all artistic traditions, and develop when there is already a sophisticated tradition of representing other subjects. The two main traditions spring from Western painting and Chinese art, going well over a thousand years in both cases. Landscape views in art may be imaginary, or copied from reality with varying degrees of accuracy. If the primary purpose of a picture is to depict an actual, specific place, especially including buildings prominently, within a few decades it was used to describe vistas in poetry, and eventually as a term for real views. However the cognate term landscaef or landskipe for a patch of land had existed in Old English. The earliest pure landscapes with no figures are frescos from Minoan Greece of around 1500 BCE. The frescos from the Tomb of Nebamun, now in the British Museum, are a famous example. These were frequently used, as in the illustrated, to bridge the gap between a foreground scene with figures and a distant panoramic vista, a persistent problem for landscape artists. The Chinese style generally showed only a distant view, or used dead ground or mist to avoid that difficulty, aesthetic theories in both regions gave the highest status to the works seen to require the most imagination from the artist. They were often also poets whose lines and images illustrated each other, a revival in interest in nature initially mainly manifested itself in depictions of small gardens such as the Hortus Conclusus or those in millefleur tapestries. The frescos of figures at work or play in front of a background of trees in the Palace of the Popes. Several frescos of gardens have survived from Roman houses like the Villa of Livia, a particular advance is shown in the less well-known Turin-Milan Hours, now largely destroyed by fire, whose developments were reflected in Early Netherlandish painting for the rest of the century. Landscape backgrounds for various types of painting became prominent and skilful during the 15th century. The Italian development of a system of graphical perspective was now known all over Europe. Indeed, certain styles were so popular that they became formulas that could be copied again and again, after the publication of the Small Landscapes, landscape artists in the Low Countries either continued with the world landscape or followed the new mode presented by the Small Landscapes. The popularity of landscape scenes can be seen in the success of the painter Frans Post. Salvator Rosa gave picturesque excitement to his landscapes by showing wilder Southern Italian country, there are different styles and periods, and subgenres of marine and animal painting, as well as a distinct style of Italianate landscape
36.
Pieter Aertsen
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Pieter Aertsen, called Lange Pier because of his height, was a Dutch painter in the style of Northern Mannerism. He is credited with the invention of the genre scene. He was active in his native city Amsterdam but also worked for a period in Antwerp. His genre scenes were influential on later Flemish Baroque painting, Dutch still life painting and his peasant scenes preceded by a few years the much better-known paintings produced in Antwerp by Pieter Bruegel the Elder. He was apprenticed with Allaert Claesz and he then travelled to the Southern Netherlands and took up residence in Antwerp, first with his compatriot Jan Mandijn. Aertsen became a member of Antwerps Guild of Saint Luke, in the official books of the Guild he is recorded as Langhe Peter, schilder. In 1542 he became a citizen of Antwerp and he also got married to Kathelijne Beuckelaar, the daughter and sister of an Antwerp painter and aunt of Joachim Beuckelaer and Huybrecht Beuckeleer. Of the couples eight children, three sons, Pieter, Aert, and Dirk became successful painters, Aertsen returned to Amsterdam in 1555-56. Notable pupils who trained in his workshop included Stradanus and Aertsens nephews, Joachim Beuckelaer, Joachim Beuckelaer continued and further developed Aertsens style and subject matter of painting. A similar inversion in landscape painting had developed by Joachim Patinir in Antwerp several decades earlier when he invented the world landscape. Unlike these, in Aertsens works the genre dominates the front of the image, with the history scene, normally religious. The sign at top right advertises the land behind as for sale, the painting offers the viewer a range of options for life, in an allegory on physical and spiritual food. The painting carries the coat of arms of Antwerp, suggesting it was a civic commission, such subjects were mostly painted before about 1560. In the Renaissance, the example of the painter Peiraikos, known only from Pliny the Elder, was important in justifying genre. One surviving religious work is the Crucifixion in the Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp, unlike Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Aertsens genre figures were mostly depicted idealized with considerable dignity and no effort at comedy, using poses that ultimately derived from classical art. In some cases appear to have been borrowed from the contemporary court portraiture of artists such as Anthonis Mor. Falkenberg, R. L. Pieter Aertsen, Rhyparographer,1995 Falkenberg, R. L. Northern Renaissance Art,1985, Harry N. Abrams, ISBN0136235964 Sullivan, Margaret A. Aertsens Kitchen and Market Scenes, Audience and Innovation in Northern Art, The Art Bulletin, Vol.81, No
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Still life
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A still life is a work of art depicting mostly inanimate subject matter, typically commonplace objects which may be either natural or man-made. Still life gives the artist more freedom in the arrangement of elements within a composition than do paintings of other types of such as landscape or portraiture. Early still-life paintings, particularly before 1700, often contained religious, some modern still life breaks the two-dimensional barrier and employs three-dimensional mixed media, and uses found objects, photography, computer graphics, as well as video and sound. Still life emerged from the painting of details in larger compositions with subjects, the term includes the painting of dead animals, especially game. Live ones are considered art, although in practice they were often painted from dead models. The still-life category also shares commonalities with zoological and especially botanical illustration, generally a still life includes a fully depicted background, and puts aesthetic rather than illustrative concerns as primary. Still life occupied the lowest rung of the hierarchy of genres, the trompe-lœil painting, which intends to deceive the viewer into thinking the scene is real, is a specialized type of still life, usually showing inanimate and relatively flat objects. Still-life paintings often adorn the interior of ancient Egyptian tombs and it was believed that food objects and other items depicted there would, in the afterlife, become real and available for use by the deceased. Ancient Greek vase paintings also demonstrate great skill in depicting everyday objects, by the 16th century, food and flowers would again appear as symbols of the seasons and of the five senses. Also starting in Roman times is the tradition of the use of the skull in paintings as a symbol of mortality and earthly remains and these vanitas images have been re-interpreted through the last 400 years of art history, starting with Dutch painters around 1600. As Pliny the Elder recorded in ancient Roman times, Greek artists centuries earlier were already advanced in the arts of painting, genre painting. He singled out Peiraikos, whose artistry is surpassed by only a very few, by 1300, starting with Giotto and his pupils, still-life painting was revived in the form of fictional niches on religious wall paintings which depicted everyday objects. Through the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, still life in Western art remained primarily an adjunct to Christian religious subjects, painters like Jan van Eyck often used still-life elements as part of an iconographic program. Petrus Christus’ portrait of a bride and groom visiting a goldsmith is an example of a transitional still life depicting both religious and secular content. Another similar type of painting is the family portrait combining figures with a table of food. Around this time, simple still-life depictions divorced of figures were beginning to be painted on the outside of shutters of private devotional paintings, another step toward the autonomous still life was the painting of symbolic flowers in vases on the back of secular portraits around 1475. This was a development by Pieter Aertsen, whose A Meat Stall with the Holy Family Giving Alms introduced the type with a painting that still startles. A small religious scene can often be out in the distance
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Wybrand Hendricks
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Wybrand Hendriks, was a Dutch painter and the concierge of the Teylers Museum. He is primarily known because of his portraits, wybrand Hendriks was born in a sculptor family, as the son of the sculptor Hendrik Hendriksz and his wife Aaltje Claasdr. Both his brothers followed in the steps of their father. His only sister, Cornelia, married the sculptor Rijk Rijke, according to the Netherlands Institute for Art History he learned to paint while working for the decorative wall paper factory of Johannes Remmers in Amsterdam. In 1772 he purchased a wall paper company from Anthony Palthe, in 1775 he married Palthes widow, Agatha Ketel, who he drew in mourning clothes in 1773. A painting he made in 1791 of her sitting across from him at a table was purchased for Teylers Museum with support from the Vereniging Rembrandt in 1999. In the year he married, he made a trip to England, in the 1780s he served a five-year term as one of the directors of the Haarlemse Tekenacademie. From 1786 to 1819 he was the concierge of the Teylers Stichting in Haarlem and he assumed the position in 1785 after his predecessor Vincent Jansz van der Vinne had left in disagreement with Martin van Marum, the head of the fossil and instrument collections. He maintained and restored the pieces in the collection as well and he maintained a studio in the old drawing room of Teylers drawing academy, which had been moved to the city hall. As curator, he was responsible for expanding the collection of art, through Willem Anne Lestevenon he managed to purchase an important collection of 1700 Italian drawings from the collection of Queen Christina of Sweden in 1790. This collection includes works by Michelangelo and Raphael, which are currently amongst the most important, after his wife Agatha Ketel died in 1802, he remarried Geertruid Harmsen in 1806. She was the widow of J. Radecker, the city organist of Haarlem, two years later he moved to a house at the Oude Gracht, where he lived until he died in 1831 at the great age of 86. Hendriks was active as regent of the Vrouwe- en Antony Gasthuis hofje and his registered pupils were Hermanus van Brussel, Warnaar Horstink, Gerrit Johan van Leeuwen, Hendrina Alida Sollewijn, Abraham Vallenduuk, and Jacobus Vrijmoet. He is known for portraits, landscapes, and copies after older masters, Hendriks created several paintings in and around the Teylers Museum, for example of the directors of the Teylers Stichting, the Oval Room and the inner garden of the Foundation House. He created portraits of, amongst others, Jacob van der Vos sr, Christiaan Scholten, Christiaan van Orsoy, Jan Petrus Scholten van Aschat, Frederik Alexander Vernède, Wernerus Köhne, Adriaan van der Willigen and Martinus van Marum. He also made grisailles, like the one presented here and this grisaille now adorns a fireplace in the Frans Hals Museum in one of the regents rooms of the Oude mannenhuis. The subject is taken from the sculpture in the garden of the Fundatiehuis
39.
Adriaen van Ostade
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Adriaen van Ostade was a Dutch Golden Age painter of genre works. According to Houbraken, he and his brother were pupils of Frans Hals and like him and he thought they were Lubekkers by birth, though this has since found to be false. He was the eldest son of Jan Hendricx Ostade, a weaver from the town of Ostade near Eindhoven, although Adriaen and his brother Isaack were born in Haarlem, they adopted the name van Ostade as painters. According to the RKD, he became a pupil in 1627 of the portrait painter Frans Hals, in 1632 he is registered in Utrecht, but in 1634 he was back in Haarlem where he joined the Haarlem Guild of St. Luke. At twenty-six he joined a company of the guard at Haarlem. His wife died two years later in 1640, in 1657, as a widower, he married Anna Ingels. He again became a widower in 1666 and he opened a workshop and took on pupils. His notable pupils were Cornelis Pietersz Bega, Cornelis Dusart, Jan de Groot, Frans de Jongh, Michiel van Musscher, Isaac van Ostade, Evert Oudendijck, in 1662 and again in 1663 he is registered as deacon of the St. Luke guild in Haarlem. In the rampjaar he packed up his goods with the intention of fleeing to Lübeck, jonas Witsen was the man who convinced Houbraken to move to Amsterdam from Dordrecht. He had been the city secretary, and was probably his patron and his successor, Johan van Schuylenburgh, who became city secretary in 1712, was the man to whom Houbraken dedicated the first volume of his Schouburg. Ostade was the contemporary of the Flemish painters David Teniers the Younger and Adriaen Brouwer, like them, he spent his life in delineation of the homeliest subjects, tavern scenes, village fairs and country quarters. Between Teniers and Ostade the contrast lies in the different condition of the classes of Brabant and Holland and in the atmosphere. Brabant has more sun and more comfort, Teniers, in consequence, is silvery and sparkling, and the people he paints are fair specimens of their culture. Brouwer, who painted the peasant in his frolics and passions, brought more of the spirit of Frans Hals into his depictions than did his colleague, but the type is the same as Ostades. The key of his harmonies remained for a time in the scale of greys, the greatness of Ostade lies in how often he caught the poetic side of the peasant class in spite of its coarseness. He gave the light of a sun-gleam to their lowly sports, their quarrels, even their quieter moods of enjoyment. It was natural, given the tendency to effect which marked Ostade from the first and his early pictures are not so rare but that we can trace how he glided from one period to the other. Before the dispersal of the Gsell collection at Vienna in 1872, it was easy to study the steel-grey harmonies, the same style marks most of those pieces
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Isaac van Ostade
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Isaac van Ostade was a Dutch genre and landscape painter. Van Ostade began his studies under his brother, Adriaen, with whom he remained until 1641, at an early period he felt the influence of Rembrandt, and this is apparent in a Slaughtered Pig of 1639, in the gallery of Augsburg. He soon found a style suited to his own inclinations. The interior at Berlin is lighted from a casement in the same Rembrandtesque style as Adrians interior of 1643 at the Louvre and he received low prices for this kind of painting, in which he could only remain subordinate to his brother. Gradually he abandoned Adrians cottage subjects for landscapes in the fashion of Esaias van de Velde, once only, in 1645, he reverted to the earlier mode, when he produced the Slaughtered Pig, with a boy puffing out a bladder, in the museum of Lille. He did not live enough to bring his art to the highest perfection. He died on 16 October 1649 having painted about 400 pictures, three of these examples bear the artists name, spelled Isack van Ostade, and the dates of 1644 and 1645. The roadside inns, with halts of travellers, form a series from 1646 to 1649. This is the last form of Isaacs art and has very distinct peculiarities, the air which pervades his composition is warm and sunny, yet mellow and hazy, as if the sky were veiled with a vapour coloured by moor smoke. The trees are rubbings of umber, in which the prominent foliage is tipped with touches hardened in a state by amber varnish mediums. The same principle applied to such as glazed bricks or rents in the mud lining of cottages gives an unreal and conventional stamp to them. These quirks are overcome by his broad contrasts of light and shade, a favorite place is always given to the white horse, which seems as invariable an accompaniment as the grey in the skirmishes and fairs of Philip Wouwerman. Isaac displays the best qualities in winter scenes, then the figures emerge with masterly effect on the light background. The finest of the ice scenes is the one at the Louvre. For paintings and etchings see Les Fréres Ostade, by Marguerite van de Wiele, haarlem,1979 ISBN 90-228-3898-6 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain, Chisholm, Hugh, ed. article name needed. Dutch and Flemish paintings from the Hermitage, a catalog from The Metropolitan Museum of Art
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Jan Steen
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Jan Havickszoon Steen was a Dutch genre painter of the 17th century. His works are known for their insight, sense of humour. Steen was born in Leiden, where his well-to-do, Catholic family were brewers who ran the tavern The Red Halbert for two generations and he was the eldest of eight or more children. Like his even more famous contemporary Rembrandt van Rijn, Jan Steen attended the Latin school and he received his painterly education from Nicolaes Knupfer, a German painter of historical and figurative scenes in Utrecht. Influences of Knupfer can be found in Steens use of composition, other sources of inspiration were Adriaen van Ostade and Isaac van Ostade, painters of rural scenes, who lived in Haarlem. Whether Steen actually studied with Ostade is not known, in 1648 Jan Steen and Gabriël Metsu founded the painters Guild of Saint Luke at Leiden. Soon after he became an assistant to the landscape painter Jan van Goyen. On Oct 3,1649 he married van Goyens daughter Margriet, Steen worked with his father-in-law until 1654, when he moved to Delft, where he ran the brewery De Slang for three years without much success. After the explosion in Delft in 1654 the art market was depressed and it does not seem to be clear if this painting should be called a portrait or a genre work. Steen lived in Warmond, just north of Leiden, from 1656 till 1660 and in Haarlem from 1660 till 1670 and in both periods he was especially productive. In 1670, after the death of his wife in 1669 and his father in 1670, Steen moved back to Leiden, when the art market collapsed in 1672, called the Year of Disaster, Steen opened a tavern. In April 1673 he married Maria van Egmont, who gave him another child, in 1674 he became president of the Saint Lucas Guild. Frans van Mieris became one of his drinking companions and he died in Leiden in 1679 and was interred in a family grave in the Pieterskerk. Daily life was Jan Steens main pictorial theme, subtle hints in his paintings seem to suggest that Steen meant to warn the viewer rather than invite him to copy this behaviour. Many of Steens paintings bear references to old Dutch proverbs or literature and he often used members of his family as models, and painted quite a few self-portraits in which he showed no tendency of vanity. Steen did not shy from other themes, he painted historical, mythological and religious scenes, portraits, still lifes and his portraits of children are famous. He is also known for his mastery of light and attention to detail, most notably in Persian rugs. Steen was prolific, producing about 800 paintings, of which roughly 350 survive and his work was valued much by contemporaries and as a result he was reasonably well paid for his work
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Adriaen Brouwer
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Adriaen Brouwer was a Flemish painter active in Flanders and the Dutch Republic in the first half of the 17th century. Brouwer contributed to the development of the genre of tronies, i. e. head or facial studies, in his final year he produced a few landscapes of a tragic intensity. Brouwers work had an important influence on the generation of Flemish. There are still a number of unresolved questions surrounding the early life, the early Dutch biographer Arnold Houbraken included multiple erroneous statements and fanciful stories about Brouwer in his The Great Theatre of Dutch Painters of 1718-1719. The most glaring mistakes of Houbraken were to place Brouwers place of birth in Haarlem in the Dutch Republic and it is now generally accepted that Brouwer was born in Oudenaarde in Flanders in the year 1605 or 1606. His father who was also called Adriaen worked as a designer in Oudenaarde. The father died in poverty when Adriaen the younger was only 15–16 years old, Brouwer had by that time already left the paternal home. Brouwer worked in Antwerp in 1622, by March 1625 Adriaen Brouwer was recorded in Amsterdam where he resided in the inn of the painter Barent van Someren. Brouwer is further recorded on 23 July 1626 as a witness when he signed a statement of Barend van Someren and Adriaen van Nieulandt about at a sale of pictures in Amsterdam. It is possible that by that time he lived in Haarlem. He was active in the Chamber of Rhetoric De Wijngaertranken in Haarlem, the motto of this amateur literary circle was, In Love Above All Else. In 1631 Brouwer returned to his native Flanders where he was registered as a master in the Antwerp Guild of St Luke even before he had become a poorter of Antwerp, the artist continued to live and work in Antwerp until his untimely death. The artists name regularly shows up in Antwerp records usually in connection with arrangements for his various debts, in 1633 Brouwer was jailed in the citadel of Antwerp. The reason for the imprisonment is not clear, possibly it was for tax evasion, or, alternatively, for political reasons because the local authorities may have considered him to be a spy for the Dutch Republic. The operation of the bakery in the Antwerp citadel was in the hands of the baker Joos van Craesbeeck and it is assumed that Brouwer and van Craesbeeck likely got to know each other during this time. Based on information provided by contemporary Flemish biographer Cornelis de Bie in his book Het Gulden Cabinet van Craesbeeck is believed to have become Brouwers pupil and their relationship was described by de Bie as ‘Soo doude songhen, soo pypen de jonghen’. The stylistic similarities of van Craesbeecks early work with that of Brouwer seem to corroborate such pupilage, on 26 April 1634 Adriaen Brouwer took up lodgings in the house of the prominent engraver Paulus Pontius as the two men had become close friends. The same year the pair joined the chamber of rhetoric Violieren
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David Teniers the Younger
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David Teniers the Younger was a Flemish artist born in Antwerp, the son of David Teniers the Elder. His son David Teniers III and his grandson David Teniers IV were also painters and his wife Anna, née Anna Breughel, was the daughter of Jan Brueghel the Elder and the granddaughter of Pieter Bruegel the Elder. Through his father, he was influenced by Elsheimer and by Rubens. The influence of Adriaen Brouwer can be traced to the outset of his career, the only trace of personal relations having existed between Teniers and Rubens is the fact that the ward of the latter, Anne Breughel, the daughter of Jan Breughel, married Teniers in 1637. Admitted as a master in the Guild of St Luke in 1632, the Berlin Museum possesses a group of ladies and gentlemen dated 1630. No special signature positively distinguishes these first productions from those of his father, Dr. Bode, in a study of Brouwer and his works, expresses the opinion that Tenierss earliest pictures are those found under the signature Tenier. Tenier is a Flemish version of a thoroughly Walloon name, Taisnier which the grandfather, a mercer, brought with him when he came from Ath in 1558. His touch is of the rarest delicacy, his colour at once gay and he was little over thirty when the Antwerp guild of St. George enabled him to paint the picture which ultimately found its way to the Hermitage in St. Petersburg the Meeting of the Civic Guards. Correct to the minutest detail, yet striking in effect, the scene, under the rays of sunshine, displays an astonishing amount of acquired knowledge. Teniers was chosen by the council of Antwerp to preside over the Guild of Saint Luke in 1644. The Archduke Leopold Wilhelm, who had assumed the government of the Spanish Netherlands employed Teniers as a painter, with the title of ayuda de camara, Teniers moved to Brussels shortly after 1647. Immense sums were spent buying paintings for the archduke, a number of valuable works of Italian masters, now in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, came from Leopold Wilhelms gallery after having belonged to Charles I and the Duke of Buckingham. De Bie states that Teniers visited London, collecting pictures for the Duke of Fuensaldana, then acting as Leopold Wilhelms lieutenant in the Netherlands. Still more interesting is a canvas, now in the Munich Gallery, when Leopold Wilhelm returned to Vienna, Teniers appointment ended. Teniers nevertheless remained in favor with the new governor-general, Don Juan of Austria. The prince was his pupil, and de Bie tells us he painted the likeness of the painters son, in a petition to the king he reminded him that the honour of knighthood had been bestowed upon Rubens and van Dyck. The king at last declared his readiness to grant the request, the condition was not complied with, but it may perhaps account for his interest in founding an academy in Antwerp strictly limited to painters and sculptors. Teniers died in Brussels on 25 April 1690, the date is often wrongly given as 1694 or 1695
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Aelbert Cuyp
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Aelbert Jacobsz Cuyp was one of the leading Dutch landscape painters of the Dutch Golden Age in the 17th century. The most famous of a family of painters, the pupil of his father Jacob Gerritsz Cuyp, Aelbert Cuyp was born in Dordrecht on October 20,1620, and also died there on November 15,1691. Known as the Dutch equivalent of Claude Lorrain, this landscape artist went on to inherit a considerable fortune and his family were all artists, with his uncle Benjamin and grandfather Gerrit being stained glass cartoon designers. Jacob Gerritsz Cuyp, his father, was a portraitist, the amount of biographical information regarding Aelbert Cuyp is tremendously limited. Even Arnold Houbraken, a historian of Dutch Golden Age paintings. The year after his marriage Cuyp became the deacon of the reformed church, even Houbraken recalled that Cuyp was a devout Calvinist and the fact that when he died, there were no paintings of other artists found in his home. Generally, Cuyp learned tone from the exceptionally prolific Jan van Goyen, light from Jan Both and form from his father, Cuyps van Goyen phase can be placed approximately in the early 1640s. Cuyp probably first encountered a painting by van Goyen in 1640 when van Goyen was, as Stephen Reiss points out at the height of powers. Cuyp took from van Goyen the straw yellow and light brown tones that are so apparent in his Dunes and this technique, a precursor to impressionism, is noted for the short brush strokes where the colors are not necessarily blended smoothly. In the mid-1640s Both, a native and resident of Utrecht, had just returned to his hometown from a trip to Rome and it is around this same time that Cuyps style changed fundamentally. In Rome, Both had developed a new style of composition due, at least in part and this new style was focused on changing the direction of light in the painting. Instead of the light being placed at angles in relation to the line of vision. In this new form of lighting, the artist faced the sun more or less contre-jour, Both, and subsequently Cuyp, used the advantages of this new lighting style to alter the sense of depth and luminosity possible in a painting. To make notice of new capabilities, much use was made of elongated shadows. Cuyps third stylistic phase is based on the influence of his father, as has been mentioned and as will be explained in depth below, there are pieces where Aelbert provided the landscape background for his fathers portraits. The evidence for Aelberts evolution to foreground figure painter is in the production of paintings from 1645-50 featuring foreground animals that do not fit with Jacobs style. Adding to the confusion that is, Aelberts stylistic development and the problem of attribution is of course the fact that Jacobs style was not stagnant either, sunlight in his paintings rakes across the panel, accentuating small bits of detail in the golden light. The richly varnished medium refracts the rays of light like a jewel as it dissolves into numerous glazed layers, Cuyps landscapes were based on reality and on his own invention of what an enchanting landscape should be
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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
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Pieter de Hooch
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Pieter de Hooch was a Dutch Golden Age painter famous for his genre works of quiet domestic scenes with an open doorway. He was a contemporary of Jan Vermeer in the Delft Guild of St. Luke, with whom his work shares themes, De Hooch was born in Rotterdam to Hendrick Hendricksz de Hooch, a bricklayer, and Annetge Pieters, a midwife. He was the eldest of five children and outlived all of his siblings, little is known of his early life and most archival evidence suggests he worked in Rotterdam, Delft, and Amsterdam. But De Hoochs work seems to continue in the spirit of Hendrik Sorgh, beginning in 1650, he worked as a painter and servant for a linen-merchant and art collector named Justus de la Grange in Rotterdam. His service for the merchant required him to him on his travels to The Hague, Leiden. De Hooch was married in Delft in 1654 to Jannetje van der Burch, while in Delft, de Hooch is also believed to have learned from the painters Carel Fabritius and Nicolaes Maes, who were early members of the Delft School. He became a member of the guild of Saint Luke in 1655. His daughter Anna was born in Delft on 14 November 1656, after starting his family in the mid-1650s, he switched his focus to domestic scenes. These were possibly of his own family, though his works of well-to-do women breastfeeding and caring for children could also indicate that he had attended his mother on her rounds as a midwife. His work showed astute observation of the details of everyday life while also functioning as well-ordered morality tales. These paintings often exhibited a sophisticated and delicate treatment of similar to those of Vermeer. The themes and compositions are very similar between De Hooch and Vermeer. De Hooch also shared themes and compositions with Emanuel de Witte, in the 1660s, he began to paint for wealthier patrons in Amsterdam, and is known for merry company scenes and family portraits in opulent interiors with marble floors and high ceilings. During his time in Amsterdam, he continued to make his domestic scenes, little is known of De Hoochs living arrangements in Amsterdam, though it has been established that he had contact with Emmanuel de Witte. In 1670, he was living in the Konijnenstraat and he lived in an area outside of the city walls but near the Westerkerk where his family attended church. Most scholars believe that de Hoochs work after around 1670 became more stylized and deteriorated in quality and it may be that his work was affected by his distress at the death of his wife in 1667 at age 38, leaving him with a young family. After 1680, de Hoochs painting style became coarser and darker in color and it was once widely assumed that he died in an asylum in 1684, but new documentation* from that institution proves that it was in fact his son who had died there, also named Pieter. The year of the artists death remains a mystery, for a more complete list of paintings attributed to de Hooch, see the list of paintings by Pieter de Hooch, Arrière-cour dune maison hollandaise – 1650–75
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Emblem book
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An emblem book is a book collecting emblems with accompanying explanatory text, typically morals or poems. This category of books was popular in Europe during the 16th and 17th centuries, but if someone asks me what Emblemata really are. Some early emblem books were unillustrated, particularly those issued by the French printer Denis de Harsy, with time, however, the reading public came to expect emblem books to contain picture-text combinations. The picture was subject to interpretations, only by reading the text could a reader be certain which meaning was intended by the author. Thus the books are related to the personal symbolic picture-text combinations called personal devices, known in Italy as imprese. Emblem books, both secular and religious, attained enormous popularity throughout continental Europe, though in Britain they did not capture the imagination of readers to quite the same extent, the books were especially numerous in the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, and France. Early European studies of Egyptian hieroglyphs, like that of Athanasius Kircher, assumed that the hieroglyphs were emblems, a similar collection of emblems, but not in book form, is Lady Drurys Closet. Andrea Alciato Guillaume de La Perrière Georgette de Montenay Otto van Veen Jacob Cats Albert Flamen Dunn, breaking a tradition, Hester Pulter and the English emblem book. Stronks, E. Dutch religious love emblems, Reflections of faith, Literature in the Light of the Emblem, Structural Parallels Between the Emblem and Literature in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries. University of Toronto Press The English Emblem Tradition. Volumes 1-5. University of Toronto Press Peter Maurice Daly, G. Richard Dimler, corpus Librorum Emblematum, Primary literature - The Jesuit Series. Parts 1 -5. University of Toronto Press Arthur Henkel & Albrecht Schöne, Emblemata, jahrhunderts, Verlag J. B. Metzler, Stuttgart - Weimar 1996, ISBN 3-476-01502-5. Massive catalog reproducing emblems with texts from all known 16th and 17th century emblem books, daniel Russell, The Emblem and Device in France, French Forum, Lexington, KY,1985
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