1.
The Art of Painting
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The Art of Painting, also known as The Allegory of Painting, or Painter in his Studio, is a 17th-century oil on canvas painting by Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer. It is owned by the Austrian Republic and is on display in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna and this illusionistic painting is one of Vermeers most famous. In 1868 Thoré-Bürger, known today for his rediscovery of the work of painter Johannes Vermeer, svetlana Alpers describes it as unique and ambitious, Walter Liedtke as a virtuoso display of the artists power of invention and execution, staged in an imaginary version of his studio. According to Albert Blankert No other painting so flawlessly integrates naturalistic technique, brightly illuminated space, many art historians think that it is an allegory of painting, hence the alternative title of the painting. Its composition and iconography make it the most complex Vermeer work of all, the painting depicts an artist painting a woman dressed in blue posing as a model in his studio. The subject is standing by a window and a map of the Low Countries hangs on the wall behind. It is signed to the right of the girl I Ver, most experts assume it was executed sometime between 1665/1668, but some suggest the work could have been created as late as 1670–1675. In 1663 Vermeer had been visited by Balthasar de Monconys, but had no painting to show, Vermeer obviously liked the painting, he never sold it during his lifetime. According to Alpers it stands as a kind of summary and assessment of what has been done, the painting has only two figures, the painter and his subject, a woman with downcast eyes. The painter was thought to be a self-portrait of the artist, the painter sits in front of the painting on the easel, where you can see the sketch of the crown. He is dressed in an elegant black garment with cuts on the sleeves and he has short puffy breeches and orange stockings, an expensive and fashionable garment that is also found in other works of the time, as in a well-known self-portrait by Rubens. The tapestry and the chair, both repoussoirs, lead the viewer into the painting, as in The Allegory of Faith the ceiling can be seen. Experts attribute symbols to various aspects of the painting, the representation of the marble tiled floor and the splendid golden chandelier are examples of Vermeers craftsmanship and show his knowledge of perspective. Each object reflects or absorbs light differently, getting the most accurate rendering of material effects, the map, remarkable is the representation of light on it, shows the Seventeen Provinces of the Netherlands, flanked by 20 views of prominent Dutch cities. It was published by Claes Janszoon Visscher in 1636 and this map, but without the city views on the left and right can be seen on paintings by Jacob Ochtervelt and Nicolaes Maes. Similar maps were found in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris and in the Swedish Skokloster. In the top left of the map two women can be seen, one bearing a cross-staff and compasses, while the other has a palette, brush, Vermeer had a theoretical interest for painting. However, according to Ripa History should look back and not down as in this painting, following Vermeers contemporary Gerard de Lairesse, interested in French Classicism and Ripa, there is another explanation, he mentions history and poetry as the main resources of a painter
2.
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
3.
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
4.
Genre art
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Genre art is the pictorial representation in any of various media of scenes or events from everyday life, such as markets, domestic settings, interiors, parties, inn scenes, and street scenes. Such representations may be realistic, imagined, or romanticized by the artist, some variations of the term genre art specify the medium or type of visual work, as in genre painting, genre prints, genre photographs, and so on. Rather confusingly, the meaning of genre, covering any particular combination of an artistic medium. Painting was divided into a hierarchy of genres, with painting at the top, as the most difficult and therefore prestigious. But history paintings are a genre in painting, not genre works, the following concentrates on painting, but genre motifs were also extremely popular in many forms of the decorative arts, especially from the Rococo of the early 18th century onwards. Single figures or small groups decorated a huge variety of such as porcelain, furniture, wallpaper. Genre painting, also called genre scene or petit genre, depicts aspects of life by portraying ordinary people engaged in common activities. A work would often be considered as a genre work even if it could be shown that the artist had used a known member of his family. In this case it would depend on whether the work was likely to have intended by the artist to be perceived as a portrait—sometimes a subjective question. The depictions can be realistic, imagined, or romanticized by the artist, because of their familiar and frequently sentimental subject matter, genre paintings have often proven popular with the bourgeoisie, or middle class. Genre themes appear in all art traditions. These were part of a pattern of Mannerist inversion in Antwerp painting, giving low elements previously in the background of images prominent emphasis. The generally small scale of these paintings was appropriate for their display in the homes of middle class purchasers. Often the subject of a painting was based on a popular emblem from an Emblem book. The merry company showed a group of figures at a party, other common types of scenes showed markets or fairs, village festivities, or soldiers in camp. In Italy, a school of painting was stimulated by the arrival in Rome of the Dutch painter Pieter van Laer in 1625. He acquired the nickname Il Bamboccio and his followers were called the Bamboccianti, whose works would inspire Giacomo Ceruti, Antonio Cifrondi, jean-Baptiste Greuze and others painted detailed and rather sentimental groups or individual portraits of peasants that were to be influential on 19th-century painting. Spain had a tradition predating The Book of Good Love of social observation and commentary based on the Old Roman Latin tradition, practiced by many of its painters and illuminators
5.
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
6.
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
7.
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
8.
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
9.
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
10.
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
11.
Tomb
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A tomb is a repository for the remains of the dead. It is generally any structurally enclosed interment space or burial chamber and its central feature is a single, prominent pillar or column, often made of stone. Sarcophagus – a stone container for a body or coffin, often decorated and perhaps part of a monument, sepulchre – a cavernous rock-cut space for interment, generally in the Jewish or Christian faiths. Tumuli are also known as barrows, burial mounds, Hügelgräber or kurgans, a cairn, might also be originally a tumulus. A long barrow is a tumulus, usually for numbers of burials. As indicated, tombs are located in or under religious buildings, such as churches. However, they may also be found in catacombs, on land or, in the case of early or pre-historic tombs. The tomb of Emperor Nintoku is the largest in the world by area, however, the Pyramid of Khufu in Egypt is the largest by volume
12.
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
13.
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
14.
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
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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
16.
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
17.
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
18.
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
19.
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
20.
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
21.
Dirck Hals
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Dirck Hals, born at Haarlem, was a Dutch painter of festivals and ballroom scenes. He was influenced by his elder brother Frans Hals, according to Houbraken he was the brother of the painter Frans Hals and was specialized in small paintings of conversation pieces or merry companies. According to the RKD he worked in Leiden in 1641 and 1648, and was an influence on the painters Nathaniel Bacon, Johann Hulsman and his son Anthonie also became a painter. He was buried in the Waalse Kerk, Dirck Hals on Artnet Works and literature on Dirck Hals
22.
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
23.
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
24.
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
25.
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
26.
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
27.
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
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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
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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
37.
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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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
40.
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
41.
Rooster
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A rooster, also known as a cockerel or cock, is a male gallinaceous bird, usually a male chicken. Mature male chickens less than one year old are called cockerels, the term rooster originates in the United States, and the term is widely used throughout North America, as well as Australia and New Zealand. The older terms cock or cockerel, the latter denoting a young cock, are used in the United Kingdom, roosting is the action of perching aloft to sleep at day, which is done by both sexes. The rooster is polygamous, but cannot guard several nests of eggs at once and he guards the general area where his hens are nesting, and attacks other roosters that enter his territory. During the daytime, a rooster often sits on a perch, usually 0.9 to 1.5 m off the ground. He sounds an alarm call if predators are nearby. Roosters almost always start crowing before four months of age, although it is possible for a hen to crow as well, crowing is one of the clearest signs of being a rooster. The rooster is often portrayed as crowing at the break of dawn, however, while many roosters crow shortly after waking up, this idea is not exactly true. A rooster can and will crow at any time of the day, some roosters are especially vociferous, crowing almost constantly, while others only crow a few times a day. These differences are dependent both upon the breed and individual personality. A rooster can often be sitting on fence posts or other objects. Roosters have several other calls as well, and can cluck, Roosters occasionally make a patterned series of clucks to attract hens to a source of food, the same way a mother hen does for her chicks. Rooster crowing contests are a sport in several countries, such as Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium. Depending on the breed, either the duration of the crowing or the times the rooster crows within a time is measured. A capon is a castrated rooster, in the caponization procedure, the birds testes are completely removed, a surgical procedure is required for this as the roosters sexual organs are internal. The hackle, tail and saddle feathers grow unusually long, caponization also affects the disposition of the bird. Removal of the birds testes eliminates the male sex hormones, lessening the male sex instincts and changing their behaviour, the birds become more docile, less active and this procedure produces a unique type of poultry meat which is favoured by a specialized market. The meat of normal uncastrated roosters has a tendency to become coarse, stringy and this process does not occur in the capon
42.
Jean-Baptiste Greuze
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Jean-Baptiste Greuze was a French painter of portraits, genre scenes, and history painting. Greuze was born at Tournus, a town in Burgundy. In 1755 Greuze exhibited his Aveugle trompé, upon which, presented by Pigalle the sculptor, towards the close of the same year he left France for Italy, in company with the Abbé Louis Gougenot. In 1759,1761 and 1763 Greuze exhibited with ever-increasing success, in 1765 he reached the zenith of his powers, Greuze wished to be received as a historical painter, and produced a work which he intended to vindicate his right to despise his qualifications as a genre artist. This unfortunate canvas was exhibited in 1769 side by side with Greuzes portrait of Jeaurat, Greuze, greatly incensed, quarrelled with his confreres, and ceased to exhibit until, in 1804, the Revolution had thrown open the doors of the Academy to all the world. In the following year, on 4 March 1805, he died in the Louvre in great poverty, around the stem was a paper inscribed, These flowers offered by the most grateful of his students are emblems of his glory. It was Mlle Mayer, later the friend of Prudhon and that return to nature which inspired Rousseaus attacks upon an artificial civilization demanded expression in art. La Jeune Fille à lagneau fetched, indeed, at the Pourtals sale in 1865, one of Greuzes pupils, Madame Le Doux, imitated with success the manner of her master, his daughter and granddaughter, Madame de Valory, also inherited some traditions of his talent. Were the real subject of the picture, in the sixteenth chapter of E. M. Chinese author Xiao Yi mentions Greuzes work The Broken Pitcher throughout the first half of her novel Blue Nails. The Broken Pitcher is also mentioned in the first scene of the Jean-Paul Sartre play, / We like Beardsley and Green Chartreuse. / Faded boys, jaded boys, come what may, / Art is our inspiration / And as we are the reason for the “Nineties” being gay, edgar Munhall organized the first major exhibition devoted to the artist, Jean-Baptiste Greuze, 1725-1805. The exhibition opened at the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford and then traveled to the California Legion of Honor in San Francisco, in 2002, the first exhibition of Greuzes drawings was held at The Frick Collection in New York. It was also organized by Munhall, who wrote the catalog, Jean-Baptiste Greuzes works Les Neuf Sœurs References Sources Normand, J. B. Emma Barker, Greuze and the Painting of Sentiment and this article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain, Chisholm, Hugh, ed. Greuze, Jean Baptiste. Works and literature at PubHist Europe in the age of enlightenment and revolution, a catalog from The Metropolitan Museum of Art Libraries, which contains material on Greuze
43.
Rome
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Rome is a special comune and the capital of Italy. Rome also serves as the capital of the Lazio region, with 2,873,598 residents in 1,285 km2, it is also the countrys largest and most populated comune and fourth-most populous city in the European Union by population within city limits. It is the center of the Metropolitan City of Rome, which has a population of 4.3 million residents, the city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, within Lazio, along the shores of the Tiber. Romes history spans more than 2,500 years, while Roman mythology dates the founding of Rome at only around 753 BC, the site has been inhabited for much longer, making it one of the oldest continuously occupied sites in Europe. The citys early population originated from a mix of Latins, Etruscans and it was first called The Eternal City by the Roman poet Tibullus in the 1st century BC, and the expression was also taken up by Ovid, Virgil, and Livy. Rome is also called the Caput Mundi, due to that, Rome became first one of the major centres of the Italian Renaissance, and then the birthplace of both the Baroque style and Neoclassicism. Famous artists, painters, sculptors and architects made Rome the centre of their activity, in 1871 Rome became the capital of the Kingdom of Italy, and in 1946 that of the Italian Republic. Rome has the status of a global city, Rome ranked in 2014 as the 14th-most-visited city in the world, 3rd most visited in the European Union, and the most popular tourist attraction in Italy. Its historic centre is listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site, monuments and museums such as the Vatican Museums and the Colosseum are among the worlds most visited tourist destinations with both locations receiving millions of tourists a year. Rome hosted the 1960 Summer Olympics and is the seat of United Nations Food, however, it is a possibility that the name Romulus was actually derived from Rome itself. As early as the 4th century, there have been alternate theories proposed on the origin of the name Roma. There is archaeological evidence of occupation of the Rome area from approximately 14,000 years ago. Evidence of stone tools, pottery and stone weapons attest to about 10,000 years of human presence, several excavations support the view that Rome grew from pastoral settlements on the Palatine Hill built above the area of the future Roman Forum. Between the end of the age and the beginning of the Iron age. However, none of them had yet an urban quality, nowadays, there is a wide consensus that the city was gradually born through the aggregation of several villages around the largest one, placed above the Palatine. All these happenings, which according to the excavations took place more or less around the mid of the 8th century BC. Despite recent excavations at the Palatine hill, the view that Rome has been indeed founded with an act of will as the legend suggests in the middle of the 8th century BC remains a fringe hypothesis. Traditional stories handed down by the ancient Romans themselves explain the earliest history of their city in terms of legend and myth
44.
Pieter van Laer
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Pieter van Laer or Pieter Bodding van Laer was a Dutch painter and printmaker. He was active in Rome for over a decade and was known for scenes, animal paintings. Pieter van Laer was an member of the association of Flemish. The style of painting he introduced was followed by other Northern. These followers became known as the Bamboccianti and a painting in this style as a Bambocciata, Pieter van Laer was born in Haarlem as the second child of Jacob Claesz. Boddingh of Haarlem and Magdalena Heyns of Antwerp and he adopted the surname van Laer only later in life. This surname was taken from his brothers godfather. His older brother was Roedolff van Laer, who became a painter and was known as Roeland van Laer. His youngest brother Nicolaes Bodding became known later in life as Nicolaes Boddingius and was a prominent schoolmaster and minister, Pieter van Laer was possibly a pupil of Esaias van de Velde in Haarlem. His early work shows the influence of this painter as is evidenced by a drawing signed Pieter Bodink and he traveled to Rome in 1625 via France, likely in the company of his brother Roeland. Here he became a member of the Bentvueghels, an association of mostly Flemish and Dutch artists in Rome who were known for their initiation rituals, Pieter van Laers nickname in Italy was Il Bamboccio, which means ugly doll or puppet. This was an allusion to van Laers ungainly appearance, as he is said to have had long legs. Pieter van Laer was also known for his pointed moustache, through the works he created in Rome Pieter van Laer initiated a new style of genre painting and paintings in this style were named Bambocciate after his nickname. He became the inspiration and focal point around which likeminded artists congregated during his stay in Italy, the initial Bamboccianti included Jan Miel, Andries and Jan Both, Karel Dujardin, Johannes Lingelbach and the Italian Michelangelo Cerquozzi. The Frenchman Sébastien Bourdon was also associated with group during his early career. Other Bamboccianti include Michiel Sweerts, Thomas Wijck, Dirck Helmbreker, Jan Asselyn, Anton Goubau, Willem Reuter, Jacob van Staverden, Pieter van Laer had a successful career in Rome. He returned to the Netherlands c, here he lived chiefly in Amsterdam and later in Haarlem. The date, place and cause of van Laers death are unknown and it must have occurred after 1641 when he is known to have made a drawing in a Haarlem song book
45.
Bamboccianti
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The Bamboccianti were genre painters active in Rome from about 1625 until the end of the seventeenth century. Despite their lowly subject matter, the works sold for high prices to esteemed collectors. Many of the associated with the Bamboccianti were members of the Bentvueghels. It was customary for the Bentvueghels to adopt an appealing nickname, the bent name of the Dutch painter Pieter van Laer was Il Bamboccio, which means ugly doll or puppet. This was an allusion to van Laers ungainly proportions, van Laer is regarded as the initiator of the Bamboccianti style of genre painting and his nickname gave the genre and the group of artists its collective name. He became the inspiration and focal point around which likeminded artists congregated during his stay in Italy, the initial Bamboccianti included Andries and Jan Both, Karel Dujardin, Jan Miel, Johannes Lingelbach and the Italian Michelangelo Cerquozzi. Sébastien Bourdon was also associated with group during his early career. Other Bamboccianti include Michiel Sweerts, Thomas Wijck, Dirck Helmbreker, Jan Asselyn, Anton Goubau, Willem Reuter, the Bamboccianti influenced Rococo artists such as Domenico Olivieri, Antonio Cifrondi, Pietro Longhi, Giuseppe Maria Crespi, Giacomo Ceruti, and Alessandro Magnasco. Their paintings of everyday Roman life continued into the century through the works of Bartolomeo and Achille Pinelli, Andrea Locatelli. A Bambocciante not yet identified painted also an Assalto darmati, now in the Forlì Pinacoteca Civica, however, their contemporaries did not generally regard the Bamboccianti as realists. They thus stand in a tradition of paradox in which low or vulgar subjects were the vehicle for conveying important philosophical meanings. For instance, the Bamboccianti regularly made paintings of gigantic limekilns outside Rome and these limekilns used the marble and travertine blocks of the Roman antique ruins as raw material and thus played a direct role in the destruction of Romes ancient monuments. The limekilns themselves are painted in a way as if they were the new monuments of Rome. The kilns created something new from the ruins of ancient Rome, the paintings of these limekilns can therefore be read as a reflection on the transience of glory as well as the regenerative power of Rome. In other words, these paintings were intended to be read ironically and allegorically and not as exact and these works were repeatedly used as a model by the Bamboccianti from the second half of the century and by the genre painters working in Rome during the early 18th century. Miels most original contribution to genre are his carnival scenes. The success of the genre was not confined to Rome, but extended to Florence and France, as seen in the patronage of figures like the Cardinals Leopoldo de Medici and Mazarin. The success of the genre is partly explained by a change in the mode of decorating the houses of the classes in Rome
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Giacomo Ceruti
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Giacomo Antonio Melchiorre Ceruti was an Italian late Baroque painter, active in Northern Italy in Milan, Brescia, and Venice. He acquired the nickname Pitocchetto for his paintings of peasants dressed in rags. He was born in Milan, but worked primarily in Brescia and he may have been influenced early by Antonio Cifrondi and/or Giacomo Todesco, and received training from Carlo Ceresa. Ceruti gave particular attention to this subject matter during the period 1725 to 1740, mira Pajes Merriman, in her essay titled Comedy, Reality, and the Development of Genre Painting in Italy, observes that Generally his figures do almost nothing—after all, they have nothing to do. A characteristic painting is his Woman with a Dog which portrays a rather plain subject sympathetically, like most of his figures, she appears before an undifferentiated dark background, when Ceruti attempted to represent deep space, the results were frequently awkward. His landscape backgrounds resemble stage flats and are copied from print sources. This limitation is not unique to Ceruti, the Brescian painter from the late 16th century, Giovanni Battista Moroni, was known for expressive portraits. Spike, John T. Giuseppe Maria Crespi and the Emergence of Genre Painting in Italy, fort Worth, Kimball Museum of Art. Painters of reality, the legacy of Leonardo and Caravaggio in Lombardy, a catalog from The Metropolitan Museum of Art
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Antonio Cifrondi
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Antonio Cifrondi was an Italian painter of the late Baroque, mainly of genre themes. He was active in Brescia and near Bergamo and he was born to a poor mason in Clusone. Cifrondi moved to Bologna with Marcantonio Franceschini, a member of the Cignani circle and he traveled to Turin with his younger brother Ventura, but was not successful in finding work. He stayed in Rome during 1675–1680 and he briefly worked in the Palace of Versailles under Le Brun, but was dismissed before the age of 30. He lived in the Benedictine convent of San Faustino in the last decade of his life and he may have met the fellow northern Italian genre painter Giuseppe Maria Crespi. He is known by canvases mainly during 1722–1730 and he often painted aged men or people at work. In 1897, a historian of Bergamo described him as one the adventurers who vaguely foreseeing the advent of a new era and he describes him as always poor but full of cheer. Spike, John T. Giuseppe Maria Crespi and the Emergence of Genre Painting in Italy, fort Worth, Kimball Museum of Art. Media related to Antonio Cifrondi at Wikimedia Commons
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