1.
France
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France, officially the French Republic, is a country with territory in western Europe and several overseas regions and territories. The European, or metropolitan, area of France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, Overseas France include French Guiana on the South American continent and several island territories in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans. France spans 643,801 square kilometres and had a population of almost 67 million people as of January 2017. It is a unitary republic with the capital in Paris. Other major urban centres include Marseille, Lyon, Lille, Nice, Toulouse, during the Iron Age, what is now metropolitan France was inhabited by the Gauls, a Celtic people. The area was annexed in 51 BC by Rome, which held Gaul until 486, France emerged as a major European power in the Late Middle Ages, with its victory in the Hundred Years War strengthening state-building and political centralisation. During the Renaissance, French culture flourished and a colonial empire was established. The 16th century was dominated by civil wars between Catholics and Protestants. France became Europes dominant cultural, political, and military power under Louis XIV, in the 19th century Napoleon took power and established the First French Empire, whose subsequent Napoleonic Wars shaped the course of continental Europe. Following the collapse of the Empire, France endured a succession of governments culminating with the establishment of the French Third Republic in 1870. Following liberation in 1944, a Fourth Republic was established and later dissolved in the course of the Algerian War, the Fifth Republic, led by Charles de Gaulle, was formed in 1958 and remains to this day. Algeria and nearly all the colonies became independent in the 1960s with minimal controversy and typically retained close economic. France has long been a centre of art, science. It hosts Europes fourth-largest number of cultural UNESCO World Heritage Sites and receives around 83 million foreign tourists annually, France is a developed country with the worlds sixth-largest economy by nominal GDP and ninth-largest by purchasing power parity. In terms of household wealth, it ranks fourth in the world. France performs well in international rankings of education, health care, life expectancy, France remains a great power in the world, being one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council with the power to veto and an official nuclear-weapon state. It is a member state of the European Union and the Eurozone. It is also a member of the Group of 7, North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the World Trade Organization, originally applied to the whole Frankish Empire, the name France comes from the Latin Francia, or country of the Franks
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Montpellier
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Montpellier is a city in southern France. It is the capital of the Hérault department, Montpellier is the 8th largest city of France, and is also the fastest growing city in the country over the past 25 years. Nearly one third of the population are students from three universities and from three higher education institutions that are outside the university framework in the city. Located on the south coast of France on the Mediterranean Sea, it is the third-largest French city on the Mediterranean coast after Marseille and Nice. Montpellier is one of the few cities in France without any Roman heritage. In the Early Middle Ages, the episcopal town of Maguelone was the major settlement in the area. Montpellier, first mentioned in a document of 985, was founded under a feudal dynasty, the Guilhem. The two surviving towers of the city walls, the Tour des Pins and the Tour de la Babotte, were built later, william VIII of Montpellier gave freedom for all to teach medicine in Montpellier in 1180. This era marked the point of Montpelliers prominence. The city became a possession of the Kings of Aragon in 1204 by the marriage of Peter II of Aragon with Marie of Montpellier, who was given the city and its dependencies as part of her dowry. Montpellier gained a charter in 1204 when Peter and Marie confirmed the traditional freedoms. Under the Kings of Aragon, Montpellier became an important city, a major economic centre. It was the second or third most important city of France at that time, with its importance steadily increasing, the city finally gained a bishop, who moved from Maguelone in 1536, and the huge monastery chapel became a cathedral. In 1432, Jacques Cœur established himself in the city and it became an important economic centre, at the time of the Reformation in the 16th century, many of the inhabitants of Montpellier became Protestants and the city became a stronghold of Protestant resistance to the Catholic French crown. In 1622, King Louis XIII besieged the city surrendered after a two months siege, afterwards building the Citadel of Montpellier to secure it. Louis XIV made Montpellier capital of Bas Languedoc, and the town started to embellish itself, by building the Promenade du Peyrou, the Esplanade, after the French Revolution, the city became the capital of the much smaller Hérault. During the 19th century the city developed into an industrial centre, in the 1960s, its population grew dramatically after French settlers in Algeria were resettled in the city following Algerias independence from France. In the 1980s and 1990s, the city drew attention with a number of redevelopment projects, such as the Corum
3.
Departments of France
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In the administrative divisions of France, the department is one of the three levels of government below the national level, between the administrative regions and the commune. There are 96 departments in metropolitan France and 5 overseas departments, each department is administered by an elected body called a departmental council. From 1800 to April 2015, they were called general councils, the departments were created in 1791 as a rational replacement of Ancien Régime provinces with a view to strengthen national unity, the title department is used to mean a part of a larger whole. Almost all of them were named after geographical features rather than after historical or cultural territories which could have their own loyalties. The earliest known suggestion of it is from 1764 in the writings of dArgenson and they have inspired similar divisions in many countries, some of them former French colonies. Most French departments are assigned a number, the Official Geographical Code. Some overseas departments have a three-digit number, the number is used, for example, in the postal code, and was until recently used for all vehicle registration plates. For example, inhabitants of Loiret might refer to their department as the 45 and this reform project has since been abandoned. The first French territorial departments were proposed in 1665 by Marc-René dArgenson to serve as administrative areas purely for the Ponts et Chaussées infrastructure administration, before the French Revolution, France gained territory gradually through the annexation of a mosaic of independent entities. By the close of the Ancien Régime, it was organised into provinces, during the period of the Revolution, these were dissolved, partly in order to weaken old loyalties. Their boundaries served two purposes, Boundaries were chosen to break up Frances historical regions in an attempt to erase cultural differences, Boundaries were set so that every settlement in the country was within a days ride of the capital of the department. This was a security measure, intended to keep the national territory under close control. This measure was directly inspired by the Great Terror, during which the government had lost control of rural areas far from any centre of government. The old nomenclature was carefully avoided in naming the new departments, most were named after an areas principal river or other physical features. Even Paris was in the department of Seine, the number of departments, initially 83, was increased to 130 by 1809 with the territorial gains of the Republic and of the First French Empire. Following Napoleons defeats in 1814-1815, the Congress of Vienna returned France to its pre-war size, in 1860, France acquired the County of Nice and Savoy, which led to the creation of three new departments. Two were added from the new Savoyard territory, while the department of Alpes-Maritimes was created from Nice, the 89 departments were given numbers based on their alphabetical order. The department of Bas-Rhin and parts of Meurthe, Moselle, Vosges and Haut-Rhin were ceded to the German Empire in 1871, following Frances defeat in the Franco-Prussian War
4.
First French Empire
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The First French Empire, Note 1 was the empire of Napoleon Bonaparte of France and the dominant power in much of continental Europe at the beginning of the 19th century. Its name was a misnomer, as France already had colonies overseas and was short lived compared to the Colonial Empire, a series of wars, known collectively as the Napoleonic Wars, extended French influence over much of Western Europe and into Poland. The plot included Bonapartes brother Lucien, then serving as speaker of the Council of Five Hundred, Roger Ducos, another Director, on 9 November 1799 and the following day, troops led by Bonaparte seized control. They dispersed the legislative councils, leaving a rump legislature to name Bonaparte, Sieyès, although Sieyès expected to dominate the new regime, the Consulate, he was outmaneuvered by Bonaparte, who drafted the Constitution of the Year VIII and secured his own election as First Consul. He thus became the most powerful person in France, a power that was increased by the Constitution of the Year X, the Battle of Marengo inaugurated the political idea that was to continue its development until Napoleons Moscow campaign. Napoleon planned only to keep the Duchy of Milan for France, setting aside Austria, the Peace of Amiens, which cost him control of Egypt, was a temporary truce. He gradually extended his authority in Italy by annexing the Piedmont and by acquiring Genoa, Parma, Tuscany and Naples, then he laid siege to the Roman state and initiated the Concordat of 1801 to control the material claims of the pope. Napoleon would have ruling elites from a fusion of the new bourgeoisie, on 12 May 1802, the French Tribunat voted unanimously, with exception of Carnot, in favour of the Life Consulship for the leader of France. This action was confirmed by the Corps Législatif, a general plebiscite followed thereafter resulting in 3,653,600 votes aye and 8,272 votes nay. On 2 August 1802, Napoleon Bonaparte was proclaimed Consul for life, pro-revolutionary sentiment swept through Germany aided by the Recess of 1803, which brought Bavaria, Württemberg and Baden to Frances side. The memories of imperial Rome were for a time, after Julius Caesar and Charlemagne. The Treaty of Pressburg, signed on 26 December 1805, did little other than create a more unified Germany to threaten France. On the other hand, Napoleons creation of the Kingdom of Italy, the occupation of Ancona, to create satellite states, Napoleon installed his relatives as rulers of many European states. The Bonapartes began to marry into old European monarchies, gaining sovereignty over many nations, in addition to the vassal titles, Napoleons closest relatives were also granted the title of French Prince and formed the Imperial House of France. Met with opposition, Napoleon would not tolerate any neutral power, Prussia had been offered the territory of Hanover to stay out of the Third Coalition. With the diplomatic situation changing, Napoleon offered Great Britain the province as part of a peace proposal and this, combined with growing tensions in Germany over French hegemony, Prussia responded by forming an alliance with Russia and sending troops into Bavaria on 1 October 1806. In this War of the Fourth Coalition, Napoleon destroyed the armies of Frederick William at Jena-Auerstedt, the Eylau and the Friedland against the Russians finally ruined Frederick the Greats formerly mighty kingdom, obliging Russia and Prussia to make peace with France at Tilsit. The Treaties of Tilsit ended the war between Russia and the French Empire and began an alliance between the two empires that held power of much of the rest of Europe, the two empires secretly agreed to aid each other in disputes
5.
Alfred Bruyas
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Alfred Bruyas was an art collector and a personal friend of many important artists of his time, among them Gustave Courbet. He donated his collection to the Musée Fabre, in Montpellier, born Jacques Louis Bruyas, he was the son of a wealthy banker in Montpellier. His interest in art was even at school. In 1840 he studied at the studio of Charles Matet, however he soon recognized the limits of his own talents, from 1849 to 1854 he spent most of his time in Paris. The Bruyas Collection from the Musée Fabre, Montpellier
6.
French Third Republic
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It came to an end on 10 July 1940. Harsh reparations exacted by the Prussians after the war resulted in the loss of the French regions of Alsace and Lorraine, social upheaval, and the establishment of the Paris Commune. The early governments of the Third Republic considered re-establishing the monarchy, but confusion as to the nature of that monarchy, thus, the Third Republic, which was originally intended as a provisional government, instead became the permanent government of France. The French Constitutional Laws of 1875 defined the composition of the Third Republic and it consisted of a Chamber of Deputies and a Senate to form the legislative branch of government and a president to serve as head of state. The period from the start of World War I to the late 1930s featured sharply polarized politics, Adolphe Thiers called republicanism in the 1870s the form of government that divides France least, however, politics under the Third Republic were sharply polarized. On the left stood Reformist France, heir to the French Revolution, on the right stood conservative France, rooted in the peasantry, the Roman Catholic Church and the army. The Franco-Prussian War of 1870–1871 resulted in the defeat of France, after Napoleons capture by the Prussians at the Battle of Sedan, Parisian deputies led by Léon Gambetta established the Government of National Defence as a provisional government on 4 September 1870. The deputies then selected General Louis-Jules Trochu to serve as its president and this first government of the Third Republic ruled during the Siege of Paris. After the French surrender in January 1871, the provisional Government of National Defence disbanded, French territories occupied by Prussia at this time did not participate. The resulting conservative National Assembly elected Adolphe Thiers as head of a provisional government, due to the revolutionary and left-wing political climate that prevailed in the Parisian population, the right-wing government chose the royal palace of Versailles as its headquarters. The new government negotiated a settlement with the newly proclaimed German Empire. To prompt the Prussians to leave France, the government passed a variety of laws, such as the controversial Law of Maturities. The following repression of the communards would have consequences for the labor movement. The Orléanists supported a descendant of King Louis Philippe I, the cousin of Charles X who replaced him as the French monarch in 1830, his grandson Louis-Philippe, Comte de Paris. The Bonapartists were marginalized due to the defeat of Napoléon III and were unable to advance the candidacy of any member of his family, the Bonaparte family. Legitimists and Orléanists came to a compromise, eventually, whereby the childless Comte de Chambord would be recognised as king, consequently, in 1871 the throne was offered to the Comte de Chambord. Chambord believed the monarchy had to eliminate all traces of the Revolution in order to restore the unity between the monarchy and the nation, which the revolution had sundered apart. Compromise on this was if the nation were to be made whole again
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Ceramics (art)
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Ceramic art is art made from ceramic materials, including clay. It may take forms including art ware, tile, figurines, sculpture, Ceramic art is one of the arts, particularly the visual arts. Of these, it is one of the plastic arts, while some ceramics are considered fine art, some are considered to be decorative, industrial or applied art objects. Ceramics may also be considered artefacts in archaeology, Ceramic art can be made by one person or by a group of people. In a pottery or ceramic factory, a group of people design, manufacture, products from a pottery are sometimes referred to as art pottery. In a one-person pottery studio, ceramists or potters produce studio pottery, the word ceramics comes from the Greek keramikos, meaning pottery, which in turn comes from keramos meaning potters clay. Most traditional ceramic products were made from clay, shaped and subjected to heat, in modern ceramic engineering usage, ceramics is the art and science of making objects from inorganic, non-metallic materials by the action of heat. It excludes glass and mosaic made from glass tesserae, cultures especially noted for ceramics include the Chinese, Cretan, Greek, Persian, Mayan, Japanese, and Korean cultures, as well as the modern Western cultures. Different types of clay, when used with different minerals and firing conditions, are used to produce earthenware, stoneware, porcelain, earthenware is pottery that has not been fired to vitrification and is thus permeable to water. Many types of pottery have been made from it from the earliest times, earthenware is often made from clay, quartz and feldspar. Terracotta, a type of earthenware, is a clay-based unglazed or glazed ceramic and its uses include vessels, water and waste water pipes, bricks, and surface embellishment in building construction. Terracotta has been a medium for ceramic art. Stoneware is a vitreous or semi-vitreous ceramic made primarily from stoneware clay or non-refractory fire clay, stoneware is fired at high temperatures. Vitrified or not, it is nonporous, it may or may not be glazed and it may be vitreous or semi-vitreous. It is usually coloured grey or brownish because of impurities in the used for its manufacture. Porcelain is a material made by heating materials, generally including kaolin, in a kiln to temperatures between 1,200 and 1,400 °C. Porcelain has been described as being completely vitrified, hard, impermeable, white or artificially coloured, translucent and it has been defined as ware with a translucent body containing a minimum of 30% of phosphate derived from animal bone and calculated calcium phosphate. Developed by English potter Josiah Spode, bone china is known for its levels of whiteness and translucency
8.
Greece
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Greece, officially the Hellenic Republic, historically also known as Hellas, is a country in southeastern Europe, with a population of approximately 11 million as of 2015. Athens is the capital and largest city, followed by Thessaloniki. Greece is strategically located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, situated on the southern tip of the Balkan peninsula, it shares land borders with Albania to the northwest, the Republic of Macedonia and Bulgaria to the north, and Turkey to the northeast. Greece consists of nine regions, Macedonia, Central Greece, the Peloponnese, Thessaly, Epirus, the Aegean Islands, Thrace, Crete. The Aegean Sea lies to the east of the mainland, the Ionian Sea to the west, the Cretan Sea and the Mediterranean Sea to the south. Greece has the longest coastline on the Mediterranean Basin and the 11th longest coastline in the world at 13,676 km in length, featuring a vast number of islands, eighty percent of Greece is mountainous, with Mount Olympus being the highest peak at 2,918 metres. From the eighth century BC, the Greeks were organised into various independent city-states, known as polis, which spanned the entire Mediterranean region and the Black Sea. Greece was annexed by Rome in the second century BC, becoming a part of the Roman Empire and its successor. The Greek Orthodox Church also shaped modern Greek identity and transmitted Greek traditions to the wider Orthodox World, falling under Ottoman dominion in the mid-15th century, the modern nation state of Greece emerged in 1830 following a war of independence. Greeces rich historical legacy is reflected by its 18 UNESCO World Heritage Sites, among the most in Europe, Greece is a democratic and developed country with an advanced high-income economy, a high quality of life, and a very high standard of living. A founding member of the United Nations, Greece was the member to join the European Communities and has been part of the Eurozone since 2001. Greeces unique cultural heritage, large industry, prominent shipping sector. It is the largest economy in the Balkans, where it is an important regional investor, the names for the nation of Greece and the Greek people differ from the names used in other languages, locations and cultures. The earliest evidence of the presence of human ancestors in the southern Balkans, dated to 270,000 BC, is to be found in the Petralona cave, all three stages of the stone age are represented in Greece, for example in the Franchthi Cave. Neolithic settlements in Greece, dating from the 7th millennium BC, are the oldest in Europe by several centuries and these civilizations possessed writing, the Minoans writing in an undeciphered script known as Linear A, and the Mycenaeans in Linear B, an early form of Greek. The Mycenaeans gradually absorbed the Minoans, but collapsed violently around 1200 BC and this ushered in a period known as the Greek Dark Ages, from which written records are absent. The end of the Dark Ages is traditionally dated to 776 BC, the Iliad and the Odyssey, the foundational texts of Western literature, are believed to have been composed by Homer in the 7th or 8th centuries BC. With the end of the Dark Ages, there emerged various kingdoms and city-states across the Greek peninsula, in 508 BC, Cleisthenes instituted the worlds first democratic system of government in Athens
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Europe
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Europe is a continent that comprises the westernmost part of Eurasia. Europe is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, yet the non-oceanic borders of Europe—a concept dating back to classical antiquity—are arbitrary. Europe covers about 10,180,000 square kilometres, or 2% of the Earths surface, politically, Europe is divided into about fifty sovereign states of which the Russian Federation is the largest and most populous, spanning 39% of the continent and comprising 15% of its population. Europe had a population of about 740 million as of 2015. Further from the sea, seasonal differences are more noticeable than close to the coast, Europe, in particular ancient Greece, was the birthplace of Western civilization. The fall of the Western Roman Empire, during the period, marked the end of ancient history. Renaissance humanism, exploration, art, and science led to the modern era, from the Age of Discovery onwards, Europe played a predominant role in global affairs. Between the 16th and 20th centuries, European powers controlled at times the Americas, most of Africa, Oceania. The Industrial Revolution, which began in Great Britain at the end of the 18th century, gave rise to economic, cultural, and social change in Western Europe. During the Cold War, Europe was divided along the Iron Curtain between NATO in the west and the Warsaw Pact in the east, until the revolutions of 1989 and fall of the Berlin Wall. In 1955, the Council of Europe was formed following a speech by Sir Winston Churchill and it includes all states except for Belarus, Kazakhstan and Vatican City. Further European integration by some states led to the formation of the European Union, the EU originated in Western Europe but has been expanding eastward since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. The European Anthem is Ode to Joy and states celebrate peace, in classical Greek mythology, Europa is the name of either a Phoenician princess or of a queen of Crete. The name contains the elements εὐρύς, wide, broad and ὤψ eye, broad has been an epithet of Earth herself in the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European religion and the poetry devoted to it. For the second part also the divine attributes of grey-eyed Athena or ox-eyed Hera. The same naming motive according to cartographic convention appears in Greek Ανατολή, Martin Litchfield West stated that phonologically, the match between Europas name and any form of the Semitic word is very poor. Next to these there is also a Proto-Indo-European root *h1regʷos, meaning darkness. Most major world languages use words derived from Eurṓpē or Europa to refer to the continent, in some Turkic languages the originally Persian name Frangistan is used casually in referring to much of Europe, besides official names such as Avrupa or Evropa
10.
Nicolas Poussin
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Nicolas Poussin was the leading painter of the classical French Baroque style, although he spent most of his working life in Rome. His work is characterized by clarity, logic, and order, until the 20th century he remained a major inspiration for such classically oriented artists as Jacques-Louis David, Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres and Paul Cézanne. He worked in Rome for a circle of leading collectors from there and elsewhere, most of his works are history paintings of religious or mythological subjects that very often have a large landscape element. Early sketches attracted the notice of Quentin Varin, a painter, whose pupil Poussin became. There he entered the studios of the Flemish painter Ferdinand Elle and then of Georges Lallemand and he found French art in a stage of transition, the old apprenticeship system was disturbed, and the academic training destined to supplant it was not yet established by Simon Vouet. In Paris, Poussin was impressed by Italian art he viewed in the royal collection and he attempted to travel to Rome, but after reaching Florence he was forced, perhaps by ill health, to return to Paris. In 1622 he met Giambattista Marino, the poet to Marie de Medici. Marino employed him on illustrations for an edition of Ovids Metamorphoses. These Marino drawings preserved at Windsor Castle are among the few identifiable works of Poussin executed before his arrival in Rome. Marino took him into his household, and in 1624 enabled Poussin to rejoin him at Rome, Poussin was thirty when he arrived in Rome in 1624. At first he lodged with Simon Vouet, through Marino, he had been introduced to Marcello Sacchetti who in turn introduced him to another of his early patrons, Cardinal Francesco Barberini. However, their return from Spain in 1626 stabilized Poussin’s position, with renewed patronage by the Barberini and their circle. He fell ill at this time and was taken into the house of his compatriot Jacques Dughet, where he was nursed by Dughet’s daughter, Anna Maria and his two brothers-in-law were artists and Gaspard Dughet later took Poussin’s surname. During the late 1620s and 1630s, he experimented and formulated his own style and he studied the Antique as well as works such as Titian’s Bacchanals at the Casino Ludovisi and the paintings of Domenichino and Guido Reni. Peter’s, and an ingenious architectural imagination was emerging in works by Borromini, at the time the papacy was Rome’s foremost patron of the arts. Poussin’s Martyrdom of St. Erasmus for St and his subsequent career depended on private patronage. Louis XIII conferred on him the title of First Painter in Ordinary, in 1642, disgusted by the intrigues of Simon Vouet, Fouquières and the architect Jacques Lemercier, Poussin withdrew to Rome. There, in 1648, he finished for de Chantelou the second series of the Seven Sacraments and this painting shows the philosopher discarding his last worldly possession, his cup, after watching a man drink water by cupping his hands
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Simon Vouet
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Simon Vouet was a French painter and draftsman, who today is perhaps best remembered for helping to introduce the Italian Baroque style of painting to France. Simon Vouet was born on January 9,1590 in Paris and his father Laurent was a painter in Paris and taught him the rudiments of art. Simons brother Aubin Vouet and his grandson Ludovico Dorigny were also painters, Simon began his painting career as a portrait painter. At a young age he travelled to England and was part of the entourage of the Baron de Sancy, from there he went to Venice and was in Rome in 1614. He spent a period of time in Italy, from 1613 to 1627. He was mostly in Rome where the Baroque style was emerging during these years and he received a pension from the King of France and his patrons included the Barberini family, Cassiano dal Pozzo, Paolo Giordano Orsini and Vincenzo Giustiniani. He also visited other parts of Italy, Venice, Bologna, Genoa, Vouets immense success in Rome led to his election as president of the Accademia di San Luca in 1624. In 1626 he married Virginia da Vezzo who modelled Madonnas for Vouets religious commissions, despite his success in Rome, Vouet suddenly returned to France in 1627, following pressing recommendations from the Duc de Béthunes and a summons from the King. Vouets new style was distinctly Italian, importing the Italian Baroque style into France, in 1632, he worked for Cardinal Richelieu at the Palais-Royal and the Château de Malmaison. In Paris, Vouet was the dominating force in French painting, producing numerous public altarpieces. Vouets other students included Valentin de Boulogne, Charles Alphonse du Fresnoy, Pierre Mignard, Eustache Le Sueur, Nicolas Chaperon, Claude Mellan, Vouet was also a friend of Claude Vignon. A number of Vouets decorative schemes have been lost but are recorded in engravings by Claude Mellan,1990, retrospective of Simon Vouets work at the Galeries nationales of the Grand Palais. 2002-2003, Simon Vouet ou léloquence sensible at the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Nantes, 2008-2009, Simon Vouet, les années italiennes, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Nantes, in collaboration with the Musée des Beaux-Arts et darchéologie de Besançon
12.
Gaspard Dughet
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Gaspard Dughet, also known as Gaspard Poussin, was a French painter born in Rome. Dughet was born in Rome, the son of a French pastry-cook and he has always generally been considered as a French painter, although in fact he never visited France. In around 1635 he became a pupil of Nicolas Poussin, who had married his sister Anne five years earlier and he painted several cycles of frescoes, including one, showing various sites around Rome, at the Colonna Palace. He worked with Pier Francesco Mola, Cozza, and Mattia Preti at the Palazzo Pamphilj in Valmontone and he often collaborated with Guillaume Courtois who painted the staffage in his landscapes. This was the case, for instance, in the works for the Palazzo Pamphilj, there is another fresco cycle by Dughet, though in a bad state of preservation, in San Martino ai Monti. Dughet died in Rome on 27 May 1675 and his Sacrifice of Abraham, once the property of the Colonna, is now, with other of his works, in the National Gallery, London. This article incorporates text from a now in the public domain, Chisholm, Hugh, ed. Poussin
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Charles Le Brun
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Charles Le Brun was a French painter and art theorist. Declared by Louis XIV the greatest French artist of all time, he was a dominant figure in 17th-century French art, born in Paris, he attracted the notice of Chancellor Séguier, who placed him at the age of eleven in the studio of Simon Vouet. He was also a pupil of François Perrier, in Rome he remained four years in the receipt of a pension due to the liberality of the chancellor. There he worked under Poussin, adapting the latters theories of art, on his return to Paris in 1646, Le Brun found numerous patrons, of whom Superintendent Fouquet was the most important, for whom he painted a large portrait of Anne of Austria. Employed at Vaux-le-Vicomte, Le Brun ingratiated himself with Mazarin, then secretly pitting Colbert against Fouquet, Colbert also promptly recognized Le Bruns powers of organization, and attached him to his interests. Together they took control of the Academy of Painting and Sculpture, and the Academy of France at Rome, another project Le Brun worked on was Hôtel Lambert. The ceiling in the gallery of Hercules was painted by him, Le Brun started work on the project in 1650, shortly after his return from Italy. The decoration continued intermittently over twelve years or so, as it was interrupted by the renovation of Vaux le Vicomte. In 1660 they established the Gobelins, which at first was a school for the manufacture, not of tapestries only. He was the originator of Louis XIV Style and gave a direction to the national tendencies which endured centuries after his death, the King had declared him the greatest French artist of all time. From this date all that was done in the palaces was directed by Le Brun. In 1663, he director of the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture. While he was working on The Battles, Le Bruns style became more personal as he moved away from the ancient masters that influenced him. Le Bruns decoration is not only a work of art, it is the monument of a reign. This contributed to the illness which on 22 February 1690 ended in his death in his private mansion, Le Brun primarily worked for King Louis XIV, for whom he executed large altarpieces and battle pieces. His most important paintings are at Versailles, besides his gigantic labours at Versailles and the Louvre, the number of his works for religious corporations and private patrons is enormous. Le Brun was also a fine portraitist and an excellent draughtsman, but he was not fond of portrait or landscape painting, what mattered was scholarly composition, whose ultimate goal was to nourish the spirit. For Le Brun, a painting represented a story one could read, nearly all his compositions have been reproduced by celebrated engravers
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Hyacinthe Rigaud
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Hyacinthe Rigaud was a French baroque painter of Catalan origin whose career was based in Paris. Hyacinthe Rigaud was born in Perpignan, the grandson of painter-gilders from Roussillon and he was trained in tailoring in his fathers workshop but perfected his skills as a painter under Antoine Ranc at Montpellier from 1671 onwards, before moving to Lyon four years later. It was in cities that he became familiar with Flemish, Dutch and Italian painting, particularly that of Rubens, Van Dyck, Rembrandt and Titian. Arriving in Paris in 1681, he won the prix de Rome in 1682, received into the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture in 1700, he rose to the top of this institution before retiring from it in 1735. Since Rigauds paintings captured very exact likenesses along with the costumes and background details. Rigaud was baptised with his Catalan name in the old cathédrale Saint-Jean de Perpignan on 20 July 1659 and he would not have become French had not Roussillon and the Cerdanya been annexed to France the following 7 November thanks to the Treaty of the Pyrenees. That Treaty also put an end to the wars that had taken place between France and Habsburg Spain since 1635 and married King Louis XIV of France to the infanta Maria Theresa of Spain, few of these have survived to the present. On 13 March 1647 Hyacinthes father Matias Rigau, married Thérèse Faget, widowed shortly after, he decided to speedily remarry, to Maria Serra, daughter of a Perpignan textile merchant, on 20 December 1655. In 1665, he acquired a house en lo carrer de las casas cremades, by his second marriage, he also acquired a house on place de lHuile, but he soon sold it. Unfortunately, little is known about Rigauds activities in Lyon, due to the lack of surviving documents, however, as per tradition, artists from Montpellier had strong ties with this city, as had, for example, Samuel Boissière who was trained in there, in Lyon. The identity of Rigauds future depicted models shows that he worked for the cloth merchants. Rigauds portrait of Jean de Brunenc, painted in 1687, a merchant, banker and consul of Lyon. In his first will, dated 30 May 1707, the artist left the bust to the Grand Dauphin, Louis XIVs son, also in the document, Rigaud bequeathed the portrait containing the two profiles of Maria Serra to the elder son of his brother Gaspard, named Hyacinthe. He also applied sketches of his sister Claire, accompanied by her husband and their first daughter, in spring 1696, Hyacinthe Rigaud returned to Paris, where he painted one of his most important portraits of the year. This was in fact sollicited by the duke of Saint-Simon, to depict Armand Jean le Bouthillier de Rancé, in 1709 he was made a noble by his hometown of Perpignan. In 1727 he was made a knight of the Order of Saint Michael, Rigaud died in Paris in 1743 at the age of 84. He was one of the most important portrait painters during the reign of King Louis XIV and his instinct for impressive poses and grand presentations precisely suited the tastes of the royal personages, ambassadors, clerics, courtiers, and financiers who sat for him. His œuvre reads as a portrait gallery of the chief movers in France from 1680 to 1740
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Jean-Baptiste Oudry
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Jean-Baptiste Oudry was a French Rococo painter, engraver, and tapestry designer. He is particularly known for his naturalistic pictures of animals. Jean-Baptiste Oudry was born in Paris, the son of Jacques Oudry, a painter and art dealer and his father was a director of the Académie de St-Luc art school, which Oudry joined. At first, Oudry concentrated on portraiture, and he became a pupil and he graduated at only 22 years of age, on 21 May 1708, at the same time as his two older brothers. The next year, he married Marie-Marguerite Froissé, the daughter of a miroitier to whom he gave lessons in painting, Oudry became an assistant professor at Académie de Saint-Luc in 1714, and professor on 1 July 1717. He was inducted as a member of the prestigious Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture in 1719, the series was called The Pastoral Amusements, or Les Amusements Champêtres. Through this connection, he was commissioned to produce the painting made his reputation. Oudry was granted a workshop in the Tuileries and an apartment in the Louvre. M. Hultz, an adviser to the Académie de Peinture, commissioned Oudry to produce a buffet, or still-life combining silver plates and ewers, fruit and game, the work was exhibited in the Salon of 1737. Oudry timidly asked for ten pistoles for his work, but Hultz valued it much higher, Oudry was also commissioned to produce a buffet for Louis XV, that went to the château de Choisy, the Kings favoured hunting residence. Hultz recommended Oudry to Louis Fagon, an intendant des finances and book collector, Fagon was charged with reviving the fortunes of the tapestry manufactory of Beauvais, which had flourished under Colbert, and he gave the task to Oudry and his associate, Besnier, in 1734. Oudry succeeded in his tasks, becoming wealthy in the process and his success at Beauvais led to a further appointment as inspector at the Gobelins manufactory in 1736, where his works were copied as cartoons for tapestries. Oudry used a camera obscura in an attempt to speed up the process of producing landscapes, but abandoned it when he saw that the perspective and he was often sent examples of rare birds to draw. He later purchased a series of paintings of animals from Louis XVs menagerie at Versailles. Oudrys initial motive for painting these works is obscure, the works are still at Schwerin. He turned down offers to work for the Czar Peter the Great and the King of Denmark, preferring to remain in France, Oudry lost some of his responsibilities when Fagon was replaced by de Trudaine. He suffered two strokes in quick succession, the second left him paralysed, and he died shortly thereafter, at Beauvais. He was buried in the Church of Saint-Thomas in Beauvais and his epitaph on the stone was lost when the church was demolished in 1795, but was later found and placed in the Church of Saint-Étienne
16.
Carle Van Loo
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Carle or Charles-André van Loo was a French subject painter, son of the painter Louis-Abraham van Loo, a younger brother of Jean-Baptiste van Loo and grandson of Jacob van Loo. He was the most famous member of a dynasty of painters of Dutch origin. His oeuvre includes every category, religion, history painting, mythology, portraiture, allegory and he was born in Nice, then part of the Duchy of Savoy. Van Loo followed his brother Jean-Baptiste to Turin, and then to Rome in 1712, where he studied under Benedetto Luti and the sculptor Pierre Legros. After again visiting Turin in 1727, he was employed by king Victor Amadeus II of Sardinia, in 1734 he settled in Paris, and in 1735 became a member of the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture and rose rapidly in the hierarchy of the academy. Madame de Pompadour and the French court were taking the artist under their patronage and he was decorated with the Order of Saint Michael and named First Painter to king Louis XV of France in 1762. He was a most successful court painter but his portraits as well as history paintings also enjoyed a success throughout all Europe. He died in Paris on 15 July 1765 and his patrons included members of the court, the Gobelins factory, private individuals, and the church. In the ensuing centuries, Van Loos critical fortune has plummeted, although his ability remains admirable, and his Marriage of the Virgin is preserved in the Louvre. This article incorporates text from a now in the public domain, Chisholm, Hugh. Media related to Charles André van Loo at Wikimedia Commons Charles André van Loo in the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica
17.
Claude Joseph Vernet
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Claude-Joseph Vernet was a French painter. His son, Antoine Charles Horace Vernet, was also a painter, when only fourteen years of age he aided his father, Antoine Vernet, a skilled decorative painter, in the most important parts of his work. The panels of sedan chairs, however, could not satisfy his ambition, in 1734, Vernet left for Rome to study landscape designers and maritime painters, like Claude Gellee, where we find the styles and subjects of Vernets paintings. Slowly Vernet attracted notice in the milieu of Rome. With a certain conventionality in design, proper to his day, he allied the results of constant and honest observation of effects of atmosphere. Perhaps no painter of landscapes or sea-pieces has ever made the figure so completely a part of the scene depicted or so important a factor in his design. In this respect he was influenced by Giovanni Paolo Panini. Vernets work draws on themes, but in a way that is neither sentimental or emotive. The overall effect of his style is wholly decorative, others may know better, he said, with just pride, how to paint the sky, the earth, the ocean, no one knows better than I how to paint a picture. His style remained relatively static throughout his life and his works attentiveness to atmospheric effects is combined with a sense of harmony that is reminiscent of Claude Lorrain. In 1745 he married an Englishwoman whom he met in the city, in 1753 he was recalled to Paris, there, by royal command, he executed the series of the seaports of France by which he is best known. His The Port of Rochefort is particularly notable, in the piece Vernet is able to achieve, according to art historian Michael Levey, one of his most crystalline and atmospherically sensitive skies. In 1757, he painted a series of four paintings titled Four Times of the Day depicting, not surprisingly, throughout his life Vernet returned to Italian themes, as shown through one of his later works – A Beached Whale. Amongst the very numerous engravers of his works may be specially cited Le Bas, Cochin, Basan, Duret, Flipart and Le Veau in France and this article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain, Chisholm, Hugh, ed. Vernet. Life and works of Vernet C. J. Vernet online
18.
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
19.
Hubert Robert
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Hubert Robert was a French painter, noted for his landscape paintings and capriccio, or semi-fictitious picturesque depictions of ruins in Italy and of France. Hubert Robert was born in Paris in 1733 and his father, Nicolas Robert, was in the service of François-Joseph de Choiseul, marquis de Stainville a leading diplomat from Lorraine. The contrast between the ruins of ancient Rome and the life of his time excited his keenest interest and he worked for a time in the studio of Pannini, whose influence can be seen in the Vue imaginaire de la galerie du Louvre en ruine. The albums of sketches and drawings he assembled in Rome supplied him with motifs that he worked into paintings throughout his career. Roberts first exhibition at the Salon of 1767, consisting of thirteen paintings, Robert subsequently showed work at every Salon until 1802. He was successively appointed Designer of the Kings Gardens, Keeper of the Kings Pictures and Keeper of the Museum, Robert was arrested in October 1793, during the French Revolution. During the ten months of his detention at Sainte-Pélagie and Saint-Lazare he made drawings, painted at least 53 canvases. He was freed one week after the fall of Robespierre, Robert narrowly escaped the guillotine when through error another prisoner died in his place. Subsequently he was placed on the committee of five in charge of the new museum at the Palais du Louvre. The Revolution also resulted in the destruction of some of Roberts work, Robert had designed the decorations for a little theatre in the new wing at the location of the current staircase Gabriel in the Palace of Versailles. Designed to seat about 500, this theatre was built from the summer of 1785 and it was intended to serve as an ordinary court theatre, replacing the Theatre of the Princes Court which was too old and too small, but was destroyed during the time of Louis Philippe. A watercolour of Roberts design is in the National Archives in Paris, Robert died of a stroke on 15 April 1808. The quantity of his work is immense, comprising one thousand paintings. The Louvre alone contains nine paintings by his hand and specimens are frequently to be met with in provincial museums, Roberts work has more or less of that scenic character which justified his selection by Voltaire to paint the decorations of his theatre at Ferney. He is noted for the liveliness and point with which he treated the subjects he painted, along with this incessant activity as an artist, his daring character and many adventures attracted general admiration and sympathy. In the fourth canto of his LImagination Jacques Delille celebrated Roberts miraculous escape when lost in the catacombs, Roberts contribution to garden design was not in making practical ground plans for improvements but in providing atmospheric inspiration for the proposed effect. Huberts paintings of the Moulin Joly of his friend Claude-Henri Watelet render the fully-grown atmosphere of a garden that had been under way since 1754, references and notes Sources Adams, William Howard, The French Garden 1500–18001979. Huisman, Philippe, French Watercolours of the 18th Century London, Thames and Hudson ISBN 978-0-500-23105-0 Wiebenson and this article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain, Chisholm, Hugh, ed. article name needed
20.
Jacques-Louis David
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Jacques-Louis David was a French painter in the Neoclassical style, considered to be the preeminent painter of the era. David later became a supporter of the French Revolution and friend of Maximilien Robespierre. Imprisoned after Robespierres fall from power, he aligned himself with yet another political regime upon his release, at this time he developed his Empire style, notable for its use of warm Venetian colours. After Napoleons fall from Imperial power and the Bourbon revival, David exiled himself to Brussels, then in the United Kingdom of the Netherlands, where he remained until his death. David had a number of pupils, making him the strongest influence in French art of the early 19th century. Jacques-Louis David was born into a family in Paris on 30 August 1748. When he was nine his father was killed in a duel. He covered his notebooks with drawings, and he said, I was always hiding behind the instructors chair. Soon, he desired to be a painter, but his uncles and he overcame the opposition, and went to learn from François Boucher, the leading painter of the time, who was also a distant relative. Boucher was a Rococo painter, but tastes were changing, Boucher decided that instead of taking over Davids tutelage, he would send David to his friend, Joseph-Marie Vien, a painter who embraced the classical reaction to Rococo. There David attended the Royal Academy, based in what is now the Louvre, each year the Academy awarded an outstanding student the prestigious Prix de Rome, which funded a three- to five-year stay in the Eternal City. Each pensionnaire was lodged in the French Academys Roman outpost, which from the years 1737 to 1793 was the Palazzo Mancini in the Via del Corso. David competed for, and failed to win, the prize for three years, each failure contributing to his lifelong grudge against the institution. After his second loss in 1772, David went on a hunger strike, confident he now had the support and backing needed to win the prize, he resumed his studies with great zeal—only to fail to win the Prix de Rome again the following year. Finally, in 1774, David was awarded the Prix de Rome on the strength of his painting of Erasistratus Discovering the Cause of Antiochus Disease, a subject set by the judges. In October 1775 he made the journey to Italy with his mentor, Joseph-Marie Vien, while in Italy, David especially studied the works of 17th-century masters such as Poussin, Caravaggio, and the Carracci. Mengs principled, historicizing approach to the representation of classical subjects profoundly influenced Davids pre-revolutionary painting, such as The Vestal Virgin, mengs also introduced David to the theoretical writings on ancient sculpture by Johann Joachim Winckelmann, the German scholar held to be the founder of modern art history. In 1779, David toured the newly excavated ruins of Pompeii, while in Rome, David also assiduously studied the High Renaissance painters, Raphael making a profound and lasting impression on the young French artist
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Italy
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Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a unitary parliamentary republic in Europe. Located in the heart of the Mediterranean Sea, Italy shares open land borders with France, Switzerland, Austria, Slovenia, San Marino, Italy covers an area of 301,338 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal and Mediterranean climate. Due to its shape, it is referred to in Italy as lo Stivale. With 61 million inhabitants, it is the fourth most populous EU member state, the Italic tribe known as the Latins formed the Roman Kingdom, which eventually became a republic that conquered and assimilated other nearby civilisations. The legacy of the Roman Empire is widespread and can be observed in the distribution of civilian law, republican governments, Christianity. The Renaissance began in Italy and spread to the rest of Europe, bringing a renewed interest in humanism, science, exploration, Italian culture flourished at this time, producing famous scholars, artists and polymaths such as Leonardo da Vinci, Galileo, Michelangelo and Machiavelli. The weakened sovereigns soon fell victim to conquest by European powers such as France, Spain and Austria. Despite being one of the victors in World War I, Italy entered a period of economic crisis and social turmoil. The subsequent participation in World War II on the Axis side ended in defeat, economic destruction. Today, Italy has the third largest economy in the Eurozone and it has a very high level of human development and is ranked sixth in the world for life expectancy. The country plays a prominent role in regional and global economic, military, cultural and diplomatic affairs, as a reflection of its cultural wealth, Italy is home to 51 World Heritage Sites, the most in the world, and is the fifth most visited country. The assumptions on the etymology of the name Italia are very numerous, according to one of the more common explanations, the term Italia, from Latin, Italia, was borrowed through Greek from the Oscan Víteliú, meaning land of young cattle. The bull was a symbol of the southern Italic tribes and was often depicted goring the Roman wolf as a defiant symbol of free Italy during the Social War. Greek historian Dionysius of Halicarnassus states this account together with the legend that Italy was named after Italus, mentioned also by Aristotle and Thucydides. The name Italia originally applied only to a part of what is now Southern Italy – according to Antiochus of Syracuse, but by his time Oenotria and Italy had become synonymous, and the name also applied to most of Lucania as well. The Greeks gradually came to apply the name Italia to a larger region, excavations throughout Italy revealed a Neanderthal presence dating back to the Palaeolithic period, some 200,000 years ago, modern Humans arrived about 40,000 years ago. Other ancient Italian peoples of undetermined language families but of possible origins include the Rhaetian people and Cammuni. Also the Phoenicians established colonies on the coasts of Sardinia and Sicily, the Roman legacy has deeply influenced the Western civilisation, shaping most of the modern world
22.
Jacopo Bassano
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Jacopo Bassano, known also as Jacopo dal Ponte, was an Italian painter who was born and died in Bassano del Grappa near Venice, from which he adopted the name. Bassano is considered to be the first modern landscape painter and he was born around 1510 in the town of Bassano del Grappa, located about 65 km from the city of Venice. His father, Francesco il Vecchio, was a successful painter who had established a family workshop which primarily produced religious works in the local style. During his early youth Bassano was an apprentice in his fathers workshop and he eventually made his way to Venice in the 1530s, during which he studied under Bonifazio de Pitati and was exposed to such famous artists as Titian and il Pordenone. After his fathers death in 1539 he returned to Bassano del Grappa and permanently set up there, even taking a local woman, Elisabetta Merzari. This is attributed to his exposure to prints by these artists, Bassanos ability to experiment and absorb stylistic qualities from other contemporary artists is evident in the four distinct periods seen in his artistic legacy. Each period shows the struggle to reconcile his own aesthetics with the styles of his peers. Jacopo Bassanos early works from about 1530s and onward, Bonifazio de Pitati imparted upon his young pupil a lasting appreciation of Titians work, the influence of which is clearly seen in his early pieces. Bassanos earliest paintings exhibit his lifelong obsession with brilliant colors that he had seen in Titians beginning works, in this commission for a local church, Bassano fills the canvas with rich, luminous colors that help the distinguish the figures from their surrounding environment. They are also unique in their dress, instead of clothing his figures in the draping, shapeless fabrics many Renaissance artists equated with Classical Roman fashion, Bassano chose to feature figures in 16th-century clothing. The details of this piece are the most often discussed aspect of it, Bassanos piece, The Last Supper is a work that shows Bassanos new interest in the trend of Mannerism in Italian art. Jacopo Bassano started experimenting with light and his subjects around 1550s–1570s and it was during this period that Bassano was one of the first artists to paint a nocturne, or a painting in a nighttime landscape with artificial lighting. This type of painting was popular with local audiences and made Bassano paintings highly valued. His works also began to more heavily the pastoral elements he had inherited both from his father and from his environment. He began to show scenes not in Classical Roman settings but placed the figures in a more natural landscape where the trees. Paintings Media related to Jacopo da Ponte at Wikimedia Commons Jacopo Bassano in the Web Gallery of Art Jacopo Bassano, Founder of Landscape Style Bryan, walter Armstrong & Robert Edmund Graves, ed. Dictionary of Painters and Engravers, Biographical and Critical, york St. #4, Covent Garden, London, Original from Fogg Library, Digitized May 18,2007, George Bell and Sons
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Paolo Veronese
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Known as a supreme colorist, and after an early period with Mannerism, Paolo Veronese developed a naturalist style of painting, influenced by Titian. His most famous works are elaborate narrative cycles, executed in a dramatic and colorful style, full of architectural settings. Nonetheless, many of the greatest artists, may be counted among his admirers, including Rubens, Watteau, Tiepolo, Delacroix and Renoir. Veronese took his name from his birthplace of Verona, then the largest possession of Venice on the mainland. The census in Verona attests that Veronese was born sometime in 1528 to a stonecutter, or spezapreda, named Gabriele and it was common for surnames to be taken from a fathers profession, and thus Veronese was known as Paolo Spezapreda. He later changed his name to Paolo Caliari, because his mother was the daughter of a nobleman called Antonio Caliari. He was often called Paolo Veronese before the last century to him from another painter from Verona, Alessandro Veronese. By 1541, Veronese was apprenticed with Antonio Badile, who was later to become his father-in-law, although trained in the culture of Mannerism then popular in Parma, he soon developed his own preference for a more radiant palette. In 1552 Cardinal Ercole Gonzaga, great-uncle of the ruling Guglielmo Gonzaga, Duke of Mantua, commissioned an altarpiece for Mantua Cathedral and his panel of Jupiter Expelling the Vices for the former is now in the Louvre. He then painted a History of Esther in the ceiling for the church of San Sebastiano and it was these ceiling paintings and those of 1557 in the Marciana Library that established him as a master among his Venetian contemporaries. Already these works indicate Veroneses mastery in reflecting both the subtle foreshortening of the figures of Correggio and the heroism of those by Michelangelo. By 1556 Veronese was commissioned to paint the first of his monumental banquet scenes, the Feast in the House of Simon, owing to its scattered composition and lack of focus, however, it was not his most successful refectory mural. In the late 1550s, during a break in his work for San Sebastiano, Veronese decorated the Villa Barbaro in Maser, Veroneses decorations employed complex perspective and trompe loeil, and resulted in a luminescent and inspired visual poetry. The encounter between architect and artist was a triumph, the Wedding at Cana, painted in 1562–1563, was also collaboration with Palladio. It was commissioned by the Benedictine monks for the San Giorgio Maggiore Monastery, on an island across from Saint Marks. The contract insisted on the size, and that the quality of pigment. For example, the contract specified that the blues should contain the precious mineral lapis-lazuli, the contract also specified that the painting should include as many figures as possible. There are a number of portraits staged upon a canvas surface nearly ten meters wide
24.
Annibale Carracci
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Annibale Carracci was an Italian painter, active in Bologna and later in Rome. Painters working under Annibale at the gallery of the Palazzo Farnese would be influential in Roman painting for decades. Annibale Carracci was born in Bologna, and in all likelihood was first apprenticed within his family, in 1582, Annibale, his brother Agostino and his cousin Ludovico Carracci opened a painters studio, initially called by some the Academy of the Desiderosi and subsequently the Incamminati. This eclecticism was to become the defining trait of the artists of the Baroque Emilian or Bolognese School, in many early Bolognese works by the Carraccis, it is difficult to distinguish the individual contributions made by each. For example, the frescoes on the story of Jason for Palazzo Fava in Bologna are signed Carracci, in 1585, Annibale completed an altarpiece of the Baptism of Christ for the church of Santi Gregorio e Siro in Bologna. In 1587, he painted the Assumption for the church of San Rocco in Reggio Emilia, in 1587–88, Annibale is known to have had travelled to Parma and then Venice, where he joined his brother Agostino. From 1589 to 1592, the three Carracci brothers completed the frescoes on the Founding of Rome for Palazzo Magnani in Bologna, by 1593, Annibale had completed an altarpiece, Virgin on the throne with St John and St Catherine, in collaboration with Lucio Massari. His Resurrection of Christ also dates from 1593, in 1592, he painted an Assumption for the Bonasoni chapel in San Francesco. During 1593-94, all three Carraccis were working on frescoes in Palazzo Sampieri in Bologna and his work would later inspire the untrammelled stream of Baroque illusionism and energy that would emerge in the grand frescoes of Cortona, Lanfranco, and in later decades Andrea Pozzo and Gaulli. Throughout the 17th and 18th centuries, the Farnese Ceiling was considered the masterpiece of fresco painting for its age. On the other hand, while admitting Caravaggios talents as a painter, Bellori deplored his over-naturalistic style, if not his turbulent morals and he thus viewed the Caravaggisti styles with the same gloomy dismay. Painters were urged to depict the Platonic ideal of beauty, not Roman street-walkers, yet Carracci and Caravaggio patrons and pupils did not all fall into irreconcilable camps. Contemporary patrons, such as Marquess Vincenzo Giustiniani, found both applied showed excellence in maniera and modeling, in our century, observers have warmed to the rebel myth of Caravaggio, and often ignore the profound influence on art that Carracci had. Caravaggio almost never worked in fresco, regarded as the test of a great painters mettle, on the other hand, Carraccis best works are in fresco. Thus the somber canvases of Caravaggio, with benighted backgrounds, are suited to the contemplative altars, wittkower was surprised that a Farnese cardinal surrounded himself with frescoes of libidinous themes, indicative of a considerable relaxation of counter-reformatory morality. This thematic choice suggests Carracci may have been more rebellious relative to the often-solemn religious passion of Caravaggios canvases, wittkower states Carraccis frescoes convey the impression of a tremendous joie de vivre, a new blossoming of vitality and of an energy long repressed. It is instructive to compare Carraccis Assumption with Caravaggios Death of the Virgin, among early contemporaries, Carracci would have been an innovator. He re-enlivened Michelangelos visual fresco vocabulary, and posited a muscular and vivaciously brilliant pictorial landscape, while Michelangelo could bend and contort the body into all the possible perspectives, Carracci in the Farnese frescoes had shown how it could dance
25.
Alessandro Allori
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Alessandro di Cristofano di Lorenzo del Bronzino Allori was an Italian portrait painter of the late Mannerist Florentine school. Subsequent generations in the city would be influenced by the tide of Baroque styles pre-eminent in other parts of Italy. Freedberg derides Allori as derivative, claiming he illustrates the ideal of Maniera by which art are generated out of pre-existing art, the polish of figures has an unnatural marble-like form as if he aimed for cold statuary. While by 1600 the Baroque elsewhere was beginning to life to painted figures. Furthermore, in general, with the exception of the Counter-Maniera artists, among his collaborators was Giovanni Maria Butteri and his main pupil was Giovanni Bizzelli. Cristoforo del Altissimo, Cesare Dandini, Aurelio Lomi, John Mosnier, Alessandro Pieroni, Giovanni Battista Vanni, Allori was one of the artists, working under Vasari, included in the decoration of the Studiola of Francesco I. He was the father of the painter Cristofano Allori, peter Walking on Water Venus and Cupid, In 2006 the BBC foreign correspondent Sir Charles Wheeler returned an original Alessandro Allori painting to the Gemäldegalerie, Berlin. He had been given it in Germany in 1952, but only realized its origin. The work is possibly a portrait of Eleonora di Toledo de Medici, niece of Eleonora di Toledo, Alessandro Allori in the History of Art Painting in Italy 1500-1600, Freedberg, S. J. The Picture Collectors Manual, Dictionary of names, media related to Alessandro Allori at Wikimedia Commons Alessandro Allori Paitings Gallery
26.
Federico Zuccari
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Federico Zuccari, also known as Federico Zuccaro, was an Italian Mannerist painter and architect, active both in Italy and abroad. Zuccari was born at SantAngelo in Vado, near Urbino and his documented career as a painter began in 1550, when he moved to Rome to work under Taddeo, his elder brother. He went on to complete decorations for Pius IV, and help complete the decorations at the Villa Farnese at Caprarola. Zuccari was recalled to Rome by Pope Gregory XIII to continue in the Pauline chapel of the Vatican and he visited Brussels, and there made a series of cartoons for the tapestry-weavers. In 1574 he came to England, where he received a commission from Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester to portray himself and he also painted Mary, Queen of Scots, Sir Nicholas Bacon, Sir Francis Walsingham, Lord High Admiral Howard. He painted a portrait of a Man with Two Dogs, in the Pitti Palace, in 1585, he accepted an offer by Philip II of Spain to decorate the new Escorial at a yearly salary of 2,000 crowns. He worked at the palace from January 1586 to end of 1588 and his paintings were disliked by Philip II and many were painted over. However the parting was amicable, We must not blame him and he was succeeded by Pellegrino Tibaldi. He there founded in 1595, under a charter confirmed by Pope Sixtus V, bartolomeo Carducci is said to have studied with him. Like his Giorgio Vasari a generation before, Zuccari aimed at being an art critic and his chief book, Lidea de Pittori, Scultori, ed Architetti, was far less popular. Zuccari was raised to the rank of cavaliere not long before his death, freedberg, Sydney J. Pelican History of Art, ed. The Zuccaro Scholarship Getty Museum Exhibition Taddeo and Federico Zuccari, Artist Brothers in Rome
27.
Bernini
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Gian Lorenzo Bernini was an Italian sculptor and architect. While a major figure in the world of architecture, he was the sculptor of his age. Bernini was also a figure in the emergence of Roman Baroque architecture along with his contemporaries, the architect Francesco Borromini. Early in their careers they had all worked at the time at the Palazzo Barberini, initially under Carlo Maderno and, following his death. Later on, however, they were in competition for commissions, Peters Basilica, completed under Pope Paul V with the addition of Madernos nave and facade and finally re-consecrated by Pope Urban VIII on 18 November 1626, after 150 years of planning and building. Berninis design of the Piazza San Pietro in front of the Basilica is one of his most innovative, during his long career, Bernini received numerous important commissions, many of which were associated with the papacy. At an early age, he came to the attention of the nephew, Cardinal Scipione Borghese. Although he did not fare so well during the reign of Innocent X, under Alexander VII, he again regained pre-eminent artistic domination. Bernini and other artists fell from favor in later neoclassical criticism of the Baroque, the art historian Howard Hibbard concludes that, during the seventeenth century, there were no sculptors or architects comparable to Bernini. Bernini was born in Naples in 1598 to Angelica Galante and Mannerist sculptor Pietro Bernini and he was the sixth of their thirteen children. Gianlorenzo Bernini was the definition of childhood genius and he was “recognized as a prodigy when he was only eight years old, he was consistently encouraged by his father, Pietro. His precocity earned him the admiration and favor of powerful patrons who hailed him as ‘the Michelangelo of his century’” and his father was so impressed by his son’s obvious talent that he took him to Rome to showcase him to the cardinals and Pope. Bernini was presented before Pope Paul V, for whom he did a sketch of Saint Paul, once he was brought to Rome, he never left. “For Bernini there could be only one Rome, ‘You are made for Rome, ’ said Pope Urban VIII to him, ‘and Rome for you’”. It was in world of 17th century Rome and religious power. Under the patronage of the wealthy and most powerful Cardinal Scipione Borghese. By the time he was twenty-two, he was considered talented enough to have given a commission for a papal portrait. Berninis reputation, however, was established by four masterpieces
28.
Guercino
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Giovanni Francesco Barbieri, best known as Guercino, or Il Guercino, was an Italian Baroque painter and draftsman from the region of Emilia, and active in Rome and Bologna. The vigorous naturalism of his manner is in contrast to the classical equilibrium of his later works. His many drawings are noted for their luminosity and lively style and he was born in Cento, a village between Bologna and Ferrara. At an early age he acquired the nickname Guercino because he was cross-eyed, mainly self-taught, at the age of 16, he worked as apprentice in the shop of Benedetto Gennari, a painter of the Bolognese School. By 1615, he moved to Bologna, where his work was praised by Ludovico Carracci, Guercino painted two large canvases, Elijah Fed by Ravens and Samson Seized by Philistines, for Cardinal Serra, a Papal Legate to Ferrara. These paintings have a stark naturalist Caravaggesque style, although it is unlikely that Guercino saw any of the Roman Caravaggios first-hand, the Arcadian Shepherds was painted in 1618 at the same time of The Flaying of Marsyas by Apollo in Palazzo Pitti. Its dramatic composition is typical of Guercinos early works, which are often tumultuous and he often claimed that his early style was influenced by a canvas of Ludovico Carracci that he saw in the Capuchin church in Cento. Some of his works are closer to the style of his contemporary Guido Reni. He was recommended by Marchese Enzo Bentivoglio to the Bolognese Ludovisi Pope, Pope Gregory XV, the years he spent in Rome, 1621–23, were very productive. Petronilla Altarpiece for the Vatican, which is considered his masterpiece, after the death of Gregory XV, Guercino returned to his hometown. In 1626, he began his frescoes in the Duomo of Piacenza, between 1618 and 1631, Giovanni Battista Pasqualini produced 67 engravings that document the early production of Guercino, which is not included in the Libro dei Conti. In 1642, following the death of Guido Reni, Guercino moved his workshop to Bologna. In 1655, the Franciscan Order of Reggio paid him 300 ducats for the altarpiece of Saint Luke Displaying a Painting of the Madonna, the Corsini also paid him 300 ducats for the Flagellation of Christ painted in 1657. Guercino was remarkable for the rapidity of his executions, he completed no fewer than 106 large altarpieces for churches. He was also a prolific draftsman and his production includes many drawings, usually in ink, washed ink, or red chalk. Most of them were made as preparatory studies for his paintings, but he also drew landscapes, genre subjects, Guercinos drawings are known for their fluent style in which rapid, calligraphic pen strokes combined with dots, dashes, and parallel hatching lines describe the forms. Guercino continued to paint and teach until his death in 1666, as he never married, his estate passed to his nephews and pupils, Benedetto Gennari II and Cesare Gennari. Benedetto Zallone of Cento, and Matteo Loves, masterpieces of Cento, Rome and Polish collections, displayed at the National Museum in Warsaw from September 2013 to February 2014
29.
Domenichino
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Domenico Zampieri, known as Domenichino for his shortness, was an Italian Baroque painter of the Bolognese or Carracci School of painters. Domenichino was born in Bologna, son of a shoemaker, and he left Bologna for Rome in 1602 and became one of the most talented apprentices to emerge from Annibale Carraccis supervision. As a young artist in Rome he lived with his slightly older Bolognese colleagues Albani and Guido Reni, and worked alongside Lanfranco, meanwhile, he had completed frescoes c. Following Annibale Carraccis death in 1609, Annibales Bolognese pupils, foremost Domenichino, Albani, Reni and Lanfranco, became the leading painters in Rome. One of Domenichinos masterpieces, his frescoes of Scenes of the Life of Saint Cecilia in the Polet Chapel of San Luigi dei Francesi, was commissioned in 1612 and completed in 1615. Concurrently he painted his first, and most celebrated, altarpiece and it subsequently would be judged as being comparable to Raphaels great Transfiguration and even as the best picture in the world. With the election of a Bolognese pope in 1621, Domenichino returned to Rome, appointed Papal Architect, he nonetheless continued to be most active as a painter, obtaining many commissions for altarpieces in Roman churches. His Scenes from the Life of San Gennaro occupied him for the rest of his life and he painted four large lunettes, four pendentives, and twelve scenes in the soffits of the arches, all in fresco, plus three large altarpieces in oil on copper. He died, perhaps by poison at the hands of the jealous Cabal of Naples, before completing the fourth altarpiece or the cupola, at the time of his death, Domenichinos chief assistant was an obscure painter from Assisi, Francesco Raspantino, who inherited his masters studio. Earlier, Domenichinos principal pupils were Alessandro Fortuna, Giovanni Battista Ruggieri, Antonio Alberti called Barbalonga, Francesco Cozza, Andrea Camassei, others who studied in his studio include Poussin, Pietro Testa, and his future biographer, Giovanni Pietro Bellori. The portrait of Agucchi in York used to be attributed to Domenichino, Imitation in this sense is not copying but a creative process inspired by rhetorical theory whereby revered models are not only emulated but surpassed. Jerome from an altarpiece of the subject in Bologna by his former teacher. Like Domenichinos paintings, its sources were in ancient models and aimed at clarity of expression capable of moving its audience, as the Florentine composer Giulio Caccini held and Domenichino surely believed, the aim of the composer/artist was to move the passion of the mind. To achieve that goal, Domenichino paid particular attention to expressive gestures, Domenichinos composite score of 58 nonetheless was surpassed only by Raphael and Rubens, and it equalled that of the Carracci. The Balance reflects Domenichinos high standing in the history of European taste— until John Ruskin in the 1840s wrote his devastating attacks on Bolognese Baroque painting in his Modern Painters, the Carracci and their followers were condemned by Ruskin as being insincere. For Ruskin, there was no entirely sincere nor any great art from the seventeenth century, in 1996 the first major exhibition of his work was held at the Palazzo Venezia in Rome. 1620, Royal Collection, Hampton Court Madonna of Loreto with Saints John the Baptist, Paterniano, 1618–19, North Carolina Museum of Art) Rinaldo and Armida, c. 1620–21, Louvre, Paris Martyrdom of St Peter Martyr, c, 1622-23, Louvre, Paris Saint Ignatius de Loyola’s Vision of Christ and God the Father, c
30.
Salvator Rosa
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Salvator Rosa was an Italian Baroque painter, poet, and printmaker, who was active in Naples, Rome, and Florence. As a painter, he is best known as unorthodox and extravagant as well as being a perpetual rebel, Rosa was born in Arenella, at that time in the outskirts of Naples, on either June 20 or July 21,1615. His mother was Giulia Greca Rosa, a member of one of the Greek families of Sicily and his father, Vito Antonio de Rosa, a land surveyor, urged his son to become a lawyer or a priest, and entered him into the convent of the Somaschi Fathers. Yet Salvator showed a preference for the arts and secretly worked with his maternal uncle Paolo Greco to learn about painting. He soon transferred himself to the tutelage of his brother-in-law Francesco Fracanzano, a pupil of Ribera, and afterward to either Aniello Falcone, some sources claim he spent time living with roving bandits. He continued apprenticeship with Falcone, helping him complete his battlepiece canvases, in that studio, it is said that Lanfranco took notice of his work, and advised him to relocate to Rome, where he stayed from 1634–36. Returning to Naples, he began painting haunting landscapes, overgrown vegetation, or jagged beaches, mountains. Rosa was among the first to paint romantic landscapes, with a turn for scenes of picturesque, often turbulent and rugged scenes peopled with shepherds, brigands, seamen. These early landscapes were sold cheaply through private dealers and he returned to Rome in 1638–39, where he was housed by Cardinal Francesco Maria Brancaccio, bishop of Viterbo. For the Chiesa Santa Maria della Morte in Viterbo, Rosa painted his first and one of his few altarpieces, while Rosa had a facile genius at painting, he pursued a wide variety of arts, music, poetry, writing, etching, and acting. In Rome, he befriended Pietro Testa and Claude Lorrain, in costume, he inveighed against the farcical comedies acted in the Trastevere under the direction of Bernini. While his plays were successful, this activity also gained him enemies among patrons and artists, including Bernini himself. By late 1639, he had to relocate to Florence, where he stayed for eight years, in part, he had been invited by a Cardinal Gian Carlo de Medici. Once there, Rosa sponsored a combination of studio and salon of poets, playwrights, to the rigid art milieu of Florence, he introduced his canvases of wild landscapes, while influential, he gathered few true pupils. Another painter poet, Lorenzo Lippi, shared with Rosa the hospitality of the cardinal, Lippi encouraged him to proceed with the poem Il Malmantile Racquistato. He was well acquainted also with Ugo and Giulio Maffei, and was housed with them in Volterra, where he wrote four satires Music, Poetry, Painting, about the same time he painted his own portrait, now in the National Gallery, London. In 1646 he returned to Naples, and appears to have sympathized with the 1648 insurrection of Masaniello, whether he participated in the insurrection is unknown. He painted a portrait of Masaniello—probably from reminiscence rather than life, on the approach of Don Juan de Austria, the blood-stained Compagnia dispersed
31.
Luca Giordano
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Luca Giordano was an Italian late Baroque painter and printmaker in etching. Fluent and decorative, he worked successfully in Naples and Rome, Florence and Venice, born in Naples, Giordano was the son of the painter Antonio Giordano. In around 1650 he was apprenticed to Ribera on the recommendation of the viceroy of Naples, like Ribera, he painted many half-length figures of philosophers, either imaginary portraits of specific figures, or generic types. He acquired the nickname Luca fa presto, which translates into Luca paints quickly, following a period studying in Rome, Parma and Venice, Giordano developed an elaborate Baroque style fusing Venetian and Roman Influences. His mature work combines the ornamental pomp of Paul Veronese with the complex schemes. He is also noted for his lively and showy use of colour, in 1682–1683 Giordano painted various fresco series in Florence, including one in the dome of Corsini Chapel of the Chiesa del Carmine. In the large block occupied by the former Medici palace, he painted the ceiling of the Biblioteca Riccardiana, the vast frescoes of the latter are contained in the 1670s gallery addition, overlooking the gardens. The planning was overseen by Alessandro Segni and commissioned by Francesco Riccardi and they include the prototypic hagiographic celebration of the Medici family in the center, surrounded by a series of interlocking narratives, allegorical figures and mythological episodes. In 1692 Giordano went to Spain at the invitation of Charles II and he stayed there for ten years, returning to Naples in 1702, following Charles death. While in Spain, he painted decorative schemes at the Buen Retiro Palace, El Escorial, the sacristry of Toledo Cathedral. He also painted pictures for the court, private patrons. His pupils, Aniello Rossi and Matteo Pacelli, assisted him in Spain, Giordano was popular at the Spanish court, and the king granted him the title of a caballero. After his return to Naples early in 1702, Giordano continued to paint prolifically, executed in a lighter, less rhetorical style, these late works, prefiguring Rococo, proved influential throughout the eighteenth century, and were admired by Fragonard. He spent large sums in acts of munificence, and was particularly liberal to poorer artists, one of his maxims was that the good painter is the one whom the public like, and that the public are attracted more by colour than by design. Giordano had a facility, which often lead to an impression of superficiality of his works. He left many works in Rome, and far more in Naples and this church contains the artists own tomb. Other notable examples are the Judgment of Paris in the Berlin Museum, in later years, he painted influential frescoes for the Cappella Corsini, the Palazzo Medici-Riccardi and other works. Giordano died in Naples in 1705 and his best pupil in painting was Paolo de Matteis
32.
Mattia Preti
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Mattia Preti was an Italian Baroque artist who worked in Italy and Malta. He was also a member of the Order of Saint John, born in the small town of Taverna in Calabria, Preti was called Il Cavalier Calabrese after he was accepted into the Order of St. John in 1660. His early apprenticeship is said to have been with the Caravaggist Giovanni Battista Caracciolo, in Rome, he painted fresco cycles in the churches of SantAndrea della Valle and San Carlo ai Catinari. Between 1644 and 1646, he may have spent time in Venice, during most of 1653-1660, he worked in Naples, where he was influenced by another major painter of his era, Luca Giordano. One of Pretis masterpieces were a series of frescoes, ex-votos of the plague. Two sketches are in the Capodimonte Museum in Naples, the bozzetto of the Virgin with the baby Jesus looming over the dying and their burial parties envisions a Last Judgement presided over by a woman. Preti also won a commission to supervise the construction, carving, having been made a Knight of Grace in the Order of St John, he visited the order’s headquarters in Malta in 1659 and spent most of the remainder of his life there. Preti transformed the interior of St. Johns Co-Cathedral in Valletta, with a series of paintings on the life. In Malta one also can find paintings of Preti in private collections. His increased reputation led to a circle of patrons. Preti was fortunate to enjoy a career and have a considerable artistic output. His paintings, representative of the exuberant late Baroque style, are held by many museums, including important collections in Naples, Valletta. Mattia Preti e Gregorio Preti a Taverna
33.
Francesco Guardi
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Francesco Lazzaro Guardi was an Italian painter of veduta, nobleman, and a member of the Venetian School. He is considered to be among the last practitioners, along with his brothers, in the early part of his career he collaborated with his older brother Gian Antonio in the production of religious paintings. After Gian Antonios death in 1760, Francesco concentrated on veduta, the earliest of these show the influence of Canaletto, but he gradually adopted a looser style characterized by spirited brush-strokes and freely imagined architecture. Francesco Guardi was born in Venice into a family of nobility from Trentino and his father Domenico and his brothers Niccolò and Gian Antonio were also painters, later inheriting the family workshop after the fathers death in 1716. They probably all contributed as a team to some of the larger commissions later attributed to Francesco and his sister Maria Cecilia married the pre-eminent Veneto-European painter of his epoch, Giovanni Battista Tiepolo. In 1735, Guardi moved to the workshop of Michele Marieschi and his first certain works are from 1738, for a parish at Vigo dAnuania, in Trentino. In this period he worked alongside his brother, Gian Antonio. The first work signed by Francesco is a Saint Adoring the Eucarist and his works in this period included both landscapes and figure compositions. His early vedutas show influence both from Canaletto and Luca Carlevarijs, on February 15,1757, he married Maria Mattea Pagani, the daughter of painter Matteo Pagani. In 1760 his brother Gian Antonio died and his first son and his second son, Giacomo, was born in 1764. In 1763 he worked in Murano, in the church of San Pietro Martire, Francesco Guardis most important later works include the Doges Feasts, a series of twelve canvases celebrating the ceremonies held in 1763 for the election of Doge Alvise IV Mocenigo. In his later years, Canalettos influence on his art diminished, in circa 1778, he painted the severe Holy Trinity Appearing to Sts. Peter and Paul in the church of Roncegno. In 1782 Guardi was commissioned by the Venetian government six canvases to celebrate the visit of the Russian Archdukes in the city, on September 12 of that year he was admitted to the Fine Art Academy of Venice. A stronger attention to colours is present in works such as the Concerto of 80 Orphans of 1782, now in Munich. Guardi died at Campiello de la Madona in Cannaregio in 1793, to quote from the Web Gallery of Art, Perspective, organized aerial space, the Palladian solidity of Tiepolo. Are exchanged for a style of coloured handwriting - now brilliantly calligraphic. Guardis painterly style is known as pittura di tocco for its small dotting and this looser style of painting had been used by Giovanni Piazzetta and Sebastiano Ricci, and recalls, in some religious themes, the sweetened sfumato of Baroccis Bolognese style
34.
Giovanni Pannini
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Giovanni Paolo Panini or Pannini was a painter and architect, who worked in Rome and is mainly known as one of the vedutisti. As a painter, Panini is best known for his vistas of Rome, among his most famous works are his view of the interior of the Pantheon, and his vedute—paintings of picture galleries containing views of Rome. Most of his works, specially those of ruins, have a fanciful, in this they resemble the capricci of Marco Ricci. Panini also painted portraits, including one of Pope Benedict XIV, as a young man, Panini trained in his native town of Piacenza, under Giuseppe Natali and Andrea Galluzzi, and later the stage designer Francesco Galli-Bibiena. In 1711, he moved to Rome, where he studied drawing with Benedetto Luti, in Rome, Panini became famous as a decorator of palaces, including the Villa Patrizi, the Palazzo de Carolis, and the Seminario Romano. In 1719, Panini was admitted to the Congregazione dei Virtuosi al Pantheon and he taught in Rome at the Accademia di San Luca and the Académie de France, where he influenced Jean-Honoré Fragonard. In 1754, he served as the principal of the Accademia di San Luca, Panini died in Rome on 21 October 1765. Paninis studio included Hubert Robert and his son Francesco Panini, some British landscape painters, such as Marlow, Skelton and Wright of Derby, also imitated his capricci. In addition to being a painter and architect, Panini was a professor of perspective and his masterful use of perspective was later the inspiration for the creation of the Panini Projection, which is instrumental in rendering panoramic views. Death Leap of Marcus Arisi, Ferdinando, gian Paolo Panini e i fasti della Roma del 700. Arisi, Ferdinando, Giovanni Paolo Panini 1691-1765, Milano,1993, Horak, Marco, Quellopera prima di Panini gemella del dipinto esposto al Lombardi di Parma, in LUrtiga - Quaderni di cultura Piacentina, Piacenza, n. Horak, Marco, Lopera prima del Panini in una collezione privata, in Panorama Musei, anno XVIII, n.3, dicembre 2013 Horak, Marco, Panini al Fine Art Museum di San Francisco, in Panorama Musei, anno XXI, n
35.
Flanders
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Flanders is the Dutch-speaking northern portion of Belgium, although there are several overlapping definitions, including ones related to culture, language, politics and history. It is one of the communities, regions and language areas of Belgium, the demonym associated with Flanders is Fleming, while the corresponding adjective is Flemish. The official capital of Flanders is Brussels, although Brussels itself has an independent regional government, in historical contexts, Flanders originally refers to the County of Flanders, which around AD1000 stretched from the Strait of Dover to the Scheldt estuary. In accordance with late 20th century Belgian state reforms the area was made two political entities, the Flemish Community and the Flemish Region. These entities were merged, although geographically the Flemish Community, which has a cultural mandate, covers Brussels. Flanders has figured prominently in European history, as a consequence, a very sophisticated culture developed, with impressive achievements in the arts and architecture, rivaling those of northern Italy. Belgium was one of the centres of the 19th century industrial revolution, geographically, Flanders is generally flat, and has a small section of coast on the North Sea. Much of Flanders is agriculturally fertile and densely populated, with a density of almost 500 people per square kilometer. It touches France to the west near the coast, and borders the Netherlands to the north and east, the Brussels Capital Region is an enclave within the Flemish Region. Flanders has exclaves of its own, Voeren in the east is between Wallonia and the Netherlands and Baarle-Hertog in the consists of 22 exclaves surrounded by the Netherlands. It comprises 6.5 million Belgians who consider Dutch to be their mother tongue, the political subdivisions of Belgium, the Flemish Region and the Flemish Community. The first does not comprise Brussels, whereas the latter does comprise the Dutch-speaking inhabitants of Brussels, the political institutions that govern both subdivisions, the operative body Flemish Government and the legislative organ Flemish Parliament. The two westernmost provinces of the Flemish Region, West Flanders and East Flanders, forming the central portion of the historic County of Flanders, a feudal territory that existed from the 8th century until its absorption by the French First Republic. Until the 1600s, this county also extended over parts of France, one of the regions conquered by the French in Flanders, namely French Flanders in the Nord department. French Flanders can be divided into two regions, Walloon Flanders and Maritime Flanders. The first region was predominantly French-speaking already in the 1600s, the latter became so in the 20th century, the city of Lille identifies itself as Flemish, and this is reflected, for instance, in the name of its local railway station TGV Lille Flandres. The region conquered by the Dutch Republic in Flanders, now part of the Dutch province of Zeeland, the significance of the County of Flanders and its counts eroded through time, but the designation remained in a very broad sense. In the Early modern period, the term Flanders was associated with the part of the Low Countries
36.
Holland
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Holland is a region and former province on the western coast of the Netherlands. The name Holland is also used informally to refer to the whole of the country of the Netherlands. From the 10th to the 16th century, Holland proper was a political region within the Holy Roman Empire as a county ruled by the Counts of Holland. By the 17th century, Holland had risen to become a maritime and economic power, the name Holland first appeared in sources in 866 for the region around Haarlem, and by 1064 was being used as the name of the entire county. By this time, the inhabitants of Holland were referring to themselves as Hollanders, Holland is derived from the Middle Dutch term holtland. This spelling variation remained in use until around the 14th century, a popular folk etymology holds that Holland is derived from hol land and was inspired by the low-lying geography of Holland. The proper name of the area in both Dutch and English is Holland, Holland is a part of the Netherlands. Holland is informally used in English and other languages, including sometimes the Dutch language itself, the people of Holland are referred to as Hollanders in both Dutch and English. Today this refers specifically to people from the current provinces of North Holland, strictly speaking, the term Hollanders does not refer to people from the other provinces in the Netherlands, but colloquially Hollanders is sometimes used in this wider sense. In Dutch, the Dutch word Hollands is the form for Holland. In English, Dutch refers to the Netherlands as a whole, the word Hollandish is no longer in common use. Hollandic is the name give to the dialect spoken in Holland, and is occasionally also used by historians. Initially, Holland was a corner of the Holy Roman Empire. Gradually, its importance increased until it began to have a decisive. Until the start of the 12th century, the inhabitants of the area that became Holland were known as Frisians, the area was initially part of Frisia. At the end of the 9th century, West-Frisia became a county in the Holy Roman Empire. The first Count known about with certainty was Dirk I, who ruled from 896 to 931 and he was succeeded by a long line of counts in the House of Holland. When John I, count of Holland, died childless in 1299, by the time of William V the count of Holland was also the count of Hainaut and Zealand
37.
Pieter Brueghel the Younger
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Pieter Brueghel the Younger or Pieter Bruegel the Younger was a Flemish painter, known for numerous copies after his father Pieter Bruegel the Elders work as well as his original compositions. The large output of his studio, which produced for the local and export market and these paintings have now been attributed to his brother Jan Brueghel the Elder. Pieter Brueghel the Younger was born in Brussels, the oldest son of the famous sixteenth-century Netherlandish painter Pieter Brueghel the Elder and his father died in 1569, when Pieter the younger was only five years old. Following the death of his mother in 1578, Pieter, together with his brother Jan Brueghel the Elder and sister Marie, Mayken Verhulst was the widow of the prolific artist Pieter Coecke van Aelst and an accomplished artist in her own right, known for her miniature paintings. According to the early 17th-century Flemish biographer Karel van Mander Mayken Verhulst was possibly the first teacher of her two grandsons, the Brueghel family moved to Antwerp sometime after 1578 and Pieter possibly entered the studio of the landscape painter Gillis van Coninxloo. His teacher left Antwerp in 1585 and in the 1584/1585 registers of the Guild of Saint Luke, on 5 November 1588 Pieter married Elisabeth Goddelet. The couple had seven children, many of whom died young, one son called Pieter Brueghel III was also a painter. Pieter Brueghel the Younger operated a studio in Antwerp which produced mainly inexpensive copies of his fathers work for local sale. He was nevertheless often in difficulties, possibly due to drinking. He had at least 9 pupils including Frans Snyders and Andries Daniels and he died in Antwerp, aged 72. Pieter Brueghel the Younger painted landscapes, religious subjects, proverbs and his genre paintings of peasants emphasize the picturesque, and are regarded by some as lacking Pieter the Elders subtlety and humanism. He and his workshop were prolific copyists of Pieter Bruegel the Elders most famous compositions and his name and work were largely forgotten in the 18th and 19th centuries until he was rediscovered in the first half of the 20th century. Pieter Brueghel the Younger created original works largely in the idiom of his father which are energetic, bold and bright, one of the artists most successful original designs was the painting of The Village Lawyer. The different titles of the work indicate that it may have been interpreted in different ways in the 17th century. The picture also shows peasants lining up with such as chickens and eggs to please the lawyer. The painting shows his interest in and close observation of village life, Pieter Brueghel the Youngers workshop made many copies of the composition in different formats. There exist 19 signed and dated versions of work out of some 25 originals and 35 questionable versions. Another original composition of Pieter Brueghel the Younger is the Whitsun Bride, one of the copies was formerly held by the Metropolitan Museum
38.
Peter Paul Rubens
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Sir Peter Paul Rubens was a Flemish/Netherlandish draughtsman and painter. He is widely considered as the most notable artist of Flemish Baroque art school, the catalogue of his works by Michael Jaffé lists 1,403 pieces, excluding numerous copies made in his workshop. His commissioned works were mostly history paintings, which included religious and mythological subjects and he painted portraits, especially of friends, and self-portraits, and in later life painted several landscapes. Rubens designed tapestries and prints, as well as his own house and he also oversaw the ephemeral decorations of the royal entry into Antwerp by the Cardinal-Infante Ferdinand in 1635. His drawings are mostly extremely forceful but not overly detailed and he also made great use of oil sketches as preparatory studies. For altarpieces he painted on slate to reduce reflection problems. Rubens was born in the city of Siegen to Jan Rubens and he was named in honour of Saint-Peter and Paul, because he was born on their solemnety. His father, a Calvinist, and mother fled Antwerp for Cologne in 1568, after increased religious turmoil and persecution of Protestants during the rule of the Spanish Netherlands by the Duke of Alba. Jan Rubens became the adviser of Anna of Saxony, the second wife of William I of Orange. Following Jan Rubens imprisonment for the affair, Peter Paul Rubens was born in 1577, the family returned to Cologne the next year. In 1589, two years after his fathers death, Rubens moved with his mother Maria Pypelincks to Antwerp, religion figured prominently in much of his work and Rubens later became one of the leading voices of the Catholic Counter-Reformation style of painting. In Antwerp, Rubens received a Renaissance humanist education, studying Latin, by fourteen he began his artistic apprenticeship with Tobias Verhaeght. Subsequently, he studied under two of the leading painters of the time, the late Mannerist artists Adam van Noort. Much of his earliest training involved copying earlier works, such as woodcuts by Hans Holbein the Younger. Rubens completed his education in 1598, at time he entered the Guild of St. Luke as an independent master. In 1600 Rubens travelled to Italy and he stopped first in Venice, where he saw paintings by Titian, Veronese, and Tintoretto, before settling in Mantua at the court of Duke Vincenzo I Gonzaga. The colouring and compositions of Veronese and Tintoretto had an effect on Rubenss painting. With financial support from the Duke, Rubens travelled to Rome by way of Florence in 1601, there, he studied classical Greek and Roman art and copied works of the Italian masters
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Jacob Isaakszoon van Ruisdael
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Jacob Isaackszoon van Ruisdael was a Dutch painter, draughtsman, and etcher. He is generally considered the pre-eminent landscape painter of the Dutch Golden Age, prolific and versatile, Ruisdael depicted a wide variety of landscape subjects. From 1646 he painted Dutch countryside scenes of remarkable quality for a young man, after a trip to Germany in 1650, his landscapes took on a more heroic character. In his late work, conducted when he lived and worked in Amsterdam, he added city panoramas, in these, the sky often took up two-thirds of the canvas. In total he produced more than 150 Scandinavian views featuring waterfalls, Ruisdaels only registered pupil was Meindert Hobbema, one of several artists who painted figures in his landscapes. Hobbemas work has at times confused with Ruisdaels. Ruisdaels work was in demand in the Dutch Republic during his lifetime, Jacob Isaackszoon van Ruisdael was born in Haarlem in 1628 or 1629 into a family of painters, all landscapists. The number of painters in the family, and the spellings of the Ruisdael name, have hampered attempts to document his life. The name Ruisdael is connected to a castle, now lost, the village was the home of Jacobs grandfather, the furniture maker Jacob de Goyer. When De Goyer moved away to Naarden, three of his sons changed their name to Ruysdael or Ruisdael, probably to indicate their origin, two of De Goyers sons became painters, Jacobs father Isaack van Ruisdael and his well-known uncle Salomon van Ruysdael. Jacob himself always spelled his name with an i, while his cousin, Salomons son Jacob Salomonszoon van Ruysdael, also a landscape artist, spelled his name with a y. It is not known whether Ruisdaels mother was Isaack van Ruisdaels first wife, whose name is unknown, or his second wife, Isaack and Maycken married on 12 November 1628. It is often assumed Ruisdael studied with his father and uncle and he appears to have been strongly influenced by other contemporary local Haarlem landscapists, most notably Cornelis Vroom and Allaert van Everdingen. The earliest date that appears on Ruisdaels paintings and etchings is 1646, two years after this date he was admitted to membership of the Haarlem Guild of St. Luke. By this time landscape paintings were as popular as history paintings in Dutch households, though at the time of Ruisdaels birth and this growth in popularity of landscapes continued throughout Ruisdaels career. Around 1657, Ruisdael moved to Amsterdam, by then a city which was likely to have offered a bigger market for his work. His fellow Haarlem painter Allaert van Everdingen had already moved to Amsterdam, on June 17,1657 he was baptized in Ankeveen, near Naarden. Ruisdael lived and worked in Amsterdam for the rest of his life, in 1668, his name appears as a witness to the marriage of Meindert Hobbema, his only registered pupil, a painter whose works have been confused with Ruisdaels own
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Gerrit Dou
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Gerrit Dou, also known as Gerard and Douw or Dow, was a Dutch Golden Age painter, whose small, highly polished paintings are typical of the Leiden fijnschilders. He specialised in genre scenes and is noted for his trompe loeil niche paintings and he was a student of Rembrandt. Dou was born in Leiden, where his father was a manufacturer of stained-glass and he studied drawing under Bartholomeus Dolendo, and then trained in the stained-glass workshop of Pieter Couwenhorn. In February 1628, at the age of fourteen, his father sent him to painting in the studio of Rembrandt who lived nearby. At a comparatively early point in his career, however, he developed a manner of his own which diverged considerably from Rembrandts. He is said to have spent five days in painting a hand, notwithstanding the minuteness of his touch, the general effect was harmonious and free from stiffness, and his colour was always fresh and transparent. He often represented subjects in lantern or candle light, the effects of which he reproduced with an unparalleled fidelity and he often painted with the aid of a concave mirror, and to obtain exactness looked at his subject through a frame crossed with squares of silk thread. His practice as a painter, which was at first considerable, gradually declined. His pictures were small in size. More than 200 are attributed to him, and examples are to be found in most of the public collections of Europe. His chef-doeuvre is generally considered to be The dropsical woman, and The Dutch Housewife, the Evening School, in the Amsterdam Rijksmuseum, is the best example of the candlelight scenes in which he excelled. In the National Gallery, London, favorable specimens are to be seen in the Poulterers Shop, and a self-portrait. Queen Christina of Sweden owned eleven paintings by Dou, and Cosimo III de Medici visited his house, the Dutch royal court itself, however, preferred work of a more classical tendency. His most noted pupils were Frans van Mieris the Elder. angels also stresses how Dou’s paintings expressed the paragone debate current around that time. The debate was a competition between painting, sculpture and poetry as to which was the best representation of nature. It was especially popular in Leiden where the painters were seeking to obtain the rights of a guild from the council in order to have laws for their economic protection. The paragone debate is not only addressed in writings from that time but is reflected in the subject matter of several of Dou’s paintings. An example of this is the Old Painter at work, in which an old painter is shown working on a canvas behind a table displaying objects that show his capabilities of imitation
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Gabriel Metsu
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Gabriël Metsu was a Dutch painter of history paintings, still lifes, portraits, and genre works. He was an eclectic artist, who did not adhere to a consistent style, technique. Only 14 of his 133 works are dated, Gabriel Metsu was the son of Jacques Metsu a tapestry worker and painter, originally from Hainault, who lived most of his days at Leiden. In 1625 he married Jacomijntje Garniers, the widow of a painter with three children of her own and it is not known when and where Gabriel was baptized, most likely in a Catholic hidden church but the baptismal records did not survive. Gabriel grew up on Lange Mare and his stepfather, a skipper, must have supported his education, in 1648 Metsu was registered among the first members of the painters guild at Leiden. In 1650 he ceased to subscribe, Metsu was possibly trained in Utrecht by the Catholic painters Nicolaus Knüpfer and Jan Weenix. Around 1655 Metsu moved to Amsterdam, he lived in an alley on Prinsengracht, next to a brewery and near his relatives, in 1657 he got into an argument with a neighbor. Gabriel moved to a house on the side, where a daily vegetable market was held. In 1658 he married Isabella de Wolff, whose father was a potter and mother the painter Maria de Grebber, at the onset of the 1660s Metsu turned for inspiration to the art of the fijnschilders from his native Leiden. Metsu was responding to the market of Dous paintings, who sold his paintings all over for exorbitant prices, Metsu may have also influenced Pieter de Hooch. For a while Metsu trained Michiel van Musscher and Joost van Geel, Metsu died at the age 38 and was buried in the Nieuwe Kerk. Three bells were tolled, a habit in use with Dutch Catholics at that time and his widow left for Enkhuizen, to live with her mother. Isabella was buried in the Zuiderkerk in 1718, according to Jacobus Houbraken, Metsu was taught by Gerard Dou, though prior to about 1653 his influence is not apparent. Around 1653-4, Metsu began placing his figures in domestic interiors, old people were among Metsus favorite thematic borrowings from Dou during his first years in Amsterdam. Metsu often painted young women who either feed pets, sold goods at market or were grocery-shopping themselves for these things, Houbraken ends his biography with the comment that he was of impeccable reputation, but he may have meant this ironically. Often, the subject of a Metsu painting was based on an emblem from an emblem book. The accompanying verse is, The Sick Child in Rijksmuseum from c.1664 prompts the thought that Metsu strongly admired Vermeers work and it also provides us with a hint about what he thought was lacking in it, emotional involvement of the viewer. At least thirteen of his paintings show carpets and he used the same model
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Gerard ter Borch
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Gerard ter Borch, also known as Gerard Terburg, was a Dutch genre painter who lived in the Dutch Golden Age. Gerard ter Borch was born in December 1617 in Zwolle in the province of Overijssel in the Dutch Republic and he received an excellent education from his father Gerard ter Borch the Elder, also an artist, and developed his talent very early. The inscription on a study of a head proves that Ter Borch was at Amsterdam in 1632, duysters influence can be traced in a picture bearing the date 1638, in the lonides Bequest. In 1634 he studied under Pieter de Molijn in Haarlem, a record of this Haarlem period is the Consultation at the Berlin Gallery. In 1635 he was in London, and subsequently he travelled in Germany, France, Spain and his sister Gesina also became a painter. It is certain that he was in Rome in 1641, when he painted the portraits on copper of Jan Six, A Young Lady. He seems to have resided for a time in Haarlem, but he settled in Deventer. He died at Deventer in 1681, Ter Borch is a significant painter of genre subjects. He is known for his rendering of texture in draperies, for example in The Letter and in The Gallant Conversation, Ter Borchs works are comparatively rare, about eighty have been catalogued. Six of these are at the Hermitage, six at the Berlin Museum, five at the Louvre, four at the Dresden Museum, a pair of portraits are located at the Corcoran Gallery in Washington D. C. highlighted in 2010 by Blake Gopnik. The artists painting The Suitors Visit, c,1658, oil on canvas,80 x 75 cm in the Andrew W. Mellon Collection, was used on the cover of Marilyn Stokstads second edition of Art History. Gerard ter Borchs paintings This article incorporates text from a now in the public domain, Chisholm, Hugh, ed. Ter Borch. Gerard Terburg et sa famille, by Emile Michel Der künstlerische Entwickelungsgang des C
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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 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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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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Spain
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By population, Spain is the sixth largest in Europe and the fifth in the European Union. Spains capital and largest city is Madrid, other urban areas include Barcelona, Valencia, Seville, Bilbao. Modern humans first arrived in the Iberian Peninsula around 35,000 years ago, in the Middle Ages, the area was conquered by Germanic tribes and later by the Moors. Spain is a democracy organised in the form of a government under a constitutional monarchy. It is a power and a major developed country with the worlds fourteenth largest economy by nominal GDP. Jesús Luis Cunchillos argues that the root of the span is the Phoenician word spy. Therefore, i-spn-ya would mean the land where metals are forged, two 15th-century Spanish Jewish scholars, Don Isaac Abravanel and Solomon ibn Verga, gave an explanation now considered folkloric. Both men wrote in two different published works that the first Jews to reach Spain were brought by ship by Phiros who was confederate with the king of Babylon when he laid siege to Jerusalem. This man was a Grecian by birth, but who had given a kingdom in Spain. He became related by marriage to Espan, the nephew of king Heracles, Heracles later renounced his throne in preference for his native Greece, leaving his kingdom to his nephew, Espan, from whom the country of España took its name. Based upon their testimonies, this eponym would have already been in use in Spain by c.350 BCE, Iberia enters written records as a land populated largely by the Iberians, Basques and Celts. Early on its coastal areas were settled by Phoenicians who founded Western Europe´s most ancient cities Cadiz, Phoenician influence expanded as much of the Peninsula was eventually incorporated into the Carthaginian Empire, becoming a major theater of the Punic Wars against the expanding Roman Empire. After an arduous conquest, the peninsula came fully under Roman Rule, during the early Middle Ages it came under Germanic rule but later, much of it was conquered by Moorish invaders from North Africa. In a process took centuries, the small Christian kingdoms in the north gradually regained control of the peninsula. The last Moorish kingdom fell in the same year Columbus reached the Americas, a global empire began which saw Spain become the strongest kingdom in Europe, the leading world power for a century and a half, and the largest overseas empire for three centuries. Continued wars and other problems led to a diminished status. The Napoleonic invasions of Spain led to chaos, triggering independence movements that tore apart most of the empire, eventually democracy was peacefully restored in the form of a parliamentary constitutional monarchy. Spain joined the European Union, experiencing a renaissance and steady economic growth
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Jusepe Ribera
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Jusepe de Ribera was a Spanish Tenebrist painter and printmaker, also known as José de Ribera and Josep de Ribera. He also was called Lo Spagnoletto by his contemporaries and early writers, Ribera was a leading painter of the Spanish school, although his mature work was all done in Italy. Ribera was born at Xàtiva, near Valencia, Spain and he was baptized on February 17,1591. His father was a shoemaker, perhaps on a large scale, longing to study art in Italy, he made his way to Rome via Parma, where he is recorded in 1611. According to one source, a cardinal noticed him drawing from the frescoes on a Roman palace facade, Roman artists gave him the nickname Lo Spagnoletto. His early biographers generally rank him among the followers of Caravaggio, very little documentation survives from his early years, with scholars speculating as to the precise time and route by which he came to Italy. Ribera was living in Rome no later than 1612, and is documented as having joined the Academy of Saint Luke by 1613, in 1616, Ribera moved to Naples, in order to avoid his creditors. The Kingdom of Naples was then part of the Spanish Empire, Ribera moved to Naples permanently in the middle of 1616. Ribera began to sign his work as Jusepe de Ribera, español, the period after Osuna was recalled in 1620 seems to have been difficult. Few paintings survive from 1620 to 1626, but this was the period in which most of his best prints were produced and these were at least partly an attempt to attract attention from a wider audience than Naples. His career picked up in the late 1620s, and he was accepted as the painter in Naples thereafter. His influence can be seen in Velázquez, Murillo, and most other Spanish painters of the period, all of them were invited to work in Naples, but found the place inhospitable. The cabal ended at the time of Domenichinos death in 1641, according to the RKD he is listed as a pupil of Ribalta and in turn his own pupils were Enrico Fiammingo, Francesco Fracanzano, Luca Giordano, and Bartolomeo Passante. He was followed by Giuseppe Marullo and he influenced the painters Agostino Beltrano, Hendrick van Someren, Paolo Domenico Finoglio, Giovanni Ricca, about 1644, his daughter married a Spanish nobleman in the administration, who died soon after. From 1644, Ribera seems to have suffered serious ill-health, which reduced his ability to work. In 1647–1648, during the Masaniello rising against Spanish rule, he felt forced for some months to take his family with him into refuge in the palace of the Viceroy. In 1651 he sold the house he had owned for many years. In his earlier style, founded sometimes on Caravaggio and sometimes on the wholly diverse method of Correggio, along with his massive and predominating shadows, he retained from first to last a great strength in local coloring
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