1.
Belgium
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Belgium, officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a sovereign state in Western Europe bordered by France, the Netherlands, Germany, Luxembourg, and the North Sea. It is a small, densely populated country which covers an area of 30,528 square kilometres and has a population of about 11 million people. Additionally, there is a group of German-speakers who live in the East Cantons located around the High Fens area. Historically, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg were known as the Low Countries, the region was called Belgica in Latin, after the Roman province of Gallia Belgica. From the end of the Middle Ages until the 17th century, today, Belgium is a federal constitutional monarchy with a parliamentary system of governance. It is divided into three regions and three communities, that exist next to each other and its two largest regions are the Dutch-speaking region of Flanders in the north and the French-speaking southern region of Wallonia. The Brussels-Capital Region is a bilingual enclave within the Flemish Region. A German-speaking Community exists in eastern Wallonia, Belgiums linguistic diversity and related political conflicts are reflected in its political history and complex system of governance, made up of six different governments. Upon its independence, declared in 1830, Belgium participated in the Industrial Revolution and, during the course of the 20th century, possessed a number of colonies in Africa. This continuing antagonism has led to several far-reaching reforms, resulting in a transition from a unitary to a federal arrangement during the period from 1970 to 1993. Belgium is also a member of the Eurozone, NATO, OECD and WTO. Its capital, Brussels, hosts several of the EUs official seats as well as the headquarters of major international organizations such as NATO. Belgium is also a part of the Schengen Area, Belgium is a developed country, with an advanced high-income economy and is categorized as very high in the Human Development Index. A gradual immigration by Germanic Frankish tribes during the 5th century brought the area under the rule of the Merovingian kings, a gradual shift of power during the 8th century led the kingdom of the Franks to evolve into the Carolingian Empire. Many of these fiefdoms were united in the Burgundian Netherlands of the 14th and 15th centuries, the Eighty Years War divided the Low Countries into the northern United Provinces and the Southern Netherlands. The latter were ruled successively by the Spanish and the Austrian Habsburgs and this was the theatre of most Franco-Spanish and Franco-Austrian wars during the 17th and 18th centuries. The reunification of the Low Countries as the United Kingdom of the Netherlands occurred at the dissolution of the First French Empire in 1815, although the franchise was initially restricted, universal suffrage for men was introduced after the general strike of 1893 and for women in 1949. The main political parties of the 19th century were the Catholic Party, French was originally the single official language adopted by the nobility and the bourgeoisie
2.
Napoleon
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Napoleon Bonaparte was a French military and political leader who rose to prominence during the French Revolution and led several successful campaigns during the French Revolutionary Wars. As Napoleon I, he was Emperor of the French from 1804 until 1814, Napoleon dominated European and global affairs for more than a decade while leading France against a series of coalitions in the Napoleonic Wars. He won most of these wars and the vast majority of his battles, one of the greatest commanders in history, his wars and campaigns are studied at military schools worldwide. Napoleons political and cultural legacy has ensured his status as one of the most celebrated and he was born Napoleone di Buonaparte in Corsica to a relatively modest family from the minor nobility. When the Revolution broke out in 1789, Napoleon was serving as an officer in the French army. Seizing the new opportunities presented by the Revolution, he rose through the ranks of the military. The Directory eventually gave him command of the Army of Italy after he suppressed a revolt against the government from royalist insurgents, in 1798, he led a military expedition to Egypt that served as a springboard to political power. He engineered a coup in November 1799 and became First Consul of the Republic and his ambition and public approval inspired him to go further, and in 1804 he became the first Emperor of the French. Intractable differences with the British meant that the French were facing a Third Coalition by 1805, in 1806, the Fourth Coalition took up arms against him because Prussia became worried about growing French influence on the continent. Napoleon quickly defeated Prussia at the battles of Jena and Auerstedt, then marched the Grand Army deep into Eastern Europe, France then forced the defeated nations of the Fourth Coalition to sign the Treaties of Tilsit in July 1807, bringing an uneasy peace to the continent. Tilsit signified the high watermark of the French Empire, hoping to extend the Continental System and choke off British trade with the European mainland, Napoleon invaded Iberia and declared his brother Joseph the King of Spain in 1808. The Spanish and the Portuguese revolted with British support, the Peninsular War lasted six years, featured extensive guerrilla warfare, and ended in victory for the Allies. The Continental System caused recurring diplomatic conflicts between France and its client states, especially Russia, unwilling to bear the economic consequences of reduced trade, the Russians routinely violated the Continental System and enticed Napoleon into another war. The French launched an invasion of Russia in the summer of 1812. The resulting campaign witnessed the collapse of the Grand Army, the destruction of Russian cities, in 1813, Prussia and Austria joined Russian forces in a Sixth Coalition against France. A lengthy military campaign culminated in a large Allied army defeating Napoleon at the Battle of Leipzig in October 1813, the Allies then invaded France and captured Paris in the spring of 1814, forcing Napoleon to abdicate in April. He was exiled to the island of Elba near Rome and the Bourbons were restored to power, however, Napoleon escaped from Elba in February 1815 and took control of France once again. The Allies responded by forming a Seventh Coalition, which defeated Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo in June, the British exiled him to the remote island of Saint Helena in the South Atlantic, where he died six years later at the age of 51
3.
Early Netherlandish painting
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Their work follows the International Gothic style and begins approximately with Robert Campin and Jan van Eyck in the early 1420s. It lasts at least until the death of Gerard David in 1523, the major Netherlandish painters include Campin, van Eyck, Rogier van der Weyden, Dieric Bouts, Petrus Christus, Hans Memling, Hugo van der Goes and Hieronymus Bosch. These artists made significant advances in natural representation and illusionism, and their subjects are usually religious scenes or small portraits, with narrative painting or mythological subjects being relatively rare. Landscape is often richly described but relegated as a background detail before the early 16th century, the painted works are generally oil on panel, either as single works or more complex portable or fixed altarpieces in the form of diptychs, triptychs or polyptychs. The period is noted for its sculpture, tapestries, illuminated manuscripts, stained glass. Assisted by the system, panels and a variety of crafts were sold to foreign princes or merchants through private engagement or market stalls. A majority were destroyed during waves of iconoclasm in the 16th and 17th centuries, Early northern art in general was not well regarded from the early 17th to the mid-19th century, and the painters and their works were not well documented until the mid-19th century. Art historians spent almost another century determining attributions, studying iconography, attribution of some of the most significant works is still debated. These artists became a driving force behind the Northern Renaissance. In this political and art-historical context, the north follows the Burgundian lands which straddled areas that encompass parts of modern France, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlandish artists have been known by a variety of terms. Late Gothic is a designation which emphasises continuity with the art of the Middle Ages. In the early 20th century, the artists were variously referred to in English as the Ghent-Bruges school or the Old Netherlandish school. In this context, primitive does not refer to a lack of sophistication. When the Burgundian dukes established centres of power in the Netherlands, in the 19th century the Early Netherlandish artists were classified by nationality, with Jan van Eyck identified as German and van der Weyden as French. Scholars were at times preoccupied as to whether the schools genesis was in France or Germany, in the 14th century, as Gothic art gave way to the International Gothic era, a number of schools developed in northern Europe. Early Netherlandish art originated in French courtly art, and is tied to the tradition. Modern art historians see the era as beginning with 14th-century manuscript illuminators and this patronage continued in the low countries with the Burgundian dukes, Philip the Good and his son Charles the Bold. The demand for illuminated manuscripts declined towards the end of the century, following van Eycks innovations, the first generation of Netherlandish painters emphasised light and shadow, elements usually absent from 14th-century illuminated manuscripts
4.
Dieric Bouts
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Dieric Bouts was an Early Netherlandish painter. Very little is known about Bouts early life, but he was influenced by Jan van Eyck and by Rogier van der Weyden. He is first documented in Leuven in 1457 and worked there until his death in 1475, Bouts was among the first northern painters to demonstrate the use of a single vanishing point. Bouts earliest work is the Triptych of the Virgins Life in the Prado, the Deposition Altarpiece in Granada probably also dates to this period, around 1450–60. The Louvre Lamentation is another early work, the Last Supper is the central panel of Altarpiece of the Holy Sacrament, commissioned from Bouts by the Leuven Confraternity of the Holy Sacrament in 1464. All of the central rooms orthogonals lead to a vanishing point in the center of the mantelpiece above Christs head. However the small room has its own vanishing point. The Last Supper is the second dated work to display an understanding of Italian linear perspective, scholars also have noted that Boutss Last Supper was the first Flemish panel painting to depict the Last Supper. This contrasts strongly with other Last Supper depictions, which focused on Judass betrayal or on Christs comforting of John. Bouts also added to the complexity of this image by including four servants, although once identified as the artist himself and his two sons, these servants are most likely portraits of the confraternitys members responsible for commissioning the altarpiece. The Last Supper was the part of the altarpiece in the St. Peters Church. The Altarpiece of the Holy Sacrament has four panels, two on each side. Because these were taken to the museums in Berlin and Munich in the 19th century, the reconstruction of the original altarpiece has been difficult. Today it is thought that the panel with Abraham and Melchizedek is above the Passover Feast on the wing, while the Gathering of the Manna is above Elijiah. All of these are typological precursors to the Last Supper in the central panel, after attaining the rank of city painter of Leuven in 1468, Bouts received a commission to paint two more works for the Town Hall. After this, he turned to the commission for the Justice Panels. He completed one panel and began a second, both depicting the life of the 11th-century Holy Roman Emperor Otto III and these pieces can now be seen in the Brussels museum. The remaining two Justice Panels were never completed, many of Bouts authentic works are small devotional panels, usually of the Virgin and Child
5.
Petrus Christus
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Petrus Christus was an Early Netherlandish painter active in Bruges from 1444, where, along with Hans Memling, he became the leading painter after the death of Jan van Eyck. Today, some 30 works are attributed to him. Christus was a figure for centuries, his importance not established until the work of modern art historians. Giorgio Vasari barely mentions him in his biographies of painters, written in the Renaissance, in the early to mid-nineteenth century, Gustav Waagen and Johann David Passavant were important in establishing Christuss biographical details and in attributing works to him. Christus was born in Baarle, near Antwerp and Breda, long considered a student of and successor to Jan van Eyck, his paintings have sometimes been confused with those of van Eyck. At the death of van Eyck in 1441, it is thought that Christus took over his masters workshop, had he been an active pupil in van Eycks Bruges workshop in 1441, he would have received his citizenship automatically after the customary period of one year and one day. Christus may have been van Eycks successor in the Bruges school, a document testifying to the presence of a Piero da Bruggia in Milan may suggest that he visited that city at the same time as Antonello, and the two artists may even have met. It would also explain how Italian painters learned about oil painting, Antonello, along with Giovanni Bellini, was one of the first Italian painters to use oil paint like his Netherlandish contemporaries. And Christus Virgin and Child Enthroned with Saints Francis and Jerome in Frankfurt, a late work, the reserved Portrait of a Young Girl belongs among the masterworks of Early Netherlandish painting, marking a new development in Netherlandish portraiture. It no longer shows the sitter in front of a neutral background, Christus had already perfected this format in his two portraits of 1446. Christus died in Bruges in 1475 or 1476, Hans Memling succeeded him as the next great painter in Bruges. Christus produced at least six signed and dated works, which form the basis for any other attributions to him and these are, the Portrait of Edward Grymeston, the Portrait of a Carthusian, the so-called St. In addition, a pair of panels in the Groeningemuseum in Bruges bears a date of 1452, but its authenticity is suspect. Oclc. org, 15th to 18th century European paintings, France, Central Europe, the Netherlands, Spain,2 Painting by or after Petrus Christus at the Art UK site
6.
Gerard David
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Gerard David was an Early Netherlandish painter and manuscript illuminator known for his brilliant use of color. Only a bare outline of his survives, although some facts are known. He may have been the Meester gheraet van brugghe who became a master of the Antwerp guild in 1515 and he was very successful in his lifetime and probably ran two workshops, in Antwerp and Bruges. His reputation diminished in the 17th century until he was rediscovered in the 19th century and he was born in Oudewater, now located in the province of Utrecht. His year of birth is approximated as c.1460 on the basis that he looks to be around 50 years in the 1509 self-portrait found in his Virgin among the Virgins and he spent his mature career in Bruges, where he was a member of the painters guild. Upon the death of Hans Memling in 1494, David became Bruges leading painter and he moved to Bruges in 1483, presumably from Haarlem, where he had formed his early style under Albert van Oudewater, and joined the Guild of Saint Luke at Bruges in 1484. He became dean of the guild in 1501, and in 1496 married Cornelia Cnoop, David was one of the towns leading citizens. Ambrosius Benson served his apprenticeship with David, but they came into dispute around 1519 over a number of paintings and drawings Benson had collected from other artists, because of a large debt owed to him by Benson, David had refused to return the material. Benson pursued the matter legally and won, leading to David serving time in prison and he died on 13 August 1523 and was buried in the Church of Our Lady at Bruges. Davids surviving work consists of religious scenes. They are characterised by an atmospheric, timeless, and almost dream like serenity, achieved through soft, warm and subtle colourisation and he is innovative in his recasting of traditional themes and in his approach to landscape, which was then only an emerging genre in northern European painting. His ability with landscape can be seen in the foliage of his Triptych of the Baptism. In his early work David followed Haarlem artists such as Dirk Bouts, Albert van Oudewater and Geertgen tot Sint Jans, to this early period belong the St John of the Richard von Kaufmann collection in Berlin and the Saltings St Jerome. In Bruges came directly under the influence of Memling, the master whom he followed most closely and it was from him that David acquired a solemnity of treatment, greater realism in the rendering of human form, and an orderly arrangement of figures. He visited Antwerp in 1515 and was impressed with the work of Quentin Matsys, who had introduced a greater vitality and intimacy in the conception of sacred themes. Only a few of his works have remained in Bruges, The Judgment of Cambyses, The Flaying of Sisamnes and the Baptism of Christ in the Groeningemuseum, even in his best work he had only given newer variations of the art of his predecessors and contemporaries. His rank among the masters was renewed, however, when a number of his paintings were assembled at the seminal 1902 Gruuthusemuseum, several of his drawings also survive, and elements from these appear in the works of other painters and illuminators for several decades after his death. At the time of Davids death, the glory of Bruges and its painters was on the wane, of Davids pupils in Bruges, only Isenbrant, Albert Cornelis and Ambrosius Benson achieved importance
7.
Hans Memling
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Hans Memling was a German painter who moved to Flanders and worked in the tradition of Early Netherlandish painting. He then worked at Bruges, County of Flanders by 1465 and he may have been wounded at the Battle of Nancy, sheltered and cured by the Hospitallers at Bruges and to show his gratitude he refused payment for a picture he had painted for them. Memling did paint for the Hospitallers in 1479 and 1480, in 1477, when he was believed dead, he was under contract to create an altarpiece for the gild-chapel of the booksellers of Bruges. Critical opinion has been unanimous in assigning this altarpiece to Memling. The purchase of his pictures by an agent of the Medici demonstrates that he had a considerable reputation, the oldest allusions to pictures connected to Memling point to his relations with the Burgundian court, which was held in Brussels. The inventories of Margaret of Austria, drawn up in 1524, allude to a triptych of the God of Pity by Rogier van der Weyden and he may have been apprenticed to van der Weyden in Bruges, where he afterwards dwelt. Yet the whole piece was assigned to the former in the Zambeccari collection at Bologna, Memlings painting of the Baptist in the gallery of Munich is the oldest form in which Memlings style is displayed. The subsequent Last Judgment in Gdańsk shows that Memling preserved the tradition of sacred art used earlier by Rogier van der Weyden in the Beaune Altarpiece, Memlings portraits, in particular, were popular in Italy. Memlings portrait style influenced the work of numerous late-15th-century Italian painters and he was popular with Italian customers as shown in the preference given to them by such purchasers as Cardinal Grimani and Cardinal Bembo at Venice, and the heads of the house of Medici at Florence. Memlings reputation was not confined to Italy or Flanders, the Madonna and Saints, the Virgin and Child, and the four attributed portraits in the Uffizi Gallery of Florence, show that his work was widely appreciated in the 16th century. The masterpiece of Memlings later years, the Shrine of St Ursula in the museum of the hospital of Bruges, is supposed to have been ordered and finished in 1480. The delicacy of finish in its figures, the variety of its landscapes and costume. Near the close of Memlings career he was supported by his workshop. The registers of the guild at Bruges give the names of two apprentices who served their time with Memling and paid dues on admission to the guild in 1480 and 1486. Erwin Panofsky in his 1953 Early Netherlandish Painting, says of Memling and his works give the impression of derivativeness. Old St. Johns Hospital, Bruges Christ Giving His Blessing and they are characterized by guls with hooked lines radiating from a central body, and probably came from Anatolia or Armenia. This article incorporates text from a now in the public domain, Chisholm, Hugh
8.
Pieter Bruegel the Elder
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He also painted no portraits, the other mainstay of Netherlandish art. After his training and travels to Italy, he returned in 1555 to settle in Antwerp and he does the same with the fantastic and anarchic world developed in Renaissance prints and book illustrations. He is sometimes referred to as Peasant Bruegel, to him from the many later painters in his family. From 1559, he dropped the h from his name and signed his paintings as Bruegel, the two main early sources for Bruegels biography are Lodovico Guicciardinis account of the Low Countries and Karel van Manders 1604 Schilder-boeck. Guicciardini recorded that Bruegel was born in Breda, but van Mander specified that Bruegel was born in a village near Breda called Brueghel, nothing at all is known of his family background. Van Mander seems to assume he came from a peasant background, in keeping with the over-emphasis on Bruegels peasant genre scenes given by van Mander and many art historians. Breda was already a significant centre as the base of the House of Orange-Nassau, with a population of some 8,000, from the fact that Bruegel entered the Antwerp painters guild in 1551, it is inferred that he was born between 1525 and 1530. His master, according to van Mander, was the Antwerp painter Pieter Coecke van Aelst, between 1545 and 1550 he was a pupil of Pieter Coecke, who died on 6 December 1550. Bruegel possibly got this work via the connections of Mayken Verhulst, maykens father and eight siblings were all artists or married an artist, and lived in Mechelen. In 1551 Bruegel became a master in the Guild of Saint Luke of Antwerp. He set off for Italy soon after, probably by way of France. He visited Rome and, rather adventurously for the period, by 1552 he had reached Reggio Calabria at the tip of the mainland. He probably continued to Sicily, but by 1553 was back in Rome, there he met the miniaturist Giulio Clovio, whose will of 1578 lists paintings by Bruegel, in one case a joint work. These works, apparently landscapes, have not survived, but marginal miniatures in manuscripts by Clovio are attributed to Bruegel, with one exception, Bruegel did not work the plates himself, but produced a drawing which Cocks specialists worked from. In 1563 he was married in Brussels, where he lived for the rest of his life, while Antwerp was the capital of Netherlandish commerce as well as the art market, Brussels was the centre of government. Van Mander tells a story that his mother-in-law pushed for the move to him from his established servant girl mistress. By now painting had become his main activity, and his most famous come from these years. His paintings were sought after, with patrons including wealthy Flemish collectors and Cardinal Granvelle, in effect the Habsburg chief minister
9.
Philippe de Champaigne
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Philippe de Champaigne was a Brabançon-born French Baroque era painter, a major exponent of the French school. He was a member of the Académie de peinture et de sculpture. Born of a family in Brussels, during the reign of the Archduke Albert and Isabella. In 1621 he moved to Paris, where he worked with Nicolas Poussin on the decoration of the Palais du Luxembourg under the direction of Nicolas Duchesne, whose daughter he married. According to Houbraken, Duchesne was angry at Champaigne for becoming more popular than he was at court, and it was only after he received news of Duchesnes death that he returned to marry his daughter. After the death of his protector Duchesne, Champaigne worked for the Queen Mother, Marie de Medicis and he made several paintings for the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, dating from 1638. He also drew cartoons for tapestries. He was made first painter of the Queen with a pension of 1200 pounds and he also decorated the Carmelite Church of Faubourg Saint-Jacques, one of the favorite churches of the Queen Mother. He also worked for Cardinal Richelieu, for whom he decorated the Palais Cardinal, Champaigne was the only artist who was allowed to paint Richelieu enrobed as a cardinal, which he did eleven times. He was a member of the Académie de peinture et de sculpture in 1648. Later in his life, he came under the influence of Jansenism, Champaigne produced a very large number of paintings, mainly religious works and portraits. Influenced by Rubens at the beginning of his career, his style became more austere. Philippe de Champaigne remains an exceptional painter thanks to the brilliance of the colors in his paintings and he portrayed the entire French court, the French high nobility, royalty, high members of the church and the state, parliamentarians and architects, and other notable people. In depicting their faces, he refused to show a transitory expression and his pupils were his nephew Jean Baptiste de Champaigne, William Faithorne, Jean Morin, and Nicolas de Plattemontagne. During his last period Champaigne painted mainly religious subjects and family members and he died in Paris in 1674. Selected works Portraits PhilippeDeChampaigne. org,98 works by Philippe de Champaigne ScholarsResource. com, Paintings of Philippe de Champaigne
10.
Anthony van Dyck
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Sir Anthony van Dyck was a Flemish Baroque artist who became the leading court painter in England, after enjoying great success in Italy and Flanders. He also painted biblical and mythological subjects, displayed outstanding facility as a draughtsman, the Van Dyke beard is named after him. Antoon van Dyck was born to parents in Antwerp. By the age of fifteen he was already an accomplished artist, as his Self-portrait, 1613–14. He was admitted to the Antwerp painters Guild of Saint Luke as a master by February 1618. His influence on the young artist was immense, Rubens referred to the nineteen-year-old van Dyck as the best of my pupils. At the same time the dominance of Rubens in the small and declining city of Antwerp probably explains why, despite his periodic returns to the city, van Dyck spent most of his career abroad. In 1620, at the instigation of George Villiers, Marquess of Buckingham, van Dyck went to England for the first time where he worked for King James I of England, receiving £100. After about four months he returned to Flanders, but moved on in late 1621 to Italy and he was already presenting himself as a figure of consequence, annoying the rather bohemian Northern artists colony in Rome, says Giovan Pietro Bellori, by appearing with the pomp of Zeuxis. He was mostly based in Genoa, although he travelled extensively to other cities. In 1627, he went back to Antwerp where he remained for five years, a life-size group portrait of twenty-four City Councillors of Brussels he painted for the council-chamber was destroyed in 1695. He was evidently very charming to his patrons, and, like Rubens, well able to mix in aristocratic and court circles, by 1630 he was described as the court painter of the Habsburg Governor of Flanders, the Archduchess Isabella. In this period he produced many religious works, including large altarpieces. King Charles I was the most passionate and generous collector of art among the British monarchs, and saw art as a way of promoting his elevated view of the monarchy. In 1628, he bought the collection that the Gonzagas of Mantua were forced to dispose of. In 1626, he was able to persuade Orazio Gentileschi to settle in England, later to be joined by his daughter Artemisia and some of his sons. Rubens was a target, who eventually came on a diplomatic mission, which included painting, in 1630. He was very well-treated during his visit, during which he was knighted
11.
Jacob Jordaens
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Jacob Jordaens was a Flemish painter, draughtsman and tapestry designer known for his history paintings, genre scenes and portraits. After Peter Paul Rubens and Anthony van Dyck, he was the leading Flemish Baroque painter of his day, unlike those contemporaries he never travelled abroad to study Italian painting, and his career is marked by an indifference to their intellectual and courtly aspirations. In fact, except for a few trips to locations in the Low Countries. As well as being a painter, he was a prominent designer of tapestries. Jordaens main artistic influences, besides Rubens and the Brueghel family, were northern Italian painters such as Jacopo Bassano, Paolo Veronese, and Caravaggio. Jacob Jordaens was born on 19 May 1593, the first of eleven children, to the wealthy linen merchant Jacob Jordaens Sr. little is known about Jordaens early education. It can be assumed that he received the advantages of the education provided for children of his social class. This assumption is supported by his handwriting, his competence in French. Like Rubens, he studied under Adam van Noort, who was his only teacher, during this time Jordaens lived in Van Noorts house in the Everdijstraat and became very close to the rest of the family. After eight years of training with Van Noort, he enrolled in the Guild of St. Luke as a waterschilder and this medium was often used for preparing tapestry cartoons in the seventeenth century. Although examples of his earliest watercolour works are no longer extant, in the same year as his entry into the guild,1616, he married his teachers eldest daughter, Anna Catharina van Noort, with whom he had three children. In 1618, Jordaens bought a house in Hoogstraat and he would then later buy the adjoining house to expand his household and workspace in 1639, mimicking Rubens house built two decades earlier. He lived and worked here until his death in 1678, Jordaens never made the traditional trip to Italy to study classical and Renaissance art. Despite this, he made efforts to study prints or works of Italian masters available in northern Europe. For example, Jordaens is known to have studied Titian, Veronese, Caravaggio and his commissions frequently came from wealthy local Flemish patrons and clergy, although later in his career he worked for courts and governments across Europe. Besides a large output of oil paintings he was a prolific tapestry designer. Jordaens importance can also be seen by his number of pupils, among them were his cousin and his son Jacob. Like Rubens and other artists at that time, Jordaens studio relied on his assistants, not many of these pupils went on to fame themselves, however a position in Jordaens studio was highly desirable for young artists from across Europe
12.
Jusepe de 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
