1.
Antwerp
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Antwerp is a city in Belgium, the capital of Antwerp province in the region of Flanders. With a population of 510,610, it is the most populous city proper in Belgium and its metropolitan area houses around 1,200,000 people, which is second behind Brussels. Antwerp is on the River Scheldt, linked to the North Sea by the Westerschelde estuary, the Port of Antwerp is one of the biggest in the world, ranking second in Europe and within the top 20 globally. Antwerp has long been an important city in the Low Countries, the inhabitants of Antwerp are nicknamed Sinjoren, after the Spanish honorific señor or French seigneur, lord, referring to the Spanish noblemen who ruled the city in the 17th century. The city hosted the 1920 Summer Olympics, according to folklore, notably celebrated by a statue in front of the town hall, the city got its name from a legend about a giant called Antigoon who lived near the Scheldt river. He exacted a toll from passing boatmen, and for those who refused, he severed one of their hands, eventually the giant was killed by a young hero named Silvius Brabo, who cut off the giants own hand and flung it into the river. Hence the name Antwerpen, from Dutch hand werpen, akin to Old English hand and wearpan, a longstanding theory is that the name originated in the Gallo-Roman period and comes from the Latin antverpia. Antverpia would come from Ante Verpia, indicating land that forms by deposition in the curve of a river. Note that the river Scheldt, before a period between 600 and 750, followed a different track. This must have coincided roughly with the current ringway south of the city, however, many historians think it unlikely that there was a large settlement which would be named Antverpia, but more something like an outpost with a river crossing. However, John Lothrop Motley argues, and so do a lot of Dutch etymologists and historians, aan t werp is also possible. This warp is a hill or a river deposit, high enough to remain dry at high tide. Another word for werp is pol hence polders, historical Antwerp allegedly had its origins in a Gallo-Roman vicus. Excavations carried out in the oldest section near the Scheldt, 1952–1961, produced pottery shards, the earliest mention of Antwerp dates from the 4th century. In the 4th century, Antwerp was first named, having been settled by the Germanic Franks, the name was reputed to have been derived from anda and werpum. The Merovingian Antwerp was evangelized by Saint Amand in the 7th century, at the end of the 10th century, the Scheldt became the boundary of the Holy Roman Empire. Antwerp became a margraviate in 980, by the German emperor Otto I, in the 11th century Godfrey of Bouillon was for some years known as the marquis of Antwerp. In the 12th century, Norbert of Xanten established a community of his Premonstratensian canons at St. Michaels Abbey at Caloes
2.
Guild of Saint Luke
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The Guild of Saint Luke was the most common name for a city guild for painters and other artists in early modern Europe, especially in the Low Countries. They were named in honor of the Evangelist Luke, the saint of artists. One of the most famous such organizations was founded in Antwerp and it continued to function until 1795, although by then it had lost its monopoly and therefore most of its power. In most cities, including Antwerp, the government had given the Guild the power to regulate defined types of trade within the city. Guild membership, as a master, was required for an artist to take on apprentices or to sell paintings to the public. Similar rules existed in Delft, where members could sell paintings in the city or have a shop. The guild of Saint Luke not only represented painters, sculptors, and other artists, but also—especially in the seventeenth century—dealers, amateurs. In traditional guild structures, house-painters and decorators were often in the same guild, however, as artists formed under their own specific guild of St. Luke, particularly in the Netherlands, distinctions were increasingly made. In general, guilds also made judgments on disputes between artists and other artists or their clients, in such ways, it controlled the economic career of an artist working in a specific city, while in different cities they were wholly independent and often competitive against each other. Although it did not become an artistic center until the sixteenth century, Antwerp was one of, if not the first. It is first mentioned in 1382, and was given privileges by the city in 1442. The registers, or Liggeren, from the guild exist, cataloging when artists became masters, who the dean for each year was, what their specialities were, and the names of any students. Perhaps because of this link, for a period they had a rule that all miniatures needed a tiny mark to identify the artist, only under special privileges, such as court artist, could an artist effectively practice their craft without holding membership in the guild. Membership also allowed members to sell works at the guild-owned showroom, Antwerp, for example, opened a market stall for selling paintings in front of the cathedral in 1460, and Bruges followed in 1482. Guilds of St. Luke in the Dutch Republic began to reinvent themselves as cities there changed over to Protestant rule, many St. Luke guilds reissued charters to protect the interests of local painters from the influx of southern talent from places like Antwerp and Bruges. Many cities in the republic became more important artistic centres in the late sixteenth. Amsterdam was the first city to reissue a St. Lukes charter after the reformation in 1579, and it included painters, sculptors, engravers, for example, Gouda, Rotterdam, and Delft, all founded guilds between 1609 and 1611. On the other hand, these distinctions did not take effect at that time in Amsterdam or Haarlem, in the Haarlem Guild of St. Luke, however, a strict hierarchy was attempted in 1631 with panel painters at the top, though this hierarchy was eventually rejected
3.
Frans Ykens
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Frans Ykens was a Flemish still life painter active in Antwerp and Brussels in the 17th century. He is mainly known for his pieces and fruit still lifes and also painted banquet pieces, pronkstillevens. Frans Ykens commenced his study at age 14 with his uncle Osias Beert. According to his own statement of 1641, he had traveled 12 years earlier to the Provence where he stayed, amongst others, in Aix-en-Provence, Ykens was enrolled in 1631 as a master of the Antwerp Guild of Saint Luke. In 1635 he married the flower painter Catarina Ykens-Floquet, who was the daughter of history painter Lucas Floquet I, Ykens was successful and his works were very popular with collectors of his time. He painted for Archduke Leopold in Brussels and his works were collected by Eleanor of Austria, Queen of Poland who purchased his work through Antwerp art dealers Forchondt. He was also appreciated by his colleagues as is demonstrated by the fact that Rubens owned six of his still lifes. His success allowed him to acquire a sumptuous dwelling in central Antwerp, in 1665 he moved to Brussels, where he worked until his death. He must have fallen on hard times in his years as he had to mortgage his property. Ykens was the teacher of his niece Catherine Ykens, Osias Beert and Gilliam Dandoy, Frans Ykens oeuvre is fairly well established as he signed most of his work. All his dated paintings date to his Antwerp years and he painted mainly flower pieces, garland paintings and fruit still lifes. In addition, he created a number of breakfast pieces, pronkstillevens and larger pieces with game. Throughout his long career he worked in a number of styles and he was influenced by the work of other still-life painters, including the breakfast pieces of Willem Claesz Heda and the pronkstillevens or large sumptuous still lifes of Frans Snyders. Frans Ykens painted multiple devotional garland paintings, garland paintings are a special type of still life developed in Antwerp by Jan Brueghel the Elder in collaboration with the Italian cardinal Federico Borromeo at the beginning of the 17th century. Other artists involved in the development of the genre included Hendrick van Balen, Andries Daniels, Peter Paul Rubens. The genre was initially connected to the imagery of the Counter-Reformation movement. It was further inspired by the cult of veneration and devotion to Mary prevalent at the Habsburg court, garland paintings typically show a flower garland around a devotional image, portrait or other religious symbol. By the second half of the 17th century secular themes such as portraits, an example of such later development in garland paintings is the Birth of the red rose, a collaboration between Ykens and Cornelis Schut
4.
Paulus Pontius
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Paulus Pontius was a Flemish engraver and painter. Paulus Pontius was born in Antwerp where he was apprenticed to the still life painter Osias Beert on 3 December 1616 and he later worked under the prominent engraver Lucas Vorsterman who taught him the art of engraving. Vorsterman had joined Rubens workshop around 1617 or 1618 and had established himself as Rubens primary engraver since, in 1626-1627 Pontius was admitted as a master in the Antwerp Guild of Saint Luke. Together with Vorsterman, Schelte a Bolswert and Boetius à Bolswert, when Vorsterman left for England in 1624 after he had a conflict with Rubens, Pontius took over from Vorsterman as Rubens foremost engraver. He even took up lodgings in Rubens house from 1624 to 1631, the names of his successive wives were, Christina Herselin, Catlyne van Eck and Helena Schryvers. He had respectively one son, two sons and three daughters, and one daughter with his spouses and his son François was an engraver and art dealer. By 1634 Pontius was living with his first wife Christina Herselin in the Everdijstraat in the house of his father-in-law, on 26 April 1634 the famous but impoverished genre painter Adriaen Brouwer took up lodgings in his house as the two men were close friends. The same year the pair joined the chamber of rhetoric Violieren. It has been suggested that Brouwers painting called Fat man or Luxuria and his pupils included Alexander Voet the Younger, Coenraet Waumans and Frans van den Wyngaerde. Pontius was able to develop early in his career a personal style characterized by precise drawing that renders the original painting accurately and he was a master in suggesting the effects of light and the colours in a very subtle manner. Pontius worked as one of the engravers for Rubens workshop. Pontius also worked after the work of pupils or imitators of Rubens and he can be regarded as one of the principal engravers of van Dycks work. Altogether Pontius produced 42 plates after Rubens, an example is the Portrait of Gaspar de Gusman, Count of Olivares, which Pontius made in 1626 after a design by Rubens. This was one of his first important portrait commissions and the success of the print led to many official commissions. In his portraits Pontius conveyed the figures and their expressions in an attractive and this quality of his work made him one of the most sought after engravers for the various publication projects of the prominent portrait painters active in Flanders at the time. Paulus Du Pont, or Pontius, engraver, Jan van Ravesteyn, painter of the Hague. Theodoor van Loon, painter of Louvain, cornelis van der Geest, celebrated connoisseur. Gerard Honthorst, painter of the Hague, hendrik van Balen, painter of Antwerp
5.
Museum of Grenoble
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The Museum of Grenoble is a municipal museum of Fine Arts and antiquities in the city of Grenoble in the Isère region of France. Located on the bank of the Isère River, place Lavalette. The Museum of Grenoble was founded on 16 February 1798 by Louis-Joseph Jay and that day, an order of the local administration detailed the creation of a museum in Grenoble, in which article 10 stipulated that the citizen Louis-Joseph Jay is appointed curator of this museum. In May of that year, the Interior Minister canceled the creation of the museum but a provisional authorization was obtained in December, beginning in 1799, while engaged in collecting works of art of the Isère Region, Jay requested a public subscription to purchase paintings and drawings. A few months after its opening, the Concordat of 1801 by Napoleon Bonaparte forced the evacuation of the premises of the museum to restore them to their original purpose. So in this way it was relocated on 14 July 1802 into the Central School, on 12 March 1807, a decree transformed the museum from a county museum into a municipal museum. On 15 February 1811 an imperial decree allocated 209 paintings to six French cities, in 1815, despite a partial dispersion of works as a result of the Restoration, the collection continued to increase. The acquisitions, donations and legacies continued throughout the 19th century, a new building designed by the architect Charles-Auguste Questel was inaugurated in 1872 on the current site of Verdun Square. The museum-library, so called because it housed the Municipal Library of Grenoble, is one of the great examples of museum architecture in France. He had a direct and massive influence on the richness and the nature of the collections. From 1895 until his death on 15 July 1910, he bought for the museum 50 paintings,13 drawings,16 sculptures,13 pieces of archeology. From 1920, the Museum of Grenoble was considered the museum of contemporary art in France since the Paris museum did not open until 1947. In 1982, President François Mitterrand announced a plan to construct a new building. The following year, the new mayor of Grenoble Alain Carignon, and the Minister of Culture Jack Lang, agreed on the idea and the site of the new building, after the appointment of architects in 1987, construction began in 1990. On January 30,1994, the new building housing the collections was inaugurated by Prime Minister Édouard Balladur, located in the heart of the city, bordering the Isère River, it tripled the exhibition space of the old museum. Its total cost was 203 million French francs, to complete the Museum there is a sculpture garden in the Albert Michallon park, a wooded area of 16,000 m² surrounding the old city wall from the late 19th century. Thus was built the Tower of the Island in 1401, serving as a system that allowed relative autonomy for the consuls of the city who considered it to be their main home City. In this way the area became the first barracks in the history of the city, in the 19th century, General Haxo enlarged the precincts of the city from 1832 to 1836 by building a new fortification wall close to the Arsenal
6.
National Gallery of Art
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The National Gallery of Art, and its attached Sculpture Garden, is a national art museum in Washington, D. C. located on the National Mall, between 3rd and 9th Streets, at Constitution Avenue NW. Open to the public and free of charge, the museum was established in 1937 for the American people by a joint resolution of the United States Congress. Andrew W. Mellon donated an art collection and funds for construction. The Gallery often presents temporary special exhibitions spanning the world and the history of art and it is one of the largest museums in North America. In 1930 Mellon formed the A. W. Mellon Educational and Charitable Trust, when quizzed by Abbot, he explained that the project was in the hands of the Trust and that its decisions were partly dependent on the attitude of the Government towards the gift. Designed by architect John Russell Pope, the new structure was completed and accepted by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on behalf of the American people on March 17,1941. Neither Mellon nor Pope lived to see the completed, both died in late August 1937, only two months after excavation had begun. At the time of its inception it was the largest marble structure in the world, as anticipated by Mellon, the creation of the National Gallery encouraged the donation of other substantial art collections by a number of private donors. The Gallerys East Building was constructed in the 1970s on much of the land left over from the original congressional joint resolution. It was funded by Mellons children Paul Mellon and Ailsa Mellon Bruce, designed by famed architect I. M. Pei, the contemporary structure was completed in 1978 and was opened on June 1 of that year by President Jimmy Carter. The new building was built to house the Museums collection of paintings, drawings, sculptures. The design received a National Honor Award from the American Institute of Architects in 1981, the final addition to the complex is the National Gallery of Art Sculpture Garden. Completed and opened to the public on May 23,1999, the National Gallery of Art is supported through a private-public partnership. The United States federal government provides funds, through annual appropriations, to support the museums operations, all artwork, as well as special programs, are provided through private donations and funds. The museum is not part of the Smithsonian Institution, noted directors of the National Gallery have included David E. Finley, Jr. John Walker, and J. Carter Brown. Rusty Powell III is the current director, entry to both buildings of the National Gallery of Art is free of charge. From Monday through Saturday, the museum is open from 10 a. m. –5 p. m. it is open from 11 –6 p. m. on Sundays and it is closed on December 25 and January 1. The museum comprises two buildings, the West Building and the East Building linked by an underground passage
7.
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
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The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, located in the Houston Museum District, Houston, is one of the largest museums in the United States. The permanent collection of the museum more than 6,000 years of history with approximately 64,000 works from six continents. The museum benefits the Houston community through programs, publications and media presentations, each year,1.25 million people benefit from museums programs, workshops and resource centers. Of that total, more than 500,000 people participate in the community outreach programs, the MFAHs permanent collection totals 63,718 pieces in 270,000 square feet of exhibition space, placing it among the larger art museums in the United States. The museums collections and programs are housed in seven facilities, the main buildings have 130,000 square feet of exhibition space. Caroline Wiess Law Building – the original building was designed in phases by architect William Ward Watkin. The original Caroline Wiess Law building was constructed in 1924 and the east and west wing were added in 1926, the Robert Lee Blaffer Memorial Wing was designed by Kenneth Franzheim and opened to the public in 1953. The new construction included significant structural improvements to several existing galleries—most notably, two subsequent additions, Cullinan Hall and the Brown Pavilion, designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe were built in 1958 and 1974 respectively. This section of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston campus is the only Mies-designed museum in the United States, the museum Trustees elected to name the building after Audrey Jones Beck in honor of the large collection she had donated to the museum several decades prior. The new building will occupy a two-acre museum-owned site that is currently a parking lot, the new MFAH building will be integrated with the adjacent Lillie and Hugh Roy Cullen Sculpture Garden and an expanded Glassell School of Art. It will also include 25 galleries for traveling exhibitions, educational areas, a library, lecture halls, a theater, the museum expects the project to cost $250 million to $350 million with the design process taking about two years, followed by five years of construction. The Lillie and Hugh Roy Cullen Sculpture Garden – was designed by US-born artist and landscape architect Isamu Noguchi, the garden itself is a sculpture that unites the pathways between the Caroline Wiess Law Building and the Glassell School of Art. Glassell School of Art – founded in 1979 and designed by architect S. I, morris, the Glassell School of Art offers programs under the Studio School for Adults. The Glassell School of Art serves as the wing of the MFAH, with a variety of classes, workshops, and educational opportunities for students diverse in age, interests, experience. In 2014, Steven Holl designed a new L-shaped building for the school, the school offers classes at the Studio School for Adults and the Glassell Junior School, as well as Community Bridge Programs, special programs for youths, and the Core Artist-in-Residence Program. The MFAH is the museum facility in the United States that has a special building dedicated solely to art classes for children. Bayou Bend Collection and Gardens – features one of the nations finest collections of American decorative art, the Bayou Bend Collection and Gardens, former home of Life Trustee Ima Hogg, was designed by architect John F. Staub in 1927. Miss Hogg donated the property to the MFAH in 1957, followed, in 1962, by the donation of its collection of paintings, furniture, ceramics, glass, metals, Bayou Bend was officially dedicated and opened to the public in 1966
8.
Ambrosius Bosschaert
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Ambrosius Bosschaert the Elder was a still life painter of the Dutch Golden Age. He was born in Antwerp, where he started his career, but he spent most of it in Middelburg and he specialized in painting still lifes with flowers, which he signed with the monogram AB. At the age of twenty-one, he joined the city’s Guild of Saint Luke, not long after, Bosschaert had married and established himself as a leading figure in the fashionable floral painting genre. He had three sons who all became painters, Ambrosius II, Johannes and Abraham. His brother-in-law Balthasar van der Ast also lived and worked in his workshop, Bosschaert later worked in Amsterdam, Bergen op Zoom, Utrecht, and Breda. In 1619 when he moved to Utrecht, his brother-in-law van der Ast entered the Utrecht Guild of St. Luke, the painter Roelandt Savery entered the St. Luke’s guild in Utrecht at about the same time. Savery had considerable influence on the Bosschaert dynasty, when Bosschaert died in The Hague while on commission there for a flower piece, Balthasar van der Ast took over running his workshop and pupils. His bouquets were painted symmetrically and with accuracy in small dimensions. They sometimes included symbolic and religious meanings, at the time of his death, Bosschaert was working on an important commission in the Hague. That piece is now in the collection in Stockholm, Bosschaert became one of the first artists to specialize in still life painting, and he started a tradition of painting detailed flower bouquets, which typically included tulips and roses. Thanks to the booming seventeenth-century Dutch art market, he highly successful. His sons and his pupil and brother-in-law, Balthasar van der Ast, were among those to uphold the Bosschaert dynasty which continued until the mid-17th century. It may not be a coincidence that this coincided with a national obsession with exotic flowers which made flower portraits highly sought after. Although he was highly in demand, he did not create many pieces because he was employed as an art dealer. Selected works Bosschaert de Oudere, Ambrosius, Ambrosius Bosschaert on Artnet A number of Ambrosius Bosschaerts paintings
9.
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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Media related to Osias Beert (I) at Wikimedia Commons
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