1430-1479 Italian Antonello da Messina Galleries Antonello was born at Messina around 1429-1431, to Giovanni de Antonio Mazonus and Garita (Margherita). He was probably apprenticed in his native city and in Palermo. Around the year 1450, according to a 1524 letter of the Neapolitan humanist Pietro Summonte,[1] he was a pupil of the painter Niccol?? Colantonio at Naples, then one of the most active centres of Renaissance arts. Around 1455 he painted the so-called Sibiu Crucifixion, which was inspired by the Flemish Calvaries and is housed in the Muzeul de Art?? in Bucharest. Of the same years is the Crucifixion in the Royal Museum of Antwerp: his early works shows a marked Flemish influence, which it is now understood he derived from his master Colantonio and from works by Rogier van der Weyden and Jan van Eyck that belonged to Colantonio's patron, Alfonso V of Aragon; his biographer Vasari remarked that Antonello saw at Naples an oil painting by Jan Van Eyck (the "Lomellini Tryptych") belonging to King Alphonso of Aragon; Vasari's further narrative, that being struck by the new method, set out for The Netherlands to acquire a knowledge of the process from Van Eyck's disciples is discredited today. Another theory, supported only by vague documentary evidence, suggests that in 1456 Antonello visited Milan, where he might have met Van Eyck's most accomplished follower, Petrus Christus. Since Antonello was one of the first Italians to master Eyckian oil painting, and Christus was the first Netherlandish painter to learn Italian linear perspective, their meeting is a tempting answer to both questions. But in fact, neither artist is known for certain to have been in Milan at the time. The following year, Antonello received his first commission as an independent artist, a banner for the Confraternit?? di San Michele dei Gerbini in Reggio Calabria. At this date, he was already married, and his son Jacobello had been born. In 1460, his father is mentioned leasing a brigantine to bring back Antonello and his family from Amaltea, a town in Calabria. In that year, Antonello painted the so-called Salting Madonna, in which standard iconography and Flemish style are backed by a greater attention in the volumetric proportions of the figures, probably coming from his knowledge of some works by Piero della Francesca. Also from around 1460 are the two small panels depicting Abraham Served by the Angels and St. Jerome Penitent now in the Museo Nazionale della Magna Grecia in Reggio Calabria. In 1461 his younger brother Giordano entered Antonello's workshop, signing a three-years' contract. Of that year is a Madonna with Child for the Messinese nobleman Giovanni Mirulla, now lost. Between 1465-1470, Antonello finished a Portrait of a Man now at Cefal??. His portraits are noteworthy for his characteristic use of the three-quarter view, typical of the Flemish School, whereas almost all Italian painters adopted the medal profile pose. Antonello travelled to Venice around 1470, to see Giovanni Bellini's paintings. The Palermo Annunciation.In this year he executed his first signed and dated work, the Salvator Mundi. Back at Sicily, Antonello finished the St. Gregory's Polyptych. In 1474, he painted the Annunciation, now in Syracuse, and the St. Jerome in His Study, one of his most famous paintings. The following year he began his regular sojourn in Venice, where he remained until the fall of 1476. His works of this period begin to show a greater attention to the human figure, regarding both anatomy and expressivity, according to the influence of Piero della Francesca and Bellini. His most famous pictures dating from this period include the Condottiero (Louvre, illustration), the San Cassiano Altarpiece and the St. Sebastian (see selected works for details). The San Cassiano Altarpiece was especially influential on Venetian painters, as it was one of the first of the large compositions in the sacra conversazione format which was perfected by Giovanni Bellini (Antonello's surviving work in Vienna is only a fragment of the much larger original). Antonello returned briefly to Sicily in 1476, where he painted the famous Virgin Annunciate, now in the Palazzo Abatellis at Palermo. He died at Messina in 1479: his testament dates from February of that year, and he is documented as no longer alive two months later. Some of his last works remained unfinished, but were completed by his son Jacobello.  Related Paintings of Antonello da Messina :. | Portrat eines Mannes | Virgin Annunciate (mk08) | Portrai of a Man | Virgin Annunciate | St.Jerome in his Study |
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Egedius, Halfdan
1877-1899,Norwegian painter and illustrator. His artistic education began at the age of nine, when he enrolled at the school of art of Knud Bergslien (1827-1908) in Kristiania, where he was a pupil from 1886 to 1889. Even from this early period his painted studies and drawings, for instance of his sister Signe and brother Carl (both 1887; Oslo, N.G.), reveal striking maturity. In 1891 he was a pupil of Erik Werenskiold and from 1891 to 1892 he studied at the Arts and Crafts School in Kristiania. Egedius discovered his strongest impetus and greatest inspiration, however, on his first visit to Telemark in south-west Norway in summer 1892. The artist Torleif Stadskleiv (1865-1946), whom he met there and who became his closest friend, endeared the region to Egedius with stories of its traditions and people. In 1894 Egedius studied for a short period under Harriet Backer, and he made his d?but at the Kristiania Autumn Exhibition in 1894 with the painting Saturday Evening (Oslo, N.G.), painted in Telemark the previous year, which won high praise. In this landscape the atmosphere of the summer night is rendered with a lyrical use of colour and soft brushstrokes. Egedius spent the summer of 1894 in the inspiring and instructive company of a group of artists at V?g? in the Gudbrands Valley in north-west Norway, but for the summer of 1895 he was again in Telemark. Since his previous stay there he had matured artistically and his work now revealed a new confidence and boldness. The most notable paintings from 1895 are 'Juvrestolen' in Telemark, The Dreamer, Girls Dancing and the magnificent portrait of Mari Clasen (all Oslo, N.G.). He also began work on Music and Dance (Oslo, N.G., see fig.), which he continued the following year.
Jo Davidson
American Sculptor, 1883-1952,was an American sculptor of Russian-Jewish descent. Although he specialized in realistic, intense portrait busts, Davidson did not require his subjects to formally pose for him; rather, he observed and spoke with them. He worked primarily with clay, while the final products were typically cast in terra-cotta, marble and bronze. Born in New York City, Davidson attended Yale University before moving to Paris to study sculpture at Ecole nationale superieure des beaux arts in 1907. After returning to the United States, he was befriended by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, who purchased some of Davidson's work. In 1911 Davidson secured his first solo gallery shows; in 1934 he won the National Academy of Design Maynard Prize, and in 1947 the American Academy of Arts and Letters hosted a retrospective featuring nearly 200 of his works. He was one of 250 sculptors who exhibited in the 3rd Sculpture International held at the Philadelphia Museum of Art in the summer of 1949. Among Davidson commissions are a design for a United States War Industries badge, a collection of pieces for the Government of France to commemorate the first victory of the Troupes de Marine and bronze busts of the leaders of the Allies. His portraits of world leaders and celebrated personalities gained him international acclaim, and included such luminaries as Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Rudyard Kipling, James Joyce, Gertrude Stein, Andrew Mellon, Will Rogers, John D. Rockefeller, Joseph Conrad, Anatole France, Lincoln Steffens, Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, Marshall Ferdinand Foch, General John J. Pershing, John Marin, Rabindranath Tagore, Frank Harris, Israel Zangwill, Charlie Chaplin, Robert M. La Follette, Clarence Darrow, Emile Coue (who was also a sculptor in his spare time), H. G. Wells, Robinson Jeffers, Andre Gide. George Bernard Shaw, James Barrie, Arthur Conan Doyle,D. H. Lawrence, W. Averell Harriman, Madame Chiang Kai shek, Dolores Ibarruri, aka La Passionaria, Helen Keller, Mahatma Gandhi, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Ida Rubinstein, Albert Einstein, Carl Sandburg, Marshall Tito, E. W. Marland and Walt Whitman. Will Rogers statue is a full-body bronze portrait erected at the United States Capitol in 1939. Walt Whitman portrait is also a full-body bronze, and stands in Bear Mountain State Park, New York. Some of Davidson's work is in the National Gallery of Art and in the Capitol Building where he has placed two works, Will Rogers of Oklahoma and Robert M. La Follette of Wisconsin in the National Statuary Hall, and busts of two vice presidents, Henry A. Wallace and Charles G. Dawes, all of which are located in Washington, D.C.. He also designed a statue of Henry D. Thoreau, the author of WALDEN. The statue is located at Walden Pond State Reservation in Concord, MA. In 2006, The Smithsonian Institution's National Portrait Gallery opened a permanent exhibition, Jo Davidson: Biographer in Bronze, showcasing fourteen Davidson works in terracotta and bronze, including portraits of Gertrude Stein and Lincoln Steffens.
Perino Del Vaga
Italian Mannerist Painter, ca.1501-1547 Italian painter and draughtsman. He trained in Florence, first with Andrea de' Ceri and from the age of 11 with Ridolfo Ghirlandaio. According to Vasari, he practised drawing by copying Michelangelo's cartoon for the Battle of Cascina (destr.). For Pope Leo X's entry into Florence in November 1515 he painted an allegorical figure on one of the twelve triumphal arches. Soon after, an obscure Florentine painter called Vaga took Perino to Rome, where he became known as del Vaga. There he continued his drawing studies, copying from works of antiquity and Michelangelo's ceiling in the Sistine Chapel. On the recommendation of Giulio Romano and Giovanni Francesco Penni, he joined Raphael's workshop, where he learnt stuccowork and how to design grotesques, through assisting Giovanni da Udine in the Vatican Logge. Soon he was painting scenes from Raphael's designs, and five or six ceiling frescoes in the Logge, including the Story of Joshua and the Story of David, are generally accepted as his.