Venice ca 1432-after 1491  Related Paintings of Bartolomeo Vivarini :. | Sts Paul and Peter | Madonna della Misericordia | Conversano Polyptych | St Lawrence the Martyr | Madonna and Child |
Related Artists:
Michiel Sweerts
(29 September 1618-1664), also known as Michael Sweerts, was a Flemish painter of the Baroque period, active in Rome (1645-1656) in the style of the Bamboccianti. The Bamboccianti were known for depicting genre scenes of daily life, but Sweerts's contributions to this genre display greater stylistic mastery and social-philosophical sensitivity than many of his colleagues in this "school." Highly successful in Rome during his years there, Sweerts's reputation suffered a severe collapse not long after his death, lasting centuries; but thanks especially to the 2002 international monographic exhibition devoted entirely to him, Michael Sweerts: 1618-1664, he has begun once again to enjoy the esteem his work clearly merits. Born in Brussels, he arrived in Rome in 1646, and rapidly moved into the circle of Flemish painters associated with Pieter van Laer (leader of the so-called Bamboccianti painters) and that resided near Santa Maria del Popolo. In 1647, he attended meetings of the Accademia di San Luca, although not as a member. Despite the fragmentary nature of evidence pertaining to his career in Rome and the post-mortem eclipse of his reputation, we know that Sweerts succeeded in creating for himself a sufficiently exalted reputation in the city so as to enter into the service of the ruling papal family itself, the Pamphilj, more specifically, Camillo Pamphilj, nephew of reigning Pope Innocent X who, at the encouragement of Camillo, bestowed upon Sweerts the papal title of Cavaliere di Cristo, the same honor enjoyed by the likes of Gian Lorenzo Bernini and Francesco Borromini. Despite working in the highest echelons of papal patronage in Rome, sometime between 1652 and 1654, for reasons unknown Sweerts left the Eternal City and returned to the North, and by 1656, he had returned to Brussels, where he joined the painter's guild. He joined the Paris Foreign Missions Society as a lay brother and became a devout Christian. In 1658 he made the guild a self portrait as a farewell gift and moved to Amsterdam, where he would oversee the building of a ship for travel with the aforementioned Missions Étrangeres to Palestine.
DUGHET, Gaspard
French Baroque Era Painter, 1615-1675 Italian painter. He was one of the most distinguished landscape painters working in Rome in the 17th century, painting decorative frescoes and many easel paintings for such major Roman patrons as Pope Innocent X and the Colonna family. He is associated with a new genre of landscape, the storm scene, although of some 400 catalogued works little more than 30 treat this theme. His most characteristic works depict the beauty of the scenery around Rome, particularly near Tivoli, and suggest the shifting patterns of light and shade across a rugged terrain. Dughet drew from nature, yet his landscapes are carefully structured, and figures in antique dress suggest the ancient beauty of a landscape celebrated by Virgil. Very few can be securely dated; his development may be inferred from his few dated fresco paintings and from the wider context in which he was working. Most writers, following Pascoli, have divided Dughet's career into three periods.
Ivan Nikitin
Russian Painter, ca.1680-1742,Russian painter. The son of a Moscow priest who was close to the imperial court, Nikitin probably studied at the workshop of the Armoury Palace in Moscow and subsequently worked chiefly in St Petersburg. His early portraits were of Peter the Great and members of Peter family, for example the portraits of Peter daughters Elizabeth (St Petersburg, Rus. Mus.) and Anne (Moscow, Tret yakov Gal.) and of his sister Natal ya Alekseyevna (St Petersburg, Rus. Mus.). One of the few signed and dated works is a portrait of Praskov ya Ioannovna, Daughter of Tsar Ivan V (1714; St Petersburg, Rus. Mus.). Nikitin style was formed at the time of Peter the Great reforms of the administrative and education system in Russia, and he ranks as a pioneer of a new style in Russian painting. In his early works, up to 1716, he adapted the medieval Russian style of portraiture to the forms of contemporary European examples.