Italian Baroque Era Painter, ca.1616-1656 was an Italian painter of the Baroque period, working in Naples. Born in Naples, he likely died during the plague epidemic in 1656. While his paintings are some of the more stunningly expressive works emerging from the Neapolitan artists of his day, little is known about the painter's background or training. Of eighty attributed paintings, less than ten are signed. He worked through private dealers and collectors whose records are no longer available. It is said that he trained with Massimo Stanzione, befriended the painter Andrea Vaccaro, and was influenced by Anthony Van Dyck, but his paintings could also be described as equidistant from Caravaggio and Bartolome Esteban Murillo in styles; tenebrism enveloped with a theatrical sweetness, a posed ecstasy and feeling characteristic of the high Roman baroque statuary. He is known to have worked in Neapolitan circles strongly influenced by Stanzione, which included Artemisia Gentileschi, Francesco Francanzano, Agostino Beltrano and Francesco Guarino. One of his masterpieces is the billowing maiden Virgin at the Brera Gallery in Milan. Passive amid the swirling,   Related Paintings of Bernardo Cavallino :. | Naufragio della flotta di Enea | Virgin and Child | St Jerome in His Study (mk08) | sommarblommor | Mending the Nets |
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Carlo Bononi
Italian, 1569-1632,Italian painter. He was among the last great painters of the Ferrarese school, his style uniting warm Venetian colour with the lyrical effects of light and elegant draughtsmanship of Ludovico Carracci. He was a pupil of Giuseppe Mazzuoli (c. 1536-89), but his early activity is little documented. The Martyrdom of St Paul (Pommersfelden, Schloss Weissenstein), which is indebted to Mazzuoli and combines elements of Ferrarese and Venetian traditions, may represent the earliest phase of his development. Later, through a study of the art of Ludovico Carracci, modified by a response to Dosso Dossi and to Correggio, he developed a more individual style. An altarpiece of the Virgin with SS Maurilius and George (Vienna, Ksthist. Mus.) is unanimously dated before 1600. It is probable that Bononi made study tours to Bologna, Parma, Verona and Venice. Between 1605 and 1610 he spent two years in Rome (Baruffaldi), a visit confirmed by three paintings of scenes from the Life of St Paternian in the church of S Paterniano in Fano; dated between 1610 and 1612 (Emiliani), these reflect a direct study of Caravaggio and of his early Roman followers, such as Orazio Borgianni.
James Mcneill Whistler
American Painter and Printmaker, 1834-1903 James Abbott McNeill Whistler's deft brushwork and mighty ego made him one of London's best-known painters in the second half of the 1800s. Born in Massachusetts, Whistler spent most of his adult life in England and France, in an era when an American artist in Europe was something of a rarity. He specialized in landscapes and (especially later in his career) portraits; stylistically he is often linked with Claude Monet and August Renoir, though he was not exactly part of the Impressionist movement. His etchings also are highly regarded. Witty, cranky and a bit of a devil, Whistler was a regular gadabout in British society. He had a famous long-running feud with the playwright Oscar Wilde, each of them trying to outwit the other with cutting public remarks. Some critics of the era considered Whistler's work to be smudgy and too radical; after viewing Whistler's 1875 study of fireworks over the Thames, Nocturne in Black and Gold: the Falling Rocket, John Ruskin wrote: "I have seen, and heard, much of cockney impudence before now; but never expected to hear a coxcomb ask two hundred guineas for flinging a pot of paint in the public's face." Whistler successfully sued Ruskin for libel but was awarded only a farthing in damages,
Gustavus Hesselius
(1682 - May 25, 1755) was a Swedish born painter who emigrated to the New World in 1711. He was the father of painter John Hesselius and cousin of the religious leader Emanuel Swedenborg. Hesselius left his home country of Sweden for Wilmington, Delaware in 1711. There he lived until 1717 when he moved to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where he lived until 1721. In 1721, he moved to Prince George's County, Maryland and became a portrait painter, though he had been trained in Sweden. That same year, he received the first recorded public art commission in the American colonies, he painted The Last Supper. He also painted a Crucifixion. Some time around 1735, Hesselius returned to Philadelphia where spent the rest of his life and traveling. He was listed as a member of the Gloria Dei (Old Swedes') Church in Philadelphia. He also worked as an organ builder, having built an organ for the Moravian Church in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania in 1746. From about this time on, he focused on building organs, referring painting commissions to his son John. J. Hall Pleasants has said that Hesselius became "America's earliest portrait painter of note." In 1994 he was named to the Prince George's County Hall of Fame.