English Pre-Raphaelite Painter, 1828-1882 Rossetti's first major paintings display some of the realist qualities of the early Pre-Raphaelite movement. His Girlhood of Mary, Virgin and Ecce Ancilla Domini both portray Mary as an emaciated and repressed teenage girl. His incomplete picture Found was his only major modern-life subject. It depicted a prostitute, lifted up from the street by a country-drover who recognises his old sweetheart. However, Rossetti increasingly preferred symbolic and mythological images to realistic ones. This was also true of his later poetry. Many of the ladies he portrayed have the image of idealized Botticelli's Venus, who was supposed to portray Simonetta Vespucci. Although he won support from the John Ruskin, criticism of his clubs caused him to withdraw from public exhibitions and turn to waterhum, which could be sold privately. In 1861, Rossetti published The Early Italian Poets, a set of English translations of Italian poetry including Dante Alighieri's La Vita Nuova. These, and Sir Thomas Malory's Morte d'Arthur, inspired his art in the 1850s. His visions of Arthurian romance and medieval design also inspired his new friends of this time, William Morris and Edward Burne-Jones. Rossetti also typically wrote sonnets for his pictures, such as "Astarte Syraica". As a designer, he worked with William Morris to produce images for stained glass and other decorative devices. Both these developments were precipitated by events in his private life, in particular by the death of his wife Elizabeth Siddal. She had taken an overdose of laudanum shortly after giving birth to a stillborn child. Rossetti became increasingly depressed, and buried the bulk of his unpublished poems in his wife's grave at Highgate Cemetery, though he would later have them exhumed. He idealised her image as Dante's Beatrice in a number of paintings, such as Beata Beatrix. These paintings were to be a major influence on the development of the European Symbolist movement. In these works, Rossetti's depiction of women became almost obsessively stylised. He tended to portray his new lover Fanny Cornforth as the epitome of physical eroticism, whilst another of his mistresses Jane Burden, the wife of his business partner William Morris, was glamorised as an ethereal goddess.  Related Paintings of Dante Gabriel Rossetti :. | The Bower Meadow | The Blue Bower (mk28) | The Day Dream | The Loving Cup | La Donna della Fiamma (mk28) |
Related Artists:
Albrecht Altdorfer
German 1480-1538 Albrecht Altdorfer Galleries He most often painted religious scenes, but is mainly famous as the first frequent painter of pure landscape, and also compositions dominated by their landscape. Taking and developing the landscape style of Lucas Cranach the Elder, he shows the hilly landscape of the Danube valley with thick forests of drooping and crumbling firs and larches hung with moss, and often dramatic colouring from a rising or setting sun. His Landscape with footbridge (National Gallery, London) of 1518-20 is claimed to be the first pure landscape in oil. He also made many fine finished drawings, mostly landscapes, in pen and watercolour. His best religious scenes are intense, sometimes verging on the expressionistic, and often depict moments of intimacy between Christ and his mother, or others. His most famous religious artwork is the The Legend of St. Sebastian and the Passion of Christ that decorated the altar in the St. Florian monastery in Linz, Austria. He often distorts perspective to subtle effect. His donor figures are often painted completely out of scale with the main scene, as in paintings of the previous centuries. He also painted some portraits; overall his painted oeuvre was not large.
Wallerant Vaillant
Wallerant Vaillant, (Lille 30 May 1623 - Amsterdam 28 August 1677), was a painter of the Dutch Golden Age and one of the first artists to use the mezzotint technique, which he probably helped to develop. Wallerant Vaillant was the oldest of five brothers, who all became successful painters. Jacques (1625 - 1691) traveled to Italy where he joined the Bentvueghels in Rome with the nickname Leeuwrik, and settled later in Berlin. Jan (1627 - 1668+) was an engraver considered to be a member of the school of Frankenthal and later became a merchant in Frankfurt. Bernard (1632 - 1698) accompanied Wallerant on all of his travels, and settled later in Rotterdam, where he became deacon of the Wallonian Church. Andreas (1655 - 1693), the youngest, became an engraver in Paris, and died in Berlin visiting his brother Jacques. It is said Wallerant was a student of Erasmus Quellinus II (1607 - 1678) in Antwerp. He moved with his parents in 1643 to Amsterdam. In 1647 he lived in Middelburg, but in 1649 he was back in Amsterdam. In 1658 he traveled with his brother to Frankfurt and Heidelberg. He helped invent the Mezzotint technique (schraapkunst, or zwartekunst) with Prince Rupert of the Rhine when he was his tutor performing experiments in etching techniques. In 1659 he went to Paris with Philibert de Gramont where he stayed five years.
Leon Frederic
1895-1897