1657-1747 Italian Francesco Solimena Gallery Francesco Solimena was born in Canale di Serino, near Avellino. He received early training from his father, Angelo Solimena, with whom he executed a Paradise for the cathedral of Nocera (place where he spend a big part of his life) and a Vision of St. Cyril of Alexandria for the church of San Domenico at Solofra. He settled in Naples in 1674, there he worked in the studio of Francesco di Maria and later Giacomo del Po[1]. He apparently had taken the clerical orders, but was patronized early on, and encouraged to become an artist by Cardinal Vincenzo Orsini (later Pope Benedict XIII)[2]. By the 1680s, he had independent fresco commissions, and his active studio came to dominate Neapolitan painting from the 1690s through the first four decades of the 18th century. He modeled his art??for he was a highly conventional painter??after the Roman Baroque masters, Luca Giordano and Giovanni Lanfranco, and Mattia Preti, whose technique of warm brownish shadowing Solimena emulated. Solimena painted many frescoes in Naples, altarpieces, celebrations of weddings and courtly occasions, mythological subjects, characteristically chosen for their theatrical drama, and portraits. His settings are suggested with a few details??steps, archways, balustrades, columns??concentrating attention on figures and their draperies, caught in pools and shafts of light. Art historians take pleasure in identifying the models he imitated or adapted in his compositions. His numerous preparatory drawings often mix media, combining pen-and-ink, chalk and watercolor washes. Francesco Solimena 'A study for the fresco cycle in the Sacristy of San Paolo Maggiore in Naples', Whitfield Fine Art.A typical example of the elaborately constructed allegorical "machines" of his early mature style, fully employing his mastery of chiaroscuro, is the Allegory of Rule (1690) from the Stroganoff collection, which has come to the State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg. He apparently hoped to see his son Orazio follow a career in the law, for which he received a doctorate (de Domenici), but also became a painter. His large, efficiently structured atelier became a virtual academy, at the heart of cultural life in Naples. Among his many pupils were Francesco de Mura (1696-1784) , Giuseppe Bonito (1707-89), Pietro Capelli, Gaspare Traversi, and most notably Corrado Giaquinto and Sebastiano Conca. The Scottish portraitist Allan Ramsay spent three years in Solimena's studio. Solimena amassed a fortune, was made a baron and lived in sumptuous style founded on his success. Francesco Solimena died at Barra, near Naples, in 1747.  Related Paintings of Francesco Solimena :. | Self portrait | Self-Portrait | Descent from the Cross | Portrait of Charles VI | Self portrait |
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William Bell Scott
1811-1890 Brother of David Scott. He trained at the Trustees' Academy in Edinburgh and was taught engraving by his father. He saw the family print workshop as 'the lineal descendant of Albert Derer's factory in Nernberg'; he was later to own a fine collection of D?rer's prints and write a book about him (1870). In 1837 he went to London, where he was impressed by 'a new and interesting school of historical and loosely speaking, inventive and illustrative painters'. This encouraged him to leave landscape painting for the time being and become a history painter. Like his brother, he entered a cartoon for the Westminster Hall competition in 1842: the Free North Britons Surprising the Roman Wall between the Tyne and Solway; this too was unsuccessful. In 1843, discouraged by lack of patronage in London, he accepted the Mastership of the Government School of Design at Newcastle upon Tyne, where he stayed for 20 years, visiting London each summer.
PAOLINI, Pietro
Italian painter, Lucchese school (b. 1603, Lucca, d. 1681, Lucca) Italian painter. He was the son of Tommaso Paolini and Ginevra Raffaelli, both from Lucca. In 1619 Paolini's father sent him to study under Angelo Caroselli in Rome. His artistic formation was also influenced by the circle of Italian and, especially, northern European followers of Bartolomeo Manfredi, who were active in Rome between 1620 and 1630. The following works, though undocumented, may be dated to this Roman period: Martha and Mary Magdalene (Rome, Gal. Pallavicini), the Concert of Female Musicians (Malibu, CA, Getty Mus.) and the Bacchic Concert (Dallas, TX, Hoblitzelle priv. col., see Maccari Giusti, pl. 3). Paolini's first religious works, such as the Deposition (Lucca, S Frediano), as well as many portraits, also show signs of Roman influence. Around 1628 he went to Venice, where he stayed for two years. The effects of this visit can be seen in his later religious works, such as the Virgin and Saints (Rome, Pal. Barberini) and the Virgin and Saints (Lucca, Villa Guinigi), and also in his history paintings, such as Esther and Ahasuerus (Denver, CO, A. Mus.). He returned to Lucca in 1631, where, from these early experiences, he created an original style, in which he painted cabinet pictures, often on musical or allegorical themes, such as the Ages of Life (Lucca, Mazzarosa priv. col., see Maccari Giusti, pl. 10) and the series Music, Astronomy, Geometry, Philosophy (Lucca, Bertocchini Dinucci priv. col., see Maccari Giusti, pls 56-9). Around 1650 he opened, at his own expense, an academy based on the principle of 'art from nature', at which numerous artists, such as Girolamo Scaglia (d c. 1686), Antonio Franchi, Simone del Tintore and his brother Francesco (1645-1718) were trained.
Mateo cerezo
Spanish gifted painter and colorist , c.1626-1666