Italian Early Renaissance Painter, 1267-1337 Italian painter and designer. In his own time and place he had an unrivalled reputation as the best painter and as an innovator, superior to all his predecessors, and he became the first post-Classical artist whose fame extended beyond his lifetime and native city. This was partly the consequence of the rich literary culture of two of the cities where he worked, Padua and Florence. Writing on art in Florence was pioneered by gifted authors and, although not quite art criticism, it involved the comparison of local artists in terms of quality. The most famous single appreciation is found in Dante's verses (Purgatory x) of 1315 or earlier. Exemplifying the transience of fame, first with poets and manuscript illuminators, Dante then remarked that the fame of Cimabue, who had supposed himself to be the leader in painting, had now been displaced by Giotto. Ironically, this text was one factor that forestalled the similar eclipse of Giotto's fame, which was clearly implied by the poet.   Related Paintings of GIOTTO di Bondone :. | Elijah on the Fire-cart | Moses Brings Forth Water out of the Rock | Exorcism of the Demons at Arezzo | Renunciation of Wordly Goods | The Seven Vices |
Related Artists:
Baciccio
Italian Baroque Era Painter, 1639-1709 Baciccia Giovanni Battista Gaulli
Pollard, James
English, 1792-1867 Painter and etcher, son of Robert Pollard. His early career was spent in the shadow of his father, for whom he worked as an etcher of miscellaneous sporting subjects before establishing himself c. 1820 as a sporting painter in his own right. A typical example is Doncaster Races: Horses Starting for the St Leger (1831; Paul Mellon priv. col.). Following a commission from the King's Printseller, Edward Orme, for an inn signboard showing a coach and horses, Pollard began to specialize in coaching scenes.
Bill Traylor
African-American Folk Artist, ca.1856-1949 was a self-taught artist born an Alabama slave. Unable to read or write, he first began drawing in 1939 at the age of eighty-three. He worked full-time for the next four years to produce over eighteen hundred drawings. He used a straight edge to create geometric silhouettes of human and animal figures which he then filled in with crayon and tempera. He is known for his intriguing use of pattern versus flat color and a remarkably intuitive sense of space. He started hanging his works on a nearby fence to entertain the locals. One of his first fans was Charles Shannon, a painter who introduced Traylor to the New South regionalist artists and organized two shows of his work before his death. Since then, Traylor has become one of the most highly sought-after outsider artists.