Italian Rococo Era Painter, 1712-ca.1793 The records of his parish in Venice show that Francesco Guardi was baptized on Oct. 5, 1712. His father, Domenico, who died when Francesco was 4, had a workshop. Francesco and his elder brother, Gian Antonio, worked in a small studio, carrying out such orders as they could get for almost anything the client wanted:mythological pictures, genre, flower pieces, battle scenes, altarpieces, and even, on rare occasions, frescoes. They did not hesitate to copy compositions by other artists, but what they borrowed they always transformed into something more capricious, less stable, more fragmentary in the refraction of light. Francesco did not emerge as an independent personality until 1760, when his brother died. Then, 48 years old, he married, established his own studio, and devoted himself chiefly to painting views of Venice. For the most part he worked in obscurity, ignored by his contemporaries. He was not even admitted to the Venetian Academy until he was 72 years old. Guardi and Canaletto have always been compared to one another because the buildings they chose to paint were often the same. But the way each artist painted them is very different. Canaletto's world is constructed out of line. It provides solid, carefully drawn, three-dimensional objects that exist within logically constructed three-dimensional space. Guardi's world is constructed out of color and light. The objects in it become weightless in the light's shimmer and dissolve in a welter of brushstrokes; the space, like the forms in space, is suggested rather than described. Canaletto belonged essentially to the Renaissance tradition that began with Giotto and, as it grew progressively tighter and more controlled, pointed the way to neoclassicism. Guardi belonged to the new baroque tradition that grew out of the late style of Titian and, as it became progressively looser and freer, pointed the way toward impressionism. Such differences appear even in Guardi's early view paintings, where he was obviously trying to copy Canaletto, such as the Basin of San Marco. The famous buildings are there, but they are far in the background, insubstantial, seeming to float. In front is a fleet of fishing boats, their curving spars seeming to dance across the surface of the canvas. What is important for Guardi is not perspective but the changing clouds and the way the light falls on the lagoon. Guardi became increasingly fascinated by the water that surrounds Venice. In late works, such as the famous Lagoon with Gondola, buildings and people have been stripped away until there is nothing but the suggestion of a thin line of distant wharfs, a few strokes to indicate one man on a gondola, a long unbroken stretch of still water, and a cloudless sky. Guardi also painted the festivals that so delighted visitors to the city, such as the Marriage of Venice to the Sea. This was a symbolic ceremony in which the doge, in the great gilded galley of the head of state, surrounded by a thousand gondolas, appeared before all Venice, in Goethe's image, "raised up like the Host in a monstrance." Of all Guardi's paintings the most evocative are his caprices, the landscapes born out of his imagination though suggested by the ruined buildings on the lonely islands of the Venetian lagoon. A gentle melancholy clings to such scenes.   Related Paintings of GUARDI, Francesco :. | The Torre del Orologio sdg | The Grand Canal, Looking toward the Rialto Bridge sg | The Doge at the Basilica of La Salute gd | The Three-Arched Bridge at Cannaregio sdg | The Doge on the Bucintoro near the Riva di Sant-Elena |
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Aniello Falcone
(1600-1665) was an Italian Baroque painter, active in Naples and noted for his painted depictions of battle scenes. Born in Naples the son of a tradesman, he showed his artistic tendency at an early age. He first received some instruction from a relative, and then became one of the most prominent pupils apprenticed under Jose de Ribera. Salvatore Rosa, in turn, is said to have apprenticed under Aniello. The Anchorite, ca. 1650 Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Aniello Falcone Besides battle pictures, large and small, taken from biblical as well as secular history, he painted various religious subjects, which, however, count for little in his general reputation. He became, as a battle painter, almost as celebrated as Giacomo Borgognone, and was named L' Oracolo delle Battaglie. His works have animation, variety, truth to nature, and careful color. Falcone was bold, generous, accustomed to arms, and an excellent fencer. In the insurrection of 1647, led by Masaniello, he resolved to be bloodily avenged for the death, at the hands of two Spaniards, of a nephew and of a pupil in the school of art which he had established in Naples. Salvator Rosa, Carlo Coppola, among others, and he formed an armed band named the Compagnia della Morte, or Company of Death. (See Salvator Rosa.) They battled in the streets by day; at night they were painters again, and handled the brush with impetuous zeal. Rule restored, they decamped. Falcone and Rosa made off to Rome; here Borgognone noticed the works of Falcone, and became his friend, and a French gentleman induced him to go to France, where Louis XIV became one of his patrons. Ultimately Jean-Baptiste Colbert obtained permission for the painter to return to Naples, and there he died in 1665.
Arthur Ahnert
painted Interior of Wilhelmshausen church in 1898/1899.
Zahari Zograf
(1810?C1853), better known as Zahari Zograf (or Zahariy Zograf) is arguably the most famous Bulgarian painter of the Bulgarian National Revival, noted for his church mural paintings and icons and often regarded as the founder of secular art in Bulgaria due to the introduction of everyday life elements in his work. Zahari Zograf was born in the town of Samokov in 1810 and was taught by his brother Dimitar Zograf, with whom he later worked together, as his father died early. A spiritual student of Neophyte of Rila since 1827, he became an equal partner of his brother at the age of 21 in 1831, i.e. he was proclaimed a master. His best known icons are those of the SS Constantine and Helen Church in Plovdiv, the Church of the Theotokos in Koprivshtitsa, as well as a number of monasteries. Zahari Zograf's best known frescoes are those in the main church of the Rila Monastery, in the chapel and the St Nicholas church of the Bachkovo Monastery, the Troyan Monastery and the Monastery of the Transfiguration. He painted three mural portraits of himself in the latter three, a move that was regarded as controversial during the time.