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 Rialto Bridge with the Palazzo dei Camerlenghi dg | The Doge on the Bucintoro near the Riva di Sant Elena | Doge Alvise IV Mocenigo Appears to the People in St Mark's Basilica in 1763 | Nighttime Procession in Piazza San Marco fdh | The Doge on the Bucintoro near the Riva di San Elena (detail) |
Related Artists:
Jacob Claesz van Utrecht
also named by his signature Jacobus Traiectensis (born c. 1479 - dead after 1525) was a Flemish early Renaissance painter who worked in Antwerp and Lebeck. Jacob van Utrecht's life is still very much in the dark. Research on this important Flemish artist did not start before the end of 19th century. He was probably born in Utrecht, although it is not certain. It is assumed that he became a citizen of Antwerp around 1500 and he is recorded as a "free master craftsman" of the Guild of St Luke there from 1506 to 1512. From 1519 to 1525 he is recorded as a member of the Leonardsbruderschaft ("Leonard's Brotherhood"), a religious confraternity of merchants in Lebeck among whose ranks the leaders of the Protestant Reformation in the 1530s could be found. From then on no traces of his life have been found.
Franz Skarbina
German, 1849-1910
jozef marian chelmonski
Jozef Marian Chełmoski (November 7, 1849 -- April 6, 1914) was a Polish painter. Chełmoski was born in the village of Boczki near Łowicz in central Congress Poland, Russian Empire. His first drawing teacher was his father (a small leaseholder and administrator of Boczki village). After finishing high school in Warsaw, he studied in Warsaw Drawing Class (1867C1871) and took private lessons from Wojciech Gerson. From 1871 to 1874 Chełmoski lived in Munich. He worked with Polish painters assembled around Jozef Brandt and Maksymilian Gierymski. He also had studied for a few months at the academy of H. Anschutz and A. Strahuber. In 1872 and 1874 Chełmoski visited the Polish territories (Poland as a country did not exist then), Tatra Mountains and Ukraine. His first paintings were done under the influence of Gerson. The works that followed were landscapes and villages. In 1875 Chełmoski went to Paris, where he had many important exhibitions and became known to the art scene. With many orders, the artistic level of his paintings decreased. From 1878 to 1887 Chełmoski visited Poland, Vienna and Venice. In 1887 he returned to Poland and in 1889 settled in Kuklewka Zarzeczna village. Contact with his homeland and nature revealed quality in his artworks. From that time are the best liked Chełmoski's paintings such as Partridge on the Snow, The Storks or Before Thunderstorm. Chełmoski represented the trend in art called "Polish Patriotic Painting". He died in Kuklewka near Grodzisk Mazowiecki in 1914.