Italian Baroque Era Painter, 1591-1666 best known as Guercino or Il Guercino, was an Italian Baroque painter from the region of Emilia, and active in Rome and Bologna. Guercino is Italian for squinter, a nickname that was given to him because he was cross-eyed. He is especially noted for his many superb drawings. Guercino was born at Cento, a village between Bologna and Ferrara. By the age of 17 he was associated with Benedetto Gennari, a painter of the Bolognese School. By 1615 he moved to Bologna, where his work earned the praise of an elder Ludovico Carracci. He painted two large canvases, Elijah Fed by Ravens and Samson Seized by Philistines, in what appears to be a stark naturalist Caravaggesque style (although it is unlikely he had been able to see any of the Roman Caravaggios first-hand). They were painted for Cardinal Serra, Papal Legate to Ferrara. The Arcadian Shepherds (Et in Arcadia ego) was painted in 1618 contemporary with The Flaying of Marsyas by Apollo in Palazzo Pitti. His first style, he often claimed, was influenced by a canvas of Carracci in Cento. Some of his later pieces approach rather to the manner of his great contemporary Guido Reni, and are painted with more lightness and clearness. Guercino was esteemed very highly in his lifetime. He was then recommended by Marchese Enzo Bentivoglio to the Bolognese Ludovisi Pope, Pope Gregory XV. His two years (1621-23) spent in Rome were very productive. From this stay date his frescoes of Aurora at the casino of the Villa Ludovisi and the ceiling in San Crisogono (1622) of San Chrysogonus in Glory; his portrait of Pope Gregory (now in the Getty Museum, and, what is considered his masterpiece, The Burial of Saint Petronilla or St. Petronilla Altarpiece, for the Vatican (now in the Museo Capitolini). The Franciscan order of Reggio in 1655 paid him 300 ducats for the altarpiece of Saint Luke Displaying a Painting of the Madonna and Child (now in Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City). The Corsini also paid him 300 ducats for the Flagellation of Christ painted in 1657.   Related Paintings of GUERCINO :. | Personification of Astrology | The Cumaean Sibyl with a Putto | Ermina Finds the Wounded Tancred jg | Aurora ig | Astrologia |
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Aleksander Orlowski
Aleksander Orłowski Aleksander Orłowski (March 9, 1777 - March 13, 1832) was a Polish painter and sketch maker, pioneer of lithography in the Russian Empire. Orłowski was born in 1777 in Warsaw to a tavern-keeper. In his early childhood he became known as a prodigy and soon Izabela Czartoryska financed his first classes of painting with the notable artist Jan Piotr Norblin. In 1793 Orłowski joined the Polish Army and fought in the Kościuszko Uprising against Imperial Russia and Prussia, but was wounded and returned to Warsaw for further studies, financed by Prince Jezef Poniatowski. He studied with many notable painters of the epoch, among them Norblin, Marcello Bacciarelli and Wincenty Lesserowicz. In 1802, after the Partitions of Poland, he moved to Russia, where he became one of the pioneers of lithography. Among his works are countless sketches of everyday life in Poland and Russia, as well as scenes of the Kościuszko Uprising and other Polish wars.
George Spencer Watson
R.O.I., R.P., A.R.A., R.A. (8 March 1869, London - 11 April 1934, London) was an English portrait artist of the late romantic school who sometimes worked in the style of the Italian Renaissance. He studied at the RA Schools from 1889, exhibited at the Royal Academy from 1891. He won Royal Academy Schools Silver Medals in 1889 and 1891, and the Landseer Scholarship in 1892. He was elected R.O.I. in 1900, R.P. in 1904, A.R.A. in 1923, and a Member of the Royal Academy (R.A.) in 1932. He married Hilda, a dancer and mime artist, and follower of the actor Edward Gordon Craig. They had a daughter, Mary Spencer Watson (1913 - 2006), who became a sculptor. In 1923 he bought Dunshay Manor in the hills of the Isle of Purbeck, after already have spent holidays in Swanage. He died in London and a memorial exhibition was held at the Fine Art Society in the same year. There is a memorial to him in the north vestibule of St James's Church, Piccadilly, London. Some of his works are held at Tate Britain, the Harris Art Gallery, Preston and collections in Bournemouth, Liverpool, Plymouth and the National Gallery of Canada. Born in London, Watson studied at the Royal Academy from 1889; he exhibited there from 1891 and also at the Paris salon. Retrospective exhibitions were held at the Galerie Heinemann, Munich in 1912, and at the Fine Art Society in 1914. His work A Lady in Black (1922) is owned by the Tate Collection.
Berninghaus, Oscar Edmund
American Painter, 1874-1952