1575-1642 Italian Guido Reni Galleries Born in Bologna into a family of musicians, Guido Reni was the son of Daniele Reni and Ginevra de?? Pozzi. As a child of nine, he was apprenticed under the Bolognese studio of Denis Calvaert. Soon after, he was joined in that studio by Albani and Domenichino. He may also have trained with a painter by the name of Ferrantini. When Reni was about twenty years old, the three Calvaert pupils migrated to the rising rival studio, named Accademia degli Incamminati (Academy of the "newly embarked", or progressives), led by Lodovico Carracci. They went on to form the nucleus of a prolific and successful school of Bolognese painters who followed Annibale Carracci to Rome. Like many other Bolognese painters, Reni's painting was thematic and eclectic in style. By late 1601, Reni and Albani had moved to Rome to work with the teams led by Annibale Carracci in fresco decoration of the Farnese Palace. During 1601-1604, his main patron was cardinal Sfondrato. By 1604-1605, he received an independent commission for an altarpiece of the Crucifixion of St. Peter. After a few year sojourn in Bologna, he returned to Rome to become one of the premier painters during the papacy of Paul V (Borghese). From 1607-1614, he was one of the painters patronized by Borghese. Abduction of Deianira, 1620-1621.Reni's frescoed ceiling of the large central hall of garden palace, Casino dell'Aurora located in the grounds of the Palazzo Pallavicini-Rospigliosi, is considered his masterpiece. The casino was originally a pavilion commissioned by Cardinal Scipione Borghese; the rear portion overlooks the Piazza Montecavallo and Palazzo del Quirinale. The massive fresco is framed in quadri riportati and depicts Apollo in his Chariot preceded by Dawn (Aurora) bringing light to the world. The work is restrained in classicism, copying poses from Roman Sarcophagi, and showing far more simplicity and restraint than Carracci's riotous Triumph of Bacchus and Ariadne[5] in the Farnese. Reni in this painting is allies himself more with the sterner Cavaliere d'Arpino,Lanfranco, and Albani "School" of mytho-historic painting, and less with the more crowded frescoes characteristic of Pietro da Cortona. There is little concession to perspective, and the vibrantly colored style is antithetical to the tenebrism of Caravaggio's followers. Payments showed that he was paid in 247 scudi and 54 baiocchi upon completion on 24 September 1616. He also frescoed in Paoline Chapel of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome as well as the Aldobrandini wings of the Vatican. According to rumor, the pontifical chapel of Montecavallo (Chapel of the Annuciation) was assigned to Reni to paint. However, because he felt underpaid by the ministers, the artist left for Bologna, leaving the role of the preeminent artist in Rome to Domenichino.  Related Paintings of Guido Reni :. | Saint Sebastien martyr dans un paysage | Hercule luttant avec Achelous | Der siegreiche Simson | St Matthew and the angel | Kreuzigung des Hl. Petrus |
Related Artists:
Charles Harold Davis
1856-1933 He was born at Amesbury, Massachusetts. A pupil of the schools of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, he was sent to Paris in 1880. Having studied at the Acad??mie Julian under Jules Joseph Lefebvre and Gustave Boulanger, he went to Barbizon and painted much in the forest of Fontainebleau under the traditions of the men of thirty. In 1890, Davis returned to the U.S., settling in Mystic, Connecticut. He shifted to Impressionism in his style, and took up the cloudscapes for which he became best-known. He eventually became a leading figure in the art colony that had developed in Mystic, and founded the Mystic Art Association in 1913. He became a full member of the National Academy of Design in 1906, and received many awards, including a silver medal at the Paris Exhibition of 1889. He is represented by important works in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington; the Pennsylvania Academy, Philadelphia, and the Boston Museum of Fine Arts.
CORNELIUS, Peter
1824-1874,German composer. Trained as actor and violinist, and friend of artists, poets and writers, he devoted himself to music from the 1840s, finding inspiration in Liszt and the New German School at Weimar in 1852. His first mature works were the lieder opp. 1 and 2 and the song cycle Trauer und Trost op.3, followed by the comic opera Der Barbier von Bagdad (1855-8); all show his literary skill, refreshing simplicity and musical independence from the Liszt circle. In Vienna (1859-65), he wrote his second opera Der Cid and enjoyed fruitful relationships with Brahms, Carl Tausig and above all Wagner, who summoned him to Munich in 1865 as his private repetiteur and teacher at the Royal School of Music. His third opera Gunlöd was never finished. He continued to write poetry and essays defending Wagner and Liszt and translated vocal works by Pergolesi, Berlioz, Liszt and others. Although he revered Wagner, he stood ethically and artistically apart, his work (especially Der Barbier) thus representing an original achievement.
Adriaen Isenbrandt
Flemish Northern Renaissance Painter, ca.1500-1551 There are only a few documentary records of his life, and some mentions in literature from his lifetime or soon after, but he cannot be documented as the creator of any surviving work; everything else consists of hypothesis. It is possible that he was born in Haarlem or even in Antwerp about 1490. It is not known where or with which painter he served his apprenticeship. He is named for the first time in 1510, when he came to Bruges and bought his burghership. In November of the same year he already became master in the painters?? Guild of St. Luke and the goldsmiths?? guild of St. Elooi. He was later elected nine time a deacon and twice the governor of the guild. Soon he had an important workshop, probably in the Korte Vlaminckstraat in Bruges. This was close to the workshop of Gerard David, at the Vlamijncbrugghe and the former workshop of Hans Memling. Bruges, at that time, was one of the richest towns in Europe. Rich traders and merchants ordered diptychs and portraits for personal use. Isenbrandt painted mainly for private clients. However, there were some paintings that were created without any particular commission. He had enough work to even put out work to other painters in Bruges, as a legal suit from 1534 by Isenbrandt against Jan van Eyck (not the famous one) for non-delivery of paintings he had ordered, demonstrates. He was also appointed the agent in Bruges of the painter Adriaan Provoost (son of Jan Provoost), who had moved to Antwerp in 1530. Contemporary sources therefore mention Isenbrandt as a famous and well-to-do painter. He married twice, the first time with Maria Grandeel, daughter of the painter Peter Grandeel. They had one child. After her death in 1537, he married again in 1547 with Clementine de Haerne. This second marriage resulted in two daughters and a son. He also had an extramarital daughter with the innkeeper Katelijne van Brandenburch (who was at the same the mistress of his friend Ambrosius Benson). When he died in 1551, he was buried alongside his first wife at the cemetery of the St. Jacob church in Bruges; his children inherited no less than four houses with surrounding property.