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 :. | Deianeira Abducted by the Centaur Nessus | The Death of Cleopatra | Saint Cecilia | Die Purifikation der Jungfrau | Assumption |
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Norbert Goeneutte
1854-1894 French French painter and engraver. In 1871, after working briefly as a lawyer's clerk, he entered the studio of Isidore Pils at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. When Pils died in 1875 Henri Lehmann took over the studio and Goeneutte left, moving to Montmartre. There he met Auguste Renoir, for whom he often modelled, and Marcellin Desboutin, who inspired his interest in engraving, etching and drypoint. Although Goeneutte was associated with Manet, Degas and Renoir, and his work was influenced by them, for instance in the informality of his compositions, he never exhibited with the Impressionist group, preferring instead the official Salons. Every year from 1876 he exhibited several works in the Paris Salon, such as Boulevard de Clichy under Snow (1876; London, Tate). He visited London in 1880, Rotterdam in 1887 and Venice in 1890.
Conrad Martens
England/Australia Painter , 1801-1878 Australian painter, lithographer and librarian of English birth. Son of a London merchant, he studied c. 1816 under Copley Fielding. His training was as a watercolourist and his most important works are watercolours, although he also produced paintings in oils. His early work displays the taste then current for the Picturesque. Francis Danby, David Cox and Turner were artists he admired. Martens left for India in 1832 or 1833 but at Montevideo joined Charles Darwin's expedition, replacing Augustus Earle as topographical draughtsman aboard the Beagle. The work strengthened his observation of detail and skill as a draughtsman. He left the expedition in October 1834 and, travelling via Tahiti and New Zealand, arrived in Sydney in April 1835. There he worked as a professional artist, in the 1840s and 1850s producing lithographic views of the Sydney area to augment his income. In 1863 he was appointed Parliamentary Librarian, which secured his finances. The skills he had acquired aboard the Beagle helped to gain him commissions to depict the estates around Sydney. However, his admiration for Turner, and with this the desire to elevate landscape as a subject, prompted him to subordinate line to mood in a Romantic treatment of the landscape. His thoughts were clearly stated in a lecture on landscape painting given in 1856 at the Australian Library, Sydney (see Smith, 1975).
Francois-Auguste Biard
(June 30, 1799 - June 20, 1882) was a French genre painter. Born at Lyon, he traveled around the world, sketching on the way. He was particularly successful in rendering burlesque groups. His painting, Scenes on the Coast of Africa, depicted on the right, was the inspiration behind Isaac Julien's short film The Attendant (1993). Biard was a known abolitionist against the Atlantic slave trade. Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Auguste François Biard This article incorporates text from the public domain 1907 edition of The Nuttall Encyclopædia.