1834-1903
James Abbott McNeill Whistler Art Locations Related Paintings of James Abbott McNeil Whistler :. | Nocturne in Black and Gold,The Falling Rocket | Symphony in White 3 | Symphony in White | Arrangement in Gray and Black: Portrait of the Artist's Mother | Nocturne in Black and Gold The Falling Rocket | Related Artists:
Sebastian StoskopffStrasbourg 1597-Idstein 1657
was an Alsatian painter. He is considered one of the most important German still life painters of his time. His works, which were rediscovered after 1930, portray goblets, cups and especially glasses. The reduction to a few objects, which is characteristic of early still life painting, can again be recognized in Stoskopff's painting. His chief works hang in Strasbourg and in Saarbr??cken. Sebastian Stoskopff was born in 1597 in Strasbourg. His father was employed by the city since 1590 and acted as a mounted courier or royal escort, driving a one-horse-carriage. In 1614, Stoskopff's father asked the Strasbourg council for help for his 17-year-old son. He wanted him to be able to learn the craft of painting, since Sebastian had already been extremely talented in drawing and painting since he was 15. The council agreed to provide their support and probably sent the young artist at first to the Strasbourg painter and copper engraver, Friedrich Brentel. However, he only learned how to further refine his drawing and was not, as hoped, introduced to the art of painting. In 1615, Stoskopff's father died and his widowed mother went to the Strasbourg council once again to ask for support for training from a recognized painter. Stoskopff was then sent to Daniel Soreau, a painter who was active in Hanau. In the beginning, Soreau was not very enthusiastic, since he usually chose his apprentices from among his relatives and close friends. However, he finally complied with the request of the council and assured them that would "make an Albrecht Derer of this apprentice". There is not a single definite picture by Daniel Soreau existing. It is only possible to draw conclusions about how well the master passed on his artistic skills to his students through the works of his sons, other apprentices of his workshop and through Stoskopff's works. After Soreau's death in 1619, Stoskopff took over his workshop with the apprentices, as well as his function as the master. One of the apprentices was Joachim von Sandrart, who later became a successful painter and who wrote the first important work on the history of art in the German language: "Teutsche Academie der Bau-, Bild,- und Malerey- Kenste". This work contains descriptions of the lives of earlier and contemporary artists, including descriptions of the time in Hanau with his master, Sebastian Stoskopff. After his attempt to get permission to settle in Frankfurt failed, Stoskopff went to Paris. He stayed there from about 1622 until 1639, which can be reconstructed from indirect reports and property inventories of Parisians. His first works in larger format were also created here, such as "Summer" or "Winter" (now both in Strasbourg).
Guido Reni1575-1642
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.
Andrea MantegnaItalian
1431-1506
Andrea Mantegna Locations
Mantegna was born in Isola di Carturo, close to Padua in the Republic of Venice, second son of a carpenter, Biagio. At the age of eleven he became the apprentice of Francesco Squarcione, Paduan painter. Squarcione, whose original vocation was tailoring, appears to have had a remarkable enthusiasm for ancient art, and a faculty for acting. Like his famous compatriot Petrarca, Squarcione was something of a fanatic for ancient Rome: he travelled in Italy, and perhaps Greece, amassing antique statues, reliefs, vases, etc., forming a collection of such works, then making drawings from them himself, and throwing open his stores for others to study. All the while, he continued undertaking works on commission for which his pupils no less than himself were made available.
San Zeno Altarpiece, (left panel), 1457-60; San Zeno, VeronaAs many as 137 painters and pictorial students passed through Squarcine's school, which had been established towards 1440 and which became famous all over Italy. Padua was attractive for artists coming not only from Veneto but also from Tuscany, such as Paolo Uccello, Filippo Lippi and Donatello. Mantegna's early career was shaped indeed by impressions of Florentine works. At the time, Mantegna was said to be a favorite pupil; Squarcione taught him the Latin language, and instructed him to study fragments of Roman sculpture. The master also preferred forced perspective, the lingering results of which may account for some Mantegna's later innovations. However, at the age of seventeen, Mantegna separated himself from Squarcione. He later claimed that Squarcione had profited from his work without paying the rights.
His first work, now lost, was an altarpiece for the church of Santa Sofia in 1448. The same year Mantegna was called, together with Nicol?? Pizolo, to work with a large group of painters entrusted with the decoration of the Ovetari Chapel in the apse of the church of Eremitani. It is probable, however, that before this time some of the pupils of Squarcione, including Mantegna, had already begun the series of frescoes in the chapel of S. Cristoforo, in the church of Sant'Agostino degli Eremitani, today considered his masterpiece. After a series of coincidences, Mantegna finished most of the work alone, though Ansuino, who collaborated with Mantegna in the Ovetari Chapel, brought his style in the Forl?? school of painting. The now censorious Squarcione carped about the earlier works of this series, illustrating the life of St James; he said the figures were like men of stone, and had better have been colored stone-color at once.
This series was almost entirely lost in the 1944 Allied bombings of Padua. The most dramatic work of the fresco cycle was the work set in the worm's-eye view perspective, St. James Led to His Execution. (For an example of Mantegna's use of a lowered view point, see the image at right of Saints Peter and Paul; though much less dramatic in its perspective that the St. James picture, the San Zeno altarpiece was done shortly after the St. James cycle was finished, and uses many of the same techniques, including the classicizing architectural structure.)
San Luca Altarpiece, 1453; Tempera on panel; Pinacoteca di Brera, MilanThe sketch of the St. Stephen fresco survived and is the earliest known preliminary sketch which still exists to compare to the corresponding fresco. Despite the authentic look of the monument, it is not a copy of any known Roman structure. Mantegna also adopted the wet drapery patterns of the Romans, who derived the form from the Greek invention, for the clothing of his figures, although the tense figures and interactions are derived from Donatello. The drawing shows proof that nude figures were used in the conception of works during the Early Renaissance. In the preliminary sketch, the perspective is less developed and closer to a more average viewpoint however.
Among the other early Mantegna frescoes are the two saints over the entrance porch of the church of Sant'Antonio in Padua, 1452, and an altarpiece of St. Luke and other saints (at left) for the church of S. Giustina, now in the Brera Gallery in Milan (1453). As the young artist progressed in his work, he came under the influence of Jacopo Bellini, father of the celebrated painters Giovanni and Gentile, and of a daughter Nicolosia. In 1453 Jacopo consented to a marriage between Nicolosia to Mantegna in marriage.