Dutch Baroque Era Painter, 1632-1675
Johannes (or Jan) Vermeer is now recognized as one of the great Dutch painters, but while he was alive he could barely make ends meet, and his artistic achievement was almost entirely ignored for 200 years after his death. Little is known about his personal life, other than he died poor and young and left behind a wife and eleven children. Vermeer is admired for his realistic style, his subtle use of color and light and his unusual and inventive brush technique, but fewer than forty of his paintings exist. His most famous works include domestic scenes such as Girl With a Peal Earring (1665) and The Music Lesson (1662-65), and tranquil landscapes such as The Little Street (1657-58) and View of Delft (1659-60). Although his actual birth and death dates are unknown, Vermeer was baptized 31 October 1632 and buried 15 December 1675... During his career he used the names Johannes van der Meer, Johannes Vermeer and Jan Vermeer Related Paintings of Jan Vermeer :. | Maerten van Heemskerck (mk30) | Lady Writing a Letter with Her Maid | Woman Holing a Balance (mk08) | The Lacemaker | Diana and her Companions | Related Artists:
FARINATI, PaoloItalian painter, Veronese school (b. 1524, Verona, d. 1606, Verona)
Italian painter and draughtsman. He was the son of a painter, Giambattista, but probably trained in the workshop of Nicola Giolfino (Vasari). His earliest documented painting, St Martin and the Beggar (1552; Mantua Cathedral), was commissioned by Cardinal Ercole Gonzaga along with works by Battista dell'Angolo del Moro, Veronese and Domenico Brusasorci for Mantua Cathedral, newly restored by Giulio Romano. As is evident in his chiaroscuro and figure types, Farinati had absorbed certain Mannerist influences from the frescoes of scenes from the Life of the Virgin (1534) in the choir of Verona Cathedral, executed by Francesco Torbido to Giulio's design. Giolfino's eccentric style would also have encouraged Farinati to emphasize line over colour and to restrict his palette to rather opaque greys, browns, mauve and rust. His two-canvas Massacre of the Innocents (1556; Verona, S Maria in Organo) displays the muscular figures, sharp foreshortenings and posed attitudes of Mannerism and has a more polished finish than his earlier work. Its strong, plastic qualities are also evident in Christ Walking on the Water and the Supper of St Gregory (1558) in the choir of the same church.
John SmartEnglish Rococo Era Miniaturist, ca.1741-1811,English miniature painter, was born in Norfolk; he became a pupil of Cosway, and is frequently alluded to in his correspondence.
This artist was director and vice-president of the Incorporated Society of Artists, and exhibited with that society. He went to India in 1788 and obtained a number of commissions in that country. He settled down in London in 1797 and there died. He married Edith Vere, and is believed to have had only one son, who died in Madras in 1809.
He was a man of simple habits, and a member of the Society of Sandemanians. Many of his pencil drawings still exist in the possession of the descendants of a great friend of his only sister. Several of his miniatures are in Australia and belong to a cadet branch of the family.
His work is entirely different from that of Cosway, quiet and grey in its colouring, with the flesh tints elaborated with much subtlety and modelled in exquisite fashion. He possessed a great knowledge of anatomy, and his portraits are drawn with greater anatomical accuracy and possess more distinction than those of any miniature painter of his time.
Ary SchefferDordrecht 1795-Argenteuil 1858
Dutch painter, sculptor and lithographer, active in France. He became a French citizen in 1850. He received his earliest training in the studio of his parents, Johann-Bernhard Scheffer (1764-1809) and Cornelia Scheffer (1769-1839), who were both artists, as was his brother Henri Scheffer (1798-1862). He then attended the Amsterdam Teeken-Academie (1806-9). At the first Exhibition of Living Masters in Amsterdam in 1808 he showed Hannibal Swearing to Avenge the Death of his Brother Hasdrubal