(15 March 1611 - 11 September 1661) was a Flemish Baroque animal painter and etcher. Fyt was born in Antwerp, where he was baptized on 15 June 1611, he was registered in 1621 as apprentice to Hans van den Berghe, who was a restorer of old pictures rather than a painter of new ones. Fyt then trained with Frans Snyders between about 1629-31, during which time, at the age of twenty, he entered the guild of St Luke as a master. From then until his death in 1661, he produced a vast number of paintings in which the bold facility of Frans Snyders is united to the powerful effects of Rembrandt, and harmonies of gorgeous tone are not less conspicuous than freedom of touch and a true semblance of nature. He left Antwerp for Paris in 1633, travelling on to Italy the following year, where he worked in Venice and probably visited Rome (as he later joined the Guild of Romanists back in Antwerp). By 1641 he was back in Antwerp, where he married in 1654. Hunting trophiesFyt excelled in the rendering of animal life in its most varied forms. He may have been less correct in outline, less bold in action than Snyders, but he was much more skilful and more true in the reproduction of the coat of deer, dogs, greyhounds, hares and monkeys, whilst in realizing the plumage of peacocks, woodcocks, ducks, hawks, and cocks and hens, he had no equal, nor was any artist even of the Dutch school more effective in relieving his compositions with accessories of tinted cloth, porcelain ware, vases and fruit. He was not clever at figures, and he sometimes trusted for these to the co-operation of Cornelius Schut or Thomas Willeboirts Bosschaert, whilst his architectural backgrounds were sometimes executed by Quellyn. Silenus amongst Fruit and Flowers, in the Harrach collection at Vienna, Diana and her Nymphs with the Produce of the Chase, in the Belvedere at Vienna, and Dead Game and Fruit in front of a Triumphal Arch, belonging to Baron von Rothschild at Vienna, are specimens of the co-operation respectively of Schut, Willeborts and Quellyn. They are also Fyt's masterpieces. The earliest dated work of the master is a cat grabbing at a piece of dead poultry near a hare and birds, belonging to Baron Cetto at Munich, and executed in 1644. The latest is a Dead Snipe with Ducks, of 1660, sold with the Jäger collection at Cologne in 1871. Great power is shown in the bear and boar hunts at Munich and Ravensworth castle. A Hunted Roedeer with Dogs in the Water, in the Berlin Museum, has some of the life and more of the roughness of Snyders, but lacks variety of tint and finish. A splendid specimen is the Page and Parrot near a table covered with game, guarded by a dog staring at a monkey, in the Wallace collection. With the needle and the brush Fyt was equally clever. He etched 16 plates, and those representing dogs are of their kind unique.   Related Paintings of Joannes Fijt :. | Still life floral, all kinds of reality flowers oil painting 221 | Marriage of the Virgin | Market Scene | Oil painting of Johan Jacob Dobelius from the end of the 19th Century, | Where tracks spell meat |
Related Artists:
RECCO, Giuseppe
Italian Baroque Era Painter, 1634-1695 Son of Giacomo Recco. He was the most celebrated Neapolitan still-life painter of his day. He began in the tradition of his father and (probable) uncle Giovan Battista Recco, painting naturalistic arrangements of flowers, fish, game and kitchen scenes. There are many signed and dated works which chart the development of his style. The Bodeg?n with a Negro and Musical Instruments (1659; Madrid, Medibacoeli priv. col.), the Bodeg?n with Fish (1664; Paris, Moret priv. col.) and the Kitchen Interior (1675; Vienna, Ksthist. Mus.) are close to the art of Giovan Battista Recco. The fish and kitchen still-lifes are typically Neapolitan, yet Giuseppe's art is distinguished by the intensity with which he observes light and surface texture and by the clarity of the composition, based on a careful balance of horizontals and verticals. He moved toward a more Baroque and decorative style, and the unfinished Still-life with Fruit, Flowers and Birds (1672) and the Still-life with Fruit and Flowers
Jmw Turner
1775-1851 British landscape painter. The son of a barber, he entered the Royal Academy school in 1789. In 1802 he became a full academician and in 1807 was appointed professor of perspective. His early work was concerned with accurate depictions of places, but he soon learned from Richard Wilson to take a more poetic and imaginative approach. The Shipwreck (1805) shows his new emphasis on luminosity, atmosphere, and Romantic, dramatic subjects. After a trip to Italy in 1819, his colour became purer and more prismatic, with a general heightening of key. In later paintings, such as Sunrise, with a Boat Between Headlands (1845), architectural and natural details are sacrificed to effects of colour and light, with only the barest indication of mass. His compositions became more fluid, suggesting movement and space. In breaking down conventional formulas of representation, he anticipated French Impressionism. His immense reputation in the 19th century was due largely to John Ruskin's enthusiasm for his early works
George Gower
1540-1596 English George Gower Gallery Little is known about his early life except that he was a grandson of Sir John Gower of Stettenham, Yorkshire. His earliest documented works are the two 1573 companion portraits of Sir Thomas Kytson and his wife Lady Kytson, now in the Tate Gallery in London. Gower painted a self-portrait in 1579 (right) that shows his coat of arms and his artist's tools of his trade. An allegorical device shows a balance with an artist's dividers outweighing the family coat of arms, "a startling claim in England where a painter was still viewed as little more than an artisan." The Armada portrait of Elizabeth I by George Gower c. 1588Gower was appointed to the position of Serjeant Painter to Queen Elizabeth in 1581. This allowed him to paint most of England??s aristocracy. The post also made him responsible for painted decoration at the royal residences, and on coaches and furniture. Among his works were a fountain (now destroyed) and the astronomical clock, both at Hampton Court Palace. He also inspected portraits of the Queen by other artists prior to their official release. Gower's best-known work is the version of the Armada Portrait of Elizabeth now at Woburn Abbey, painted to commemorate the 1588 defeat of the Spanish Armada. (A cut down version of this painting in the National Portrait Gallery (United Kingdom) is attributed to Gower; the "Drake" version is by a different hand.)