The Flemish artist (1627-1691) eclectic painter, author of landscapes, sacred objects, genre paintings and portraits embodies   Related Paintings of Livio Mehus :. | Ecce Homo | Assumption of the Virgin with Four Saints | The Donne Triptych | iduns julnummer | One of a project set of four landscapes depicting times of the day, |
Related Artists:
Andrea Sacchi
1559-1661 Italian Andrea Sacchi Gallery As a young man, Sacchi had worked under Cortona in Castel Fusano (1627-1629). But in a set of public debates later developed in the Roman Artist's Guild, Accademia di San Luca, he strongly criticized Cortona's exuberance. In particular, Sacchi advocated that since a unique, individual expression needs to be assigned to each figure in a composition, a painting should not consist of more than about ten figures. In a crowded composition, the figures would be deprived of individuality, and thus cloud the particular meaning of the piece. In some ways this is a reaction against the zealous excess of crowds in paintings by men such as Zuccari of the prior generation, and by Cortona among his contemporaries. Simplicity and unity were essential to Sacchi. Cortona argued that large paintings were more like an epic, that could avail themselves of multiple subplots. The encrustation of a painting with excess decorative details, including melees of crowds, would represent "wall-paper" art rather than focused narrative. Among the partisan's of Sacchi's argument for simplicity and focus were his friends, the sculptor Algardi and painter Poussin. The controversy was however less pitched than some suggest, and also involved the dissatisfaction that Sacchi and Albani, among others, shared regarding the artistic depiction of low or genre subjects and themes, such as preferred by the Bamboccianti and even the Caravaggisti. They felt that high art should focus on exalted themes- biblical, mythologic, or from classic history. Sacchi, who worked almost always in Rome, left few pictures visible in private galleries. He had a flourishing school: Poussin and Carlo Maratta were younger collaborators or pupils. In Maratta's large studio, Sacchi's preference for grand manner style would find pre-eminence among Roman circles for decades to follow. But many others worked under him or his influence including Luigi Garzi, Francesco Lauri, Andrea Camassei and Giacinto Gimignani. Sacchi's own illegitimate son Giuseppe, died young after giving very high hopes. Sacchi died at Nettuno in 1661.
Barend Cornelis Koekkoek
1803-1862 Dutch Barend Cornelis Koekkoek Gallery Koekkoek??s own paintings reveal a careful study and synthesis of Dutch seventeenth century painters. His art is firmly rooted in the great Dutch romantic tradition established by the seventeenth-century masters: Hobbema, Cuyp, Ruisdael and Wynants. The golden light and the inclusion of travellers in his work suggests Koekkoek also admired the Dutch Italianate painters of the seventeenth century, collectively known as the Bamboccianti, especially Pieter van Laer and Jan Both. Koekkoek imagined his pictures as the result of an ideal combination of observation and artifice. He studied art and nature with equal acuity, creating beautiful landscape paintings that celebrated the greatness of Creation. ??Koekkoek's work impresses the spectator by its power, by the firm and correct construction of the trees, by the broad, natural growth of the leaves and boughs, [and] by the careful and elaborate reproduction of the wooded landscape?? (G. H. Marius, Dutch Painters of the Nineteenth Century, Woodbridge, 1973, p. 89). Up to this day, Willem Koekkoek's work is very much favoured for the lively composition and the mood of nostalgia, in which the Dutch Golden Age seems to linger on. Just as he was during his own lifetime, Koekkoek is widely regarded as the most accomplished landscape painter of Dutch romanticism, against whose scrupulously refined paintings the work his contemporaries is measured.
Simon Hollosy
1857-1918 Hungarian Simon Hollosy Gallery Simon Hollosy (Romanian: Simion Corbu); (2 February 1857, Maramarossziget, now Sighetu Marmatiei - 8 May 1918, Tecso, now Tiachiv) was a Hungarian painter. He was considered one of the greatest Hungarian representatives of 19th century Naturalism and Realism. Holl??sy came from an Armenian family who settled in Maramarossziget (present-day Sighetu Marmaţiei, Romania). He frequently worked abroad. He criticized training at the Academy and founded a private school in 1886 where he gathered young talents around him who were interested in realistic protrayal. He opened the way to new styles by relying on his personality and by pointing out the merits of French pictures (Courbet) exhibited in Munich. He abandoned the academic style in order to follow new trends in French painting. Encouraged by Istvan Reti and Janos Thorma, his pupils and friends, he spent the summer of 1896 in Nagyb??nya (present-day Baia Mare, Romania) with his school, which played an important role in Hungarian painting as the cradle of the Nagybanya school. He soon settled down in Nagybanya. With its style (sunny landscapes), his school determined Hungarian painting for decades. Leaving the Nagyb??nya colony in 1901, he spent the summers in Tecso with his students from 1902. During winters he was in Munich to run his school there. He was not productive as an artist: he was in search of atmospheres and his productivity was confined to teaching. His large scale plan of "Rakoczi March" with a lot of figures got as far sketches because he kept on changing his mind. The landscapes painted in Tecso include "Landscape in T??cső", "Landscape with Stacks and Sunset with Stacks", where he applied elements of plein air and impressionism. His self-portrait (1916) is one of his most harrowing pictures.