Kronach 1472-Weimar 1553 German painter and engraver. The son of a painter, he settled in Wittenberg c.1504 and was court painter successively under three electors of Saxony. There he maintained a flourishing workshop and was twice burgomaster. Cranach was a close friend of Martin Luther, whose doctrine he upheld in numerous paintings and woodcuts, and he has been called the painter of the Reformation. He was a rapid and prolific painter, and the work turned out by his studio is uneven in quality. Naïve and fanciful, often awkward in draftsmanship, it has, nonetheless, freshness and originality and a warm, rich palette. His portraits are particularly successful. Among his best-known works are Repose in Egypt (Gemäldgalerie, Staatliche Mus., Berlin-Dahlem); Judgment of Paris (Staatliche Kunsthalle, Karlsruhe); Adam and Eve (Courtauld Inst., London); and Crucifixion (Weimar). The latter contains figures of Luther and Cranach. His many famous protraits include those of Elector John Frederick and Self-Portrait (Uffizi). Cranach was also an accomplished miniaturist. He produced a few copperplates and designs for woodcuts. His son and pupil Lucas Cranach, the Younger,   Related Paintings of Lucas Cranach :. | The Feilitzsch Altarpiece | Portrat der Prinzessin Sibylle von Cleve als Braut | Venus and Cupid | THe Virgin and Child under the Apple-tree | Virgin and Child under an Apple Tree |
Related Artists:
Emilian School
painted Ludovico Carracci in 17th century
ZUCCARO Taddeo
Italian Mannerist Painter, 1529-1566 Painter and draughtsman. Taught to draw by his father, at the age of 14 he went alone to Rome where, according to Vasari, he was employed in various workshops and studied independently, particularly the works of Raphael. Through assisting Daniele de Porri (1500-77), who had trained in Parma, he learnt of the work of Correggio and Parmigianino. He first became known for his paintings on fa?ades, notably scenes from the Story of Furius Camillus on the palazzo of a Roman nobleman Jacopo Matteo, executed in 1548. Vasari claimed that Taddeo's fa?ade decorations equalled those of Polidoro da Caravaggio; none survives, although some are documented in drawings (e.g. London, BM; Paris, Louvre) and show his assimilation of Polidoro's style. Taddeo's earliest extant works date from 1553 when he collaborated with Prospero Fontana on the decoration (part destr.) of the villa of Pope Julius III outside the Porta del Popolo in Rome; Taddeo's contributions included scenes of The Seasons in the loggia of the nymphaeum. In these, clarity of form and space, natural proportions and idealization of human form demonstrate his affinity with the classicism of the High Renaissance. He also assimilated the sculptural sensibility of Mannerism, derived from Michelangelo.
Ralph Blakelock
American Painter, 1847-1919 One of the most important visionary artists in late 19th-century America, he was self-taught as a painter. From 1867 he was exhibiting landscapes in the style of the Hudson River school at the National Academy of Design in New York. Rather than going abroad for advanced training, like most of his contemporaries, he spent the years 1869-72 in the western United States. Back in New York, Blakelock evolved his personal style during the 1870s and 1880s. Eschewing literal transcriptions of nature, he preferred to paint evocative moonlit landscapes such as Moonlight (Washington, DC, Corcoran Gal. A.).