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 :. | Portrat des Kardinal Albrecht von Brandenburg als Hl Hieronymus im Grunen | Venus and Cupid | Venus and Cupid | Kreuzigung Christi | Salome |
Related Artists:
Johann Walter
painted Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden at the Battle of Breitenfeld in 1632
Gigo Gabashvili
(November 9, 1862 - October 28, 1936) was a Georgian painter and educator. His work was particularly influential since he was the first Georgian realistic artist to cover a wide range of subjects, both in oils and watercolor, including portraits, landscapes and scenes of everyday life. Born in Tbilisi, Georgia (then part of the Russian Empire), Gigo Gabashvili was educated at the academies of St. Petersburg (1886 - 1888) and Munich (1894 - 1897). Returning to his homeland, he made his debut as the first artist to have been honored with a personal exhibition in Tbilisi. From 1900 to 1920, he taught at the art school operated by the Caucasian Society for Promotion of Fine Arts. Gabashvili was one of the founding professors of the Tbilisi State Academy of Arts (1922) and was granted the title of the People's Artist of the Georgian SSR (1929). Gabashvili remained a staunch realist and made known his opposition to left-wing art. He died in Tsikhisdziri, Adjara, in 1936. He is best known for his series of vivid portraits of peasants, townsmen, and noblemen ("The Three Townsmen", 1893; "The Sleeping Khevsur", 1898; "The Drunk Khevsur", 1899; "A Kurd", 1903 - 1909; "The Three Generals", 1910; etc.) as well as multifigure scenes from Georgian ("Alaverdoba Festival", 1899) and Oriental life - many of them based on the sketches of his Central Asian journey in 1894 ("The Bazaar in Samarkand", 1894 - 1897; "The Divan-Bey Pool in Bukhara", 1897; etc.). Most of his works are now on display at the National Museum of Fine Arts in Tbilisi. His 1895 copy of "The Bazaar in Samarkand," created at the request of the U.S. diplomat and businessman Charles R. Crane who met him during his travel in the Caucasus, was sold for USD 1.36 million at Sotheby's in 2006.
Donato Creti
(1671-1749) was an Italian painter of the Rococo period, active mostly in Bologna. Born in Cremona, he moved to Bologna, where he was a pupil of Lorenzo Pasinelli. He is described by Wittkower as the "Bolognese Marco Benefial", in that his style was less decorative and edged into a more formal neoclassical style. It is an academicized grand style, that crystallizes into a manneristic neoclassicism, with crisp and frigid modeling of the figures. Among his followers were Aureliano Milani, Francesco Monti, and Ercole Graziani the Younger. Two other pupils were Domenico Maria Fratta and Giuseppe Peroni