Flemish Baroque Era Painter, 1577-1640 Peter Paul Rubens (June 28, 1577 ?C May 30, 1640) was a prolific seventeenth-century Flemish Baroque painter, and a proponent of an exuberant Baroque style that emphasized movement, color, and sensuality. He is well-known for his Counter-Reformation altarpieces, portraits, landscapes, and history paintings of mythological and allegorical subjects. In addition to running a large studio in Antwerp which produced paintings popular with nobility and art collectors throughout Europe, Rubens was a classically-educated humanist scholar, art collector, and diplomat who was knighted by both Philip IV, king of Spain, and Charles I, king of England. Rubens was a prolific artist. His commissioned works were mostly religious subjects, "history" paintings, which included mythological subjects, and hunt scenes. He painted portraits, especially of friends, and self-portraits, and in later life painted several landscapes. Rubens designed tapestries and prints, as well as his own house. He also oversaw the ephemeral decorations of the Joyous Entry into Antwerp by the Cardinal-Infante Ferdinand in 1635. His drawings are mostly extremely forceful but not detailed; he also made great use of oil sketches as preparatory studies. He was one of the last major artists to make consistent use of wooden panels as a support medium, even for very large works, but he used canvas as well, especially when the work needed to be sent a long distance. For altarpieces he sometimes painted on slate to reduce reflection problems. His fondness of painting full-figured women gave rise to the terms 'Rubensian' or 'Rubenesque' for plus-sized women. The term 'Rubensiaans' is also commonly used in Dutch to denote such women.  Related Paintings of Peter Paul Rubens :. | Jesus-s Childhood | The Judgment of Paris (mk27) | The Flight from Blois (mk05) | Der Tod des Decius Mus in der Schlacht | Helene Fourment and her Children, Claire-Jeanne and Francois |
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Levitan, Isaak
Russian Painter, 1860-1900 Russian painter of Lithuanian birth. He largely painted landscapes (including pastel sketches), which are noted for their emotive or symbolic resonance. His 'landscapes of mood' had a profound influence on Russian landscape painting, to which he introduced a sense of the unity of humankind and nature, and of the spiritual power of the Russian
Hilma af Klint
1862 - 1944,was a Swedish artist and mystic whose paintings were amongst the first abstract art. She belonged to a group called 'The Five' and the paintings or diagrams were a visual representation of complex philosophical ideas. The fourth child of Captain Victor af Klint, a Swedish naval commander, and Mathilda af Klint (n??e Sonntag), Hilma af Klint spent summers with her family at their farm Hammora on the island of Adelsö in Lake Mälaren. In these idylic surroundings Hilma came into contact with nature at an early stage in her life and this deep association with natural forms was to be an inspiration in her work. From her father she adopted an interest in mathematics. In 1880 her younger sister Hermina died and it was at this time that the spiritual dimension of her life began to develop. She showed an early ability in visual art and after the family had moved to Stockholm she studied at the Academy of Fine Arts for five years during which time she learned portraiture and landscape painting . Here she met Anna Cassel, the first of the four women with whom she later worked in 'The Five' (de fem), a group of artists who shared her ideas. Her more conventional painting became the source of her financial income while the 'life's work' remained a quite separate practice.
Bernard, Emile
French, 1868-1941 French painter and writer. He was the son of a cloth merchant. Relations with his parents were never harmonious, and in 1884, against his father's wishes, he enrolled as a student at the Atelier Cormon in Paris. There he became a close friend of Louis Anquetin and Toulouse-Lautrec. In suburban views of Asni?res, where his parents lived, Bernard experimented with Impressionist and then Pointillist colour theory, in direct opposition to his master's academic teaching; an argument with Fernand Cormon led to his expulsion from the studio in 1886. He made a walking tour of Normandy and Brittany that year, drawn to Gothic architecture and the simplicity of the carved Breton calvaries. In Concarneau he struck up a friendship with Claude-Emile Schuffenecker and met Gauguin briefly in Pont-Aven.