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 :. | Confessional son | Portrait of Isabella Brant | Gewitterlandschaft mit Philemon und Baucis | Minerva Protects Pax from Mars | Perseus Freeing Andromeda |
Related Artists:
Johan Werder
Germany
SCHRIECK, Otto Marseus van
Dutch Baroque Era Painter, 1619-1678 Dutch painter. According to Houbraken, he travelled to Italy and stayed in Rome and Florence with the painters Matthias Withoos and Willem van Aelst, the latter his pupil at the time. Among his patrons were Ferdinando II de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany (reg 1621-70). Van Hoogstraten claimed that he met van Schrieck in Rome as late as 1652. In Rome, van Schrieck was a member of the Schildersbent. About 1657 he returned with van Aelst to Amsterdam, where he had a small property and got married on 25 April 1664. An inventory of the contents of his house was made in July 1678, shortly after his death, in which more than 300 paintings are listed. Besides his own paintings, there were works by Cornelis van Poelenburch, Simon de Vlieger, Ludolf Bakhuizen, Jan Wijnants, Lucas van Leyden
Clarkson Frederick Stanfield
English Painter, 1793-1867 He is often wrongly referred to as William Clarkson Stanfield. The son of Mary Hoad and James Field Stanfield, an Irish actor and author, he was apprenticed to a heraldic coach painter at the age of 12, but in 1808 he abandoned this and went to sea in a collier. In 1812 he was press-ganged and spent two years on HMS Namur, the guard-ship at Sheerness. After being discharged as the result of an injury in 1814, he joined the merchant navy, sailing to China in the Indiaman Warley in 1815. Soon after his return in 1816 he missed his ship and became a scene painter, first at the Royalty Theatre, Stepney, and then at the Royal Coburg, Lambeth. There he was later joined by David Roberts, who became a lifelong friend, and in 1822 both men were employed as scene painters at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. During the next 12 years Stanfield established himself as the most talented scene painter of his day, causing a sensation with some of his huge moving dioramas such as the scenes of Venice in the pantomine Harlequin and Little Thumb (1831). Meanwhile he was building an equally impressive reputation as an easel painter. He first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1820 and continued to exhibit there regularly until his death. He was elected ARA in 1832 and RA in 1835.