Italian Early Renaissance Painter, ca.1422-1492 Italian painter and theorist. His work is the embodiment of rational, calm, monumental painting in the Italian Early Renaissance, an age in which art and science were indissolubly linked through the writings of Leon Battista Alberti. Born two generations before Leonardo da Vinci, Piero was similarly interested in the scientific application of the recently discovered rules of perspective to narrative or devotional painting, especially in fresco, of which he was an imaginative master; and although he was less universally creative than Leonardo and worked in an earlier idiom, he was equally keen to experiment with painting technique. Piero was as adept at resolving problems in Euclid, whose modern rediscovery is largely due to him, as he was at creating serene, memorable figures, whose gestures are as telling and spare as those in the frescoes of Giotto or Masaccio. His tactile, gravely convincing figures are also indebted to the sculpture of Donatello, an equally attentive observer of Classical antiquity. In his best works, such as the frescoes in the Bacci Chapel in S Francesco, Arezzo, there is an ideal balance between his serene, classical compositions and the figures that inhabit them, the whole depicted in a distinctive and economical language. In his autograph works Piero was a perfectionist, creating precise, logical and light-filled images (although analysis of their perspective schemes shows that these were always subordinated to narrative effect). However, he often delegated important passages of works (e.g. the Arezzo frescoes) to an ordinary, even incompetent, assistant.   Related Paintings of Piero della Francesca :. | the legend of the true cross, detail | the legend of the true cross, detail | The Baptism of Christ | the legend of the true cross, detail | Polyptych of the Misericordia: Virgin Annunciate |
Related Artists:
Hermann Stenner
painted Auferstehung in1914
August Xaver Karl von Pettenkofen
painted Zigeunerkinder in 1855
PIOLA, Domenico
Italian Baroque Era Painter, 1627-1703 was a Genoese painter of the Baroque period. His family studio was highly prolific. He apprenticed with his family, including his elder brother, Pellegro Piola, as well as with Domenico Fiasella. Other members of the Piola family, who were artists included Domenico's brother, Giovanni Andrea and his three sons Paolo Gerolamo, Anton Maria, and Giovanni Battista; his two sons-in-law, Gregorio de Ferrari and Domenico Parodi; and his brother-in-law Stefano Camogli. The large family studio, called Casa Piola excelled in both quadratura fresco decoration and canvases. Generations of artists, down to the 20th century, descended from the line of Piola-De Ferrari, including Giovanni Maria De Simoni, who died in 1913 in the original residence of Domenico's family. Domenico was also a well-known printmaker and draughtsman.