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 :. | Federico di Montefeltro | St. Julian | Nativity | The Baptism of Christ | legend of the true cross |
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William Dobson
1610-1646 English William Dobson Locations William Dobson (March 4, 1610 ?C October 28, 1646) was a portraitist and one of the first notable English painters, praised by his contemporary John Aubrey as the most excellent painter that England has yet bred. Dobson was born in London the son of a decorative artist, and was apprenticed to William Peake and probably later joined the studio of Francis Cleyn. He is believed to have had access to the Royal Collection and to have copied works by Titian and Anthony Van Dyck, King Charles I chief painter. The colour and texture of Dobson work was influenced by Venetian art, but Van Dyck style has little apparent influence on Dobson. Van Dyck himself discovered Dobson when he noticed one of the young artists pictures in a London shop window. He introduced Dobson to the King, who had Dobson paint himself, his sons and members of the court. When Van Dyck died in 1641, Dobson probably succeeded him as sergeant-painter to the King, though proof is lacking. During the English Civil War Dobson was based at the Royalist centre of Oxford and painted many leading Cavaliers. His portrait of the future Charles II as Prince of Wales at the age of around twelve is a notable baroque composition, and perhaps his finest work. He also painted the Duke of York, Prince Rupert of the Rhine and Prince Maurice. Charles II when Prince of Wales, circa 1642 or 1643.Around sixty of Dobson works survive, mostly half-length portraits most of them dated from 1642 or later. The thick impasto of his early work gave way to a mere skim of paint, perhaps reflecting a wartime scarcity of materials. After Oxford fell to the Parliamentarians, in June 1646, Dobson returned to London. Now without patronage, he was briefly imprisoned for debt and died in poverty at the age of thirty-six. Dobson is regarded as a talented painter with a fine sense for colour and good powers of observation. However, an entirely English training such as Dobson could not be first rate in the early 17th century and he had technical weaknesses[citation needed]. There are examples of Dobson work at Tate Britain and the National Portrait Gallery in London and at several English country houses. The most comprehensive study of Dobson and his work is William Dobson, 1611?C1646 an exhibition catalogue written by M. Rogers for a 1983 exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery.
Ozias Humphry
Ozias Humphry (or Humphrey) (8 September 1742 -9 March 1810) was a leading English painter of portrait miniatures, later oils and pastels, of the 18th century. He was elected to the Royal Academy in 1791, and in 1792 he was appointed Portrait Painter in Crayons to the King. Born and schooled in Honiton, Devon, Humphrey was attracted by the gallery of casts opened by the Duke of Richmond and came to London to study art at Shipley's school. He also studied art in Bath (under Samuel Collins, taking over his practice in 1762); in Bath, he lodged with Thomas Linley. As a young artist, his talent was encouraged by Thomas Gainsborough and Sir Joshua Reynolds, among others. His problems with his sight, which ultimately led to blindness, began in the early 1770s and forced him to paint larger works in oils and pastel. He travelled to Italy in 1773 with his great friend George Romney, stopping en route at Knole, near Sevenoaks in Kent, where the Duke of Dorset commissioned several works from him. His stay in Italy lasted until 1777. On his return, his numerous subjects included George Stubbs (1777), fellow academician Dominic Serres, the chemist Joseph Priestley, and a portrait claimed to be of the teenage Jane Austen, from perhaps as early as 1790 (clothing styles suggest a later date), known as the "Rice" portrait after a later owner, though this has always been a controversial attribution of the sitter. This failed to reach its minimum estimate in a Christies auction in April 2007, and was withdrawn from sale. His pupils included John Opie. He compiled a fifty-page manuscript A Memoir of George Stubbs, based on what Stubbs had related to him; it is the only contemporary biography. This was edited and privately published in the 1870s and republished in 2005. He also knew William Blake and commissioned copies of some of his illustrated books. At least one of Blake's letters to him is a significant document for Blake's biographers.
Cornelis Van Leemputten
(1841-1902) was a Belgian painter. Born in Werchter, Cornelius van Leemputten is predominantly known for his landscapes with sheep, similar to the style of Charles Jacque. He began his painting career without formal training. He was well-known for his barnyard subjects. Leemputten eventually became a pupil of the Academy of Antwerp, though his style remained primarily self-taught. Van Leemputten participated across several international exhibitions and received gold medals in Ghent in 1883, Edinburgh in 1886, Port Adelaide in 1887 and in Berlin in 1896. In 1895, he received the Knight of the Order of Leopold (Belgium).