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 | Battle between Constantine and Maxentius | Federigo da Montefeltro and his Wife Battista Sforza (mk45) | The Brera Madonna | berlin staatliche museen tempera on panel |
Related Artists:
CUYP, Aelbert
Dutch Baroque Era Painter, 1620-1691 Painter and draughtsman, son of (1) Jacob Cuyp. One of the most important landscape painters of 17th-century Netherlands, he combined a wide range of sources and influences, most notably in the application of lighting effects derived from Italianate painting to typical Dutch subjects. Such traditional themes as townscapes, winter scenes, cattle pieces and equestrian portraits were stylistically transformed and given new grandeur. Aelbert was virtually unknown outside his native town, and his influence in the 17th century was negligible.
Julius Paulsen
Danish, 1860-1940 Danish painter. He studied at the Kongelige Akademi for de Skenne Kunster, Copenhagen (1879-82), but found the training there uninspired and soon attached himself to more radical artists such as Peder Severin Kreyer and Laurits Regner Tuxen. A turning-point in his career came in 1885 when, with Viggo Johansen, he went to Paris. On the way they visited Amsterdam, where the art of Rembrandt made a great impact on Paulsen; in Paris he showed interest in Courbet and Monet. From 1886 his time was shared between landscape, figure and portrait painting. His first landscape, From the Village of Ry (1886; Copenhagen, Hirschsprungske Saml.), is an early example of his personal blend of Romanticism and Symbolism; it shows a golden sunset colouring the houses and gardens of the small village. His View from the Harbour after Sunset (1891; Copenhagen, Hirschsprungske Saml.) has much in common with Monet, the Copenhagen skyline barely discernible through a deep blue and iridescent atmosphere. A later visit to Paris inspired such sunlit townscapes as Under Pont des Arts in Paris, Midday Sun (1919; Copenhagen, Stat. Mus. Kst), the shimmering, sketchy surface of which is dominated by fresh blues and greens; the painting incorporates a favourite Impressionist motif, the curved filigree of the iron bridge, which both frames the scene and lends it tension.
Helmer Osslund
Swedish, 1866-1938