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 montefeltro altarpiece, details | Sigismondo Pandolfo | pala mantefeltro | Gallery, London baptizes Christs | Augustinian monk |
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John Gadsby Chapman
American Painter, 1808-1889,was an American artist famous for The Baptism of Pocahontas, which was commissioned by the United States Congress and hangs in the United States Capitol rotunda. John Chapman was born in 1808 in Alexandria, Virginia. Chapman began his study of art in Philadelphia for two years, then departed for Europe where he eventually spent time in Italy. In 1831, Chapman returned to his hometown of Alexandria, and exhibited his artwork in the nearest metropolitan areas, such as Washington, D.C., Richmond, and Philadelphia. He specialized in landscapes and portraits. By 1834, Chapman had moved to New York City and become a member of the National Academy of Design, and found work as an illustrator. In New York, Chapman embarked on a series of historic paintings, such as Landing at Jamestown and the Crowning of Powhatan. The success of these paintings helped Chapman land a commission from the United States Congress in February 1837 to paint a historical scene for the rotunda of the Capitol building. For this work, Chapman received a total payment of $10,000. On November 30th, 1840, The Baptism of Pocahontas was formally unveiled in the Capitol rotunda. On the swell of this success, Chapman moved his family to Rome, and made an earnest living selling paintings of rural Campagna to American visitors. However, at the onset of the American Civil War, the tourist industry dried up, affecting Chapman fortunes greatly. In addition, Chapman own son, Conrad Chapman, returned to America to fight on the side of the Confederate States of America. The economic deprivation inflicted on Chapman during the 1860s became insurmountable. In Rome, he was forced to live off the kindness of fellow expatriates, and finally returned to America, sick and poor, to spend his last days with another son, John Linton Chapman, in Brooklyn, New York. It was there, in 1889, that he died a pauper.
Mount, Shepard Alonzo
American Painter, 1804-1868
Jan Matejko
Polish Painter, 1838-1893 He studied from 1852 to 1858 at the School of Fine Arts in Krakew and, during this time, started exhibiting historical paintings with the Society of Friends of the Fine Arts there (e.g. Sigismund I Bestowing Nobility on the Professors of the University of Krakew in 1535 (1858; Krakew, Jagiellonian U., Mus. F.A.). After studying in Munich (1859) under the history painter Hermann Anschetz (1802-80) and then briefly and less successfully in Vienna, Matejko returned to Krak?w, where he was based for the rest of his life. In 1860 Matejko issued an illustrated album, Ubiory w Polsce (later editions 1875 and 1901), a project reflecting his intense interest in historical records of all kinds and his desire to promote such interest among the Polish people in an effort to intensify their patriotic feelings. This role first became widely associated with Matejko with his painting of Stanczyk (1862; Warsaw, N. Mus.), the court jester to King Sigismund I (1437-1548), to whom Matejko gave his own features. The jester is presented as a symbol of the nation's conscience