1702-1785 Italian Pietro Longhi Galleries Pietro Longhi was born in Venice in the parish of Saint Maria, first child of the silversmith Alessandro Falca and his wife, Antonia. He adopted the Longhi last name when he began to paint. He was initially taught by the Veronese painter Antonio Balestra, who then recommended the young painter to apprentice with the Bolognese Giuseppe Maria Crespi, who was highly regarded in his day for both religious and genre painting. He was married in 1732 to Caterina Maria Rizzi. Among his early paintings are some altarpieces and religious themes. In 1734, he completed frescoes in the walls and ceiling of the hall in Ca' Sagredo, representing the Death of the giants. Henceforward, his work would lead him to be viewed in the future as the Venetian William Hogarth, painting subjects and events of everyday life in Venice. The gallant interior scenes reflect the 18th century's turn towards the private and the bourgeois. Many of his paintings show Venetians at play, such as the depiction of the crowd of genteel citizens awkwardly gawking at a freakish Indian rhinoceros (see image). This painting chronicles Clara the rhinoceros brought to Europe in 1741 by a Dutch sea captain and impresario from Leyden, Douvemont van der Meer. This rhinoceros was exhibited in Venice in 1751. There are two versions of this painting, nearly identical except for the unmasked portraits of two men in Ca' Rezzonico version. Ultimately, there may be a punning joke to the painting, since the young man on the left holds aloft the sawed off horn (metaphor for cuckoldry) of the animal. Perhaps this explains the difference between the unchaperoned women. Other paintings chronicle the daily activities such as the gambling parlors (Riddoti) that proliferated in the 18th century. In some, the insecure or naive posture and circumstance, the puppet-like delicacy of the persons, seem to suggest a satirical perspective of the artists toward his subjects. Nearly half of the figures in his genre paintings are faceless, hidden behind Venetian Carnival masks. Like Crespi before him, Longhi was commissioned to paint seven canvases documenting the seven Catholic sacraments. Longhi is well-known as a draughtsman, whose drawings were often done for their own sake, rather than as studies for paintings. Pietro's son, Alessandro, was also an accomplished painter. A paraphrase of Bernard Berenson states that "Longhi painted for the Venetians passionate about painting, their daily lives, in all dailiness, domesticity, and quotidian mundane-ness. In the scenes regarding the hairdo and the apparel of the lady, we find the subject of gossip of the inopportune barber, chattering of the maid; in the school of dance, the amiable sound of violins. It is not tragic... but upholds a deep respect of customs, of great refinement, with an omnipresent good humor distinguishes the paintings of the Longhi from those of Hogarth, at times pitiless and loaded with omens of change".  Related Paintings of Pietro Longhi :. | Exhibition of a Rhinoceros at Venice | Portrat einer Patrizierfamilie | the school of the work | Gemaldeserie | Clara the rhinoceros |
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Giovanni Antonio Fumiani
(1645-1710) was an Italian painter of the Baroque period. Born in Venice in 1645, he trained in Bologna under Domenico degli Ambrogi, a specialist in quadratura, but by 1668 he was back in Venice, where he painted a Virgin and Saints in San Benedetto. He was influenced by Ludovico Carracci and Alessandro Tiarini, and soon also became interested in the work of Paolo Veronese, so that he started to use elaborate architectural settings and brighter colours. He painted a Virgin Appearing to Pius V (1674; Vicenza, S Lorenzo), whose monumentality foreshadows Tiepolo, whereas mosaics in San Marco, created in 1677 from Fumianies cartoons, are closer to the idiosyncratic art of Pietro della Vecchia. He contributed to the decoration of San Rocco (1675, 1676, 1678), where he painted a large canvas of the Charity of St Roch on the ceiling of the nave, In his smaller paintings, however, such as the modelli (Florence, Uffizi) painted for the Ferdinand de Medici, Grand Prince of Tuscany, for whom he worked for a long time, with Niccole Cassana acting as intermediary, Fumiani revealed a lively decorative sense and a taste for animated, sensual subjects that produced works of great quality. His last work is the large lunette depicting Frederick III visiting St Zacharyes Convent in the Company of the Doge (Venice, San Zaccaria). The decoration of San Pantalon with scenes from the Life of St Pantaleon (1680-1704) utilized canvases to cover a large ceiling (25x50 m), an ambitious undertaking, both in its scale and in the unity of the magniloquent images, that parallels Andrea Pozzoes decoration at the church of Sant'Ignazio in Rome. Fumiani was responsible for painting what is claimed to the largest painting on canvas in the world and covers the whole of the ceiling of the church Chiesa di San Pantaleone Martire, known as San Pantalon, in Venice. The painting depicts The Martyrdom and Apotheosis of St Pantalon, which he painted from 1680 until 1704. He putatively died from a fall from a scaffold, although some sources date his death to six years after he stopped work on the canvas
Grigoriy Ugryumov
painted Alexander Nevsky in Pskov, after they victory over the Germans in 1793.
Jonathan Richardson
English Baroque Era Painter, ca.1664-1745