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 :. | Dame bei der Schneiderin | Besuch bei einem Lord | Der Apotheker | Masked venetians in the Ridotto | Das Rhinozeros |
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w. von schadow
Friedrich Wilhelm Schadow (7 September 1789 - 19 March 1862) was a German Romantic painter. He was born in Berlin and was the second son of the sculptor Johann Gottfried Schadow. In 1806-1807 Friedrich served as a soldier. In 1810 he traveled with his elder brother Rudolph to Rome where he became one of the leaders among painters of the Nazarene movement. Following the example of Johann Friedrich Overbeck and others, he joined the Roman Catholic Church, and held that an artist must believe and live out the truths he essays to paint. The sequel showed that Schadow was qualified to shine more as a teacher and mentor than as a painter. As an author, he is best known for his lecture, Ueber den Einfluss des Christentums auf die bildende Kunst (About The Influence of Christianity On The Visual Arts) (Dusseldorf, 1843), and the biographical sketches, Der moderne Vasari (Berlin, 1854). In Rome, Schadow was given one of his first major commissions when the Prussian Consul-General, General Jakob Salomon Bartholdy, befriended the young painter, and asked him and three young compatriots (Cornelius, Overbeck and Veit) to decorate in fresco a room in his house on the Pincian Hill. The overall theme selected was the story of Joseph and his brethren, and two scenes, the Bloody Coat and Joseph in Prison, were conferred on Schadow. In 1819, Schadow was appointed professor in the prestigious Berlin Academy of the Arts, and his ability and thorough training gained many devoted disciples. It was during this period that Schadow developed his paintings for churches. In 1826, Professor Schadow was made director of the Dusseldorf Academy of the Arts, which he reoriented towards the production of Christian art, though he began a major dispute with one of its professors, Heinrich Christoph Kolbe, ending in the latter leaving the Academy in 1832. In 1837, Schadow selected, at request, those of his students best qualified to decorate the chapel of St Apollinaris on the Rhine with frescoes. When finished, they were acclaimed as the fullest and purest manifestation of the spiritual side of the D??sseldorf school. One of his famous students, Heinrich Mucke, carried on the liturgical art with emphasis both in painting and frescoes. The painting of the Wise and Foolish Virgins. considered one of his masterworks, was commissioned in 1842. Now in the Städel Museum, this large and important picture, while carefully considered and rendered, it however lacks power of some of his other works. Schadow's fame rests less on his own artistic creations than on the school he formed. In D??sseldorf a reaction set in against the spiritual and sacerdotal style he had established and, in 1859, the party of naturalism, after a severe struggle, drove Director Schadow from his chair. Friedrich Wilhelm Schadow died at Dusseldorf in 1862, and a monument was erected in the square which bears his name at a jubilee held to commemorate his directorate. The D??sseldorf School that Schadow directed became internationally renowned, attracting such American painters as George Caleb Bingham, Eastman Johnson, Worthington Whittredge, Richard Caton Woodville, William Stanley Haseltine, James M. Hart, and William Morris Hunt and producing the German emigre Emmanuel Leutze.
Louis-Auguste Girardot
French, 1858-1933
MASTER of Female Half-length
Dutch painter (active 1530-1540)