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 :. | Portrat einer Patrizierfamilie | The introduction | Besuch bei einem Lord | A Fortune Teller at Venice | Besuch bei einem Lord, Detail |
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Konstantin Makovsky
1839 September 17 [O.S. September 30] 1915) was an influential Russian painter, affiliated with the "Peredvizhniki (Wanderers)". Many of his historical paintings, such as The Russian Bride's Attire (1889), showed an idealized view of Russian life of prior centuries. He is often considered a representative of a Salon art. Konstantin was born in Moscow as the older son of a Russian art figure and amateur painter, Yegor Ivanovich Makovsky. Yegor Makovsky was the founder of Natural class, the art school that later became as the famous Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture. Among the friends of the family were Karl Briullov and Vasily Tropinin. All children of Yegor became notable painters (see Makovsky). Later Konstantin wrote For what I became I think I should thank not the Academy or Professors but only my father. In 1851 Konstantin entered the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture where he became the top student, easily getting all the available awards.
Master of Ab Monogram
MASTER of AB Monogram. German painter (active 1530s in Saxony
Arthur Quartley
(May 24, 1839 - May 19, 1886), was an American painter known for his marine seascapes. Quartley was born in Paris and lived there to the age of twelve, when his family moved to Baltimore, Maryland. He studied drawing with his father C.G. Quartley, who was an English engraver. His father was reputed to have demanded two drawings per week from the young lad. At age 17, Arthur was apprenticed to a sign painter in Baltimore. In 1862 Quartley and his family founded a design firm in Baltimore. The firm Emmart & Quartley was regarded as the best decorating company in the city (Dictionary of American Biography); however, young Quartley began painting marine seascapes of Chesapeake Bay, and progressively spent more and more time in that pursuit. He held a successful show of marine paintings at the studio of Norval H. Busey in Baltimore. Scholar Elizabeth Johns remarked that Quartley's work reveals familiarity with the Dutch Masters marine tradition of composition in treatment of light and color. To pursue his painting more seriously, Quartley moved to New York City in 1875. New York at that time had become a premier center for notable painters. From there he painted seascapes of Long Island bays, New York Harbor, the New Hampshire Isle of Shoals, and Naragansett Bay in Rhode Island. The Hudson River School was waning at this point, so that other groups were forming, among them the Tilers, of whom Quartley was a founding member. The Tilers was a group of artists and writers, that included such luminaries as Winslow Homer, William Merritt Chase, and Augustus Saint Gaudens. They met frequently to exchange ideas and decorate ceramic tiles in promotion of their works. They also took excursions for painting, such as the 1878 pilgrimage to Eastern Long Island by Quartley and ten others. On that trip Quartley painted Seascape and also a blue painted tile of an introspective girl at the beach. The journalist and philanthropist John W. McCoy promoted the careers of Quartley and of his friend, the sculptor William H. Rinehart.