Italian Mannerist Painter, 1494-ca.1556
Italian painter and draughtsman. He was the leading painter in mid-16th-century Florence and one of the most original and extraordinary of Mannerist artists. His eccentric personality, solitary and slow working habits and capricious attitude towards his patrons are described by Vasari; his own diary, which covers the years 1554-6, further reveals a character with neurotic and secretive aspects. Pontormo enjoyed the protection of the Medici family throughout his career but, unlike Agnolo Bronzino and Giorgio Vasari, did not become court painter. His subjective portrait style did not lend itself to the state portrait. He produced few mythological works and after 1540 devoted himself almost exclusively to religious subjects. His drawings, mainly figure studies in red and black chalk, are among the highest expressions of the great Florentine tradition of draughtsmanship; close to 400 survive, forming arguably the most important body of drawings by a Mannerist painter. Related Paintings of Pontormo :. | Deposition | Resurrection of the deceased | Card Lei Ji and Kasi Taylor | Card Lei Ji and Kasi Taylor | Access map | Related Artists:
Johann Heinrich Wilhelm TischbeinJohann Heinrich Wilhelm Tischbein, also known as Goethe-Tischbein (15 February 1751 - 26 February 1828) was a German painter. He was a descendant of the Tischbein family of painters, and a pupil of his uncle Johann Jacob Tischbein.
Willem van de Velde the Elder(c. 1611 - 13 December 1693) was a Dutch Golden Age seascape painter.
Willem van de Velde, known as the Elder, a marine draughtsman and painter, was born in Leiden, the son of a Flemish skipper, Willem Willemsz. van de Velde, and is commonly said to have been bred to the sea. In 1706 Bainbrigg Buckeridge noted that he eunderstood navigation very welle. He married Judith Adriaensdochter van Leeuwen in Leiden, the Netherlands, in 1631.
His three known legitimate children were named Magdalena, born 1632; Willem, known as the Younger, also a marine painter, born 1633; and Adriaen, a landscape painter, born 1636.
His marriage was stormy, at least in its later years. David Cordingly relates that Willem the Elder fathered two children out of wedlock in 1653, one eby his maidservant, and the other by her friend. Nine years later the Elder and his wife went through a legal separation, eon account of legal disputes and the most violent quarrelse. The immediate cause of the dispute was his affair with a married woman.e Michael S. Robinson noted that eon 17/27 July 1662, he and his wife agreed to part. A condition of the separation was that the Elder could recover from his son Adriaen etwo royal giftse, presumably gifts from Charles II for work done in England.e Cordinglyes account further relates that the dispute was still continuing after another ten years, since ein the autumn of 1672 Judith complained to the womanes husband.e Robinson adds that by 1674 the couple emust have been reconcilede, for at a chance meeting with Pieter Blaeu in Amsterdam in July the Elder explained that he was only visiting for a few days ein order to fetch his wifee. His son, Adriaen, had died in Amsterdam in 1672, and Willem the Elder was also fetching his grandson, similarly named Adriaen, who was then aged two.
After his move to England, the exact date of which is uncertain, but reportedly at the end of 1672 or beginning of 1673, he is said to have lived with his family in East Lane, Greenwich, and to have used the Queenes House, now part of the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, as a studio. Following the accession of William and Mary as King and Queen of England, it appears that this facility was no longer provided, and by 1691 he was living in Sackville Street, now close to Piccadilly Circus. He died in London, and was buried in St Jameses Church, at the south end of the street.
MEMLING, HansNetherlandish Northern Renaissance Painter, ca.1435-1494
South Netherlandish painter of German origin. Together with Dieric Bouts I and Hugo van der Goes, he was one of the most important exponents of the new artistic developments that flourished in the southern Netherlands in the 15th century in the wake of Jan van Eyck, the Master of Fl?malle and Rogier van der Weyden. Their principal innovation was to apply optic realism to devotional or mystical subjects. Although Memling lived in the turbulent period of transition from the Burgundian ruling house to that of the Habsburgs, little of this is evident in his work. His commissions were almost exclusively from rich burghers in Bruges (bankers, merchants and politicians) or churchmen and the occasional aristocrat. Often they were foreigners, especially Italians, who had political or financial connections with the town, whose central economic position was to last only a few decades longer. They had Memling paint their portraits, bust or full length, in devotional paintings or on altarpieces for their chapel in Bruges or back home. He seems not to have received official commissions (from the town council or court). An exceptional proportion of this oeuvre has survived. Besides about 20 altarpieces, often in several panels and of considerable size,