Italian High Renaissance Painter, 1483-1520 Italian painter and architect. As a member of Perugino's workshop, he established his mastery by 17 and began receiving important commissions. In 1504 he moved to Florence, where he executed many of his famous Madonnas; his unity of composition and suppression of inessentials is evident in The Madonna of the Goldfinch (c. 1506). Though influenced by Leonardo da Vinci's chiaroscuro and sfumato, his figure types were his own creation, with round, gentle faces that reveal human sentiments raised to a sublime serenity. In 1508 he was summoned to Rome to decorate a suite of papal chambers in the Vatican. The frescoes in the Stanza della Segnatura are probably his greatest work; the most famous, The School of Athens (1510 C 11), is a complex and magnificently ordered allegory of secular knowledge showing Greek philosophers in an architectural setting. The Madonnas he painted in Rome show him turning away from his earlier work's serenity to emphasize movement and grandeur, partly under Michelangelo's High Renaissance influence. The Sistine Madonna (1513) shows the richness of colour and new boldness of compositional invention typical of his Roman period. He became the most important portraitist in Rome, designed 10 large tapestries to hang in the Sistine Chapel, designed a church and a chapel, assumed the direction of work on St. Peter's Basilica at the death of Donato Bramante,   Related Paintings of RAFFAELLO Sanzio :. | Madonna Terranuova, Szene: Maria mit Christuskind und zwei Heiligen, Tondo | The Battle of Ostia | Study of Mary | Bishop | Shesibasi |
Related Artists:
Perino Del Vaga
Italian Mannerist Painter, ca.1501-1547 Italian painter and draughtsman. He trained in Florence, first with Andrea de' Ceri and from the age of 11 with Ridolfo Ghirlandaio. According to Vasari, he practised drawing by copying Michelangelo's cartoon for the Battle of Cascina (destr.). For Pope Leo X's entry into Florence in November 1515 he painted an allegorical figure on one of the twelve triumphal arches. Soon after, an obscure Florentine painter called Vaga took Perino to Rome, where he became known as del Vaga. There he continued his drawing studies, copying from works of antiquity and Michelangelo's ceiling in the Sistine Chapel. On the recommendation of Giulio Romano and Giovanni Francesco Penni, he joined Raphael's workshop, where he learnt stuccowork and how to design grotesques, through assisting Giovanni da Udine in the Vatican Logge. Soon he was painting scenes from Raphael's designs, and five or six ceiling frescoes in the Logge, including the Story of Joshua and the Story of David, are generally accepted as his.
Alexandre Gabriel Decamps
French Romantic Painter, 1803-1860. Studied under Abel de Pujol. Specializes in Orientalism. Studied under Abel de Pujol. Specializes in Orientalism. French genre and historical painter, engraver, and lithographer. First known for his caricatures and illustrations, he turned to painting in thick impasto and strong color. One of his richest sources was the Middle East, which he depicted in vivid detail.
Albert Bierstadt
German-born American Hudson River School Painter, 1830-1902 Bierstadt was born in Solingen, Germany. His family moved to New Bedford, Massachusetts, in 1833. He studied painting with the members of the D??sseldorf School in D??sseldorf, Germany from 1853 to 1857. He taught drawing and painting briefly before devoting himself to painting. Bierstadt began making paintings in New England and upstate New York. In 1859, he traveled westward in the company of a Land Surveyor for the U.S. government, returning with sketches that would result in numerous finished paintings. In 1863 he returned west again, in the company of the author Fitz Hugh Ludlow, whose wife he would later marry. He continued to visit the American West throughout his career. Though his paintings sold for princely sums, Bierstadt was not held in particularly high esteem by critics of his day. His use of uncommonly large canvases was thought to be an egotistical indulgence, as his paintings would invariably dwarf those of his contemporaries when they were displayed together. The romanticism evident in his choices of subject and in his use of light was felt to be excessive by contemporary critics. His paintings emphasized atmospheric elements like fog, clouds and mist to accentuate and complement the feel of his work. Bierstadt sometimes changed details of the landscape to inspire awe. The colors he used are also not always true. He painted what he believed is the way things should be: water is ultramarine, vegetation is lush and green, etc. The shift from foreground to background was very dramatic and there was almost no middle distance Nonetheless, his paintings remain popular. He was a prolific artist, having completed over 500 (possibly as many as 4000) paintings during his lifetime, most of which have survived. Many are scattered through museums around the United States. Prints are available commercially for many. Original paintings themselves do occasionally come up for sale, at ever increasing prices.