1849-1914
Related Paintings of Sir Hubert von Herkomer,RA,RWS :. | The Last Muster | On Strike | Cecil Gordon Lawson | The Last Muster | The Naughty Boy (mk46) | Related Artists:
Lucas Cranach1472-1553
German
Lucas Cranach Locations
Lucas Cranach the Elder was born at Kronach, Franconia. He was apparently trained by his father, Hans, a painter, and from 1495 to 1498 undertook work at Kronach for Coburg and Gotha. There is evidence that Cranach resided in Vienna between about 1500 and 1504. In 1504 he married Barbara Brengbier of Gotha; they had three daughters and two sons, Hans (died 1537) and Lucas the Younger (1515-1586), both of whom were painters.
In 1505 Cranach established residence at Wittenberg, where he was court painter to three successive electors: Frederick the Wise, John the Constant, and John Frederick the Magnanimous. Cranach was a prosperous and respected citizen. He owned several houses and land, held the office of councilor, and was a burgomaster. He also worked for other princely patrons and was a follower and lifelong friend of Martin Luther.
In 1550 Cranach followed John Frederick the Magnanimous to Augsburg, where the elector was in exile, and in 1552 accompanied him to Weimar. Cranach died in Weimar on Oct. 16, 1553.
Dieric Bouts1420-1475 Flemish Dieric Bouts Locations
Dirk Bouts whose real name was Theodorik Romboutszoon, was probably born in Haarlem, where he may have studied under the painter Albert van Ouwater. Sometime before 1450 Bouts took up residence in the Flemish city of Louvain. His name appeared in the records of Louvain in 1457 and again in 1468, when he was appointed "city painter."
It is likely that Bouts spent some time in Bruges, as his earliest work, the Infancy Altarpiece shows the distinct and strong influence of Petrus Christus, the leading master of that city after the death of Jan van Eyck. The slightly later Deposition Altarpiece (ca. 1450) displays strong connections with the style of Rogier van der Weyden in both the figure types and the composition. About 1460, the period of the Entombment in London, the early, formative influence of Petrus Christus had been almost totally displaced by that of Rogier, though Bouts personal vision began to emerge in the fluid and continuous landscape background.
The great Last Supper Altarpiece (1464-1467) marks the high point of Bouts career. In this solemn and dignified masterpiece the painter achieved spiritual grandeur in the context of convincing physical reality. The central panel of the altarpiece is the most emphatically significant treatment of the theme of the Last Supper in Northern European art. The wings, which contain Old Testament prefigurations of the central theme, are freer and more loosely organized. Eschewing the symmetry and rigid axial construction of the main panel, Bouts produced rhythmic foreground compositions in combination with fluid and dramatic spatial recessions.
In 1468 Bouts was commissioned to paint four panels on the subject of justice for the Town Hall of Louvain. At the painter death in 1475 only two of the paintings had been completed; they are among the most remarkable productions of his career. The unusual subjects, taken from the chronicles of a 12th-century historian, concern the wrongful execution by Emperor Otto III of one of his counts and the subsequent vindication of the nobleman by his wife. The finer of the panels represents the dramatic trial by fire which the wife was obliged to undergo to prove her husband innocence. Rich draperies and sumptuous colors are applied to tall angular forms to create a work of rare formal elegance and high decorative appeal. In order to dignify the event, however, the artist has employed restrained gestures and expressions as well as a completely rationalized spatial setting. As in the Last Supper Altarpiece, a sense of solemn and hieratic importance is expressed by means of an austere and rigid geometry in the construction of both persons and places.
The late productions of Bouts workshop, such as the well-known Pearl of Brabant Altarpiece, are characterized by the close collaboration of the painter two sons, Dirk the Younger (1448-1491) and Aelbrecht (1455/1460-1549). In the paintings of his less gifted sons, the master distinctive figure style was appreciably altered, though Dirk the Younger appears to have retained much of his father sensitivity to the landscape.
In addition to his innovations in the depiction of landscape, Bouts made a substantial contribution to the development of the portrait. His Portrait of a Man (1462) localizes the sitter in an enlarged architectural setting while permitting the interior space to merge with the exterior through an open window. For the first time in Northern painting a common bond was forged between a particularized individual and the universal world of nature.
Heinrich von Angeli1840 - 1925
Austrian painter. In 1853 he moved to Vienna to live with his uncle, who was a collector and a friend of the painters Friedrich von Amerling and Mathias Ranftl (1805-54). Angeli's early Self-portrait reflects the precocious maturity of his style, and in 1854 he enrolled at the Akademie der Bildenden K?nste in Vienna. In 1856, on the advice of Amerling, he went to study under Emanuel Gottlieb Leutze in D?sseldorf, where he executed one of his most significant history paintings, Mary Stuart Reading her Death Warrant (1857). In 1859 he moved to Munich, where he worked independently and was encouraged by Karl Theodor von Piloty, producing the history paintings Ludwig XI and Franz de Paula (1859) and Antony and Cleopatra for Ludwig I of Bavaria. In 1862 he again settled in Vienna, where he enjoyed increasing success. The life-size portrait of Baronin Seidler and the genre painting Avengers of Honour (1869), both exhibited at the Weltausstellung in Vienna in 1873, secured his reputation. After brief stays in Paris and Berlin (c. 1866), he went in 1871 to Italy, where he painted numerous portraits and the genre work Absolution Denied. His final genre paintings, Youthful Love (sold London, Sotheby's, 3 Oct 1980) and Calabrian Shepherd Couple, also date from this year. Henceforth he devoted himself entirely to portrait painting, receiving important commissions from such aristocratic circles as the Kinsky and Auersperg families (e.g. Graf Anton Alexander Auersperg, 1876; Vienna, Pr?sidium des Nationalrates). Whereas his early portraits were influenced by Amerling, Anton Einsle and 17th-century Dutch art, from the 1870s he developed his own elegant and restrained style. This helped him to obtain commissions at the courts of Vienna, St Petersburg and London