British 1723-1792 Sir Joshua Reynolds Locations Reynolds was born in Plympton, Devon, on 16 July 1723. As one of eleven children, and the son of the village school-master, Reynolds was restricted to a formal education provided by his father. He exhibited a natural curiosity and, as a boy, came under the influence of Zachariah Mudge, whose Platonistic philosophy stayed with him all his life. Showing an early interest in art, Reynolds was apprenticed in 1740 to the fashionable portrait painter Thomas Hudson, with whom he remained until 1743. From 1749 to 1752, he spent over two years in Italy, where he studied the Old Masters and acquired a taste for the "Grand Style". Unfortunately, whilst in Rome, Reynolds suffered a severe cold which left him partially deaf and, as a result, he began to carry a small ear trumpet with which he is often pictured. From 1753 until the end of his life he lived in London, his talents gaining recognition soon after his arrival in France. Reynolds worked long hours in his studio, rarely taking a holiday. He was both gregarious and keenly intellectual, with a great number of friends from London's intelligentsia, numbered amongst whom were Dr Samuel Johnson, Oliver Goldsmith, Edmund Burke, Giuseppe Baretti, Henry Thrale, David Garrick and fellow artist Angelica Kauffmann. Because of his popularity as a portrait painter, Reynolds enjoyed constant interaction with the wealthy and famous men and women of the day, and it was he who first brought together the famous figures of "The" Club. With his rival Thomas Gainsborough, Reynolds was the dominant English portraitist of 'the Age of Johnson'. It is said that in his long life he painted as many as three thousand portraits. In 1789 he lost the sight of his left eye, which finally forced him into retirement. In 1791 James Boswell dedicated his Life of Samuel Johnson to Reynolds. Reynolds died on 23 February 1792 in his house in Leicester Fields, London. He is buried in St. Paul's Cathedral.  Related Paintings of Sir Joshua Reynolds :. | Portrait of James Maitland | george clive with his family and an indian maidservant | Portrait of Mrs. Thrale and her daughter Hester | Portrait of Lord John Townshend | Commodore the Honourable Augustus Keppel |
Related Artists:
Geertgen Tot Sint Jans
Netherlandish Northern Renaissance Painter, ca.1460-1490 Geertgen tot Sint Jans is also known as Geertgen van Haarlem, Gerrit van Haarlem, or Gerrit Gerritsz.[citation needed] Alternative spellings of his first name are Gheertgen, Geerrit, and Gheerrit, where G(h)eertgen is the diminutive form of G(h)eerrit. Presumably, he was born in Leiden, then in the Burgundian Netherlands in the Holy Roman Empire, around the year 1465. The assignment of Leiden as his birth place is traceable to a 17th century print by Jacob van Matham. There is no known archival evidence for this claim by Jacob van Matham. The modern acceptance of Leiden as Geertgen's birth place is roughly traceable to Johann Kessler's dissertation of 1930. Probably, Geertgen was a pupil of Albert van Ouwater, who was one of the first oil painters in the northern Low Countries. Both painters lived in the city of Haarlem. Geertgen was attached to the monastery of the Knights of Saint John, for whom he painted an altarpiece. Although Geertgen was not a member of the Order of Saint John, his last name "tot Sint Jans" was derived from the order's name and means "unto Saint John". Geertgen died in Haarlem, then the Habsburg Netherlands in the Holy Roman Empire, around the year 1495, when he was approximately 28 years old. He was buried in the monastery of the Knights of Saint John. Modern scholars have attempted to calculate the artist's death date with the information from The Painting-Book (Middle Dutch: Het Schilder-Boeck) by Karel van Mander, published in 1604. There are some archival traces that suggest he may in fact have lived into the 16th century.
MASOLINO da Panicale
Italian Early Renaissance Painter, ca.1383-1447 Florentine painter of the early Renaissance, whose real name was Tommaso di Cristoforo Fini. His versatile painting incorporated his feeling for decorative color with strong modeling and spatial organization. He was admitted (1423) to the apothecaries' guild in Florence, in which painters were enrolled, and was soon commissioned to paint the frescoes in the Brancacci Chapel in Florence. These were continued by his pupil Masaccio upon Masolino's departure (1427) for Hungary and were completed by Filippino Lippi, thus greatly complicating the question of authorship; currently scholars attribute to Masolino St. Peter Preaching, St. Peter Healing the Cripple, The Raising of Tabitha, and The Fall of Adam and Eve. Upon his return to Florence, Masolino found painters occupied with problems of perspective, light and shade, and classical architecture and decoration, ideas that he utilized while retaining much of the old Giottesque tradition. He went to Rome where he painted frescoes in the Church of San Clemente for the Cardinal Branda Castiglione. For the same patron he decorated the church of Castiglione di Olona in the province of Como, Italy. There he represented scenes from the life of the Virgin and of St. John the Baptist. Attributed to Masolino are The Foundation of Santa Maria Maggiore and a Madonna and Christ in Glory (Naples);
Joseph-Benoit Suvee
(3 January 1743 - 9 February 1807) was a Flemish painter strongly influenced by French neo-classicism. He was born in Bruges. Initially a pupil of Matthias de Visch, he came to France aged 19 and became a pupil of Jean-Jacques Bachelier. In 1771, he won the Prix de Rome. In Rome from 1772 to 1778, he prolonged the usual duration allowed to pensionaries of the French Academy in Rome. He was named an academician on his return to Paris and he opened an art school for young women at the Louvre. He emulated and competed with Jacques-Louis David, earning his enduring hatred. Named the French Academy in Rome's director in 1792, replacing François-Guillaume Menageot, he was imprisoned for a while in the Prison Saint-Lazare and only able to take up the post in 1801. After a brilliant career, and a six years' stay in Rome as the Academy's Director, he died there suddenly. His works include Achilles depositing the body of Hector at the feet of the body of Patroclus, (1769, Louvre), and Cornelia, mother of the Gracchi, (1795, Louvre).