German
1480-1538
Albrecht Altdorfer Galleries
He most often painted religious scenes, but is mainly famous as the first frequent painter of pure landscape, and also compositions dominated by their landscape. Taking and developing the landscape style of Lucas Cranach the Elder, he shows the hilly landscape of the Danube valley with thick forests of drooping and crumbling firs and larches hung with moss, and often dramatic colouring from a rising or setting sun. His Landscape with footbridge (National Gallery, London) of 1518-20 is claimed to be the first pure landscape in oil. He also made many fine finished drawings, mostly landscapes, in pen and watercolour. His best religious scenes are intense, sometimes verging on the expressionistic, and often depict moments of intimacy between Christ and his mother, or others. His most famous religious artwork is the The Legend of St. Sebastian and the Passion of Christ that decorated the altar in the St. Florian monastery in Linz, Austria. He often distorts perspective to subtle effect. His donor figures are often painted completely out of scale with the main scene, as in paintings of the previous centuries. He also painted some portraits; overall his painted oeuvre was not large. Related Paintings of Albrecht Altdorfer :. | Portrait of a Lady | Details of The Battle of Issus | The Agony in the Garden | Alexanderschlacht, Detail | Sebastiansaltar des Augustiner-Chorherrenstifts | Related Artists:
Mura, Francesco deItalian, 1696-1782
Italian painter. He was educated initially in the workshop of Domenico Viola at Naples, but in 1708 he entered the school of Francesco Solimena, whose favourite pupil and most trusted collaborator he became. At first he followed closely Solimena's monumental Baroque manner, as in the frescoes (1715) in S Nicola alla Carit? in Naples, but later developed a more controlled and refined style of rhythmical lines, light and airy colours and delicate psychological overtones. He employed this new style in his ten canvases of the Virtues and his vast Adoration of the Magi (all 1728; Naples, S Maria Donnaromita) and, above all, in his frescoes of the Adoration of the Magi in the apsidal dome of the church of the Nunziatella, Naples (1732; in situ). De Mura was also active as a portrait painter; his Portrait of the Artist's Wife
Pieter de Grebber1600-1653
Dutch
Pieter de Grebber Gallery
Grebber was the son of Frans Pietersz de Grebber (1573?C1643), a painter and embroiderer in Haarlem, and would have been taught painting by his father and by Hendrick Goltzius. He was descended from a Catholic and artistic family (2 of his brothers, and his sister Maria, the mother-in-law of Gabriel Metsu, were known as painters). He was friendly with the priest and musicologist Jan Albertszoon Ban, and had a poem set to music by the Haarlem composer Cornelis Padbru??.
In 1618, father and son went to Antwerp and negotiated with Peter Paul Rubens over the sale of his painting "Daniel in the lions pit". It was then handed - via the English ambassador in the Republic, Sir Dudley Carleton - to king Charles I. Pieter got important commissions not only in Haarlem, but also from the stadholder Frederik Hendrik. As such, he worked with on the decoration of the Huis Honselaarsdijk in Naaldwijk and at the Paleis Noordeinde in Huis ten Bosch in the Hague. He painted altar pieces for churches in Flanders and hidden Catholic churches in the Republic. He may also have worked for Danish clients.
Jean-Jacques Henner1829-1905
French
Jean Jacques Henner Galleries
French painter. He was born into a peasant family in the Sundgau and received his first artistic training at Altkirch with Charles Goutzwiller (1810-1900) and later in Strasbourg in the studio of Gabriel-Christophe Gu?rin (1790-1846). In 1846 he enrolled at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris as a pupil of Michel-Martin Drolling and, from 1851, of Francois-Edouard Picot. While a student he was particularly drawn to portraiture, and during his frequent visits to Alsace he made portraits of his family as well as of the notables of the region. He also painted scenes of Alsatian peasant life.