Italian Rococo Era Painter, 1697-1768
Italian painter, etcher and draughtsman. He was the most distinguished Italian view painter of the 18th century. Apart from ten years spent in England he lived in Venice, and his fame rests above all on his views (vedute) of that city; some of these are purely topographical, others include festivals or ceremonial events. He also painted imaginary views (capriccios), although the demarcation between the real and the invented is never quite clearcut: his imaginary views often include realistically depicted elements, though in unexpected surroundings, and in a sense even his Venetian vedute are imaginary. He never merely re-created reality. He was highly successful with the English, helped in this by the British connoisseur JOSEPH SMITH, whose own large collection of Canaletto works was sold to King George III in 1762. The British Royal Collection has the largest group of his paintings and drawings. Related Paintings of Canaletto :. | The Thames and the City fcf | Interior of San Marco (mk25) | The Horses of San Marco in the Piazzetta | The Arsenal: the Water Entrance g | La Punta della Dogana (Custom Point) dfg | Related Artists:
Leonaert Bramer (24 December 1596 - 10 February 1674 (buried)) was a Dutch painter, best known for probably being one of the teachers of Johannes Vermeer, although there is no similarity between their work. Bramer's dark and exotic style is unlike Vermeer's style. Bramer was primarily a genre and history painter, but also made some unique frescos, not very often found north of the Alps. Leonaert Bramer is one of the most intriguing personalities in seventeenth-century Dutch art. He was a talented and diligent draughtsman, evidently Roman Catholic and a lifelong bachelor.
Bramer was born in Delft. In 1614, at the age of 18, he left on a long trip eventually reaching Rome in 1616, via Atrecht, Amiens, Paris, Aix (February 1616), Marseille, Genoa, and Livorno. In Rome he was one of the founders of the Bentvueghels group of Northern artists. He lived with Wouter Crabeth and got into a fight with Claude Lorraine. He dedicated a poem to Wybrand de Geest. Bramer remained on and off in Rome until October 1627, visiting Mantua and Venice, often for deliveries and to meet Domenico Fetti. In Italy Bramer was nicknamed Leonardo della Notte ("Leonardo of the night"). In 1648 he went to Rome for a second time.
By 1628 he was back in Delft, where he joined the Guild of Saint Luke in 1629 and the schutterij. Among his many patrons were members of the House of Orange, but local burgomasters and schepen also bought his paintings in great numbers.[3] He was a many sided artist, designing for tapestry firms in Delft, painting murals and ceilings, some of which are illusionistic in style. He painted real frescos in the Civic Guard house, the nearby stadholder's palaces in Honselersdijk, Rijswijk, the Communal Land Housde and the Prinsenhof in Delft.[3] Due to the Dutch climate they no longer survive.
He evidently knew the greatest of his Delft contemporaries, Johannes Vermeer, as he came to the latter's defence when his future mother-in-law was trying to prevent him from marrying her daughter.
Thomas HeaphyEnglish Painter, 1775-1835
He trained at John Boyne's drawing school in Gloucester Street, Bloomsbury, London, and exhibited portraits at the Royal Academy from 1797. Following the success of a portrait of the Russian ambassador, Count Woronzow, he was appointed portrait painter to the Princess of Wales. Thomas Lawrence observed Heaphy's success and bought some of his pictures but had little cause to envy Heaphy's style, which owed much to the vocabulary of civic portraiture popularized by Joshua Reynolds (e.g. Portrait of a Naval Officer; London, V&A). Heaphy's largest project, The Duke of Wellington in Consultation with his Officers Previous to a General Engagement (Newcastle upon Tyne, Laing A.G.), was begun in Spain in 1813 during the Peninsular War and was finished in 1816. The engraving, which was intended to ensure Heaphy's fortune, was not released until 1822, by which time interest in the war had waned. Heaphy failed to finish his Battle of Waterloo (1816; untraced), another panoramic multiple portrait. Heaphy's other speciality, paintings of ports, markets, tradespeople and labourers, brought him great popularity between 1807 and 1811.
William WestallEnglish painter and engraver
1781-1850
was an English artist who travelled aboard HMS Investigator on her voyage to Australia. Westall was born in Hertford, England. Westall, like the other botanical artist on HMS Investigator Ferdinand Bauer, was born into an artistic family. His older half brother Richard, was a member of the Royal Academy, and assisted him in securing a place for his younger half brother at the Royal Academy in 1799. During his studies at the Royal Academy Westall's work came to the attention of Joseph Banks, who was at the time keen to find a landscape artist for Matthew Flinders' expedition aboard HMS Investigator. With the support of Banks, Westall was appointed by the Admiralty in London as landscape and topographical artist on HMS Investigator. In 1801, at the age of 19, Westall found himself aboard HMS Investigator. The subsequent voyage of discovery to Terra Australise, has in time come to be regarded as one of the notable scientific and botanical studies ever undertaken. William Westall, King George's Sound in Albany, Western AustraliaWestall began sketching the Australian coast, south of Cape Leeuwin and later on Monday 7 December 1801, King George's Sound, Western Australia, thereby becoming one of the first professional artists to draw the Australian landscape painting. Many of the sketches that Westall created were coastal profiles, to assist with the important task of mapping Australian coastline. The subsequent circumnavigation of Australia took Westall from Cape Leeuwin in Western Australia, across the Great Australian Bight to the South Australian gulf country, to Kangaroo Island, and thence to Port Jackson and the Gulf of Carpentaria. Particularly notable amongst the works created by Westall during the voyage are his accurate portraits of Aboriginal people and the watercolours of their cave paintings, the first European artist to depict the cave paintings.