Spanish Baroque Era Painter, 1599-1660 Spanish painter. He was one of the most important European artists of the 17th century, spending his career from 1623 in the service of Philip IV of Spain. His early canvases comprised bodegones and religious paintings, but as a court artist he was largely occupied in executing portraits, while also producing some historical, mythological and further religious works. His painting was deeply affected by the work of Rubens and by Venetian artists, especially Titian, as well as by the experience of two trips (1629-31 and 1649-51) to Italy. Under these joint influences he developed a uniquely personal style characterized by very loose, expressive brushwork. Although he had no immediate followers, he was greatly admired by such later painters as Goya and Manet  Related Paintings of Diego Velazquez :. | Cadiz Defended against the English (df01) | Adoration of the Magi (detail) (df01) | Salvator rosa | Infanta | Study for the Head of Apollo in The Forge of Vulcan (df01) |
Related Artists:
Antonio Firmino Monteiro
painted Matches in 1884
Jan Davidz de Heem
1606-1684 Dutch Jan Davidz de Heem Galleries
Gioacchino Toma
Italian , Galatina 1836 - Napoli 1891 Italian painter. He was orphaned at the age of six and spent an unhappy childhood and adolescence in convents and poorhouses; these experiences would later provide subjects for his paintings. He was first taught drawing at the art school in the hospice for the poor in the Adriatic town of Giovinazzo, but in 1855 he moved to Naples, where he worked for an ornamental painter named Alessandro Fergola. In 1857 he was mistakenly arrested for conspiracy and exiled to Piedimonte d'Alife, 60 km from Naples, where he was initiated into the secret society of the Carbonari by some local liberal aristocrats who also became his first patrons. His paintings for them were mainly still-lifes, largely in the traditional Neapolitan style. On his return to Naples in 1858 he became a student at the Accademia di Belle Arti, attending the classes of Domenico Morelli, who influenced such early works as Erminia (1859; Naples, Pal. Reale). Toma fought for two years with Garibaldi in the campaign for the unification of Italy, then returned to painting,