1420-1475 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.  Related Paintings of Dieric Bouts :. | The Ordeal by Fire | The way to Paradise | Installation of the hl. Communion | The Feast of the Passover | Head of Christ |
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Spencer Stanhope
British 1829-1908 Stanhope was the son of John Spencer Stanhope of Horsforth and Cannon Hall, MP, a classical antiquarian who in his youth explored Greece. The artist??s mother was Elizabeth Wilhemina Coke, third and youngest daughter of Thomas William Coke of Norfolk, first Earl of Leicester; she and her sisters had studied art with Thomas Gainsborough. Stanhope had one older brother, Walter, who inherited Cannon Hall, and four sisters, Anna Maria Wilhelmina, Eliza Anne, Anne Alicia, and Louisa Elizabeth. Anna married Percival Pickering and became the mother of Evelyn. Not inheriting the family estates left Stanhope free to make a commitment to art. While a student at Oxford, he sought out Watts as a teacher and was Watts?? assistant for some of his architectural paintings. Spencer-Stanhope traveled with Watts to Italy in 1853 and to Asia Minor in 1856?C57. Upon his return, he was invited by Dante Gabriel Rossetti to participate in the Oxford murals project, painting Sir Gawaine and the Damsels. On January 10, 1859, he married Elizabeth King, the daughter of John James King, granddaughter of the third Earl of Egremont, and the widow of George Frederick Dawson. They settled in Hillhouse, Cawthorne, and had one daughter, Mary, in 1860. That same year, Spencer-Stanhope??s house Sandroyd (now called Benfleet Hall), near Cobham in Surrey, was commissioned from the architect Philip Webb. Finished by 1861, Sandroyd was only Webb??s second house, the first having been built for William Morris. The house was designed to accommodate Stanhope??s work as a painter, with two second-floor studios connected by double doors, a waiting room, and a dressing room for models. The fireplace featured figurative tiles designed by Burne-Jones based on Chaucer??s dream-vision poem The Legend of Good Women. For a person of Stanhope??s social standing, the house was considered ??a modest artist??s dwelling.?? Burne-Jones was a frequent visitor to Sandroyd in the 1860s, and the landscape furnished the background for his painting The Merciful Knight (1964), the design of which Stanhope??s I Have Trod the Winepress Alone is said to resemble. The move was intended to offer an improved environment for Stanhope??s chronic asthma. When his condition was not alleviated, he turned to wintering in Florence. In the summers, he at first stayed at Burne-Jones??s house in London and later at the Elms, the western half of Little Campden House on Campden Hill, the eastern half of which was occupied by Augustus Egg. In 1867, at the age of seven, Mary died of scarlet fever and was buried in at the English Cemetery in Florence. Her father designed her headstone. Though his family accepted his occupation as a painter and took a great interest in art, Evelyn??s parents disparaged the achievements of ??poor Roddy?? and regarded the painters with whom he associated as ??unconventional.?? Considered among the avant-garde of the 1870s, Stanhope became a regular exhibitor at the Grosvenor Gallery, the alternative to the Royal Academy. Stanhope moved permanently to Florence in 1880. There he painted the reredos of the English Church, and other work in the Chapel of Marlborough College. In 1873, he bought the Villa Nuti in Florence, where he was visited frequently by de Morgan and where he lived until his death. De Morgan??s sister, A.M.W. Stirling, wrote a collection of biographical essays called A Painter of Dreams, including reminiscences of her uncle, ??the Idealist, the seer of exquisite visions.?? During the 19th and early 20th century, the extended Spencer-Stanhope family included several artists, whose ties were the theme of a 2007 exhibition, Painters of Dreams, part of the 50th anniversary celebration of the opening of Cannon Hall to the public as a museum. Featured were paintings by Stanhope and de Morgan, along with ceramics by her husband, William de Morgan; bronzes by Gertrude Spencer-Stanhope; and the ballroom at Cannon Hall and ??Fairyland?? in the pleasure grounds, which were designed by Sir Walter and his daughter Cecily.
jan massys
1509-1575
Jakob Mertens
Jakob Merten (August 11, 1809 - February 22, 1872) was a German Catholic theologian who was born in Wittlich. He studied theology in Trier, where in 1833 he received his ordination. Subsequently he became a chaplain in Trier, where he worked closely with Franz Peter Knoodt (1811-1889). From 1843 to 1868 he was a professor of philosophy at the Episcopal Seminary in Trier. Initially a prominent follower of Anton Genther's philosophy, Merten eventually abandoned Gentherianism as his career progressed. He was author of an essay on Gentherian philosophy titled Hauptfragen der Metaphysik in Verbindung mit der Speculation (Primary Questions of Metaphysics in Association with Speculation) (1840). Other noted works by Merten include: Grundriss der Metaphysik, (Outline of Metaphysics); 1848 Der selige Frings und sein Freund als Antigentherianer; 1852 Bemerkungen zur Metaphysik von Balmes, (Remarks on the Metaphysics of Balmes); 1859