Greek-born Spanish Mannerist Painter, 1541-1614 Considered a representative of late Renaissance Spanish art, El Greco was actually born in Greece, on the island of Crete. After studying in Venice under Titian, El Greco settled in Toledo, Spain in 1577. At the time he was wildly popular, his emotionally religious paintings being just the ticket for the hometown of the Spanish Inquisition. After his death his work was largely ignored until the beginning of the 20th century; now he considered one of the inspired geniuses of Western art. His distinctive style features bold shapes and colors, with elongated and slightly distorted figures. In Toledo El Greco was in constant demand and liked living large: he maintained a private orchestra to accompany his meals.  Related Paintings of El Greco :. | The Purification of the Temple | THe Adoration of the Name of Jesus | st. martin and the beggar | Purification of the Temple | cleansing of the temple |
Related Artists:
Ernest Hebert
1817-1908 French Ernest Hebert Gallery He was born in Grenoble and died in La Tronche. His painting Mal aria was exhibited in the Salon of 1850-1851, and now hangs in the Musee d Orsay, Paris. Painted in a Romantic style, it depicts a family of Italian peasants escaping an epidemic by raft, a scene inspired by events Hebert had witnessed while in Italy. His student Paul Trouillebert was an important artist of the Barbizon School. The artist house is preserved in the Musee Hebert in the VIe arrondissement of Paris. There is another museum near Grenoble.
Stefano Torelli
Bologna 1712-St Petersburg 1784 was an Italian painter. He was born in Bologna. He studied first under his father, Felice Torelli, and then under Francesco Solimena. The future King of Poland, Augustus III, brought him to Dresden in 1740, where he painted altar-pieces and ceiling decorations, many destroyed in the Seven Years' War. He painted figures in Canaletto's twenty-nine views of Dresden (1741). In 1762 he was summoned to the Russian court where he painted ceilings in the Royal Palace, and some portraits, among the latter one of the Empress Elizabeth in armor. He was a clever caricaturist, and etched a few plates. He died in St. Petersburg.
Laurent de la Hyre
1606-1656 French Laurent de la Hyre Galleries He became a pupil of Georges Lallemand and studied the works of Primaticcio at Fontainebleau, but never visited Italy. La Hyre is associated with the transitional period before the introduction of the French Baroque by Simon Vouet. His picture of Pope Nicholas V opening the crypt in which he discovers the corpse of St. Francis of Assisi standing (located at the Louvre) was executed in 1630 for the Capuchin friars of the Marais; its gravity and sobriety seems to have been influential for the next generation of French painters, particularly Eustache Le Sueur. The Louvre contains eight other works, and paintings by La Hyre are in the museums of Strasburg, Rouen and Le Mans. Laurent de La Hyre: Perspective (drawing).His drawings, of which the British Museum possesses a fine example, Presentation of the Virgin in the Temple, are treated as seriously as his paintings, and sometimes show simplicity and dignity of effect. The example of the Capuchins, for whom he executed several other works in Paris, Rouen and Fecamp, was followed by the goldsmith's company, for whom he produced in 1635 St. Peter healing the Sick (Louvre) and the Conversion of St Paul in 1637. In 1646, with eleven other artists, he founded the French Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture. Richelieu called La Hyre to the Palais Royal; Pierre S??guier, Gedeon Tallemant des R??aux and many others entrusted him with important works of decoration; for the Gobelins he designed a series of large compositions. La Hyre painted also a great number of portraits, and in 1654 united in one work for the town-hall of Paris those of the principal dignitaries of the municipality.