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 :. | Allegory of the Camaldoless Order | Portrat des Fray Hortensio Felix Paravicino | Ansicht von Toledo | Mary Magdalen in Penitence | St John the Baptist |
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Aniello Falcone
(1600-1665) was an Italian Baroque painter, active in Naples and noted for his painted depictions of battle scenes. Born in Naples the son of a tradesman, he showed his artistic tendency at an early age. He first received some instruction from a relative, and then became one of the most prominent pupils apprenticed under Jose de Ribera. Salvatore Rosa, in turn, is said to have apprenticed under Aniello. The Anchorite, ca. 1650 Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Aniello Falcone Besides battle pictures, large and small, taken from biblical as well as secular history, he painted various religious subjects, which, however, count for little in his general reputation. He became, as a battle painter, almost as celebrated as Giacomo Borgognone, and was named L' Oracolo delle Battaglie. His works have animation, variety, truth to nature, and careful color. Falcone was bold, generous, accustomed to arms, and an excellent fencer. In the insurrection of 1647, led by Masaniello, he resolved to be bloodily avenged for the death, at the hands of two Spaniards, of a nephew and of a pupil in the school of art which he had established in Naples. Salvator Rosa, Carlo Coppola, among others, and he formed an armed band named the Compagnia della Morte, or Company of Death. (See Salvator Rosa.) They battled in the streets by day; at night they were painters again, and handled the brush with impetuous zeal. Rule restored, they decamped. Falcone and Rosa made off to Rome; here Borgognone noticed the works of Falcone, and became his friend, and a French gentleman induced him to go to France, where Louis XIV became one of his patrons. Ultimately Jean-Baptiste Colbert obtained permission for the painter to return to Naples, and there he died in 1665.
Carl Spitzweg
German Painter, 1808-1885 German painter. He trained (1825-8), at his father's insistence, as a pharmacist, by 1829 becoming manager of a pharmacy in the Straubing district of Munich. From 1830 to 1832 he made advanced studies in pharmacy, botany and chemistry at the University of Munich, passing his final examination with distinction. On receiving a large legacy in 1833, which made him financially independent, he decided to become a painter. He had drawn since the age of 15 and had frequented artistic circles since the late 1820s; but he had no professional training as a painter. He learnt much from contacts with young Munich landscape painters such as Eduard Schleich the elder and produced his first oil paintings in 1834. In 1835 he became a member of the Munich Kunstverein but left two years later due to disappointment over the reception of the first version of the Poor Poet (1837; Munich, Neue Pin.; second version 1839; Berlin, Neue N.G.), a scene of gently humorous pathos that has since become his most celebrated work. Spitzweg's decision to leave the Kunstverein, however, was also encouraged by his first successful attempts to sell his paintings independently. In 1839 he travelled to Dalmatia, where he made sketches that he used for many later works on Turkish themes (e.g. the Turkish Coffee House, c. 1860; Munich, Schack-Gal.). From the 1840s he travelled regularly, usually with his close friend, the painter Schleich, both within Bavaria and to Austria and Switzerland and also to the Adriatic coast, especially to Trieste.
Christian-Bernard Rode
1725-1797