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 :. | St John the Baptist | The Entombment of Christ | Portrat des Kardinalinquisitors Don Fernando Nino de Guevara | The Agony in the Garden | Vincenzo Anastagi | Related Artists:
Domenico FettiItalian painter ,
Rome 1589 - Venice 1623
was an Italian Baroque painter active mainly in Rome, Mantua and Venice. Born in Rome to a little-known painter, Pietro Fetti, Domenico is said to have apprenticed initially under Ludovico Cigoli, or his pupil Andrea Commodi in Rome from circa 1604-1613. He then worked in Mantua from 1613 to 1622, patronized by the Cardinal, later Duke Ferdinando I Gonzaga. In the Ducal Palace, he painted the Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes. The series of representations of New Testament parables he carried out for his patron's studiolo gave rise to a popular specialty, and he and his studio often repeated his compositions. In August or September 1622, his feuds with some prominent Mantuans led him to move to Venice, which for the first few decades of the seventeenth century had persisted in sponsoring Mannerist styles (epitomized by Palma the Younger and the successors of Tintoretto and Veronese). Into this mix, in the 1620s?C30s, three "foreigners"??Fetti and his younger contemporaries Bernardo Strozzi and Jan Lys??breathed the first influences of Roman Baroque style. They adapted some of the rich coloration of Venice but adapted it to Caravaggio-influenced realism and monumentality. In Venice where he remained despite pleas from the Duke to return to Mantua, Fetti changed his style: his formalised painting style became more painterly and colourful.
NEUFCHATEL NicolasFlemish-German painter (b. ca. 1527, Hennegau, d. 1590, N??rnberg)
Kuzma Petrov-VodkinRussian Painter, 1878-1939
Russian painter. He began his studies in the drawing and painting classes of F. Burov (1843-95) in Samara (1893-5), and he attended Baron Stieglitz's school in St Petersburg from 1895 to 1897. He studied under Abram Arkhipov, Nikolay Kasatkin and Valentin Serov at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture from 1897 to 1905 and at Anton Azb?'s school in Munich (1901). After working in various private studios in Paris between 1905 and 1908, he travelled to Constantinople (now Istanbul), Greece and Italy in 1905 and to Algiers in 1906. On his return to Russia, he held an exhibition in the editorial offices of the magazine Apollon in St Petersburg (1909). From 1911 to 1924 he exhibited with the WORLD OF ART group and from 1925 to 1928 with the FOUR ARTS SOCIETY OF ARTISTS. From the early 1910s Petrov-Vodkin's work was influential in the artistic life of St Petersburg. He attempted to reconcile classical and modern trends. His style was formed under a wide range of influences, often seemingly incompatible: 19th-century Russian painters such as Aleksey Venetsianov,