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 Despoiling of Christ (mk08) | Allegory with a Boy Lighting a Candle in the Company of an Ape and a Fool | Fray Hortensio Felix Paravicino y Arteaga | Laocoon | The Entombment of Christ | Related Artists:
Istvan Dorfmeister1729-1797
Hungarian
Istvan Dorfmeister Location
Mancini, AntonioItalian Academic Painter, 1852-1930
Italian painter. He entered the Istituto di Belle Arti, Naples, at the age of 12; while still an adolescent he produced accomplished works such as Head of a Young Girl (1867; Naples, Capodimonte). On his graduation in 1873, Mancini, together with Francesco Paolo Michetti and Vincenzo Gemito, was at the forefront of VERISMO in Neapolitan art. Sharing a studio with Gemito, he painted the street boys, musicians and dancers of Naples, creating an anti-academic, popular art. His patron, Albert, Count Cahen of Antwerp (1846-1903), encouraged him to visit Paris in 1875, where he met Manet and Degas. After a second visit in 1877
Vassily KandinskyRussian-born French Expressionist Painter , 1866-1944
was a Russian painter, printmaker and art theorist. One of the most famous 20th-century artists, he is credited with painting the first modern abstract works. Born in Moscow, Kandinsky spent his childhood in Odessa. He enrolled at the University of Moscow and chose to study law and economics. Quite successful in his profession??he was offered a professorship (chair of Roman Law) at the University of Dorpat??he started painting studies (life-drawing, sketching and anatomy) at the age of 30. In 1896 he settled in Munich and studied first in the private school of Anton Azbe and then at the Academy of Fine Arts, Munich. He went back to Moscow in 1914 after World War I started. He was unsympathetic to the official theories on art in Moscow and returned to Germany in 1921. There he taught at the Bauhaus school of art and architecture from 1922 until the Nazis closed it in 1933.