1598-1664 Spanish Francisco de Zurbaran Galleries Spanish baroque painter, active mainly at Llerena, Madrid, and Seville. He worked mostly for ecclesiastical patrons. His early paintings, including Crucifixion (1627; Art Inst., Chicago), St. Michael (Metropolitan Mus.), and St. Francis (City Art Museum, St. Louis), often suggest the austere simplicity of wooden sculpture. The figures, placed close to the picture surface, are strongly modeled in dramatic light against dark backgrounds, indicating the influence of Caravaggio. They were clearly painted as altarpieces or devotional objects. In the 1630s the realistic style seen in his famous Apotheosis of St. Thomas Aquinas (1631; Seville) yields to a more mystical expression in works such as the Adoration of the Shepherds (1638; Grenoble); in this decade he was influenced by Ribera figural types and rapid brushwork. While in Seville, Zurbur??n was clearly influenced by Velazquez. After c.1640 the simple power of Zurbaran work lessened as Murillo influence on his painting increased (e.g., Virgin and Child with St. John, Fine Arts Gall., San Diego, Calif.). There are works by Zurbar??n in the Hispanic Society of America, New York City; the National Gallery, Washington, D.C.; and the Philadelphia Museum of Art..  Related Paintings of Francisco de Zurbaran :. | Saint Francis in Meditation | the virgin as a girl, praying | Still Life | The Lying-in-State of St Bonaventure | The Defense of Cadiz Against the English |
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Hugo van der Goes
1440-1482 Flemish Hugo van der Goes Galleries Hugo became a member of the painters' guild of Ghent as a master in 1467. In 1468 he was involved in the decoration of the town of Bruges in celebration of the marriage between Charles the Bold and Margaret of York and he provided heraldic decorations for Charles's joyeuse entr??e to Ghent in 1469 and again in 1472. He was elected dean of the Ghent guild in 1473 or 1474. In 1475, or some years later, Hugo entered Rooklooster, a monastery near Brussels belonging to the Windesheim Congregation, and professed there as a frater conversus. He continued to paint, and remained at Rooklooster until his death in 1482 or 1483. In 1480 he was called to the town of Leuven to evaluate the Justice Scenes left unfinished by the painter Dieric Bouts on his death in 1475. Shortly after this, Hugo, returning with other members of his monastery from a trip to Cologne, fell into a state of suicidal gloom, declaring himself to be damned. After returning to Rooklooster, Hugo recovered from his illness, and died there. His time at Rooklooster is recorded in the chronicle of his fellow monk, Gaspar Ofhuys. A report by a German physician, Hieronymus M??nzer, from 1495, according to which a painter from Ghent was driven to melancholy by the attempt to equal the Ghent Altarpiece, may refer to Hugo. His most famous surviving work is the Portinari Triptych (Uffizi, Florence), an altarpiece commissioned for the church of San Egidio in the hospital of Santa Maria Nuova in Florence by Tommaso Portinari, the manager of the Bruges branch of the Medici Bank. The triptych arrived in Florence in 1483, apparently some years after its completion by van der Goes. The largest Netherlandish work that could be seen in Florence, it was greatly praised. Giorgio Vasari in his Vite of 1550 referred to it as by "Ugo d'Anversa" ("Hugo of Antwerp"). This the sole documentation for its authorship by Hugo; other works are attributed to him based on stylistic comparison with the altarpiece. Hugo appears to have left a large number of drawings, and either from these or the paintings themselves followers made large numbers of copies of compositions that have not survived from his own hand. A drawing of Jacob and Rachel preserved at Christ Church, Oxford is thought to be a rare surviving autograph drawing.
John sloan
American Ashcan School Painter, 1871-1951 American painter and etcher, b. Lock Haven, Pa. He studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and worked for 12 years as an illustrator on the Philadelphia Inquirer and Philadelphia Press. In 1905 he went to New York City, where he worked as an illustrator. A member of the Eight, he was active in organizing the Society of Independent Artists and was its president from 1918. Long a popular teacher at the Art Students League of New York City, he was elected president in 1930. His scenes of city life and his nude studies are in leading museums throughout the United States. Characteristic are McSorley's Bar (Detroit Inst. of Arts); Renganeschi's, Saturday Night (Art Inst., Chicago); Wake of the Ferry (Phillips Memorial Gall., Washington, D.C.); and Nude with Nine Apples (Whitney Mus., New York City).
Vilhelm Melbye
(14 May 1824 - 6 October 1882) was a Danish marine artist, the brother of Anton Melbye and Fritz Melbye. He worked in London from 1853 to 1866 and, over the course of his career, painted seascapes, coastal and harbor scenes, sailing vessels and topographical subjects in many parts of Europe, especially in the Mediterranean region. Knud Frederik Vilhelm Hannibal Melbye was born on 14 May 1824 in Elsinore, Denmark. He first trained to become a merchant but then turned to painting, studying under his older brother Anton, already an established marine painter, and attending the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts from 1844 to 1847. He also took private classes in perspective drawing with Carl Dahl. In 1847, he went on his first journey, to Iceland aboard the corvette Valkyrien, and the following year he traveled to Paris by way of Desseldorf. In Paris he studied with Theodore Gudin (1802 - 1880) before returning to Denmark in 1849. From 1853 to 1866, he lived in London and it was here he changed his name from Vilhelm to Wilhelm. He was appointed Professor at the academy in Copenhagen in 1880 but died in 1882 in Roskilde. He is interred at Assistens Cemetery in Copenhagen.