Italian Baroque Era Painter, 1591-1666 best known as Guercino or Il Guercino, was an Italian Baroque painter from the region of Emilia, and active in Rome and Bologna. Guercino is Italian for squinter, a nickname that was given to him because he was cross-eyed. He is especially noted for his many superb drawings. Guercino was born at Cento, a village between Bologna and Ferrara. By the age of 17 he was associated with Benedetto Gennari, a painter of the Bolognese School. By 1615 he moved to Bologna, where his work earned the praise of an elder Ludovico Carracci. He painted two large canvases, Elijah Fed by Ravens and Samson Seized by Philistines, in what appears to be a stark naturalist Caravaggesque style (although it is unlikely he had been able to see any of the Roman Caravaggios first-hand). They were painted for Cardinal Serra, Papal Legate to Ferrara. The Arcadian Shepherds (Et in Arcadia ego) was painted in 1618 contemporary with The Flaying of Marsyas by Apollo in Palazzo Pitti. His first style, he often claimed, was influenced by a canvas of Carracci in Cento. Some of his later pieces approach rather to the manner of his great contemporary Guido Reni, and are painted with more lightness and clearness. Guercino was esteemed very highly in his lifetime. He was then recommended by Marchese Enzo Bentivoglio to the Bolognese Ludovisi Pope, Pope Gregory XV. His two years (1621-23) spent in Rome were very productive. From this stay date his frescoes of Aurora at the casino of the Villa Ludovisi and the ceiling in San Crisogono (1622) of San Chrysogonus in Glory; his portrait of Pope Gregory (now in the Getty Museum, and, what is considered his masterpiece, The Burial of Saint Petronilla or St. Petronilla Altarpiece, for the Vatican (now in the Museo Capitolini). The Franciscan order of Reggio in 1655 paid him 300 ducats for the altarpiece of Saint Luke Displaying a Painting of the Madonna and Child (now in Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City). The Corsini also paid him 300 ducats for the Flagellation of Christ painted in 1657.   Related Paintings of GUERCINO :. | Recreation by our Gallery | St Romuald | Personification of Astrology | Jacob Receiving Joseph's Coat | Raising of Lazarus hjf |
Related Artists:
Arthur Hughes
1832-1915 British Arthur Hughes Gallery Hughes was born in London. His best-known paintings are April Love and The Long Engagement, both of which depict troubled couples contemplating the transience of love and beauty. They were inspired by John Everett Millais's earlier "couple" paintings but place far greater emphasis on the pathos of human inability to maintain the freshness of youthful feeling in comparison to the regenerative power of nature. Like Millais, Hughes also painted an Ophelia and illustrated Keats's poem The Eve of St. Agnes. Hughes's version of the latter is in the form of a secular triptych, a technique he repeated for scenes from Shakespeare's As You Like It. His works are noted for their magical, glowing colouring and delicate draughtsmanship. Hughes was in close contact with the writer George MacDonald and illustrated some of his books as well as producing numerous illustrations for Norman MacLeod's monthly magazine, Good Words. Hughes died in Kew Green, London, leaving about 700 known paintings and drawings, along with over 750 book illustrations.
Nicolas Maes
1634-1693 Dutch Nicolas Maes Galleries Nicolaes Maes, also known as Nicolaes Maas (January 1634, Dordrecht - buried November 24, 1693, Amsterdam) was a Dutch Baroque painter of genre and portraits. Maes was the son of Gerrit Maes, a prosperous merchant, and Ida Herman Claesdr. In about 1648 he went to Amsterdam, where he entered Rembrandt's studio. Before his return to Dordrecht in 1653 Maes painted a few Rembrandtesque genre pictures, with life-size figures and in a deep glowing scheme of colour, like the Reverie at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, the Card Players at the National Gallery, and the Children with a Goat Carriage. So closely did his early style resemble that of Rembrandt, that the last-named picture, and other canvases in the Leipzig and Budapest galleries and in the collection of Lord Radnor, were or are still ascribed to Rembrandt. In his best period, from 1655 to 1665, Maes devoted himself to domestic genre on a smaller scale, retaining to a great extent the magic of colour he had learnt from Rembrandt. Only on rare occasions did he treat scriptural subjects, as in Hagar's Departure, which has been ascribed to Rembrandt. His favorite subjects were women spinning, or reading the Bible, or preparing a meal. While he continued to reside in Dordrecht until 1673, when he settled in Amsterdam, he visited or even lived in Antwerp between 1665 and 1667. His Antwerp period coincides with a complete change in style and subject. He devoted himself almost exclusively to portraiture, and abandoned the intimacy and glowing color harmonies of his earlier work for a careless elegance which suggests the influence of Van Dyck. So great indeed was the change, that it gave rise to the theory of the existence of another Maes, of Brussels. Maes is well represented at the London National Gallery by five paintings: The Cradle, The Dutch Housewife, The Idle Servant, The Card Players, and a man's portrait. At Amsterdam, besides the splendid examples to be found at the Rijksmuseum, is the Inquisitive Servant of the Six collection. At Buckingham Palace is The Listening Girl (repetitions exist), and at Apsley House Selling Milk and The Listener. Other notable examples are at the Berlin, Brussels, St Petersburg, the Hague, Frankfort, Hanover and Munich galleries.
Alexander Davis cooper
fl.1837-1888