1593-1652 French Georges de La Tour Galleries His early work shows influences from Caravaggio, probably via his Dutch followers, and the genre scenes of cheats??as in The Fortune Teller ??and fighting beggars clearly derive from the Dutch Caravaggisti, and probably also his fellow-Lorrainer, Jacques Bellange. These are believed to date from relatively early in his career. La Tour is best known for the nocturnal light effects which he developed much further than his artistic predecessors had done, and transferred their use in the genre subjects in the paintings of the Dutch Caravaggisti to religious painting in his. Unlike Caravaggio his religious paintings lack dramatic effects. He painted these in a second phase of his style, perhaps beginning in the 1640s, using chiaroscuro, careful geometrical compositions, and very simplified painting of forms. His work moves during his career towards greater simplicity and stillness ?? taking from Caravaggio very different qualities than Jusepe de Ribera and his Tenebrist followers did. He often painted several variations on the same subjects, and his surviving output is relatively small. His son Etienne was his pupil, and distinguishing between their work in versions of La Tour's compositions is difficult. The version of the Education of the Virgin, in the Frick Collection in New York is an example, as the Museum itself admits. Another group of paintings (example left), of great skill but claimed to be different in style to those of de La Tour, have been attributed to an unknown "Hurdy-gurdy Master". All show older male figures (one group in Malibu includes a female), mostly solitary, either beggars or saints. After his death in 1652, La Tour's work was largely forgotten until rediscovered by Hermann Voss, a German scholar, in 1915. In 1935 an exhibition in Paris began the revival in interest among a wider public. In the twentieth century a number of his works were identified once more, and forgers tried to help meet the new demand; many aspects of his œuvre remain controversial among art historians.  Related Paintings of Georges de La Tour :. | The Cheat with the Ace of Diamonds | St Joseph | jeune chanteur | Magdalene of the Night Light | The Cheat with the Ace of Diamonds |
Related Artists:
Dieric Bouts
1420-1475 Flemish Dieric Bouts Locations Dirk Bouts whose real name was Theodorik Romboutszoon, was probably born in Haarlem, where he may have studied under the painter Albert van Ouwater. Sometime before 1450 Bouts took up residence in the Flemish city of Louvain. His name appeared in the records of Louvain in 1457 and again in 1468, when he was appointed "city painter." It is likely that Bouts spent some time in Bruges, as his earliest work, the Infancy Altarpiece shows the distinct and strong influence of Petrus Christus, the leading master of that city after the death of Jan van Eyck. The slightly later Deposition Altarpiece (ca. 1450) displays strong connections with the style of Rogier van der Weyden in both the figure types and the composition. About 1460, the period of the Entombment in London, the early, formative influence of Petrus Christus had been almost totally displaced by that of Rogier, though Bouts personal vision began to emerge in the fluid and continuous landscape background. The great Last Supper Altarpiece (1464-1467) marks the high point of Bouts career. In this solemn and dignified masterpiece the painter achieved spiritual grandeur in the context of convincing physical reality. The central panel of the altarpiece is the most emphatically significant treatment of the theme of the Last Supper in Northern European art. The wings, which contain Old Testament prefigurations of the central theme, are freer and more loosely organized. Eschewing the symmetry and rigid axial construction of the main panel, Bouts produced rhythmic foreground compositions in combination with fluid and dramatic spatial recessions. In 1468 Bouts was commissioned to paint four panels on the subject of justice for the Town Hall of Louvain. At the painter death in 1475 only two of the paintings had been completed; they are among the most remarkable productions of his career. The unusual subjects, taken from the chronicles of a 12th-century historian, concern the wrongful execution by Emperor Otto III of one of his counts and the subsequent vindication of the nobleman by his wife. The finer of the panels represents the dramatic trial by fire which the wife was obliged to undergo to prove her husband innocence. Rich draperies and sumptuous colors are applied to tall angular forms to create a work of rare formal elegance and high decorative appeal. In order to dignify the event, however, the artist has employed restrained gestures and expressions as well as a completely rationalized spatial setting. As in the Last Supper Altarpiece, a sense of solemn and hieratic importance is expressed by means of an austere and rigid geometry in the construction of both persons and places. The late productions of Bouts workshop, such as the well-known Pearl of Brabant Altarpiece, are characterized by the close collaboration of the painter two sons, Dirk the Younger (1448-1491) and Aelbrecht (1455/1460-1549). In the paintings of his less gifted sons, the master distinctive figure style was appreciably altered, though Dirk the Younger appears to have retained much of his father sensitivity to the landscape. In addition to his innovations in the depiction of landscape, Bouts made a substantial contribution to the development of the portrait. His Portrait of a Man (1462) localizes the sitter in an enlarged architectural setting while permitting the interior space to merge with the exterior through an open window. For the first time in Northern painting a common bond was forged between a particularized individual and the universal world of nature.
Johann Ludwig Aberli
Swiss, 1723-1786, Swiss painter, draughtsman and engraver. In 1741 he moved to Berne, where he took drawing lessons with Johann Grimm (1675-1747), whose school of drawing he took over in 1747. He visited the Bernese Oberland with Emanuel Handmann, Christian Georg Schetz (1718-91) and Friedrich Wilhelm Hirt (1721-72) in 1759 and in the same year travelled to Paris with Adrian Zingg (1734-86). This was his only trip abroad, but it determined him to work exclusively as a landscape painter. After nine months he returned to Berne, where his landscape views became popular, particularly with foreign travellers, enamoured of 'Nature' and keen to retain souvenirs of their travels. He was one of the first artists to portray the beauties of the Swiss countryside; his favourite subjects were the Aare Valley and views of Swiss lakes (e.g. View of Erlach on the Lake of Biel; Berne, Kstmus.). He invented a technique known as the 'Aberli style', which consisted of watercolour washes added to an image in which slightly smudged outlines were achieved through a combination of engraving and etching. The prints were made from drawings taken from nature and finished in the studio. His style was characterized by delicate execution, an intimate narrative approach, refined colours and the ability to convey a light and vaporous atmosphere. Aberli's success was such that he had to employ assistants and pupils to aid him in the coloration process; his pupils included Erasmus Ritter, Johann Jakob Biedermann, Marquard Wocher (1760-1830), Gabriel Ludwig Lory the elder (1763-1840) and Peter Birmann. From 1773 to 1775 Aberli also painted a series of costumes in response to tourist demand.
Paolo Finoglio
the Neapolitan painter 1590-1645