Netherlandish Northern Renaissance Painter, ca.1435-1494 Born in Seligenstadt, near Frankfurt in the Middle Rhein region, it is believed that Memling served his apprenticeship at Mainz or Cologne, and later worked in the Netherlands under Rogier van der Weyden (c. 1455?C1460). He then went to Bruges around 1465. There is an apocryphical story that he was a wounded at the Battle of Nancy, sheltered and cured by the Hospitallers at Bruges, and that to show his gratitude he refused payment for a picture he had painted for them. Memling did indeed paint for the Hospitallers, but he painted several pictures for them, in 1479 and 1480, and it is likely that he was known to his patrons of St John, prior to the Battle of Nancy. Memling is connected with military operations only in a distant sense. His name appears on a list of subscribers to the loan which was raised by Maximilian I of Austria, to defend against hostilities towards France in 1480. In 1477, when he was incorrectly claimed to have been killed, he was under contract to create an altarpiece for the gild-chapel of the booksellers of Bruges. This altarpiece, under the name of the Seven Griefs of Mary, is now in the Gallery of Turin. It is one of the fine creations of his more mature period. It is not inferior in any way to those of 1479 in the hospital of St. John, which for their part are hardly less interesting as illustrative of the master's power than The Last Judgment which can be found since the 1470s in the St. Mary's Church, Gda??sk. Critical opinion has been unanimous in assigning this altarpiece to Memling. This affirms that Memling was a resident and a skilled artist at Bruges in 1473; for the Last Judgment was undoubtedly painted and sold to a merchant at Bruges, who shipped it there on board of a vessel bound to the Mediterranean, which was captured by Danzig privateer Paul Beneke in that very year. This purchase of his pictures by an agent of the Medici demonstrates that he had a considerable reputation.  Related Paintings of Hans Memling :. | Triptych of St.John the Baptist and St.John the Evangelist | Portinari Triptych | Detail from Saint john the Baptist | Portrait of a Young Woman | Scenes from the Passion of Christ |
Related Artists:
NOVELLI, Pietro
Italian Baroque Era Painter, 1603-1647 Italian painter. He trained with his father, Pietro Antonio Novelli (1568-1625), a painter and mosaicist, then in 1618 in Palermo with Vito Carrera (1555-1623). He also studied perspective with the mathematician Carlo Maria Ventimiglia. Paolini (1980) suggested that in his early years Novelli may have contributed, with Domenico Fiasella and Nicolas Tournier, to a cycle of paintings in the oratory of S Stefano in Palermo and that he made a first journey to Rome between 1622 and 1625. His first dated work is from 1626: St Anthony Abbot (Palermo, S Antonio Abate). The development of his style owed much to Anthony van Dyck, who visited Sicily in 1624 and whose altarpiece, the Madonna of the Rosary (Palermo, oratory of S Maria del Rosario), was of fundamental importance to Novelli. Van Dyck's influence, which remained with Novelli throughout his career, is most apparent in the Death of the Just Man (Palermo, Gal. Reg. Sicilia), the Apparition of the Virgin to St Andrea Corsini (1630; Palermo, Chiesa del Carmine) and the Coronation of the Virgin
VASARI, Giorgio
Italian Mannerist Writer and Painter, 1511-1574 Italian painter, architect, and writer. Though he was a prolific painter in the Mannerist style, he is more highly regarded as an architect (he designed the Uffizi Palace, now the Uffizi Gallery), but even his architecture is overshadowed by his writings. His Lives of the Most Eminent Architects, Painters, and Sculptors (1550) offers biographies of early to late Renaissance artists. His style is eminently readable and his material is well researched, though when facts were scarce he did not hesitate to fill in the gaps. In his view, Giotto had revived the art of true representation after its decline in the early Middle Ages, and succeeding artists had brought that art progressively closer to the perfection achieved by Michelangelo.
Robert Talbot Kelly
(1861 - 1934) was an English orientalist landscape and genre painter, author and illustrator. Kelly was born in Birkenhead, Cheshire, the son of Irish landscape artist Robert George Kelly. He left school in 1876 to take up work in a firm of cotton traders, but was also taught art by his father, exhibiting under the name R. G. Kelly Jnr. In the early 1880s, inspired by the places he saw while on vacation on an ocean cruise ship, Talbot-Kelly decided to take up his father's profession. He left his employment in 1882, travelled by boat to North Africa, and settled in Egypt in 1883, acquiring a studio in Cairo and becoming fluent in Arabic. He travelled throughout the country, writing about and painting the people and scenes he encountered both in towns and in the desert. He spent a considerable time with the Bedouin tribes who he described and illustrated in his 1902 book, "Egypt painted and described" (A & C Black). As his name became known he also earned an income from private commissions. He stayed in Egypt until 1915 when for reasons of health and age he returned to London - though he continued to paint constantly. An Arab cafe in Cairo (from "Egypt painted and described", 1902)"Egypt painted and described", his first illustrated travel book, was published in 1902 (by A & C Black), and was an account of his impressions and experiences of that country during his long stay there; an exhibition of his Egyptian views was also held at the Fine Art Society in the same year. His paintings and writing showed a great empathy and respect for local people and culture, especially that of the desert Bedouin Arabs.