Italian 1494-1557 Jacopo Pontormo Galleries Italian painter and draughtsman. He was the leading painter in mid-16th-century Florence and one of the most original and extraordinary of Mannerist artists. His eccentric personality, solitary and slow working habits and capricious attitude towards his patrons are described by Vasari; his own diary, which covers the years 1554-6, further reveals a character with neurotic and secretive aspects. Pontormo enjoyed the protection of the Medici family throughout his career but, unlike Agnolo Bronzino and Giorgio Vasari, did not become court painter. His subjective portrait style did not lend itself to the state portrait. He produced few mythological works and after 1540 devoted himself almost exclusively to religious subjects. His drawings, mainly figure studies in red and black chalk, are among the highest expressions of the great Florentine tradition of draughtsmanship; close to 400 survive, forming arguably the most important body of drawings by a Mannerist painter. His highly personal style was much influenced by Michelangelo, though he also drew on northern art, primarily the prints of Albrecht Derer.  Related Paintings of Jacopo Pontormo :. | The Expulsion from Earthly Paradise | Martyrdom of St Maurice and the Theban Legion | Anbetung der Heiligen Drei Konige | Antonius Abbas | Hl. Johannes Evangelist, Fragment |
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RUYSCH, Rachel
Dutch Baroque Era Painter, 1664-1750 Dutch painter. She specialized in still-lifes of flowers and fruits and still-lifes in outdoor settings, the large majority signed, with dated examples from 1681 to 1747 providing a sound chronology. She is widely regarded as the most gifted woman in the history of the subject and among the greatest exponents of either sex. Ruysch came from a distinguished and wealthy background. Her father, Frederik Ruysch (1638-1731), was an eminent professor of anatomy and botany, who published his fine collection of natural curiosities. He was also a gifted amateur painter. Her mother was the daughter of the architect Pieter Post. At the age of 15 Ruysch became a pupil of Willem van Aelst until his death in 1683. In 1693 she married the portrait painter Juriaen Pool (1665-1745), a happy union that produced ten children. In 1709 the couple moved to The Hague, where both artists joined the Guild of St Luke. From 1708 to 1713 they were both court painters to the Elector Palatine, John William, at D?sseldorf, for whom they continued to work until his death in 1716. In that year they returned to Amsterdam, where Ruysch continued working until at least the age of 83.
Aubrey Beardsley
English Art Nouveau/Golden Age Illustrator, 1872-1898 English draughtsman and writer. He was brought up in Brighton, in genteel poverty, by his mother. She gave her children an intensive education in music and books, and by the time he was sent to boarding-school at the age of seven Beardsley was exceptionally literate and something of a musical prodigy. He was also already infected with the tuberculosis that eventually killed him. There is evidence that his talent for drawing was highly developed by the age of ten, and he was subsequently encouraged by his housemaster at Brighton Grammar School, Arthur William King. Beardsley left school at the end of 1888, and in January 1889 became a clerk at the Guardian Life and Fire Insurance Company in the City of London. Attacks of haemorrhaging of the lungs forced him to abandon his job at the end of 1889. On the strength of a short story sold to Tit Bits he tried to pursue a literary career, but when his health improved in the spring of 1890, he returned both to his job and to drawing. Final affirmation of the direction of his art came in July 1891, when he showed his work to Edward Burne-Jones, who told Beardsley: 'I seldom or never advise anyone to take up art as a profession, but in your case I can do nothing else.
BOSSCHAERT, Ambrosius the Elder
Dutch Baroque Era Painter, 1573-1621 Painter and dealer. He left Antwerp with his parents c. 1587 because as Protestants they were vulnerable to religious persecution; the family moved to Middelburg, where in 1593 Ambrosius became a member of the Guild of St Luke, of which he served as Dean on several occasions (1597, 1598, 1603, 1604, 1612 and 1613). In 1604 he married Maria van der Ast, the sister of Balthasar van der Ast who later became his pupil and possible collaborator. Bosschaert bought a house in Middelburg in 1611. There are flower-pieces by Bosschaert that are signed (with a monogram) and dated between 1605 and 1621, though there were two periods of artistic inactivity, in 1611-13 and 1615-16, when he was probably more active as a dealer in the art of both Dutch and foreign artists (e.g. Veronese and Georg Flegel). He was recorded in Bergen-op-Zoom in 1615 and became a citizen of Utrecht in 1616, where his name appears in the register of the Utrecht Guild of St Luke for the same year. In 1619 he was involved in a court case in Breda, where he lived from that year. He died during a journey to The Hague.