1834-1903 James Abbott McNeill Whistler Art Locations   Related Paintings of James Abbott McNeil Whistler :. | Symphony in white No 1 The White Girl | Das Weibe Madchen Symphonie in Weib | James McNeill Whistler | The Artist in His Studio | Blue and Gold-Old Battersea Bridge |
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Francesco Monti
Italian Painter, 1685-1768 Italian painter and draughtsman. He was the son of a tailor who served the Este court in Modena during the 1690s. Monti studied with the foremost painter in Modena, Sigismondo Caula (b 1637), for three years from c. 1700. In 1703 he moved to Bologna and entered the studio of Giovanni Gioseffo dal Sole. Roli (1962) defined the formative influences on Monti's art as dal Sole and Donato Creti on the one hand, and Giuseppe Maria Crespi and Antonio Gionima on the other. Monti evolved a distinctive personal idiom, characterized by graceful figures reminiscent of the style of Parmigianino, but perhaps more directly inspired by the more extravagant late Mannerist idiom of such painters as Bartholomeus Spranger and Josef Heintz I of the court of Rudolf II at Prague. Monti may have known their work through prints by Aegidius Sadeler II, Jan Muller and others. This exotic figure style, with fluent, swaying forms and faces suggestively muted by half-shadow was accompanied by unusual shades of colour that glow richly in darkened settings. Monti's art contributed to a neo-Mannerist strain in 18th-century Emilian painting
CELESTI, Andrea
Italian painter, Venetian school b. 1637, Venezia, d. 1712, Venezia,Italian painter. He trained first with Matteo Ponzoni, then with Sebastiano Mazzoni; Mazzoni encouraged the development of a Baroque style, but Celesti was also attracted by the naturalism of the tenebrists. The first known works by Celesti are mature in style, and he had already achieved considerable fame in Venice when the Doge Alvise Contarini honoured him with the title of Cavaliere in 1681. The complexity of his sources is evident in two canvases, Moses Destroying the Golden Calf and Moses Chastising the Hebrew People for their Idolatry, both painted c. 1681 for the Palazzo Ducale, Venice, and signed Cavaliere; they are influenced by Luca Giordano and by the narrative techniques of Jacopo Tintoretto. The most distinguished works of Celesti's early period are two large lunettes that show three scenes: Benedict III Visiting St Zacharias, A Doge Presented with the Body of a Saint, and the Virtues Surrounding a Doge Holding the Model of St Zacharias (c. 1684; Venice, S Zaccaria). These luxuriant compositions represent a remarkable leap in quality from the paintings of the Palazzo Ducale, with lighter colours and a more flickering touch. A little later Celesti left Venice for Brescia, perhaps by way of Rovigo; exactly when he arrived is not known, but he established himself and his studio there for several years. Panfilo Nuvolone and Francesco Paglia (1636-1713) had encouraged the development of a more exuberant Baroque style in Brescia, and in response Celesti created more decorative, lyrical works, such as his ecstatic St Rose of Lima (Brescia, S Clemente) with its brilliant display of glorious light. Most of Celesti's paintings done in and around Brescia were religious canvases, but he also painted portraits, such as the two entitled Condottiero (Ljubljana, Slov. Acad. Sci. & A.) and the portrait of Conte Alberto di Baone (Dublin, N.G.), executed in a dazzling array of colours. In 1688 Celesti was active at Toscolano on Lake Garda, where he painted canvases of scenes from the Life of St Peter (Toscolano Cathedral) and in 1689 decorated the salone of the Palazzo Delay (now Palazzo Mafizzoli) with Old Testament scenes. In 1696 he was at Treviso, where he executed a Last Judgement for the cathedral (untraced) and in 1697, 1698 and 1699 pictures for the abbey of S Floriano at Linz, where his Paradise, for the high altar, remains in situ. By 1700 Celesti was back in Venice, where he set up his studio; Venetian artists of this period, led by Giovanni Coli and Filippo Gherardi, were reviving the style of Veronese, and Celesti, following this trend, produced late works that employed more dazzling effects of colour and light. These works include the frescoed decoration of the Villa Rinaldi Barbini at Casella d'Asolo, where Celesti created a series of exotic and theatrical mythological and biblical scenes, distinguished by their luminosity and by their light and airy touch. His last works were three dramatic night scenes: the Birth of the Virgin, the Assumption of the Virgin and the Martyrdom of St Lawrence (1706-11; Verolanuova Cathedral). Celesti was much admired by Charles-Nicholas Cochin (i) and by Jean-Honor? Fragonard, and his colour influenced the Rococo art of the early 18th century in Venice and in Austria.
Alexander Davis cooper
fl.1837-1888