Dutch Baroque Era Painter, ca.1625-1679 Daily life was Jan Steen's main pictorial theme. Many of the genre scenes he portrayed are lively to the point of chaos and lustfulness, even so much that a Jan Steen household, meaning a messy scene, became a Dutch proverb (een huishouden van Jan Steen). Subtle hints in his paintings seem to suggest that Steen meant to warn the viewer rather than invite him to copy this behaviour. Many of Steen's paintings bear references to old Dutch proverbs or literature. He often used members of his family as models. Jan Steen painted also quite a few self-portraits, in which he showed no tendency of vanity. Steen did not shy from other themes: he painted historical, mythological and religious scenes, portraits, still lifes and natural scenes. His portraits of children are famous. He is also well known for his mastery of light and attention to detail, most notably in textiles. Steen was prolific, producing about 800 paintings, of which roughly 350 survive. Steen's work was valued much by contemporaries and as a result he was reasonably well paid for his work. He did not have any students, but his work proved a source of inspiration for many painters.  Related Paintings of Jan Steen :. | The Morning Toilet | Leaving the Tavern | Christening | Skittle Players Outside an Inn | Bathsheba Receiving David-s Letter |
Related Artists:
VERNET, Claude-Joseph
French Painter, 1714-1789 Painter. Vernet probably received his first lessons in painting from his father, Antoine, who then encouraged him to move to the studio of Philippe Sauvan (1697-1792), the leading master in Avignon. Sauvan supplied altarpieces to local churches and decorative works and mythologies for grand houses in the area. After this apprenticeship Vernet worked in Aix-en-Provence with the decorative painter Jacques Viali ( fl 1681- 1745), who also painted landscapes and marine pictures. In 1731 Vernet independently produced a suite of decorative overdoors for the h?tel of the Marquise de Simiane at Aix-en-Provence; at least two of these survive (in situ) and are Vernet's earliest datable landscapes. These are early indications of his favoured type of subject, and Vernet would have studied works attributed to such 17th-century masters as Claude Lorrain, Gaspard Dughet and Salvator Rosa in private collections at Aix and Avignon. Three years later Joseph de Seytres, Marquis de Caumont, who had previously recommended Vernet to the Marquise de Simiane, offered to sponsor a trip to Italy.
Bonaventura Peeters
(Antwerp, 23 July 1614 - Hoboken (Antwerp), 25 July 1652) was a Flemish Baroque painter who specialized in seascapes and shipwrecks, known as Zeekens (small seascapes). Peeters, brother of the seascape painters Jan Peeters I, Gillis Peeters, and Catharina Peeters, learned to paint from his father, who became a master in Antwerp's guild of St. Luke in 1607 - 1608, and his earlier works are related to the tonal phase of Dutch landscape painting. Later paintings, however, reflect the stronger colors of Italianate classicism. This shift follows the general changes in artistic style at the time. Like his brother Jan, dramatic shipwrecks with dark billowy clouds, form a significant part of his oeuvre, as do serene ports and "portraits" of ships.Also, while many of Peeters's paintings reflect actual locations, and he may have even travelled along the coast of Scandinavia, his many views of far-away Mediterranean and Middle Eastern ports reflect a growing taste for the exotic and are probably inspired from fantasy and from prints. This tradition developed simultaneously in Flemish painting and in Dutch Golden Age painting, with many artists, including Peeters, working in both Antwerp and in the Dutch Republic.
George Benjamin Luks
(August 13, 1867-October 29, 1933) was an American realist artist and illustrator. His vigorously painted genre paintings of urban subjects are examples of the Ashcan school in American art. Luks was born in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, to Central European immigrants. His father was a physician and his mother was an amateur painter and musician.The Luks family (George, his parents and five siblings) eventually moved to Pottsville, in Southern Pennsylvania near the coal fields. In this setting, he learned at a young age the importance of compassion by watching how his parents helped the coal miners' families, and many believe that this is the reason why lower class New Yorkers were often Luks's subject matter. Luks studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts before he traveled though Europe where he attended several art schools. Later he went to Desseldorf where he lived with a distant relative, a retired lion-tamer. He abandoned Desseldorf for the more stimulating spheres of London and Paris. He then returned to Philadelphia in 1893 where he was an illustrator for the Philadelphia Press where he met John Sloan, William Glackens, and Everett Shinn. They would meet at the studio of Robert Henri, an artist who emphasized the depiction of ordinary life, shunning genteel subjects and painting quickly. The group became known as the "Philadelphia Five". In 1896, Luks moved to New York and began his art career there as the premier humorist artist for the New York World. During his time as an illustrator there, he lived with William Glackens.