1395-1441 Flemish Jan Van Eyck Locations Painter and illuminator, brother of Hubert van Eyck. According to a 16th-century Ghent tradition, represented by van Vaernewijck and Lucas d Heere, Jan trained with his brother Hubert. Pietro Summonte assertion (1524) that he began work as an illuminator is supported by the fine technique and small scale of most of Jan works, by manuscript precedents for certain of his motifs, and by his payment in 1439 for initials in a book (untraced) for Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy. Jan is first documented in The Hague in August 1422 as an established artist with an assistant and the title of Master, working for John III, Count of Holland (John of Bavaria; reg 1419-25), who evidently discovered the artist while he was bishop (1389-1417) of the principality of Liege. Jan became the court official painter and was paid, with a second assistant when the work increased in 1423, continuously, probably until the count death in January 1425.  Related Paintings of Jan Van Eyck :. | Crucifixion ofChrist | Man in aRed Turban | Details of Portrait of Giovanni Arnolfini and His Wife | St Jerome | Portret van Giovanni Arnolfini en zijn vrouw |
Related Artists:
Jean Portaels
Vilvorde, 1818 - Schaerbeek, 1895 was a Belgian orientalist painter and director of the Academy of Brussels. His father, a rich brewer, sent him to study at the Brussels Academy, whose Director, François Navez, took him on soon after in his own workshop. About 1841 Portaels went to Paris, where he was well received by Paul Delaroche. After his return to Belgium, he won the Grand Prix de Rome in 1842. He then travelled through Italy, Greece, Morocco, Algeria, Egypt, the Lebanon, Judaea, Spain, Hungary and Norway. On his return to Belgium in 1847 Portaels succeeded H. Vanderhaert as Director of the Academy in Ghent. In 1849 he married the daughter of his first teacher, Navez, and in 1850 he settled in Brussels; but when he did not get the post of Director of the Brussels academy, and wished, nevertheless, to carry on teaching as his father-in-law had done, he opened a private studio-school, which became one of great significance in the development of Belgian art. Once more he went on his travels, spending time in Morocco; he returned to Brussels in 1874, and in 1878 became Director of the Academy which had so long been the object of his ambition. Portaels was an extremely prolific artist. Huge oil paintings adorning the walls of St Jacques-sur-Caudenberg; biblical scenes, such as The Daughter of Sion Reviled, The Death of Judas, The Magi travelling to Bethlehem, Judiths Prayer, and The Drought in Judaea; genre pictures, such as A Box in the Theatre at Budapest , portraits of officials and of high society, Oriental scenes and, above all, pictures of exotic female figures and exotic life. "His work is usually marked by an easy grace, which he perhaps uses to excess", wrote Theophile Gautier. But his pleasing and abundant productions as a painter do not constitute Portaels' crowning merit.
Antoine Wiertz
Belgian Painter, 1806-1865 Belgian painter and sculptor. He was from very humble origins, but his talent for drawing was detected at an early age. He was sent to the Antwerp Academie, where he attended classes given by W. J. Herreyns (1743-1827) and Mathieu Ignace Van Br?e. During a stay in Paris from 1829 to 1832 he came into contact with the Romantic painters, in particular Th?odore G?ricault, who fostered his admiration for Rubens. In 1832 he won the Belgian Prix de Rome and in 1834 left for Italy where the works of Raphael and, above all, Michelangelo made an overwhelming impression on him. In Rome he abandoned the landscapes and scenes from Roman life, for which he showed a certain talent, and embarked on a much more ambitious work, the Greeks and the Trojans Contesting the Body of Patroclus (1835; Brussels, Mus. Wiertz.). The painting proved the turning-point in Wiertz's career. Its frenzied composition and violently contorted figures excited considerable interest in Rome.
Konstantin Somov
Russian Symbolist Painter, 1869-1939 Russian painter and graphic artist. He was the son of a curator at the Hermitage, and he attended the St Petersburg Academy of Art from 1888 to 1897, studying under the Realist painter Il'ya Repin from 1894. In 1897 and again in 1898-9 he went to Paris and attended the studios of Filippo Colarossi and of Whistler. Neither the Realism of his Russian teachers nor the evanescent quality of Whistler's art was reflected for long in Somov's work. He turned instead for inspiration to the Old Masters in the Hermitage and to works of contemporary English and German artists