Spanish 1561-1627 S??nchez Cot??n was born in the town of Orgaz, near Toledo. He was a friend and perhaps pupil of Blas de Prado, an artist famous for his still lifes whose mannerist style with touches of realism, the disciple developed further. Cot??n began by painting altar pieces and religious works. For approximately twenty years, he pursued a successful career in Toledo as an artist, patronized by the city??s aristocracy, painting religious scenes, portraits and still lifes. These paintings found a receptive audience among the educated intellectuals of Toledo society. S??nchez Cot??n executed his notable still lifes around the turn of the seventeenth century, before the end of his secular life. An example (seen above) is Quince, Cabbage, Melon and Cucumber (1602, in the San Diego Museum of Art). On August 10, 1603, Juan Sanchez Cotan, then in his forties, closed up his workshop at Toledo to renounce the world and enter the Carthusian monastery Santa Maria de El Paular. He continued his career painting religious works with singular mysticism. In 1612 he was sent to the Granada Charterhouse, he decided to become a monk, and in the following year he entered the Carthusian monastery at Granada as a laybrother. The reasons for this are not clear, though such action was not unusual in Cot??n??s day. Cotan was a prolific religious painter whose work, carried out exclusively for his monastery, reached its peak about 1617 in the cycle of eight great narrative paintings which he painted for the cloister of the Granada Monastery. These depict the foundation of the order of St. Bruno, and the prosecution of the monks in England by the Protestants. Although the painter??s religious works have an archaic air, they also reveal a keen interest in the treatment of light and volumes, and in some respect are comparable with certain works by the Italian Luca Cambiaso whom Cotan knew at the Escorial. While Cotan's religious works are unexceptional, as a still-life painter he ranks with the great names of European painting. In spite of his retreat from the world, Cotan??s influence remained strong. His concern with the relationships among objects and with achieving the illusion of reality through the use of light and shadow was a major influence on the work of later Spanish painters such as Juan van der Hamen, Felipe Ramirez, the brothers Vincenzo and Bartolomeo Carducci and, notably, Francisco de Zurbaran. Sanchez Cotan ended his days universally loved and regarded as a saint. He died in 1627 in Granada.  Related Paintings of Juan Sanchez-Cotan :. | Still life | Still Life (mk08) | Still life with quince,cabbage,Melon and Cucumber | Still Life with Game,Vegetables,and Fruit | Still Life |
Related Artists:
Ernest Francis Vacherot
painted Arrival of Marshal Randon in Algiers in 1857.
Richard ansdell,R.A.
1815-1885 English painter. He was the son of an artisan and in 1835 entered the Liverpool Academy Schools, where he later became president (1845-6). One of his earliest and largest dated works is the Waterloo Coursing Meeting (1.4*2.4 m, 1840; Liverpool, Walker A.G.). This canvas demonstrates his considerable skill as a portrait painter and creates a detailed record of a major sporting event of the period which was attended by many members of the local aristocracy, some of whom, notably the 3rd Earl of Sefton, were his patrons. It was engraved and published in 1843, and other works were similarly popularized. Shooting Party in the Highlands (1840; Liverpool, Walker A.G.) was the first of 149 works exhibited at the Royal Academy. It shows huntsmen with their horses and dogs resting after a good day's sport, a theme that Ansdell often depicted. He also portrayed other rural scenes such as gamekeepers or shepherds with domestic and wild animals, often in historical settings. All are painted with precision and sensitivity and without sentimentality. Although based in London from 1847 until 1884, Ansdell owned houses in Lancashire and Scotland and found inspiration in northern landscape. He travelled to Spain with the painter John Phillip in 1856 and alone in 1857 and produced several works of Spanish inspiration, for example Feeding Goats in the Alhambra (Preston, Harris Mus. & A.G.). He also collaborated with William Powell Frith and Thomas Creswick in rural genre scenes. Ansdell was commercially successful and was elected ARA in 1861 and RA in 1870.
John Houghton Hague
1831-1934