French Baroque Era Painter, 1593-1652 French painter. He was well known in his lifetime, especially for his depictions of candlelit subjects, then was forgotten until the 20th century, when the identification of works previously misattributed established his reputation as a giant of French painting. His early works were painted in a realistic manner and influenced by the dramatic chiaroscuro of Caravaggio. The paintings of La Tour's maturity are marked by a startling geometric simplification of the human form and by the depiction of interior scenes lit only by the glare of candles or torches. His religious paintings done in this manner have a monumental simplicity and a stillness that expresses both contemplative quiet and wonder. Little is known of his life, and only four or five of his paintings are dated.   Related Paintings of LA TOUR, Georges de :. | The New-born sg | The Dream of St Joseph (detail) | Adoration of the Shepherds s | Blindman Playing the Hurdy-Gurdy | Fortune Teller sf |
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Sienese school
The Sienese School of painting flourished in Siena, Italy between the 13th and 15th centuries and for a time rivaled Florence, though it was more conservative, being inclined towards the decorative beauty and elegant grace of late Gothic art. Its most important representatives include Duccio, whose work shows Byzantine influence; his pupil Simone Martini; Pietro and Ambrogio Lorenzetti; Domenico and Taddeo di Bartolo; Sassetta and Matteo di Giovanni. Unlike the naturalistic Florentine art, there is a mystical streak in Sienese art, characterized by a common focus on miraculous events, with less attention to proportions, distortions of time and place, and often dreamlike coloration. In the 16th century the Mannerists Beccafumi and Il Sodoma worked there. While Baldassare Peruzzi was born and trained in Siena, his major works and style reflect his long career in Rome. The economic and political decline of Siena by the 16th century, and its eventual subjugation by Florence, largely checked the development of Sienese painting, although it also meant that a good proportion of Sienese works in churches and public buildings were not discarded or destroyed by new paintings or rebuilding. Siena remains a remarkably well-preserved Italian late-Medieval town.
Nesterov, Mikhail
Russian, 1862-1942 Russian painter. From 1877 to 1881 and again from 1884 to 1886 he studied at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture under the Realist painters Vasily Perov and Illarion Pryanishnikov. Between 1881 and 1884 he worked under Pavel Chistyakov (1832-1919) at the Academy of Arts, St Petersburg. At the estate of Savva Mamontov at Abramtsevo he met the most influential painters of the period, then at the epicentre of the development of Russian Art Nouveau. Nesterov sought to combine this style with a deep Orthodox belief; however, in his desire to revive religious art he was influenced more by French Symbolism, particularly by Bastien-Lepage, than by old Russian icon painting. All of Nesterov's canvases are marked by a lyrical synthesis between the figures and their landscape surroundings, as in Hermit (1888-9; Moscow, Tret'yakov Gal.), which shows the stooped figure of an old man against a northern landscape of stunted trees and still water. The large oil painting Vision of Young Bartholomew (1889-90; Moscow, Tret'yakov Gal.) depicts the legend of the childhood of the Russian saint Sergey of Radonezh. A monk appears to the young Bartholomew (the future St Sergius) and prophesies a glorious future for him.
Constantin Daniel Stahi
(November 14, 1844 - June 18, 1920) was a Romanian painter and gravure artist. In 1862 he entered the National School of Fine Arts from Iaşi where he was taught by Gheorghe Panaiteanu Bardasare and Gheorghe Şiller. He continued his artistic education in Munich where, for seven years, he studied painting, metal gravure and xylography. He painted still life paintings representing small objects that were surrounding him, such as old books, newspapers, religious items, chairs, shoes, plates and especially fruits. Also, he painted many portraits of famous people of his time (for example Gheorghe Asachi, painted in 1881). Many others of his paintings take inspiration from the simple life in the countryside in idyllic compositions and by painting peasants having as models people living in Bavaria and Moldova regions. Beside his artistic career, he was a professor and, later on, the headmaster of the National School of Fine Arts in Iaşi between 1892 and 1902, following Gheorghe Panaiteanu Bardasare. He died in his house on Bărboi street in Iaşi on June 18, 1920 and was interred at Eternitatea Cemetery.