Flemish Northern Renaissance Painter, ca.1465-1530 Quentin Massys, also spelled Matsys or Metsys, was born in Louvain, the son of a blacksmith. He is traditionally thought to have been trained in that craft by his father. Art in Louvain while Massys was growing up was dominated by Dirk Bouts. Massys became a member of the painters' guild in Antwerp in 1491 and died there in 1530. He represented a current of painting that flourished in Antwerp at this time of its sudden new prosperity. Erwin Panofsky (1953) described this trend, "archaism of around 1500," as "a prelude to, in fact a fact of, the Renaissance in Netherlandish painting," which prevailed in the southern Netherlands. The monumental Enthroned Madonna (Brussels), an early work by Massys, has features recalling both Robert Campin and Jan van Eyck. The central panel of Massys' imposing St. Anne Altarpiece, or the Holy Kinship (Brussels), which was commissioned for the church of St-Pierre in Louvain in 1507 and signed and dated 1509, has a prototype in the Holy Kinship of Geertgen tot Sint Jans. Even the physical types and costumes in Massys' version refer to Geertgen's. But Massys placed his rhythmically balanced figure groups in a domed, arcaded loggia that in architectural style appears to be reaching for a Renaissance vocabulary it cannot quite attain; certainly the architecture evokes a later period than that represented by the Gothic throne of the Enthroned Madonna. The calm and restraint of the St. Anne Altarpiece are replaced by heightened emotional expression in the next important painting by Massys that can be firmly dated, the Deposition triptych (Antwerp). This was commissioned in 1508 by the guild of joiners in Antwerp for their chapel in the Cathedral; Massys completed the composition in 1511. It was inspired by Rogier van der Weyden's great Deposition, which was in the church of St-Pierre in Louvain in Massys' time, and also quotes from Rogier's Entombment. Massys painted genre subjects, possibly with emblematic meaning, such as A Money Changer and His Wife, which belonged to a Netherlandish tradition that maintained its popularity right through the 17th century. In portraiture he made significant contributions. His pair of portraits of Erasmus and Petrus Aegidius, painted in 1517 for Sir Thomas More, set the pattern for representations of the scholar in his study.   Related Paintings of MASSYS, Quentin :. | The Moneylender and his Wife (detail) sdg | St John Altarpiece (right wing) dh | Portrait of a Canon | Christ on the Cross with Donors (detail) sg | The Adoration of the Magi |
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ben nicholson
Born in 1894 in Denham, Buckinghamshire, Nicholson was the son of the painter Sir William Nicholson and Mabel Pryde, and the brother of Nancy Nicholson. The family moved to London in 1896 and Nicholson was educated at Tyttenhangar Lodge Preparatory School, Seaford, Heddon Court, Hampstead and then as a boarder at Gresham's School, Holt, Norfolk. He trained as an artist at the Slade School of Fine Art from 1910?C1914, where he was a contemporary of Paul Nash, Stanley Spencer, Mark Gertler, and Edward Wadsworth. Nicholson was married three times: firstly to Winifred Roberts (married 5 November 1920 at St. Martin-in-the-Fields Church, London; divorced 1938) with whom he had three children, a son Jake in June 1927, a daughter Kate in July 1929 (who later became an artist herself) and a son Andrew in September 1931. His second marriage was to fellow artist Barbara Hepworth (married 17 November 1938 at Hampstead Register Office; divorced 1951) with whom he had triplets, two daughters Sarah and Rachel and a son Simon in 1934 and third to Felicitas Vogler, a German photographer (married July 1957; divorced 1977).
Mirza Ali
the period of 1465-1535
Friedrich Gauermann
(September 10, 1807 - July 7, 1862), Austrian painter, son of the landscape painter Jacob Gauermann (1773 - 1843), was born at Miesenbach near Gutenstein in Lower Austria. It was the intention of his father that he should devote himself to agriculture, but the example of an elder brother, who, however, died early, fostered his inclination towards art. Under his father's direction he began studies in landscape, and he also diligently copied the works of the chief masters in animal painting which were contained in the academy and court library of Vienna. In the summer he made art tours in the districts of Styria, Tirol, and Salzburg. Two animal pieces which he exhibited at the Vienna Exhibition of 1824 were regarded as remarkable productions for his years, and led to his receiving commissions in 1825 and 1826 from Prince Metternich and Caraman, the French ambassador. His reputation was greatly increased by his picture "The Storm," exhibited in 1829, and from that time his works were much sought after and obtained correspondingly high prices. His "Field Labourer" was regarded by many as the most noteworthy picture in the Vienna exhibition of 1834, and his numerous animal pieces have entitled him to a place in the first rank of painters of that class of subjects. The peculiarity of his pictures is the representation of human and animal figures in connexion with appropriate landscapes and in characteristic situations so as to manifest nature as a living whole, and he particularly excels in depicting the free life of animals in wild mountain scenery. Along with great mastery of the technicalities of his art, his works exhibit patient and keen observation, free and correct handling of details, and bold and clear colouring. He died at Vienna on the 7th of July 1862. Many of his pictures have been engraved, and after his death a selection of fifty-three of his works was prepared for this purpose by the Austrian Kunstverein (Art Union).