(1536-1571) was an Italian painter active in Florence. His real name was Tomaso D'Antonio Manzuoli. He was born in San Friano and died in Florence. According to Giorgio Vasari, Maso was a pupil of Pier Francesco Foschi while others claim it was Carlo Portelli. He collaborated with an elder Michelangelo on some projects. His altarpiece of the Visitation was painted in 1560 for the church of San Pier Maggiore of Florence - now in Trinity Hall Chapel, Cambridge, England. A similar work can be seen in the Prato cathedral. After 1561, he painted in the church of Ognissanti, Florence and in the church of Santa Felicita. He participated in the decoration of the Studiolo of Francesco I with an oval canvas relating the Fall of Icarus story (1572). The canvas has an affected milling in individuals below and an anomalous perspective; both are classic features of mannerist painting. His second contribution Mining of Diamonds. A portrait of Ferdinando I de' Medici (1570) by Maso can be found in the Town Council Hall of Prato. He is thought to be one of part of the Contra-Maniera or Counter-Mannerism movement in Florence. His most important pupils were Jacopo da Empoli and Alessandro Fei. One of his paintings, thought to be of Cosimo I de Medici in 1560, is believed to be the oldest to show a watch   Related Paintings of Maso da San Friano :. | View in Pittsford, Vt. | Tuileries | Classical hunting fox, Equestrian and Beautiful Horses, 044. | Rue Saint-Denis in Paris | kor i ett stall |
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PISANELLO
Italian painter (b. 1395, Pisa, d. 1455, Roma). known professionally as Antonio di Puccio Pisano or Antonio di Puccio da Cereto, also erroneously called Vittore Pisano by Giorgio Vasari, was one of the most distinguished painters of the early Italian Renaissance and Quattrocento. He was acclaimed by poets such as Guarino da Verona and praised by humanists of his time who compared him to such illustrious names as Cimabue, Phidias and Praxiteles. He is known for his resplendent frescoes in large murals, elegant portraits, small easel pictures, and many brilliant drawings. He is the most important commemorative portrait medallist in the first half of the 15th century. He was employed by the Doge of Venice, the Pope in the Vatican and the courts of Verona, Ferrara, Mantua, Milan, Rimini, and by the King of Naples. He stood in high esteem of the Gonzaga and Este families. He had many of his works wrongly ascribed to other artists such as Piero della Francesca, Albrecht Derer and Leonardo da Vinci, to name a few. While most of his paintings have perished, a good many of his drawings and medals have survived. His life is somewhat shrouded in mystery. He was born between 1380 and 1395 and died between 1450 and 1455 (probably between 14 July and 8 October 1455). He was a native of Pisa but spent his early years in San Vigilio sul Lago in the territory of Verona. He was probably given his early training by a Veronese painter (perhaps Altichiero or Stefano da Verona) as his early style is in the tradition of veronese painting. Between 1415 and 1420, he was the assistant of the renowned painter and illuminator Gentile da Fabriano from whom he acquired his refined, delicate, detailed style. Pisanello also acquired from him a taste for precious materials and beautiful fabrics that can be found in his later paintings. The frescoes in the Doge's Palace at Venice, on which they worked together, have perished as well as the frescoes in the Basilica of St. John Lateran and the palaces of Mantua and Pavia. In 1422, he was reported to be in Mantua in the service of young Ludovico Gonzaga, son of the Marchese of Mantua Gianfrancesco Gonzaga. He continued to work for the Gonzaga family till the 1440s. Giorgio Vasari, an artist and biographer of the Italian Renaissance, states that Pisanello also worked in the workshop of Andrea del Castagno, author of the painted equestrian monument of Niccole da Tolentino (1456) in the Cathedral in Florence. He must also have known Paolo Uccello, the painter of the Battle of San Romano with its many horses. Pisanello's love of drawing horses probably finds its origin in this relationship. But as there is so much unknown of his life, this attribution by Vasari is not reliable and may only be a legend. His Madonna and Quail, now in the Museo di Castelvecchio in Verona, is signed by "Antonius Pisanus". It is tentatively dated at c. 1420. The style is a blend of the styles of Gentile da Fabriano and Stefano da Verona. This might show that Pisanello was also a pupil of the latter in Verona. Pisanello stayed again in Verona in 1424. However, according to some scholars, he painted frescoes about hunting and fishing and jousts in Pavia the same year. These were commissioned by the Duke of Milan Filippo Maria Visconti. There is no trace of these frescoes left. Back in Mantua with the Gonzagas between 1424 and 1426, he painted one of his important surviving works: the fresco Annunciation in San Fermo, Verona. It was used to embellish the funeral monument of Nicole di Brenzoni by the Florentine sculptor Nanni di Bartolo. When Gentile da Fabriano died in Rome between August and October 1427, his work at the Basilica of St. John Lateran was unfinished. Pisanello completed the frescoes of his former master between 1431 and 1432. All these frescoes were destroyed when the basilica was rebuilt in the 17th century by Francesco Borromini. The Kupferstichkabinet in Berlin has a pale sketch of this fresco, drawn by Borromini. While in Rome, he became more and more influenced by the classical style of Renaissance art. His drawings are generally prized as jewels of the quattrocento, and are wonderful examples of the elegant garb of the time, including spectacular hats. In contrast with his contemporaries, his drawings are not drafts for future paintingings but are autonomous work of art. He compiled several books of drawings, detailed and accurate studies of fauna and flora drawn with a poetic naturalism, and elegant costumes. Pisanello traveled to several Italian cities and was introduced to a number of courts. He stayed for a while in Florence. In this period he painted two important portraits: Emperor Sigismund, now in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna (but the attribution is still contested) and Portrait of a Man (now in the Palazzo Rosso, Genoa). He returned to Verona between 1433 and 1438. His fresco masterpiece from this period is Saint George and the Princess of Trebizond (1436-38) at the Pellegrini Chapel, Sant'Anastasia, Verona. It had to be restored after water seepage badly damaged the fresco at the end of the 19th century. He prepared for this painting with a large number of drawings. Many of these famous drawings are on display in the Louvre, Paris. From 1435, Pisanello became more and more interested in portraiture and medalmaking. He was introduced to Leonello d'Este, Marquess of Ferrara. His famous Portrait of an Este Princess dates from this period. His Vision of Saint Eustace, now at the National Gallery in London, long ascribed to Albrecht Derer because of its perfection of this very fine panel, shows most animals in profile or defined poses with miniature-like delicacy. The story in this small painting (egg tempera on wood) is probably only a pretext for showing "noble" animals (horses, hunting dogs, stag, bear...) and the most noble creature of all: the hunting courtier. In 1438, the Council of Basel negotiated with the Byzantine Emperor John VIII Palaiologos. On this occasion Pisanello struck a commemorative medal of the emperor. He also made some drawings with portraits of the emperor and his retinue (on display at the Louvre, Paris), suggesting
Morbelli, Angelo
Italian, 1853-1919 Italian painter. He received his first lessons in drawing in Alessandria, and in 1867 he travelled on a local study grant to Milan, where he was based for the rest of his life. He enrolled at the Accademia di Brera and from 1867 to 1876 studied drawing and painting there under Raffaele Casnedi and Giuseppe Bertini, whose influence is seen in both the subject-matter and technique of his early works. These include perspectival views, anecdotal genre scenes and history paintings. In the Dying Goethe (1880; Alessandria, Pin. Civ.) the theatrical setting, enriched by a sophisticated execution and a well-modulated use of colour, derives from the teaching of Casnedi and Bertini, while the historic-romantic quality of this painting also recalls the style of Francesco Hayez. In the years that followed, Morbelli began to concentrate more on themes such as labour and the life of the poor, influenced perhaps by Realist painters of the 1880s such as Achille D'Orsi, Francesco Paolo Michetti and Teofilo Patini. Morbelli's Return to the Stable
Richard Dadd
1817-1886 was an English painter of the Victorian era, noted for his depictions of fairies and other supernatural subjects, Orientalist scenes, and enigmatic genre scenes, rendered with obsessively minuscule detail. Most of the works for which he is best known were created while he was incarcerated in a psychiatric hospital. Dadd was born at Chatham, Medway in Kent, England, the son of a chemist. His aptitude for drawing was evident at an early age, leading to his admission to the Royal Academy of Arts at the age of 20. With William Powell Frith, Augustus Egg, Henry O'Neil and others, he founded The Clique, of which he was generally considered the leading talent. In July 1842, Sir Thomas Phillips, the former mayor of Newport, chose Dadd to accompany him as his draftsman on an expedition through Europe to Greece, Turkey, Palestine and finally Egypt. In November of that year they spent a gruelling two weeks in Palestine, passing from Jerusalem to Jordan and returning across the Engaddi wilderness. Toward the end of December, while travelling up the Nile by boat, Dadd underwent a dramatic personality change, becoming delusional and increasingly violent, and believing himself to be under the influence of the Egyptian god Osiris. His condition was initially thought to be sunstroke. On his return in the spring of 1843, he was diagnosed to be of unsound mind and was taken by his family to recuperate in the countryside village of Cobham, Kent. In August of that year, having become convinced that his father was the Devil in disguise, Dadd killed him with a knife and fled for France. En route to Paris Dadd attempted to kill another tourist with a razor, but was overpowered and was arrested by the police. Dadd confessed to the killing of his father and was returned to England, where he was committed to the criminal department of Bethlem psychiatric hospital (also known as Bedlam). Here and subsequently at the newly created Broadmoor, Dadd was cared for (and encouraged to continue painting) by the likes of Drs William Wood and Sir W. Charles Hood, in an enlightened manner. Which condition he suffered from is unclear, but it is usually understood to be a form of paranoid schizophrenia.He appears to have been genetically predisposed to mental illness; two of his siblings were similarly afflicted, while a third had "a private attendant" for unknown reasons.In the hospital he was allowed to continue to paint and it was here that many of his masterpieces were created, including his most celebrated painting, The Fairy Feller's Master-Stroke, which he worked on between 1855 and 1864. Also dating from the 1850s are the thirty-three watercolour drawings titled Sketches to Illustrate the Passions, which include Grief or Sorrow, Love, and Jealousy, as well as Agony-Raving Madness and Murder. Like most of his works these are executed on a small scale and feature protagonists whose eyes are fixed in a peculiar, unfocused stare.