Flemish Baroque Era Painter, 1577-1640 Peter Paul Rubens (June 28, 1577 ?C May 30, 1640) was a prolific seventeenth-century Flemish Baroque painter, and a proponent of an exuberant Baroque style that emphasized movement, color, and sensuality. He is well-known for his Counter-Reformation altarpieces, portraits, landscapes, and history paintings of mythological and allegorical subjects. In addition to running a large studio in Antwerp which produced paintings popular with nobility and art collectors throughout Europe, Rubens was a classically-educated humanist scholar, art collector, and diplomat who was knighted by both Philip IV, king of Spain, and Charles I, king of England. Rubens was a prolific artist. His commissioned works were mostly religious subjects, "history" paintings, which included mythological subjects, and hunt scenes. He painted portraits, especially of friends, and self-portraits, and in later life painted several landscapes. Rubens designed tapestries and prints, as well as his own house. He also oversaw the ephemeral decorations of the Joyous Entry into Antwerp by the Cardinal-Infante Ferdinand in 1635. His drawings are mostly extremely forceful but not detailed; he also made great use of oil sketches as preparatory studies. He was one of the last major artists to make consistent use of wooden panels as a support medium, even for very large works, but he used canvas as well, especially when the work needed to be sent a long distance. For altarpieces he sometimes painted on slate to reduce reflection problems. His fondness of painting full-figured women gave rise to the terms 'Rubensian' or 'Rubenesque' for plus-sized women. The term 'Rubensiaans' is also commonly used in Dutch to denote such women.  Related Paintings of Peter Paul Rubens :. | Small Last Judgement | The Council of the Gods (mk05) | Infanta's Waiting-maid in Brussels | Four Studies of the Head of a Negro | The Prophet Elijah Receives Bread and Water from an Angel |
Related Artists:
Giovanni Agostino da Lodi
was an Italian painter who was active from c. 1495 to c. 1525. The attribution of his works has been dubious for centuries, until his style and career was defined by the American art historian Bernard Berenson in the 1960s. One of his first identified work is the Pala dei Barcaioli ("Boatmen Altarpiece") in the church of San Pietro Martire at Murano. His only signed work is the St. Peter and St. John the Evangelist in the Pinacoteca di Brera, which shows Lombard influeces, such as that of Bramantino. Later he was also influenced by Leonardo da Vinci's style, as visible in the Christ Washing the Feet of the Apostles in the Gallerie dell'Accademia of Venice. After moving to Venice in the wake of Ludovico Sforza's fall, he returned to Milan in 1506. He subsequently executed works for privates and for the Certosa di Pavia; one of his late works, the Calvary, is housed in the National Gallery in Prague. He also collaborated with Marco d'Oggiono for a polyptych in the church of Santa Maria della Pace in Milan, some panels of which are now in the Pinacoteca di Brera.
MINDERHOUT, Hendrik van
Flemish painter (b. 1632, Rotterdam, d. 1696, Antwerpen). Dutch painter, active in the southern Netherlands. For unknown reasons, he was known as the 'Green Knight of Rotterdam'. In 1644 he married Margareta van den Broecke, and in 1652 he went to Bruges, where in 1663 he entered the Guild of St Luke; the marine painting that he submitted to the Guild to become a member used to be displayed in the Salle d'Acad?mie as a companion piece to the picture submitted by Rubens on his entry to the Guild. In 1672 van Minderhout moved to Antwerp, where he was admitted to the Guild the same year and where, in return for exemption from all obligations as a guild member, he presented a large canvas representing an Eastern seaport. In 1673 he married his second wife, Anna-Victoria Claus. They had five children, including two sons, Antoon van Minderhout (b 26 Sept 1675; d 22 Dec 1705) and Willem August van Minderhout (b 28 Aug 1680; d 31 June 1752), who also became painters. Hendrik van Minderhout painted mostly sea and harbour views, in the tradition of Jan Baptist Weenix and Johannes Lingelbach. His subjects included the port of Antwerp, as well as imaginary views of Mediterranean harbours and oriental seaports
Hitchcock, George
American Painter, 1850-1913 American painter, active in the Netherlands. A descendant of Roger Williams (the founder of Rhode Island), he practised law for several years in New York before deciding in 1879 to become an artist. He studied in Paris with Gustave Boulanger and Jules Lefebvre, in D?sseldorf, and in The Hague with H. W. Mesdag. He settled in Egmond-aan-Zee, near Alkmaar, in 1883, and was soon widely known for his paintings of religious subjects in contemporary settings and of sunlit views of tulip fields. He returned to the USA only occasionally in later years. Hitchcock's style, similar to Impressionism, has been appreciated more in Europe than in the USA. A good example of his style is the Blessed Mother (1892; Cleveland, OH, Mus. A.). He received some recognition in the USA, such as election to associate membership in the National Academy of Design, New York,