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 :. | Venus at a Mirror (mk08) | Alathea Talbot | Reuige Magdalena und ihre Schwester Martha | Deborah Kip and her Children | Perseus Liberating Andromeda |
Related Artists:
Pagani, Gregorio
Italian, 1558-1605 Italian painter. He trained in the studio of the Late Mannerist Maso da San Friano, but then studied with the more progressive Santi di Tito. There he became friends with Ludovico Cigoli: the two artists, who desired to renew the art of painting, studied from nature and developed an interest in Venetian and Emilian art. Pagani was deeply influenced by Correggio. His earliest surviving works include the frescoes of the Confirmation of the Rule of St Dominic (c. 1580; Florence, S Maria Novella, Chiostro Grande) and the Meeting between SS Dominic and Francis (Florence, Convento dei Cappuccini di Monturghi). In 1592 he painted the Virgin and Saints (St Petersburg, Hermitage), a work that already reveals his interest in Correggio. In the same year he painted a Finding of the True Cross (untraced), a daring composition that is preserved in preparatory drawings. A number of works from the 1590s survive and show Pagani's interest in Emilian art; the Crucifixion and Saints (1595; Florence, S Bartolomeo in Pozzo) and the Virgin and Child with SS Michael the Archangel and Benedict (1595; Florence, S Michele Arcangelo Le Ville). At the turn of the century Pagani was increasingly associated with those Florentine artists who wished to develop a new narrative clarity and directness. His pictures (e.g. Pyramus and Thisbe; Florence, Uffizi) show figures carefully posed with varied expressions and gestures. In the early 17th century Pagani became yet more attracted by naturalism, as in the St Lawrence (1600) in the basilica of the Madonna delle Grazie at San Giovanni, Valdarno. Through his friendship with Bartolomeo Carducho he was influenced by Spanish art, as is evident in the Adoration of the Magi
Leopold Robert
(13 May 1794 - 20 March 1835), Swiss painter, was born at La Chaux-de-Fonds (Neuchâtel) in Switzerland, but left his native place with the engraver Girardet at the age of sixteen for Paris. He was on the eve of obtaining the grand prix for engraving when the events of 1815 blasted his hopes, for Neuchâtel was restored to Prussia, and Robert was struck off the list of competitors as a foreigner. Whilst continuing his studies under Girardet he had never ceased to frequent the studio of David, and he now determined to become a painter, and only returned to his native country when his master himself was exiled. At Neuchâtel he attracted the notice of Roullet de Mezerac, who enabled him by a timely loan to proceed to Rome. In depicting the customs and life of the people, of southern Italy especially, he showed peculiar feeling for the historical characteristics of their race. After executing many detached studies of Italian life Robert conceived the idea of painting four great works which should represent at one and the same time the four seasons in Italy and the four leading races of its people. In the "Return from the Fete of the Madonna dell'Arco" (Louvre) he depicted the Neapolitans and the spring. This picture, exhibited at the Salon of 1827, achieved undoubted success and was bought for the Luxembourg by Charles X; but the work which appeared in 1831 the "Summer Reapers arriving in the Pontine Marshes" (Louvre), which became the property of Louis Philippe established the artist's reputation. Florence and her autumn vineyards should now have furnished him with his third subject. He attempted to begin it, but, unable to conquer his passion for Princess Charlotte Napoleon (then mourning the violent death of her husband, Robert's devoted friend), he threw up his work and went to Venice, where he began and carried through the fourth of the series, the "Fishers of the Adriatic." This work was not equal to the "Reapers." Worn by the vicissitudes of painful feeling, and bitterly discouraged, Robert committed suicide before his easel on 20 March 1835, on the tenth anniversary of the melancholy suicide of a brother to whom he had been much attached.
Miller, Alfred Jacob
American Painter, 1810-1874 American painter. From 1831-2 he studied with the portrait painter Thomas Sully in Philadelphia, PA. In 1832 he went to France, where he studied in Paris at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. He also visited Rome before returning to Baltimore, to open a portrait studio in 1834. Three years later Miller moved to New Orleans, LA, and was engaged by Captain William Drummond Stewart to accompany an expedition to the Rocky Mountains. The journey brought Miller into close contact with the American Indians, whose hunting and social customs he depicted in 200 watercolour sketches, and with the Far West fur trappers at their annual trading gatherings. He was one of the first artists to leave a detailed visual account of the life of the American mountain men (see WILD WEST AND FRONTIER ART). Miller's Rocky Mountain paintings are among the most romantic images of the American West ever created. His works are often panoramic and dramatic, yet he was equally adept at depicting charming, intimate scenes. His free, vigorous painting style brings to life both the American Indian and the rugged pioneer. Such paintings as the Lost Greenhorn