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 :. | Triumph of Curch over Fury,Discord,and Hate | Pencil sketch of man-s back | Adam and Eve (mk01) | the home of Abraham uploaded from the page of the Hermitage | Philip IV in Brown and Siver (mk01) |
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Leonhard Beck
German Northern Renaissance Painter, ca.1480-1542, Illuminator, painter, draughtsman and woodcutter, son of Georg Beck. He first appears as an illuminator and collaborator with his father in two Psalters for the Augsburg monastery of SS Ulrich and Afra in 1495, producing 35 coloured initial letters for each of them (Augsburg, Staats- & Stadtbib., Cod. 49a). These are vigorously coloured but fairly uniform in character, with small, lively biblical scenes excellently adapted to the letters. Red, green and blue predominate; ochre tones provide a link with the gold ground. The initial letter X is composed of splendidly curled, entwining foliage with birds and half-figures of prophets; the Virgin, Joseph, the Christ Child in the manger and the choir of angels are each enclosed in one of its sectors. The figures are presented in a light, easy manner; the draughtsmanship avoids unnecessary detail.
Alexandre Calame
1810-1864 French Alexandre Calame Locations Swiss painter, draughtsman and printmaker. He studied under Francois Diday in Geneva and then travelled to Paris (1837), to the Netherlands and Desseldorf (1838), to Italy (1844) and to London (1850). Despite his frail health he spent each summer painting in the mountains of the Bernese Oberland and central Switzerland, where he produced the drawings and studies from nature that were later used in his studio compositions. A fervent Calvinist, he saw his subjects.
Giovanni Battista Pittoni
Giambattista Pittoni (June 6, 1687-November 6, 1767) was an Italian painter of the late-Baroque or Rococo period, active mainly in his native Venice. Pittoni was born in Venice, and studied painting under his uncle Francesco Pittoni and Antonio Balestra. Little is known of his early career. He entered the Venetian painters' guild in 1716. In 1722-1723, he was commissioned to paint eThe Torture of St Thomase for San Stae in Venice, which also contains one if his later works in its sacristy. He also completed the transit of Santa Maria in Organo in Verona in 1725. In 1727, he was appointed honorary Academician of the Accademia Clementina in Bologna. In subsequent years, Pittoni never left his native Venice, but completed a number of important and lucrative commissions from German, Polish, Russian, Italian and Austrian patrons, including eThe Sacrifice of Jephthah's daughtere for the Royal Palace of Turin, a number of works for the Marshal von Schulenburg, and a eMartyrdom of St Batholomewe for the Basilica of Saint Anthony of Padua. Pittoni came to be known for his "grand-manner" canvases depicting religious, historical, and mythological subjects (such as Sophonisba and Polyxena). By 1740, he established a studio and residence in the San Giacomo district of Venice, and took on numerous apprentices. Pittoni died at age 80 on November 6, 1767. His tomb is at the church of San Giacomo dall'Orio in Venice. Pittoni was a co-founder of the official painter's academy in Venice (in competition to the old fraglia or painter's guild), the Accademia di Belle Arti di Venezia, and he succeeded as President (1758-1761) his contemporary Giovanni Battista Tiepolo. His mature palette was noted, as was Tiepolo's, for his lightness of tone. Besides Tiepolo, Pittoni's influences were Giovanni Battista Piazzetta, Sebastiano Ricci, and Antonio Balestra. His paintings were of a Rococo style, but later became more sedate in their approach towards Neoclassicism.