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 :. | The Village Wedding (mk05) | Old Woman with a Basket of Coal | The Entombment of Christ (mk01) | Selbstbildnis mit Isabella Brant in der Geibblattlaube (mk05) | The Three Graces |
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Eric Ravilious
British Painter, ca.1903-1942 English painter, wood-engraver and designer. He was educated at Eastbourne School of Art and then at the Royal College of Art (1922-5), where he was taught by Paul Nash and became close friends with Edward Bawden. His early works included the refectory mural (destr. 1940) in Morley College, London, and wood-engravings in the tradition of Bewick for the Golden Cockerel, Curwen and Nonesuch presses. In the 1930s he began painting larger compositions in a wider range of colour, and this led him to use lithography for such illustrations as those for High Street. Ravilious also produced designs for Wedgwood, including the celebration mug (1936) for the coronation of King Edward VIII, which was withdrawn and revised for the coronations of George VI and Elizabeth II; the Alphabet mug (1937); the Afternoon Tea (1937), Travel (1938) and Garden Implements (1939) china sets; and the Boat Race Day cup (1938). He also designed glass for Stuart Crystal (1934), furniture for Dunbar Hay (1936) and graphic work for advertisements for London Transport and others. Despite his success as a designer, Ravilious concentrated increasingly on watercolours. His landscapes and rural interiors often featured the downland and coast of southern England; haunting and lyrical, these works show a world in suspense and often feature chalk hill figures, as in Train Landscape (c. 1939; Aberdeen, A.G.) and empty rooms.
Nasi
Italian, 19th century Born in the town of Castel del Piano, near Grossetto, Giuseppe Nicola Nasini trained under Ciro Ferri at the Accademia Medicea in Rome in the early 1680??s. He also studied at the Accademia di San Luca, where he won several prizes, and later worked extensively in Rome. In 1689 he entered the service of the Grand Duke Cosimo III de?? Medici in Florence, for whom he painted a series of four large canvases on the theme of the Last Judgement for the Salone dei Novissimi of the Palazzo Pitti, executed between 1690 and 1694. Transferred at the end of the 18th century to a church in Siena, these are now lost. In the first quarter of the 18th century Nasini painted a number of works for churches in Rome, including an altarpiece of The Madonna and Child with Saints for the Chiesa dei Re Magi in 1707, and a Baptism of Christ for San Lorenzo in Lucina, completed in 1716. In 1718 Nasini was one of twelve leading painters working in Rome (including Benedetto Luti, Francesco Trevisani, Sebastiano Conca and Pier Leone Ghezzi) who were commissioned by Pope Clement XI to paint seated prophets in the oval niches of the nave of the basilica of San Giovanni in Laterano. One of Nasini??s last Roman works was a frescoed Glory of Saint Anthony for the church of SS. Apostoli, painted between 1721 and 1722. By the late 1720??s Nasini had risen to a position as the leading painter in Siena, where he headed a large and busy workshop. In such works as the decoration of the Oratorio del Crocifisso and the church of the Visitation he introduced the Baroque manner of Luca Giordano to his native city. His older brother Antonio was also a painter; the two collaborated on the decoration of the vault of the church of San Gaetano di Thiene in Siena, completed in 1734.
Bernardo Strozzi
1581-1644 Italian Bernardo Strozzi Galleries Strozzi was born in Genoa. He was probably not related to the other Strozzi family. In 1598, at the age of 17, he joined a Capuchin monastery, a reform branch of the Franciscan order. When his father died c1608, he left the order to care for his mother, earning their living with his paintings, which were often influenced by Franciscan teachings, for example his Adoration of the Shepherds (c. 1615) . In 1625, he was charged with illegally practicing as a painter. When his mother died c1630, Bernardo was pressured in court by the Capuchin's to re-enter the order. He was briefly imprisoned in Genoa , and upon release fled to Venice to avoid confinement in a monastery in 1631. He became nicknamed all his life as il prete Genovese (the Genoa priest). Saint Christopher, by Strozzi.Early paintings, such as The Ecstasy of St Francis show the dark emotionalism of Caravaggio. But by the second decade of the 17th century, while working in Venice, Strozzi had synthesized a personal style which fused painterly influences of the North (including Rubens and Veronese) with a monumental realistic starkness. For example, in the painting The Incredulity of Thomas, the background is muted, yet Jesus' face, haloed and his outline, misty, in a style atypical of Caravaggio. Never as dark as the Caravaggisti, Venice infused his painting with a gentler edge, a style more acceptable to the local patronage, and one derived from his precursors in Venice, Jan Lys (died 1629) and Domenico Fetti (died 1626), who had also fused the influence of Caravaggio into Venetian art. Examples of this style can be found in his Parable of the Wedding Guests (1630),Christ giving keys of Heaven to Saint Peter (1630),, Saint Lawrence distributing Alms at San Nicol?? da Tolentino[7] and a Personification of Fame (1635-6). He was also likely influenced by Velazquez (who visited Genoa in 1629-30). After a commission to paint Claudio Monteverdi his fame grew, and his portrait paintings included many of the leading Venetians. His pupils and painter strongly influenced by him included Giovanni Andrea de Ferrari (1598-1669), Giovanni Bernardo Carbone, Valerio Castello and, Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione.