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 :. | Portrait of Marie de Medici | St Francis of Assisi Receiving the Stigmata | Roman Charity | Nymphen Satyrn und Hunde | The Head of Medusa |
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Ridolfo del Ghirlandaio
Ridolfo Ghirlandaio (or Ghirlandajo) (14 February 1483 - 6 June 1561) was an Italian painter of the Renaissance, active mainly in Florence, the son of Domenico Ghirlandaio. He was born in Florence. Being less than eleven years old when his father died, Ridolfo was brought up by his uncle Davide Ghirlandaio, a painter of moderate talents. Vasari states that Ridolfo trained under Fra Bartolomeo. His works between the dates 1504 and 1508 show a marked influence from Fra Bartolomeo and Raphael, with whom he was friends. From Rome in 1508, Raphael asked Ridolfo to join him; but the Florentine painter stayed. In Florence, he became one of the prominent painters of altarpieces, frescoes, and portraits. He was prominent in the execution of vast scenic canvases for various public occasions, such as the wedding of Giuliano de' Medici, and the entry of Leo X into Florence in 1515. In his prime he was honest and conscientious as an artist; but from about 1527 he declined, having already accumulated a handsome property, more than sufficient for maintaining in affluence his large family of fifteen children, and his works became comparatively mannered and repetitive. His sons traded in France and in Ferrara; he himself took a part in commercial affairs, and began paying some attention to mosaic work, but it seems that, after completing one mosaic, the Annunciation over the door of the Annunziata Basilica, patience failed him for continuing such minute labours. In his old age Ridolfo was greatly disabled by gout. He appears to have been of a kindly, easy-going character, much regarded by his friends and patrons. Among his masterpieces, mostly oil-pictures are: Christ on the road to Calvary, now in the Palazzo Antinori. An Annunciation in the Abbey of Montoliveto near Florence, Leonardesque in style. In 1504, he completed the Coronation of the Virgin. He painted a Nativity and a predella in the oratory of the Bigallo, Florence, five panels, representing the Nativity and other subjects. In 1514, on the ceiling of the chapel of St Bernard in the Palazzo Pubblico, Florence, a fresco of the Trinity, with heads of the twelve apostles and other accessories, and the Annunciation; also an Assumption of the Virgin, who bestows her girdle on St Thomas, in the choir loft of Prato cathedral.
Jervis Mcentee
American Realist Painter, 1828-1891, He was an American painter of the Hudson River School. He is a somewhat lesser-known figure of the 19th century American art world, but was the close friend and traveling companion of several of the important Hudson River School artists. Aside from his paintings, McEntee's enduring legacy are the detailed journals he kept from the early 1870s until his death. In his writings McEntee records a detailed account of Hudson River School artists, their day-to-day life, gossip and personal reflections, and the overall arc of the American art world in the second half of the 19th century. He discusses his artistic successes and trials, particularly as money becomes more scarce with the decline in popularity of Hudson River School art. McEntee's journals are now kept by the Archives of American Art, a research center within the Smithsonian Institution. Five volumes of these diaries, from 1872 to 1890, have been digitally scanned, transcribed, and can be browsed in their entirety in the Jervis McEntee Diaries Online. McEntee was born in Rondout, New York on July 14, 1828. Little is known of his childhood. He exhibited his first painting at the National Academy of Design in New York City in 1850.
Theodore R. Davis
1840 ?C 1894,was a 19th century American artist, who made numerous drawings of significant military and political events during the American Civil War and its aftermath. Some of these drawings include the Battle of Champion Hill, and the most significant sketch of General Joseph E. Johnston and General William T. Sherman meeting at the Bennett Farm near Durham Station to discuss the surrender terms of the remaining Confederate armies in the Southeast. After the war when the Cyclorama in Atlanta was being painted, Davis was asked for his ideas having traveled with Sherman's army. He was later added to the painting.