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 :. | Faun and a young woman | A 1615-1621 oil on canvas 'Wolf and Fox hunt' painting by Peter Paul Rubens | Psyche et l Amour endormi | Rubens | Rovet of Leucippus daughter |
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Henry William Beechey
Sir Henry William Beechey (12 December 1753 - 28 January 1839), English portrait-painter, was born at Burford, the son of William Beechey (*1732) and Hannah Read (*c1732). He was originally meant for a conveyancer, but a strong love for painting induced him to become a pupil at the Royal Academy in 1772. Some of his smaller portraits gained him considerable reputation; he began to be employed by the nobility, and in 1793 became associate of the Royal Academy. In the same year he was made portrait-painter to Queen Charlotte. His work has been described as relatively sober. He painted the portraits of the members of the royal family, and of nearly all the most famous or fashionable persons of the time. What is considered his finest production is a review of cavalry, a large composition in the foreground of which he introduced portraits of George III, the Prince of Wales and the Duke of York, surrounded by a brilliant staff on horseback. Among his portraits were those of Lord Nelson, John Kemble, and Sarah Siddons. George III and the Prince of Wales reviewing troops was painted in 1798, and obtained for the artist the honour of knighthood, and his election as RA (member of the Academy). This painting was destroyed in the 1992 Windsor Castle fire.
Jan Provost
1465-1529 Flemish Jan Provost Gallery Jan Provoost, or Jan Provost (1462/5, Mons?CJanuary 1529, Bruges) was a Flemish painter. He was one of the most famous Netherlandish painters of his generation, a prolific master who left his early workshop in Valenciennes to run two workshops, one in Bruges, where he was made a burgher in 1494, the other simultaneously in Antwerp, which was the economic center of the Low Countries. Provoost was also a cartographer engineer and architect. He met Albrecht D??rer in Antwerp in 1520, and a D??rer portrait drawing at the National Gallery, London, is conjectured to be of Provoost. He married the widow of the miniaturist and painter Simon Marmion, after whose death he inherited the considerable Marmion estate. The styles of Gerard David and Hans Memling can be detected in Provoost's religious paintings. The Last Judgement painted for the Bruges town hall in 1525 is the only painting for which documentary evidence identifies Provoost. Surprising discoveries can still be made: in 1971 an unknown and anonymous panoramic Crucifixion from the village church at Koolkerke was identified as Provoost's. It is on permanent loan to the Groeninge Museum, Bruges.
Juliusz Kossak
(Nowy Wiśnicz, 15 December 1824 - 3 February 1899, Krakew) was a Polish historical painter and master illustrator who specialized in battle scenes, military portraits and horses. He was the progenitor of an artistic family that spanned four generations. father of painter Wojciech Kossak and grandfather of painter Jerzy Kossak. Juliusz Kossak grew up in Lwew during the military partitions of Poland. He obtained a degree in law at the Lwew University encouraged by his mother. At the same time he studied painting with Jan Maszkowski and Piotr Michałowski. Beginning in 1844 Kossak worked on commissions for the local aristocracy in Malopolska, Podolia and Wolyn. He married Zofia Gałczyka in 1855 and together they left for Paris where they spent five years. His sons were born there, the twin brothers: Wojciech and Tadeusz (on New Year's Eve 1856-1857) and the younger Stefan in 1858. The family came to Warsaw in 1860 where Kossak obtained a position as the head illustrator and engraver for Tygodnik Illustrowany magazine. They moved to Munich for a year and in 1868 settled in Krakew blessed with five children already. Kossak bought a small estate there, known as Kossakewka, famed for artistic and literary salon frequented by Adam Asnyk, Henryk Sienkiewicz, Stanisław Witkiewicz, Jezef Chełmoki and many others. Juliusz Kossak lived and worked there till the end of his life. In 1880 he was awarded the Cross of Order of Merit by Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria-Hungary for his lifetime achievements as an artist.