Italian Early Renaissance Painter, ca.1422-1492 Italian painter and theorist. His work is the embodiment of rational, calm, monumental painting in the Italian Early Renaissance, an age in which art and science were indissolubly linked through the writings of Leon Battista Alberti. Born two generations before Leonardo da Vinci, Piero was similarly interested in the scientific application of the recently discovered rules of perspective to narrative or devotional painting, especially in fresco, of which he was an imaginative master; and although he was less universally creative than Leonardo and worked in an earlier idiom, he was equally keen to experiment with painting technique. Piero was as adept at resolving problems in Euclid, whose modern rediscovery is largely due to him, as he was at creating serene, memorable figures, whose gestures are as telling and spare as those in the frescoes of Giotto or Masaccio. His tactile, gravely convincing figures are also indebted to the sculpture of Donatello, an equally attentive observer of Classical antiquity. In his best works, such as the frescoes in the Bacci Chapel in S Francesco, Arezzo, there is an ideal balance between his serene, classical compositions and the figures that inhabit them, the whole depicted in a distinctive and economical language. In his autograph works Piero was a perfectionist, creating precise, logical and light-filled images (although analysis of their perspective schemes shows that these were always subordinated to narrative effect). However, he often delegated important passages of works (e.g. the Arezzo frescoes) to an ordinary, even incompetent, assistant.   Related Paintings of Piero della Francesca :. | Polyptych of the Misericordia | the triumph of battista sforza | Madonna and Child Attended by Angels | St.Simon the apostle | Polyptych of the Misericordia: Virgin Annunciate |
Related Artists:
Joaquin Sorolla
Spanish Realist/Impressionist Painter, 1863-1923
Pablo de Cespedes
(1538 - July 26, 1608) was a Spanish painter, poet, and architect. His father, Alonso Cespedes, was descended of a noble Castilian family, once settled at Ocaña, and the name of his mother, who was a native of Alcolea de Torote, was Olaya de Arroya. Pablo was born and brought up in the house of his father's maternal uncle, Francisco Lopez de Aponte, Canon of Cordoba, where he received a learned education. At the age of eighteen, in 1556, he was sent to the Universidad Complutense in Alcale de Henares, and there, devoted himself to the acquirement of Oriental languages and theology. He later moved to Rome where he studied painting under Federico Zuccari. He was in Rome in February 1559, engaged in conducting certain negotiations for the Archbishop Carranza de Miranda, of Toledo, who then stood charged with heresy before the Inquisition of Valladolid. On the 17th of that month he addressed a letter to the prelate, informing him how his business stood at the Vatican, in which he incautiously reflected on the conduct of the Inquisitor-General Valdez, and the Holy Officeean offence which no Inquisitor-General would forgive. This document and others were seized with the primate's papers; he was therefore denounced by the tribunal, and but for his fortunate absence, would have been imprisoned. It is probable that he did not venture back into Spain for many years, until he had covered his sins with the protecting robes of the Church. He remained in Italy for over 20 years and built a reputation as an artist. His only surviving works from that period are the frescoes he painted in the Bonfili chapel at the Santa Trinite dei Monti church in Rome. He returned to Spain in 1577, and was appointed as the canon of the Cerdoba cathedral. He continued to write books on antiquarian topics such as the architecture of the temple of Solomon. He befriended Arias Montano. In 1604 he composed his Discourse of Ancient and Modern Painting and Sculpture in which he recounts anecdotes of Renaissance masters of Italy.
Francisco Antolinez y Sarabia
Spanish Painter , Seville circa 1644-circa1700