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 :. | Head of an Angel | the montefeltro altarpiece | the legend of the true cross, detail | Madonna del Parto | Polyptych of the Misericordia: St Benedict |
Related Artists:
Cary, William
1759-C1825
Hugo Vogel
painted Martin Luther preaching at the Wartburg in 1882
Wilson Irvine
1869-1936 Wilson Henry Irvine Galleries Wilson Henry Irvine (28 February 1869-1936) was a master American Impressionist landscape painter. Although most closely associated with the Old Lyme, Connecticut art colony headed by Florence Griswold, Irvine spent his early career near Chicago, a product of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Irvine also painted across Western Europe ?? where he produced outstanding American Impressionist versions of the local countryside. Today, Wilson Irvine's paintings grace the collection of Chicago's Art Institute, as well as other notable collections strong in American Impressionism, including: Old Lyme's Florence Griswold Museum; Washington, D.C.'s Smithsonian Institution National Portrait Gallery and Corcoran Gallery of Art; and Chicago's Union League Club. Irvine is best known for his mastery of light and texture ?? a 1998 exhibit of his work was called Wilson Henry Irvine and the Poetry of Light. To capture subtle effects of light, Irvine often painted en plein air ?? wearing his trademark cap, knickers, and goatee, with his easel and his paints set up in the field. Sometimes Irvine's obsession with light led him to paint rather pedestrian subjects ?? landscapes depicting little more than some trees, or a road or fence. But a number of Irvine masterpieces depict well-composed scenes including houses, boats, bridges ?? even a handful of portraits, including at least one self-portrait and a nude. Wilson Henry Irvine, born near Byron, Illinois, was a descendant of early Illinois settlers and farmers. Wilson channeled his family's agrarian interests into a painter's eye for landscape. From the beginning, Irvine's interest in painterly subjects was equalled by a parallel focus on artistic technology. While still in his 20s, Irvine was a pioneer of the airbrush as artistic medium ?? a medium which had just been developed and marketed by Liberty Walkup, Irvine's Illinois neighbor, mentor, and teacher. Having mastered the airbrush, in 1888 Irvine moved to Chicago to make his reputation. Irvine's "day job" during this period was as an illustrator/graphic designer, often employing the still-novel airbrush. But simultaneously, Irvine built a career as a serious painter. He worked his way up Chicago art society ?? he led the Palette and Chisel Club and Cliff Dwellers Club, along with sculptor Loredo Taft. During these years, Irvine gravitated to the night school of the famed Art Institute of Chicago, where he studied for over seven years. Indeed, the Art Institute was to remain a loyal patron. By the turn of the century, the Institute often showed Irvine's work, and gave him a prestigious solo show over the 1916-1917 Christmas season. To this day, the Art Institute maintains a number of Wilson Irvine paintings in its permanent collection.