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 :. | legend of the true cross | Federico di Montefeltro | St Jerome and a Donor | portrait of battista sforza | the legend of the true cross, detail |
Related Artists:
BONE, Henry
British, 1755-1834,Cornish enamel painter, was born at Truro. He was much employed by London jewellers for small designs in enamel, before his merits as an artist were well known to the public. In 1800 the beauty of his pieces attracted the notice of the Royal Academy, of which he was then admitted as an associate; in 1811 he was made an academician. Up to 1831 he executed many beautiful miniature pieces of much larger size than had been attempted before in England; among these his eighty-five portraits of the time of Queen Elizabeth, of different sizes, from 5 by 4 to 13 by 8 in. are most admired. They were disposed of by public sale after his death. His Bacchus and Ariadne, after Titian, painted on a plate, brought the great price of 2200 guineas. He had 2 sons, who were also notable enamallists: Henry Pierce Bone & Robert Trewick Bone.
Elie Pavil
1873-1948
KESSEL, Jan van
Dutch Baroque Era Painter, ca.1626-1679