Italian Mannerist Painter, 1494-ca.1556 Italian painter and draughtsman. He was the leading painter in mid-16th-century Florence and one of the most original and extraordinary of Mannerist artists. His eccentric personality, solitary and slow working habits and capricious attitude towards his patrons are described by Vasari; his own diary, which covers the years 1554-6, further reveals a character with neurotic and secretive aspects. Pontormo enjoyed the protection of the Medici family throughout his career but, unlike Agnolo Bronzino and Giorgio Vasari, did not become court painter. His subjective portrait style did not lend itself to the state portrait. He produced few mythological works and after 1540 devoted himself almost exclusively to religious subjects. His drawings, mainly figure studies in red and black chalk, are among the highest expressions of the great Florentine tradition of draughtsmanship; close to 400 survive, forming arguably the most important body of drawings by a Mannerist painter.   Related Paintings of Pontormo :. | Visitation | Access map | Venus and Cupid | Fratricidal | Christ the Judge with the Creation of Eve |
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Pieter Boel
(1626-1674) was a Flemish Baroque painter who specialised in lavish still lifes. Boel was born in Antwerp. He probably went to Italy in 1650. In 1668, he worked for Charles Le Brun (1619-1690) in his first tapestry making studio. According to Arnold Houbraken, whose source was his picture in Cornelis de Bie's book Het Gulden Cabinet, he specialized in painting animals. He died in Paris.
Richard Burchett
British painter and art teacher , (1815-1875) was a British artist and educator on the fringes of the Pre-Raphaelite movement, who was for over twenty years the Headmaster of what later became the Royal College of Art. He was later described as "a prominent figure in the art-schools, a well instructed painter, and a teacher exceptionally equipped with all the learning of his craft" by his ex-pupil, the poet Austin Dobson. Burchett's pupils included the extremely varied talents of Kate Greenaway, Christopher Dresser, Elizabeth Thompson (Lady Butler), Sir George Clausen, Sir Luke Fildes, Gertrude Jekyll, Hubert von Herkomer, William Harbutt and Helen Allingham. Princess Louise, Duchess of Argyll, Queen Victoria's daughter, and a talented artist, was also a student.As an artist he achieved some reputation for large history paintings, but View across Sandown Bay, Isle of Wight is seen by modern art historians as his best work.
NATTIER, Jean-Marc
French Rococo Era Painter, 1685-1766 Brother of Jean-Baptiste Nattier. As well as being taught by his father, he trained with his godfather, Jean Jouvenet, and attended the drawing classes of the Acad?mie Royale, where in 1700 he won the Premier Prix de Dessin. From around 1703 he worked on La Galerie du Palais du Luxembourg. The experience of copying the work of Rubens does not, however, seem to have had a liberating effect on his draughtsmanship, which was described by the 18th-century collector Pierre-Jean Mariette as 'cold'. Nattier was commissioned to make further drawings for engravers in the early part of his career, including those after Hyacinthe Rigaud's famous state portrait of Louis XIV (1701; Paris, Louvre) in 1710, which indicates that he had established a reputation while he was still quite young. Although he was offered a place at the Acad?mie de France in Rome on the recommendation of Jouvenet, Nattier preferred to remain in Paris and further his career. In 1717 he nevertheless made a trip to Holland, where he painted portraits of Peter the Great and the Empress Catherine (St Petersburg, Hermitage).