b Pontormo, nr Empoli, 26 May 1494; d Florence, 31 Dec 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. His highly personal style was much influenced by Michelangelo  Related Paintings of Pontormo, Jacopo :. | Moses Receiving the Tables | Christ before Pilate | Vertumnus and Pomona | Madonna and Child with St Anne and Other Saints | Halberdier |
Related Artists:
Frederick Mccubbin
Australian Painter, 1855-1917 By the early 1880s, his work began to attract considerable attention and won a number of prizes from the National Gallery, including a 30-pound first prize in 1883 in their annual student exhibition, and by the mid-1880s began to concentrate more on the works of the Australian bush which made him most famous. In 1883, he received first prize in the first annual Gallery students' exhibition, for best studies in colour and drawing. In 1888, he became instructor and master of the School of Design at the National Gallery. In this position he taught a number of students who themselves became prominent Australian artists, including Charles Conder and Arthur Streeton. He continued to paint through the first two decades of the 20th century, though by the beginning of World War I his health began to fail. He travelled to England in 1907 and visited Tasmania, but aside from these relatively short excursions lived most of his life in Melbourne. McCubbin married Annie Moriarty in March, 1889. They had seven children, of whom their son Louis also became an artist. In 1901 McCubbin and his family moved to Mount Macedon, where he was inspired by the surrounding bush and has experimented with the light and its effects on colour in nature. In 1912,
Marie Wiegmann
painted Mrs. Carl vom Rath in 1866
Stefan Luchian
Romanian Painter, 1868-1916 Romanian painter. He studied at the School of Fine Arts in Bucharest, graduating in 1889 and continuing his studies at the Akademie der Bildenden Kenste in Munich and in Paris at the Academie Julian, where he was a student of William-Adolphe Bouguereau. He rejected the rigidity of academic painting early in his career, however. The Last Autumn Race (1892; Bucharest, Mus. A.), one of the few paintings known from this period, clearly illustrates the influence of Manet and Impressionism on his early work. On his return to Romania in 1892 Luchian, unwilling to restrict his work to merely copying the French artists, struggled to create an original style. In 1900 he was left partially paralysed by a spinal disease, but he continued to work, and it is during the next years that he created his most accomplished works. His self-portraits (e.g. 1907; Bucharest, Mus. A.) are clear evidence of his determination to overcome this personal tragedy; far from inspiring pity, these paintings emphasize the depth and the strength of his inner life. It is in landscapes such as Willows at Chiajna (c. 1907; Cluj-Napoca, Mus. A.), however, that his commitment becomes even more apparent, with joyful rhythms created by means of broad brushstrokes and contrasts of bright colours next to delicate tones. Towards the end of his life Luchian became completely immobilized. During this time flowers were his favourite subject (e.g. Safta, the Flower Girl; Bucharest, N. Mus. A.; see also ROMANIA, fig. 9), and they became a metaphorical bridge between the artist and the outside world. The colours are still bright in these last paintings, and the loss of pastel tones makes the contrast more dramatic.