1606-1669 Dutch painter, draughtsman and etcher. From 1632 onwards he signed his works with only the forename Rembrandt; in documents, however, he continued to sign Rembrandt van Rijn (occasionally van Rhyn), initially with the addition of the patronymic 'Harmensz.'. This was no doubt in imitation of the great Italians such as Leonardo, Michelangelo, Raphael and Titian, on whom he modelled himself, sometimes literally. He certainly equalled them in fame, and not only in his own country. His name still symbolizes a whole period of art history rightfully known as 'Holland's Golden Age'. In 1970-71 a great exhibition in Paris was devoted to it under the eloquent title Le Si?cle de Rembrandt. A century before, a popular work of cultural history by C. Busken Huet referred to the Netherlands as 'the land of Rembrandt'. His fame is partly due to his multi-faceted talent. Frans Hals was perhaps at times a greater virtuoso with the brush but remained 'only' a portrait painter. Vermeer may have excelled Rembrandt in the art of illusion but was less prolific. Rembrandt was not only a gifted painter but also an inspired graphic artist: he has probably never been surpassed as an etcher, and he often seems inimitable as a draughtsman. His subjects reflect his manifold talent and interests. He painted, drew and etched portraits, landscapes, figures and animals, but, above all, scenes of biblical and secular history and mythology.   Related Paintings of Rembrandt van rijn :. | self portrait at the age of 34 | The Prophetess Anna | Selbstportrat mit toter Rohrdommel | Self-Portrait with Plumed Beret | Detail of write on the wall |
Related Artists:
Eugene Girardet
(Franco - Swiss, 1853 - 1907)
Isaac Cruikshank
English Illustrator, ca.1756-1811 Scottish painter and caricaturist, was born in Edinburgh. His sons Isaac Robert Cruikshank (1789-1856) and George Cruikshank also became artists, and the latter in particular achieved fame as an illustrator and caricaturist. Cruikshank is known for his social and political satire. His parents were Elizabeth Davidson (b. c.1725), daughter of a gardener, and Andrew Crookshanks (c.1725 Cc.1783), a former customs inspector dispossessed for his role in the Jacobite uprising of 1745. He studied with a local artist, possible John Kay (1742 C1826), and travelled with his master to London in 1783. He married Mary MacNaughton (1769 C1853) in 1788 and the couple had five known children, two of whom died in infancy. A daughter, Margaret Eliza, also a promising artist, died at the age of eighteen. Cruikshank's first known publications were etchings of Edinburgh "types", from 1784. He produced illustrations for books about the theatre, did the frontispiece for Witticisms and Jests of Dr Johnson (1791), and illustrated George Shaw's extensive General Zoology (1800 C26). His watercolours were exhibited, but in order to make a living it was more lucritive to produce prints and caricatures. He was responsive to the marketplace but firm in his dislikes of Napoleon and political radicals. He and Gillray developed the figure of John Bull, the nationalistic representation of a solid British yeoman. Publisher John Roach was a friend and patron, and he later worked with print dealer S. W. Fores and Johnny Fairburn. He also collaborated, with G. M. Woodward, and later, with his son George. Cruikshank died of alcohol poisoning at the age of fifty-five as a result of a drinking contest and is buried near his home in London.
Polk, Charles Peale
American, 1767-1822 American painter. Orphaned as a child, he was raised in Philadelphia, PA, by his uncle, Charles Willson Peale, who taught him to paint. In 1791 Polk moved to Baltimore, MD, where he achieved limited success as a portrait painter. Seeking commissions, he moved to Frederick, MD, in 1796. Over the next five years during travels as an itinerant limner through western Maryland and Virginia he reached his mature style. Abandoning his academic training, Polk developed a distinctive but naive artistic vocabulary with a heightened palette, electric highlights and an exaggerated attenuation of the human form. The portraits of Isaac Hite and his wife Eleanor Madison Hite, as well as James Madison sr and Eleanor Conway Madison (all Middletown, VA, Belle Grove), were commissioned in 1799 and are accepted as his masterpieces. Isaac Hite also commissioned the quintessentially 'republican' portrait of Thomas Jefferson (New York, Victor Spark priv. col.), executed at Monticello in 1799. In 1801 Polk moved to Washington, DC, working as a clerk in the Treasury. During the next 16 years he painted few portraits in oil