Italian 1532-1625 Sofonisba Anguissola was born in Cremona, Lombardy around 1532, the oldest of seven children, six of whom were daughters. Her father, Amilcare Anguissola, was a member of the Genoese minor nobility. Sofonisba's mother, Bianca Ponzone, was also of an affluent family of noble background. Her mother died when Sofonisba was four or five. Over four generations, the Anguissola family had a strong connection to ancient Carthaginian history and they named their offspring after the great general Hannibal, thus the first daughter was named after the tragic Carthaginian figure Sophonisba. Amilcare Anguissola encouraged all of his daughters (Sofonisba, Elena, Lucia, Europa, Minerva and Anna Maria) to cultivate and perfect their talents. Four of the sisters (Elena, Lucia, Europa and Anna Maria) became painters, but Sofonisba was by far the most accomplished and renowned. Elena became a nun (Sofonisba painted a portrait of her) and had to quit painting. Both Anna Maria and Europa gave up art upon marrying, while Lucia Anguissola, the best painter of Sophonisba's sisters, died young. The other sister, Minerva, became a writer and Latin scholar. Asdrubale, Sophonisba's brother, studied music and Latin but not painting. Self-portrait, 1554Her aristocratic father made sure that Sofonisba and her sisters received a well-rounded education that included the fine arts. Anguissola was fourteen years old when her father sent her with her sister Elena to study with Bernardino Campi, a respected portrait and religious painter of the Lombard school, also from Cremona, Sofonisba's home town. When Campi moved to another city, Sofonisba continued her studies with the painter Bernardino Gatti (known as Il Sojaro). Sofonisba's apprenticeship with local painters set a precedent for women to be accepted as students of art.[citation needed] Dates are uncertain, but Anguissola probably continued her studies under Gatti for about three years(1551-1553). Sophonisba's most important early work is Bernardino Campi Painting Sofonisba Anguissola (c 1550 Pinacoteca Nazionale, Siena). The double portrait depicts her art teacher in the act of painting a portrait of her. In 1554, at age twenty-two, Sofonisba traveled to Rome, where she spent her time sketching various scenes and people. While in Rome, she met Michelangelo through the help of another painter who knew her work well. Meeting Michelangelo was a great honor for Sofonisba and she had the benefit of being informally trained by the great master. Lucia, Minerva and Europa Anguissola Playing Chess, 1555. Museum Navrodwe, Poznan, Poland.When he made a request for her to draw a weeping boy, Sofonisba drew 'Child bitten by a crab' and sent it back to Michelangelo, who immediately recognized her talent (this sketch would continue to be discussed and copied for the next fifty years among artists and the aristocracy) Michelangelo subsequently gave Anguissola sketches from his notebooks to draw in her own style and offered advice on the results. For at least two years Sofonisba continued this informal study, receiving substantial guidance from Michelangelo.   Related Paintings of Sofonisba Anguissola :. | Infantin Isabella Clara Eugenia | Self-Portrait at the Spinet | Self Portrait | Girl with a dwarf, thought to be a portrait of Margarita of Savoy, daughter of the Duke and Duchess of Savoy | Selbstbildnis |
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Jerg Ratgeb
Jerg Ratgeb (also Jörg) (born circa 1480 in Schwäbisch Gmend; died 1526 in Pforzheim) was a German painter and contemporary of Derer. Around the turn of the 15th to 16th century, Ratgeb appears to have spent time in Italy, where he came in contact with Italian Renaissance art and with the recently developed use of perspective in painting. After returning to Germany, he settled in Heilbronn. In 1510, he painted the altar of Saint Barbara in the church of nearby Schwaigern. From 1514 to 1517 he was in Frankfurt am Main, where he painted the walls of the refectory and cloister of the Karmeliterkloster (Carmelite Monastery). The paintings, of which only fragments survive, are the largest wall paintings known to the north of the Alps from that period. His most famous work is the Herrenberg Altarpiece, completed in 1521. It was originally painted for the Stiftskirche (abbey church) of Herrenberg. Today, it is on display in the Staatgalerie at Stuttgart. Ratgeb had developed a distinctive personal expressive style, visibly influenced by artists such as Albrecht Derer, Matthias Grenewald and Hieronymus Bosch. Fresco in the Karmeliterkloster, Frankfurt am Main. Copy of the altarpiece in the abbey church at Herrenberg - here depicted when closed Because of his marriage with a serf of the Duke of Werttemberg he lost most of his rights as a citizen of Heilbronn. He moved to Stuttgart, where he became a member of the city council. In that position, he negotiated with the rebelling farmers during the German Peasants' War in 1525. He became part of the military contingent requested by the rebels and was elected councillor and chancellor by the peasants. After the suppression of the rebellion, he was arrested, accused of high treason ("because of the Peasant War and on behalf of Duke Ulrich") and finally executed in Pforzheim in 1526, by being torn apart by four horses.
SAVOLDO, Giovanni Girolamo
Italian Mannerist Painter, ca.1480-1548
Lesser Ury
1861 - 1931 was a German Impressionist painter and printmaker. He was born Leo Lesser Ury in Birnbaum, the son of a baker whose death in 1872 was followed by the Ury family's move to Berlin. In 1878 Lesser left school to apprentice with a tradesman, and the next year he went to D??sseldorf to study painting at the Kunstakademie. Ury spent time in Brussels, Paris, Stuttgart, and other locations, before returning to Berlin in 1887. His first exhibition was in 1889 and met with a hostile reception, although he was championed by Adolph von Menzel whose influence induced the Academie to award Ury a prize. In 1893 he joined the Munich Secession, one of the several Secessions formed by progressive artists in Germany and Austria in the last years of the 19th century. In 1901 he returned to Berlin, where he exhibited with the Berlin Secession, first in 1915 and notably in 1922, when he had a major exhibition. By this time Ury's critical reputation had grown and his paintings and pastels were in demand. His subjects were landscapes, urban landscapes, and interior scenes, treated in an Impressionistic manner that ranged from the subdued tones of figures in a darkened interior to the effects of streetlights at night to the dazzling light of foliage against the summer sky. Ury is especially noted for his paintings of nocturnal cafe scenes and rainy streets. He developed a habit of repeating these compositions in order to sell them while retaining the originals, and these quickly made and inferior copies have harmed his reputation.