1727-1788 British Thomas Gainsborough Locations English painter, draughtsman and printmaker. He was the contemporary and rival of Joshua Reynolds, who honoured him on 10 December 1788 with a valedictory Discourse (pubd London, 1789), in which he stated: If ever this nation should produce genius sufficient to acquire to us the honourable distinction of an English School, the name of Gainsborough will be transmitted to posterity, in the history of Art, among the very first of that rising name. He went on to consider Gainsborough portraits, landscapes and fancy pictures within the Old Master tradition, against which, in his view, modern painting had always to match itself. Reynolds was acknowledging a general opinion that Gainsborough was one of the most significant painters of their generation. Less ambitious than Reynolds in his portraits, he nevertheless painted with elegance and virtuosity. He founded his landscape manner largely on the study of northern European artists and developed a very beautiful and often poignant imagery of the British countryside. By the mid-1760s he was making formal allusions to a wide range of previous art, from Rubens and Watteau to, eventually, Claude and Titian. He was as various in his drawings and was among the first to take up the new printmaking techniques of aquatint and soft-ground etching. Because his friend, the musician and painter William Jackson (1730-1803), claimed that Gainsborough detested reading, there has been a tendency to deny him any literacy. He was, nevertheless, as his surviving letters show, verbally adept, extremely witty and highly cultured. He loved music and performed well. He was a person of rapidly changing moods, humorous, brilliant and witty. At the time of his death he was expanding the range of his art, having lived through one of the more complex and creative phases in the history of British painting. He painted with unmatched skill and bravura; while giving the impression of a kind of holy innocence, he was among the most artistically learned and sophisticated painters of his generation. It has been usual to consider his career in terms of the rivalry with Reynolds that was acknowledged by their contemporaries; while Reynolds maintained an intellectual and academic ideal of art, Gainsborough grounded his imagery on contemporary life, maintaining an aesthetic outlook previously given its most powerful expression by William Hogarth. His portraits, landscapes and subject pictures are only now coming to be studied in all their complexity; having previously been viewed as being isolated from the social, philosophical and ideological currents of their time, they have yet to be fully related to them. It is clear, however, that his landscapes and rural pieces, and some of his portraits, were as significant as Reynolds acknowledged them to be in 1788.  Related Paintings of Thomas Gainsborough :. | Mr and Mrs Andrews | lady getrude alston | Sir Benjamin Thompson | Portrait of Johann Christian Fischer German composer | Mrs Lownds Stone |
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Thomas De Keyser
1586-1667 Dutch Thomas De Keyser Gallery De Keyser excelled as a portrait painter, and was the most in-demand portrait painter in the Netherlands until the 1630s, when Rembrandt eclipsed him in popularity. Rembrandt was influenced by his work, and many of de Keyser's paintings were later falsely attributed to Rembrandt. His portraiture is full of character and masterly in handling, and often distinguished by a rich golden glow of color and Rembrandtesque chiaroscuro. Some of his portraits are life-size, but the artist generally preferred to keep them on a considerably smaller scale, like the famous Four Amsterdam burgomasters assembled to receive Marie de Medici in 1638, now on display at the Mauritshuis museum in The Hague. In addition to portraits, he also executed some historical and mythological pictures, such as the Theseus and Ariadne in the Amsterdam town hall, now the Royal Palace. De Keyser also worked as an architect. From 1662 until his death in 1667 he oversaw construction of the new Amsterdam town hall, now Royal Palace. De Keyser was a son of the architect and sculptor Hendrik de Keyser. We have no definite knowledge of his training, and but scant information as to the course of his life. Aert Pietersz, Cornelis vander Voort, Werner van Valckert and Nicolas Elias are accredited by different authorities with having developed his talent. In the 1640s, de Keyser received very few painting commissions, and was forced to seek income elsewhere. He owned a basalt business from 1640 until 1654, when he returned to painting. The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam has the largest collection of paintings by de Keyser. His work can also be seen at the Louvre in Paris, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, the Hermitage in Saint Petersburg and the National Gallery in London, among others. The Stedelijk Museum modern art museum in Amsterdam carries a statue of de Keyser on its facade. A street in Enschede is named for him. A contemporary namesake of the painter was Thomas de Keyser (Utrecht, 1597-1651), an actor and nephew of Hendrick de Keyser.
Vleughels Nicolas
French , b Paris, 6 Dec 1668; d Rome, 11 Dec 1737
shah-u-gada
In Vishnudharmottara Purana, Kubera is described as the embodiment of both Artha ("wealth, prosperity, glory") and Arthashastras, treatises related to it and his iconography mirrors it. Kubera's complexion is described as that of lotus leaves. He rides a man - the state personified, adorned in golden clothes and ornaments, symbolizing his wealth. His left eye is yellow. He wears a armour and necklace upto his large belly. His face should be inclined to the left, sporting a beard and moustache and with two small tusks protruding from the ends of his mouth, representing his powers to punish and bestow favours. His wife Riddhi - representing the journey of life - is seated on his left lap, with her left hand on the back of Kubera and right holding a ratna-patra ("jewel-pot"). He should be four-armed, holding a gada (mace - symbol of dandaniti - administration of justice) and a shakti (power) in his left pair and standards bearing a lion - representing artha and a shibika (a club, the weapon of Kubera). The nidhi treasures Padma and Shankha stand besides him in human forms with their heads emerging from a lotus and a conch respectively. Agni Purana states that Kubera should be installed in temples as seated on a goat with club in his hand. Kubera's image is prescribed to be of gold with multi-coloured attributes