English-born American Painter, 1779-1851 American painter of English birth. He was one of the most important American landscape and marine painters of the early 19th century. He moved to America in 1794 with his father William Birch (1755-1834), a painter and engraver from whom he received his artistic training. The family settled in Philadelphia, where William, armed with letters of introduction from Benjamin West to leading citizens of that city, became a drawing-master. Early in their American careers both Birches executed cityscapes, several of which were engraved. Thomas contributed a number of compositions to The City of Philadelphia in the State of Pennsylvania, North America, as it Appeared in the Year 1800 (1800), a series of views conceived by the elder Birch in obvious imitation of comparable British productions. An English sensibility is also apparent in the many paintings of country estates executed by father and son in the early 19th century These compositions, along with such portrayals of important public edifices in and near Philadelphia as Fairmount Waterworks  Related Paintings of Birch, Thomas :. | Head of Christ | Stilleben | Martha and Mary Magdalene gg | Lady Elizabeth Thimbelby and her Sister | The Physician dfg |
Related Artists:
Jean Urbain Guerin
French, 1760-1836
CIGOLI
Italian Baroque Era Painter, 1559-1613 was an Italian painter and architect of the late Mannerist and early Baroque period, trained and active in his early career in Florence, and spending the last nine years of his life in Rome. Lodovico Cardi was born at Villa Castelvecchio di Cigoli, in Tuscany, whence the name by which he is commonly known. Initially, Cigoli trained in Florence under the fervid mannerist Alessandro Allori. Later, influenced by the most prominent of the Contra-Maniera painters, Santi di Tito, as well as by Barocci, Cigoli shed the shackles of mannerism and infused his later paintings with an expressionism often lacking from 16th century Florentine painting. For example, for the Roman patron, Massimo Massimi, he painted an Ecce Homo[1] (now in Palazzo Pitti). Supposedly unbenknownst to any of the painters, two other prominent contemporary painters, Passignano and Caravaggio, had been requested canvases on the same theme. It is unclear if they are completely independent. Cigoli's painting seems to have been made with knowledge of Caravaggio's canvas; however, while Cigoli's work lacks the power of Caravaggio's naturalism, the background shade and sparse foreground shows how much he was moving away from crowded Florentine historical paintings. This work was afterwards taken by Bonaparte to the Louvre, and was restored to Florence in 1815. One of his early paintings was of Cain slaying Abel. He then gained the employ of the Grand-Duke in some works for the Pitti Palace, where he painted a Venus and Satyr and a Sacrifice of Isaac. Other important pictures are St. Peter Healing the Lame Man in St Peter's; Conversion of St. Paul in the church of San Paolo fuori le Mura, and a Story of Psyche in a fresco incorporated in the decorative scheme of the Villa Borghese; a Martyrdom of Stephen, which earned him the name of the "Florentine Correggio", a Stigmata of St. Francis at Florence. Cigoli was made a Knight of Malta at the request of Pope Paul III. Cigoli, a close personal friend of Galileo Galilei, painted a last fresco in the dome of the Pauline chapel of the church of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome, depicting the Madonna standing upon a pock-marked lunar orb. This is the first extant example of Galileo's discoveries about the physical nature of the moon (as he himself drew it in Sidereus Nuncius) having penetrated the visual arts practice of his day. Until this image, the moon in pictures of the Virgin had always been mythical and smooth, perfectly spherical as described by Platonic & Ptolemaic tradition.
Jacob van der Does
(4 March 1623, Amsterdam - buried 17 November 1673, Sloten) was a Dutch Golden Age landscape painter. Van der Does was the son of the secretary of the Amsterdam city council. He was more attracted to the arts than to note-taking, and went to study drawing with Claes Corneliszoon Moeyaert. He left at 21 to go to France, and from there on foot to Italy. In Rome he joined the Bentvueghels and was dubbed Tamboer, which means drummerboy, since he was somewhat short and had been meant for the military life. He studied with Pieter van Laer (Bamboots). When he eventually returned North, he settled in The Hague where he married Margaretha Boortens and got 4 sons and a daughter. His wife died in 1661. Houbraken liked his natural style of painting, and especially his way of painting sheep was very admirable.His wife's sister was Maria Boortens, and they both were good artists themselves. All three of them made drawings for the album of the wealthy Hague diplomat Cornelis de Glarges in 1659. Through Maria Boortens, Jacob van der Does was connected to Jacob van Campen and Adriaen van Nieulandt the younger. He became involved in the Guild of St. Luke in The Hague. He was one of the founders of the Confrerie Pictura in 1656. His pupils were Theodor Bernoille, Marcus de Bye, Gamaliel Day, Alexander Havelaer, Anthony Schinckels, and his sons Jacob II and Simon van der Does.