1776-1857 Russian painter. He was born a serf and in 1790 was apprenticed to a pastrycook in St Petersburg. From 1793 he attended classes at the Academy of Art there, in 1799 becoming a pupil of the portrait painter Stepan Shchukin (1762-1828). In 1804 he was sent to work as a pastrycook and manservant on an estate in the Ukraine owned by his master, General Morkov. Tropinin's Ukrainian period (1804-21) was interrupted by frequent, often protracted, visits to Moscow. During these years he copied a great deal, drew landscapes from nature and also painted religious subjects. His early style is painterly and distinguished by freedom of execution and skill in the use of colour, but the compositions are derivative and the drawing weak: The Spinner (1820s), The Lacemaker (1823), Wedding in the Village of Kukavka, Podolsky Province and Girl with a Bird (all Moscow, Tret'yakov Gal.). Portraiture, however, began to take on a more important place in his work; the best of this period is the Portrait of Arseny, the Artist's Son (1818; Moscow, Tret'yakov Gal.), especially notable for its use of colour. Tropinin captured perfectly the child's spontaneous vision of the world, his sensitive spirit and openness. While in Moscow from 1813 to 1818, he portrayed a series of important cultural figures that brought him great popularity. He was freed from serfdom on 8 May 1823 and shortly thereafter he became a nominee to the Academy for his paintings The Lacemaker  Related Paintings of Vasily Tropinin :. | Portrait of Arseny Tropinin, son of the artist, | The Gold-Embroideress, | Portrait of Vasily Karatygin, | Portrait of Nikolay Karamzin, | Portrait of Alexander Pushkin, |
Related Artists:
BRUEGHEL, Pieter the Younger
Flemish painter (b. 1564, Bruxelles, d. 1638, Antwerp). Pieter Brueghel the Younger was the oldest son of the famous sixteenth-century Netherlandish painter Pieter Brueghel the Elder (known as "Peasant Brueghel") and Mayken Coecke van Aelst. His father died in 1569, when Pieter the younger was only five years old. Then, following the death of his mother in 1578, Pieter, along with his brother Jan Brueghel the Elder ("Velvet Brueghel") and sister Marie, went to live with their grandmother Mayken Verhulst (widow of Pieter Coecke van Aelst). She was an artist in her own right, and according to Carel van Mander, possibly the first teacher of the two sons. The family moved to Antwerp sometime after 1578 and Pieter possibly entered the studio of the landscape painter Gillis van Coninxloo (1544-1607). In the 1584/1585 registers of Guild of Saint Luke, "Peeter Brugel" is listed as an independent master. On November 5, 1588 he married Elisabeth Goddelet, and the couple had seven children. He painted landscapes, religious subjects and fantasy paintings. For this last category he often made use of fire and grotesque figures, leading to his nickname "Hell Brueghel". Apart from these paintings of his own invention, Pieter Brueghel the Younger also copied the works his father had created by using a technique called pouncing. His genre paintings of peasants lack Pieter the Elder's subtlety and humanism, and emphasize the picturesque.
GIOVANNI DA MODENA
Italian painter, Bolognese school (active 1409-1456 in Bologna)
Pieter Lastman
(1583 - 4 April 1633 (buried)) was a Dutch painter . Lastman is considered important because of his work as a painter of history pieces and because his pupils included Rembrandt and Jan Lievens. In his paintings Lastman paid a lot of attention to the faces, hands and feet. Pieter Lastman was born in Amsterdam, the son of a town-beadle, who was dismissed in 1578 for being a Catholic. His mother was an appraiser of paintings and goods. His apprenticeship was with Gerrit Sweelinck, the brother of Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck. Between approximately 1604 and 1607 Lastman was in Italy, where he was influenced by Caravaggio (as were the painters of the Utrecht School a few years later) and by Adam Elsheimer. Back in Amsterdam he moved in with his mother in the Sint Antoniesbreestraat, living next to mayor Geurt van Beuningen. Lastman never married although he promised to marry the sister of Gerbrand Adriaensz Bredero. Because of his health Lastman moved in with his brother in 1632. He died the next year and was buried in the Oude Kerk.