Dutch Post-Impressionist Painter, 1853-1890 Vincent Willem van Gogh (30 March 1853 ?C 29 July 1890) was a Dutch Post-Impressionist artist. Some of his paintings are now among the world's best known, most popular and expensive works of art. Van Gogh spent his early adult life working for a firm of art dealers. After a brief spell as a teacher, he became a missionary worker in a very poor mining region. He did not embark upon a career as an artist until 1880. Initially, Van Gogh worked only with sombre colours, until he encountered Impressionism and Neo-Impressionism in Paris. He incorporated their brighter colours and style of painting into a uniquely recognizable style, which was fully developed during the time he spent at Arles, France. He produced more than 2,000 works, including around 900 paintings and 1,100 drawings and sketches, during the last ten years of his life. Most of his best-known works were produced in the final two years of his life, during which time he cut off part of his left ear following a breakdown in his friendship with Paul Gauguin. After this he suffered recurrent bouts of mental illness, which led to his suicide. The central figure in Van Gogh's life was his brother Theo, who continually and selflessly provided financial support. Their lifelong friendship is documented in numerous letters they exchanged from August 1872 onwards. Van Gogh is a pioneer of what came to be known as Expressionism. He had an enormous influence on 20th century art, especially on the Fauves and German Expressionists.  Related Paintings of Vincent Van Gogh :. | Still Life with Bible | Wheat Field behind Saint-Paul Hospital (nn04) | Head of a peasant with a clay-pipe | Vineyards at Auvers | Still life:Vast with Oleanders and Books (nn04) |
Related Artists:
Apollonio di Giovanni
ca.1415-1465 Italian painter and illuminator. He was trained by illuminators in the circle of Bartolomeo di Fruosino and Battista di Biagio Sanguini (1393?C1451) and became a member of the Arte dei Medici e degli Speziali in 1442 and of the Compania di S Luca in 1443. Apollonio was influenced by Filippo Lippi, Lorenzo Ghiberti and Paolo Uccello.
Gregorio Lopes
Gregorio Lopes (c. 1490 - 1550) was one of the most important Renaissance painters from Portugal. Gregorio Lopes was educated in the workshop of Jorge Afonso, the court painter of King Manuel I. Later he himself became court painter for both Manuel I and for his successor, John III. In 1514 he married the daughter of Jorge Afonso, and in 1520 was knighted by Prince Jorge de Lencastre and entered the Order of Santiago. The work of Gregorio Lopes mainly consists of painted religious altarpieces for various churches and monasteries in central Portugal. Between 1520 and 1525 he worked (together with Jorge Leal) in painting altarpieces for the Saint Francis Convent of Lisbon. Also in the 1520s he painted panels for the Church of Paraeso (Paradise), also in Lisbon. In his first fase, Gregorio Lopes also worked in Sesimbra, Setebal and in the Monastery of Ferreirim, in this latter case together with Cristevao de Figueiredo and Garcia Fernandes. The painter moved in the 1530s to the city of Tomar, where he painted various panels for the Round Church of the Convent of Christ (1536 - 1539) and the main altarpiece of the Church of Saint John the Baptist (1538 - 1539). His last known works include altarpieces for the Convent of Santos-o-Novo in Lisbon (1540) and the Valverde Convent, near Évora (1545).
ANTONIAZZO ROMANO
[Italian Early Renaissance Painter, 1430-ca.1510 Antoniazzo was born in the Colonna quarter of Rome. He was influenced at first by the decorative manner of Benozzo Gozzoli and Beato Angelico, as well as by the local painters of Lazio. His first recorded work is from 1461, a replica (untraced) of the miraculous Virgin and Child of St. Luke in the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore of Rome, for the seignior of Pesaro, Alessandro Sforza. From 1464 he worked for the papal court, producing at first a triptych of the Virgin and Child with Saints in Rieti. In 1467 he completed the decoration of the funerary chapel of Cardinal Bessarion in the church of Santi Apostoli of Rome, not far from his birthplace. In the centre of the decoration was an icon of the Virgin, now in the Chapel of St Anthony, a copy of the Byzantine icon in the Santa Maria in Cosmedin, the church of the Greeks in Rome. This icon in the Santi Apostoli is one of the most remarkable examples of Antoniazzo's considerable production of Virgins, generally taken from Byzantine models: he was indeed a much sought-after copier of icons. Later he worked to a series of frescoes in the Monastery of Tor de' Specchi in Rome, featuring stories of the life of S. Francesca Romana, and to the decoration of the public rooms of the Palazzo Venezia. In the 1470s Antoniazzo worked to the decoration of the Vatican Palace with artists like Perugino, Melozzo da Forl?? and Ghirlandaio. Through their influence his figures acquired gentler expressions and their garments were ornamented with decorative patterns, though always retaining several Medieval features. Together with Melozzo he worked to frescoes in Santa Maria sopra Minerva, and subsequently painted for that church a famous Annunciation (1482). The painting shows the Dominican Juan de Torquemada (cardinal) (d. 1468) presenting poor girls dowered by the guild of the Annunciation that he founded to the Virgin Mary. In the years between 1475 and 1480 Antoniazzo's production of altarpieces and panels with images of the Virgin increased as a result of the encouragement of the cult of the Virgin by Pope Sixtus IV. His later works show an increasing mannerism in their features, which were later imitated by several painters, whose works had been often attributed to the master. Antoniazzo was one of the three founders of the Compagnia di San Luca, the guild of painters and illuminators in Rome, and signed the statutes in 1478.