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WERTINGER, Hans
German painter (b. 1465, Landshut, d. 1533, Landshut)
German painter and woodcutter. An artist as ambitious as Lucas Cranach I, he became one of Germany's first accredited court painters, working for the Dukes of Landshut in the triangular area defined by Ingolstadt, Straubing and Munich. The son of a functionary working for the Dukes, he was probably first taught by a certain Sigmund Gleism?ller (c. 1449-1511). Hans Mair (Mair von Landshut), who had come from Augsburg and had settled in Landshut, seems to have prompted him to work as a journeyman in Augsburg. His acquisition of citizen's rights in Landshut in 1491 suggests he was a master by that date. Mair seemingly procured him a series of commissions between 1497 and 1499 from Prince Bishop Philipp of Freising (1480-1541). The only work to survive from this period, however, is the large panel of the Life of St Sigismund (1498) in Freising Cathedral. It retains the deep tones associated with Augsburg painting, and its shape, with a pointed arch at the top, must also have been developed in Augsburg. As in Mair's work, several scenes are assembled in the arch and the side sections, creating a cramped Late Gothic framing architecture, Related Paintings of WERTINGER, Hans :. | The Holy Family with Sts Elisabeth and John | Portrait of Almina Daughter of Asher Wertheimer | Niagara Falls viewed from Goat Island | The Archangel Leaving the Family of Tobias | Rest on Flight to Egypt (detail) fg | Related Artists: Gerard DouLeiden 1613-1675
was a Dutch Golden Age painter, whose small, highly-polished paintings are typical of the Leiden fijnschilders. He specialised in genre scenes and is noted for his trompe l'oeil "niche" paintings and candlelit night-scenes with strong chiaroscuro. His first instructor in drawing and design was Bartholomew Dolendo, an engraver; and he afterwards learned the art of glass-painting under Peter Kouwhoorn. At the age of 15 he became a pupil of Rembrandt, with whom he continued for three years. From the great master of the Dutch school he acquired his skill in coloring, and in the more subtle effects of chiaroscuro; and the style of Rembrandt is reflected in several of his earlier pictures, notably in a portrait of himself at the age of 22, in the Bridge-water House gallery, and in the "Blind Tobit going to meet his Son", at Wardour Castle. At a comparatively early point in his career, however, he had formed a manner of his own distinct from, and indeed in some respects antagonistic to, that of his master. Gifted with unusual clearness of vision and precision of manipulation, he cultivated a minute and elaborate style of treatment; and probably few painters ever spent more time and pains on all the details of their pictures down to the most trivial. He is said to have spent five days in painting a hand; and his work was so fine that he found it necessary to manufacture his own brushes. Notwithstanding the minuteness of his touch, however, the general effect was harmonious and free from stiffness, and his color was always admirably fresh and transparent. He was fond of representing subjects in lantern or candle light, the effects of which he reproduced with a fidelity and skill which no other master has equaled. He frequently painted by the aid of a concave mirror, and to obtain exactness looked at his subject through a frame crossed with squares of silk thread. His practice as a portrait painter, which was at first considerable, gradually declined, sitters being unwilling to give him the time that he deemed necessary. His pictures were always small in size, and represented chiefly subjects in still life. Upwards of 200 are attributed to him, and specimens are to be found in most of the great public collections of Europe. His chef-d'oeuvre is generally considered to be The dropsical woman, 1663, and The Dutch Housewife, 1650, both in the Louvre. The Evening School, in the Amsterdam Rijksmuseum, is the best example of the candlelight scenes in which he excelled. In the National Gallery, London, favorable specimens are to be seen in the Poulterer's Shop, William Page1811-1885
William Page studied at Phillips Academy, Andover in 1828-29 (not the Andover Theological Seminary on the same campus, as is commonly asserted). A man of mercurial temperament, Page was lacking in religious belief in youth, but later became a Swedenborgian. He received his training in art from Samuel F. B. Morse (a Phillips Academy graduate) at the National Academy of Design, and in 1836 he became a National Academician. In the 1830s and 40s, Page was based in New York, achieving renown there as a portraitist.
Living in Rome from 1849 to 1860, he befriended Robert and Elizabeth Browning, whose portraits he painted. He was also a friend of William Wetmore Story and of James Russell Lowell, who dedicated his first collection of poems to him in 1843.
In 1873, Page became president of the National Academy of Design. His work includes a painting of Admiral David Farragut at the Battle of Mobile Bay, the Holy Family (now at the Boston Athenaeum) and The Young Merchants (now at Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia), as well as countless portraits, including portraits of John Quincy Adams, James Russell Lowell and William Shakespeare, based on the Becker death mask. He also wrote A New Geometrical Method of Measuring the Human Figure (1860).
He died in 1885, aged 74 on Staten Island. Although extravagantly praised as an artist from the 1830s into the 1860s, Page's reputation suffered in later life because he changed his style so frequently and, more particularly, because technical characteristics of his painting method soon caused much of his work to darken excessively. MOR VAN DASHORST, AnthonisNetherlandish Painter, ca.1517-1577
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