Anton Raphael Mengs
1728-1779
Dutch
Anton Raphael Mengs Gallery
Mengs was born in 1728 at Usti nad Labem (German: Aussig) in Bohemia on 12 March 1728; he died in Rome 29 June 1779. His father, Ismael Mengs, a Danish painter, established himself finally at Dresden, whence in 1741 he took his son to Rome.
In Rome, his fresco painting of Parnassus at Villa Albani gained him a reputation as a master painter. The appointment of Mengs in 1749 as first painter to Frederick Augustus, elector of Saxony did not prevent his spending much time in Rome, where he had married Margarita Quazzi who had sat for him as a model in 1748, and abjured the Protestant faith, and where he became in 1754 director of the Vatican school of painting, nor did this hinder him on two occasions from obeying the call of Charles III of Spain to Madrid. There Mengs produced some of his best work, and specially the ceiling of the banqueting-hall of the Royal Palace of Madrid, the subject of which was the Triumph of Trajan and the Temple of Glory. Among his pupils there was Agust??n Esteve. After the completion of this work in 1777, Mengs returned to Rome, and there he died, two years later, in poor circumstances, leaving twenty children, seven of whom were pensioned by the king of Spain. His portraits and autoportraits recall an attention to detail and insight, often lost from the grand manner paintings.
Besides numerous paintings in the Madrid gallery, the Ascension and St Joseph at Dresden, Perseus and Andromeda at Saint Petersburg, and the ceiling of the Villa Albani must be mentioned among his chief works. In 1911, Henry George Percy, 7th Duke of Northumberland, possessed a Holy Family, and the colleges of All Souls and Magdalen, at Oxford, possessed altar-pieces by Mengs's hand.
In his writings, in Spanish, Italian and German, Mengs has put forth his eclectic theory of art, which treats of perfection as attainable by a well-schemed combination of diverse excellences Greek design, with the expression of Raphael, the chiaroscuro of Correggio, and the colour of Titian. He would have fancied himself the first neoclassicist, while in fact he may be the last flicker of Baroque art. Or in the words of Wittkower, In the last analysis, he is as much an end as a beginning.
His intimacy with Johann Joachim Winckelmann, who constantly wrote at his dictation, has enhanced his historical importance, for he formed no scholars, and the critic must now concur in Goethe's judgment of Mengs in Winckelmann und sein Jahrhundert; he must deplore that so much learning should have been allied to a total want of initiative and poverty of invention, and embodied with a strained and artificial mannerism.
Mengs was famous for his rivalry with the contemporary Italian painter Pompeo Batoni. Related Paintings of Anton Raphael Mengs :. | Portrait of Maria Luisa of Spain | Maria Luisa of Parma | Portrait of Charles III of Spain | Portrait of Archduke Ferdinand (1769-1824) and Archduchess Maria Anna of Austria (1770-1809), children of Leopold II, Holy Roman Emperor | the later Queen Maria Luisa of Spain | Related Artists: Juan de EspinosaSpanish Baroque Era Painter, ca.1590-1641, Spanish painter. Details of his life are scarce. He is documented in Madrid and Toledo between 1612 and 1626, and while he is recorded as having painted religious pictures and portraits (untraced), he is only known today for his still-life paintings. Documents relating to another artist of the same name, known as Juan de Espinosa, dating from 1645 to 1677, concern a different painter. magdalene margrethe barensMagdalene Margrethe Bärens, född 1737, död 1808, var en dansk konstnär; hon blev den första kvinnliga konstnären i Danmark som valdes in i den danska konstakademin år 1780.
Hon var en av de få kvinnliga konstnärerna kända i Skandinavien före 1800-talet, tillsammans med Ulrika Pasch i Sverige och Helena Arnell i Finland. I Danmark var även Johanne Marie Fosie känd under samma tid. Maximilien LuceMaximilien Luce (March 13, 1858 - February 6, 1941) was a French Neo-impressionist artist. A printmaker, painter, and anarchist, Luce is best known for his pointillist canvases. He grew up in the working class Montparnasse, and became a painter of landscapes and urban scenes which frequently emphasize the activities of people at work. He was a member of the Groupe de Lagny with Leo Gausson, Émile-Gustave Cavallo-Peduzzi and Lucien Pissarro.
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