Spanish Mannerist Painter and Sculptor, ca.1488-1561 Alonso Berruguete was born in Paredes de Navas, Valladolid, the son of Pedro Berruguete, Spain's first major Early Renaissance painter. Pedro was trained in Italy, and it is understandable that he would want his son to have an Italian formation. Alonso was in Florence from about 1504, the year of his father's death, until about 1517. He also spent time in Rome during this period. Berruguete's original purpose was to train as a painter, but he had the opportunity to study sculpture under Michelangelo, whom he is said to have assisted in the execution of some works. Berruguete received minor commissions, such as the completion of paintings and sculptures left unfinished by other artists. On his return to Spain, Berruguete executed an alabaster relief, the Resurrection, for Valencia Cathedral (ca. 1517), which compares favorably with early works by Michelangelo. It is Hellenistic in its anatomical beauty, multiple diagonals, and range of relief projection. The figure of Christ is the climactic center of interest: a vertical, stabilizing force amid a tumult of diagonals described in the agitated movements of the startled Roman soldiers. In 1518 Emperor Charles V named Berruguete court painter. When illness prevented Berruguete from sailing to Germany with Charles V in 1520, the Emperor took it personally and turned a deaf ear to Berruguete's subsequent petitions for commissions. He then returned to his native village until 1523, when Charles V named him a scribe of the criminal section of the Chancery in Valladolid. This gave Berruguete social status, an income, and work he could deputize. Henceforth, he set himself to amass riches and advance socially. He established a studio in Valladolid, hired a number of apprentices, and priced his works above those of all other artists. It was a time of great wealth in Spain; Berruguete had seen sumptuous riches in Italy and was determined to so live that his compatriots would accord him the reverence and acclaim enjoyed by Italian artists. In 1528 Berruguete built himself a palace in Valladolid, opposite the monastery of S. Benito, for which he created his greatest altarpiece. He succeeded so well in his ambitions that in 1542 he sold the Emperor's benefice for 4,000 ducats. Two years before he died, he became a squire when the regent of Portugal, Princess Juana, gave him the village of Ventosa with its 120 inhabitants.  Related Paintings of BERRUGUETE, Alonso :. | Madonna and Child with the Young St John | St Sebastian | Salome with the Head of John the Baptist | Last Supper | Madonna and Child |
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Ludovico Mazzolino
(1480 - c. 1528) - also known as Mazzolini da Ferrara, Lodovico Ferraresa, and Il Ferrarese - was an Italian Renaissance painter active in Ferrara and Bologna. He was born and died in Ferrara. He appears to have studied under such as Lorenzo Costa, who also trained Dosso Dossi and Cosimo Tura, and came under the influence of Ercole Roberti. In 1521 he married Giovanna, the daughter of Bartolomeo Vacchi, a Venetian painter. Much of his work was commissioned by the duke Ercole I d'Este from Ferrara. Mazzolino was influenced by il Garofalo and Boccaccino. He is known for devotional cabinet pictures, in a style somewhat regressive, or primitive, relative to the modern classicism then emerging. For example, his Massacre canvas has a turbulent and cartoonish crowding. The exact date, or even year, of his death is not known, but he died during a plague which devastated the area.
John Evan Hodgson
painted The french naturalist in Algiers 1879
Maurice quentin de la tour
1704-88 French pastellist. He was one of the greatest pastellists of the 18th century, an equal of Jean-Sim?on Chardin and Jean-Baptiste Perronneau. Unlike them, however, he painted no works in oils. Reacting against the stately portraits of preceding generations and against the mythological portraits of many of his contemporaries, La Tour returned to a more realistic and sober style of work. The fundamental quality of his art lies in his ability to suggest the temperament and psychology of his subjects by means of their facial expression, and thereby to translate their fugitive emotions on to paper: 'I penetrate into the depths of my subjects without their knowing it, and capture them whole', as he himself put it. His considerable success led to commissions from the royal family, the court, the rich bourgeoisie and from literary, artistic and theatrical circles.