Italian Baroque Era Painter, 1577-1621
was an Italian portrait painter of the late Florentine Mannerist school. Allori was born at Florence and received his first lessons in painting from his father, Alessandro Allori, but becoming dissatisfied with the hard anatomical drawing and cold coloring of the latter, he entered the studio of Gregorio Pagani (1558-1605) who was one of the leaders of the late Florentine school, which sought to unite the rich coloring of the Venetians with the Florentine attention to drawing. Allori also appears to have worked under Cigoli. His pictures are distinguished by their close adherence to nature and the delicacy and technical perfection of their execution. His technical skill is shown by the fact that several copies he made of Correggio's works were thought to be duplicates by Correggio himself. His extreme fastidiousness limited the number of his works. Several specimens are to be seen at Florence and elsewhere. The finest of his works is his Judith with the Head of Holofernes. It exists in two copies in the Pitti Palace in Florence and in the Queen's Gallery in London. Related Paintings of Cristofano Allori :. | Isaaks Opferung | Portrait of Francesco and Caterina Medici | John the Baptist in the desert | Judith with the Head of Holofernes | Portrait of Francesco and Caterina Medici | Related Artists:
Daniel OrmeBritish, 1766-1832
BELLINI, GentileItalian Early Renaissance Painter, ca.1429-1507
Gentile was born into a family of renowned painters: his father Jacopo Bellini, was a Venetian pioneer in the use of oil paint as an artistic medium; his acclaimed brother was Giovanni Bellini, and his brother-in-law Andrea Mantegna. Gentile was taught painting in the workshop of his father. Although today Gentile is often seen in the shadow of his more famous family members, in his own time he was considered among the greatest living painters in Venice and had no shortage of commissions; his talent as a portraitist revealed itself at an early age.
FALCONE, AnielloItalian painter, Naples school (b. 1607, Napoli, d. 1656, Napoli).
Italian painter and draughtsman. He trained briefly with Jusepe de Ribera, the Caravaggesque Spanish painter. He quickly won fame as a specialist in scenes of battle, and his contemporaries nicknamed him the 'oracle' of this genre. Falcone created the 'battle scene without a hero' (Saxl): he showed the battle as a brutal, confused struggle between anonymous troops, without heroes, without defeats and without particular historical incidents. The Battle between Turks and Christians (1621; Paris, Louvre; see fig.) is one of the earliest. The frieze-like composition is elaborately structured, yet the picture is rich in intensely naturalistic, vividly coloured details of armour and weapons and precisely observed expressions of anger and pain. The famous dealer and collector Gaspar Roomer and other Neapolitan collectors commissioned many battle pictures from him, and these were soon introduced throughout Europe. He was especially favoured by Ferrante Spinelli, Prince of Tarsia, who gave Falcone a residence in his palace after 1651.