Greek-born Spanish Mannerist Painter, 1541-1614 Considered a representative of late Renaissance Spanish art, El Greco was actually born in Greece, on the island of Crete. After studying in Venice under Titian, El Greco settled in Toledo, Spain in 1577. At the time he was wildly popular, his emotionally religious paintings being just the ticket for the hometown of the Spanish Inquisition. After his death his work was largely ignored until the beginning of the 20th century; now he considered one of the inspired geniuses of Western art. His distinctive style features bold shapes and colors, with elongated and slightly distorted figures. In Toledo El Greco was in constant demand and liked living large: he maintained a private orchestra to accompany his meals.  Related Paintings of El Greco :. | St Luke | the repentant magdalen | Portrait of Jorge Manuel Theotocopoulos | Agony in the Garden | The Purification of the Temple |
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Albertus Pictor
c.1440-1509,English also called Albert Pictor, Albert Målare and Albrekt Pärlstickare (Swedish), is the most famous late medieval Swedish painter, known for his wallpaintings surviving in numerous churches in southern and central Sweden. Albertus was originally called Albertus Immenhusen, after the German town in Hessen of which he was a native. He occurs in Swedish historical sources from 1465, when he was admitted a burgher of Arboga. Eight years later he moved to Stockholm, where, in accordance with current practice, he took over the workshop as well as the widow of a deceased painter. He was a versatile and prolific artist, known to his contemporaries not only for his church wallpaintings, but also as an organist and embroiderer (hence his nickname of Parlstickare, Pearl-embroiderer). More than thirty of his schemes, mostly in a secco technique, are extant, many in the Lake Malaren region, about a third of which bear his signature. Notable examples include wallpaintings at Bromma kyrka, near Stockholm, Lid kyrka, in Sodermanland and Taby Kyrkby kyrka in Taby. Part of his life and work are depicted in the illustrated book, Albert malare och sommaren i Harkeberga (Albert the Painter and the summer in Harkeberga), which describes his painting of the small church of Harkeberga in Uppland (see below).
Bela Ivanyi-Grunwald
(6 May 1867 - 24 September 1940) was a Hungarian painter, a leading member of the Nagybenya artists' colony and founder of the Kecskemet artists' colony. Born in Som, Ivenyi-Grenwald began his artistic studies under Bertalan Szekely and Keroly Lotz at the Academy of Fine Arts in Budapest (1882-86) and continued them at Munich in 1886-87 and at the Academie Julian in Paris from 1887 to 1890. From 1891 he again worked in Munich; in 1894 he travelled with Ferenc Eisenhut to Egypt, where he painted several oriental-themed works. Beginning in 1889 he had regular exhibitions at the Palace of Art in Budapest. Characteristic of his early pictures is A Hader kardja ("The Warrior's Sword", 1890), a proto-Symbolist treatment of rural genre showing the influence of Jules Bastien-Lepage. After his return to Munich, Ivenyi-Grenwald painted a large-scale genre painting entitled Nihilistek sorsot heznak ("Nihilists Drawing Lots", 1893), a work as notable for its dramatic use of chiaroscuro as for its deeply felt subject-matter. In response to a state commission for the 1896 Millennium Exhibition in Budapest he produced an enormous academic history painting.
Johan Christoffer Boklund
(15 July 1817 - 9 December 1880) was a Swedish history, genre, and portrait painter from Kulla-Gunnarstorp in Scania.He was the son of a gardener. At the age of fifteen, Boklund came to Lund, where he worked on illustrations for Sven Nilsson's works on Scandinavian fauna (under the supervision of Magnus Körner). He then became a student at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen where J. L. Lund was his teacher. In 1837, Boklund went to Stockholm and began studying at the Royal Swedish Academy of Arts. He made a living as a lithograph and drawing teacher, and produced several small genre paintings of the everyday life (such as Flicka med blomster (English: Girl with flowers) and Köksinteriör (English: Kitchen interior)) and history paintings of the 17th century (such as Gustaf Adolfs afsked från Maria Eleonora (English: Gustaf Adolf's farewell from Maria Eleonora), which was awarded with a medal at the academy). Together with fellow Swedish painter Johan Fredrik Höckert, Boklund traveled to Munich in Germany in 1846 and stayed there for eight years. During the summers he went on study trips to Bavaria, Tyrol, and northern Italy. During this period, Boklund primarily devoted his painting to the history genre with subjects from the 17th century, but he also made some paintings depicting picturesque and architectural interior. In 1853, he sent his painting Den nyfikne trumpetaren (English: The curious trumpet player) home to Sweden and it earned him a scholarship from the government. This allowed Boklund to move to Paris, where he worked at Thomas Couture's atelier from 1854 to 1855. In December 1855 he returned to Sweden.