1657-1747 Italian Francesco Solimena Gallery Francesco Solimena was born in Canale di Serino, near Avellino. He received early training from his father, Angelo Solimena, with whom he executed a Paradise for the cathedral of Nocera (place where he spend a big part of his life) and a Vision of St. Cyril of Alexandria for the church of San Domenico at Solofra. He settled in Naples in 1674, there he worked in the studio of Francesco di Maria and later Giacomo del Po[1]. He apparently had taken the clerical orders, but was patronized early on, and encouraged to become an artist by Cardinal Vincenzo Orsini (later Pope Benedict XIII)[2]. By the 1680s, he had independent fresco commissions, and his active studio came to dominate Neapolitan painting from the 1690s through the first four decades of the 18th century. He modeled his art??for he was a highly conventional painter??after the Roman Baroque masters, Luca Giordano and Giovanni Lanfranco, and Mattia Preti, whose technique of warm brownish shadowing Solimena emulated. Solimena painted many frescoes in Naples, altarpieces, celebrations of weddings and courtly occasions, mythological subjects, characteristically chosen for their theatrical drama, and portraits. His settings are suggested with a few details??steps, archways, balustrades, columns??concentrating attention on figures and their draperies, caught in pools and shafts of light. Art historians take pleasure in identifying the models he imitated or adapted in his compositions. His numerous preparatory drawings often mix media, combining pen-and-ink, chalk and watercolor washes. Francesco Solimena 'A study for the fresco cycle in the Sacristy of San Paolo Maggiore in Naples', Whitfield Fine Art.A typical example of the elaborately constructed allegorical "machines" of his early mature style, fully employing his mastery of chiaroscuro, is the Allegory of Rule (1690) from the Stroganoff collection, which has come to the State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg. He apparently hoped to see his son Orazio follow a career in the law, for which he received a doctorate (de Domenici), but also became a painter. His large, efficiently structured atelier became a virtual academy, at the heart of cultural life in Naples. Among his many pupils were Francesco de Mura (1696-1784) , Giuseppe Bonito (1707-89), Pietro Capelli, Gaspare Traversi, and most notably Corrado Giaquinto and Sebastiano Conca. The Scottish portraitist Allan Ramsay spent three years in Solimena's studio. Solimena amassed a fortune, was made a baron and lived in sumptuous style founded on his success. Francesco Solimena died at Barra, near Naples, in 1747.  Related Paintings of Francesco Solimena :. | L Assomption et le Couronnement de la Vierge | Portrait of Charles VI, Holy Roman Emperor | Descent from the Cross | Expxulsion of Heliodorus from the Temple | The Trinity, the Madonna and St Dominic |
Related Artists:
COUSTENS, Pieter
Flemish painter (active 1453-1487 in Bruges and Brussels)
Gigo Gabashvili
(November 9, 1862 - October 28, 1936) was a Georgian painter and educator. His work was particularly influential since he was the first Georgian realistic artist to cover a wide range of subjects, both in oils and watercolor, including portraits, landscapes and scenes of everyday life. Born in Tbilisi, Georgia (then part of the Russian Empire), Gigo Gabashvili was educated at the academies of St. Petersburg (1886 - 1888) and Munich (1894 - 1897). Returning to his homeland, he made his debut as the first artist to have been honored with a personal exhibition in Tbilisi. From 1900 to 1920, he taught at the art school operated by the Caucasian Society for Promotion of Fine Arts. Gabashvili was one of the founding professors of the Tbilisi State Academy of Arts (1922) and was granted the title of the People's Artist of the Georgian SSR (1929). Gabashvili remained a staunch realist and made known his opposition to left-wing art. He died in Tsikhisdziri, Adjara, in 1936. He is best known for his series of vivid portraits of peasants, townsmen, and noblemen ("The Three Townsmen", 1893; "The Sleeping Khevsur", 1898; "The Drunk Khevsur", 1899; "A Kurd", 1903 - 1909; "The Three Generals", 1910; etc.) as well as multifigure scenes from Georgian ("Alaverdoba Festival", 1899) and Oriental life - many of them based on the sketches of his Central Asian journey in 1894 ("The Bazaar in Samarkand", 1894 - 1897; "The Divan-Bey Pool in Bukhara", 1897; etc.). Most of his works are now on display at the National Museum of Fine Arts in Tbilisi. His 1895 copy of "The Bazaar in Samarkand," created at the request of the U.S. diplomat and businessman Charles R. Crane who met him during his travel in the Caucasus, was sold for USD 1.36 million at Sotheby's in 2006.
francois couperin
was a French Baroque composer, organist and harpsichordist. François Couperin was known as "Couperin le Grand" (Couperin the Great) to distinguish him from the other members of the musically talented Couperin family.