Related Paintings of French school :. | Philip the Bold | Portrait of Gabriel de Rochechouart Duc de Mortemart | Portrait of Montesquieu | the betrothal | Musician and his family |
Related Artists:
Ignazio Danti
Italian,1536-1586 was an Italian priest, mathematician, astronomer, and cosmographer. Danti was born in Perugia to a family rich in artists and scientists. As a boy he learned the rudiments of painting and architecture from his father Giulio, an architect and engineer who studied under Antonio da Sangallo, and his aunt Teodora, who was said to have studied under the painter Perugino and also wrote a commentary on Euclid. His older brother Vincenzo Danti would become one of the leading court sculptors of late-sixteenth-century Florence, while his younger brother Girolamo (1547-1580) would become a local Perugian painter of little fame. Danti entered the Dominican Order on March 7, 1555, changing his baptismal name from Pellegrino to Ignazio. After completing his studies in philosophy and theology he gave some time to preaching, but soon devoted himself zealously to mathematics, astronomy, and geography. In 1562, he requested a transfer from the Dominican compound in Perugia to the monastery of San Marco in Florence. Soon after, he found work on the side tutoring the children of wealthy Florentines in mathematics and science. In September 1563, he was invited by Cosimo I, Duke of Tuscany to participate in his great cosmographical project, the Guardaroba in the Palazzo Vecchio. Over the next dozen years, Danti would paint 30 maps of regions of the world (based largely upon published prints by Giacomo Gastaldi, Abraham Ortelius, Gerardus Mercator, and others) upon the cabinet doors of the Guardaroba. He would also work on many other significant scientific and cosmographic projects in Florence, including the large terrestrial globe of the Guardaroba (1564-1568), and a number of brass scientific instruments (such as an astrolabe) today in the Museo di Storia della Scienza in Florence. Between 1567 and 1569, Pius V, who belonged to the Dominicans, is said to have commissioned Danti to furnish plans for the construction of a Dominican church and convent at Bosco Marengo in Piedmont; Danti acted mainly as an advisor. During his stay in Florence, Danti taught mathematics and published over a dozen scientific treatises, mostly commentaries on ancient and medieval astronomy and mathematics or explanations of how to use scientific instruments. For much of his time in Florence, Danti resided at the convent of Santa Maria Novella, and designed the quadrant (on the right) and the armillary sphere (on the left) that appear on the end blind arches of the lower facade of the church in 1572 and 1574, respectively. He also designed a large-scale gnomon for the church which would allow a thin beam of light to enter the church at noon each day through a hole just beneath the facade's rose window, although it probably was not completed by the time Danti left Florence. There were also discussions between the Duke and Danti about building a canal to place Florence in communication with both the Mediterranean and the Adriatic. However, this grandiose plan never got underway before Cosimo's death in (1574). The following year Cosimo's son, Grand Duke Francesco I de' Medici, forced Danti to leave Florence (in late September 1575) on an uncertain morals charge. It is not known precisely why Francesco exiled Danti, but it should be noted that the Dominican had no trouble finding work or patrons anywhere else in Italy, although he never returned to Florence before his death. After leaving Florence, Danti became professor of mathematics at the University of Bologna. While occupying this chair he built a massive gnomon in the Bolognese church of San Petronio, the meridian line of which is still visible in the church's pavement. He also spent some time in Perugia, at the invitation of the governor, where he prepared maps of the Perugian republic. On account of his mathematical attainments, Pope Gregory XIII invited him to Rome, appointed him pontifical mathematician and made him a member of the commission for the reform of the calendar. He also placed him in charge of the painters whom the Pope had summoned to the Vatican to continue the decoration of the palace, most notably to make a number of maps of the regions of modern Italy in the newly constructed Gallery of Maps along the Cortile del Belvedere. This remarkable project, begun in early 1580 and completed about 18 months later, maps the entirety of the Italian peninsula in 40 large-scale frescoes, each depicting a region as well as a perspective view of its most prominent city. When the pontiff commissioned the architect Domenico Fontana to repair the Claudian harbour it was Danti who furnished the necessary plans. While at Rome Danti published a translation of a portion of Euclid with annotations and wrote a life of the architect Jacopo Barozzi da Vignola, preparing also notes for the latter's work on perspective. In recognition of his labours Gregory, in 1583, made him Bishop of Alatri in the Campagna. Danti showed himself a zealous pastor in his new office.
Thomas Mellish
British, 1778
Tivadar Kosztka Csontvary
born 1853 - d. 1919) was a Hungarian painter. He was one of the first Hungarian painters to become well known in Europe. Csontvery was born on 5 July 1853 in Kisszeben, Seros County, Kingdom of Hungary (today Sabinov, Slovakia), and died 20 June 1919 in Budapest. His ancestors were Poles who settled down in Hungary. Although Csontvery was obsessed with his Magyar roots, he himself grew up speaking Slovak mixed with German. He was a pharmacist until his twenties. On a hot sunny afternoon, 13 October 1880, e when he was 27 years old e he experienced a mystic vision. He heard a voice saying "you will be the greatest sunway painter, greater than Raphael!" He took journeys around Europe, visited the galleries of the Vatican, then went home to collect money for his journeys working as an apothecary. From 1890 onwards he traveled around the world. He visited Paris, the Mediterraneum (Dalmatia, Italy, Greece), North Africa and the Middle East (Lebanon, Palestine, Egypt, Syria) and painted pictures. He painted his major works between 1903 and 1909. He had some exhibitions in Paris (1907) and Western Europe. Most of the critics in Western Europe recognized his abilities, art and congeniality, but in the Kingdom of Hungary during his life he was considered to be an eccentric crank for several reasons, e. g. for his vegetarianism, anti-alcoholism, anti-nicotinism, pacifism, his latent, but more and more apparent schizophrenia and his cloudy, prophetic writings and pamphlets about his life (Curriculum), genius (The Authority, The Genius) and religious philosophy (The Positivum). Even though later he was acclaimed, during his lifetime Csontvery's visionary, expressionistic style found little understanding. A loner by nature, the master's mental balance was upset by his efailuree impairing his creative power. Little did he know that some years after his death, an entire museum in Paris, Hungary, would be devoted to his paintings, and that worldwide appreciation of his works would be in constant ascendancy. Many painters, e.g. Picasso added a stone to Csontvery's cairn.