1370-1427 Italian Gentile da Fabriano Locations Gentile da Fabriano, whose real name was Gentile di Niccolo di Giovanni di Massio, came from Fabriano in the Marches. According to tradition, his family was an old one and moderately prosperous. His father, who was said to have been a scholar, mathematician, and astrologer, became an Olivetan monk when a monastery of that order was established in Fabriano in 1397. Gentile brother, Ludovico, was a monk of the same order in Fabriano, and Gentile himself was living in the Olivetan monastery of S. Maria Nuova in Rome at the time of his death. A document of Oct. 14, 1427, speaks of him as dead. Gentile art indicates that he was probably trained in Lombardy, perhaps in Milan. He worked in the then current International Gothic style, to which he brought his own personal quality. His earliest works display the decorative rhythmic drapery patterns preferred by the International Gothic masters, which Gentile tempered and ultimately abandoned after his contact with Florentine art. In a document of 1408 Gentile is recorded in Venice, where he painted an altarpiece (now lost) for Francesco Amadi. Testifying to his high reputation was his commission in 1409 for frescoes in the Doges Palace in Venice (painted over in 1479). Pandolfo Malatesta commissioned Gentile to decorate a chapel (destroyed) in Brescia in 1414. The artist is last recorded in Brescia on Sept. 18, 1419, when he departed for Rome to answer the summons of Pope Martin V. Gentile name first appeared on the roll of painters in Florence in 1421. He was in Siena in 1420 and 1424-1425 and in Orvieto late in 1425. From 1426 until the time of his death he was in Rome. Typical of Gentile early style is the polyptych (ca. 1400) from the convent of Valle Romita in Fabriano, in which Gentile displays the International Gothic love for naturalistic detail in the floral turf beneath the feet of the graceful, slender saints whose figures are swathed in rhythmic, linear drapery. The central panel, the Coronation of the Virgin, shows the love for calligraphic drapery so characteristic of Gentile early style. Other noteworthy early works include the much damaged Madonna in Perugia and the Madonna with Saints and Donor in Berlin. The altarpiece Adoration of the Magi, signed and dated 1423, was Gentile major work in Florence. In remarkably good condition, with its original frame still intact, it shows Gentile Gothicism now tempered by his contact with the more austere art of Florence. The rich display of gold leaf and brilliant colors were favorite International Gothic traits, but in the interest in perspective and foreshortening and especially in the exquisite predella panels Gentile shows the influence of the Florentines. The altarpiece for the Quaratesi family, signed and dated 1425, also demonstrates the composite quality of Gentile art. The fresco Madonna Enthroned in Orvieto Cathedral of late 1425 has few traces of the International Gothic style and displays a corporeality and fullness in keeping with his evolution after Florence. His last works, the frescoes in St. John Lateran in Rome depicting the life of John the Baptist and grisaille portraits of saints, were destroyed in 1647, when Francesco Borromini reconstructed the interior.  Related Paintings of Gentile da Fabriano :. | Details of Madonna and child,with sts.lawrence and julian | Quaratesi | Four Saints of the Quaratesi Polyptych | The Adoration of the Magi3 | Quaratesi Polyptych |
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paulus potter
Paulus Potter (baptised on November 20, 1625 in Enkhuizen ?C buried on January 17, 1654 in Amsterdam) was a Dutch painter, specialized in animals in landscapes, usually with a low point of view. Before Potter died of tuberculosis, 28-years old, he succeeded in producing about a hundred paintings, working continuously. Few details are known of Potter's life. In 1628 his family moved to Leiden, and in 1631 to Amsterdam, where young Paulus studied painting with his father, Pieter Symonsz Potter. After his mother died, his father started an affair with the wife of Pieter Codde, also living in the fancy Sint Antoniesbreestraat. For some time his father was a manufacturer of gilded leather hangings outside the city walls. Potter became a member of the Guild of Saint Luke in Delft, but by 1649, Paulus moved to The Hague, next to Jan van Goyen. Potter married in the Hague and his father-in-law, who was the leading building contractor in the Hague, introduced him to the Dutch elite. Amalia of Solms-Braunfels, a member of the stadholder's family and an art-lover, bought a painting with a pissing cow, but some court ladies seemed to have advised against it. By May 1652, after a case about delivering a new painting, he returned to Amsterdam. Potter was invited by Nicolaes Tulp, who was impressed by his civilized behavior and politeness. Potter painted his son Dirck Tulp, but only changed the face on an earlier work he was not able to sell. Paulus painted a self portrait which was at Hackwood Park, Hampshire until 1998, it is now at Elibank House, Buckinghamshire.
William Turner
English Romantic Painter, 1775-1851 British painter and printmaker. He dominated British landscape painting throughout the first half of the 19th century. He established a reputation in the Royal Academy, London, first as a topographical watercolourist and then within a few years as a painter of Sublime and historical landscapes.
Thomas Mellish
British, 1778