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 :. | The Presentation in the Temple | Four Saints of the Quaratesi Polyptych | Quaratesi Polyptych | The Adoration of the Magi 6 | Details of Madonna and child,with sts.lawrence and julian |
Related Artists:
Constantin Hansen
Danish 1804-1880 Constantin Hansen Galleries Danish painter. In 1816 he entered the Kongelige Akademi for de Sk?nne Kunster, Copenhagen, intending to study architecture; however he later became attracted to painting and worked under C. W. Eckersberg from 1828 to 1833. Around the middle of the 1820s he started developing an individual style of portraiture, which had matured by 1830. He often used his sisters and friends as models; using simple costumes, poses and compositions, he managed to endow his pictures with the intimacy and warmth that mark the Danish Golden Age. The Artist's Sisters Signe and Henriette Reading a Book (1826; Copenhagen, Stat. Mus. Kst) is a fine example of his combination of natural observation with Neo-classical idealization. Under Eckersberg, who encouraged both, he strengthened his natural flair for painting serene architectural views of Copenhagen.
Naish, John George
English, 1824-1905
Gerard Seghers
(Antwerp, 1591-18 March 1651), also Zegers, was a Flemish Baroque painter and one of the leading Caravaggisti in the Southern Netherlands. He was the son of an innkeeper but not related to the jesuit and painter Daniel Seghers. He was possibly a student of either Abraham Janssens or Hendrick van Balen, and he showed great talent, because in 1608 aged only 17 he is listed as a master in the Guild of St. Luke. It was during his trip to Italy around 1613 that he came under the influence of Caravaggio's followers. Bartolomeo Manfredi, in particular, was influential. Many other Dutch and Flemish painters were working in the style there, such as Gerard Honthorst, which is strongly characterized half-length figures illuminated by strong lighting and dramatic chiaroscuro. One work from this period is his Judith with the Head of Holofernes in the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica, Rome. Caravaggism, both in history and monumental genre paintings, continued to mark Seghers's works when he returned to Antwerp around 1620. The Patient Job, National Gallery, Prague.He married on his return to Antwerp (ca.1621) with Catharina Wouters (d.1656), with whom he had eleven children. His son Jan-Baptist Seghers (1624-1670) also became a painter. After 1630, his palette lightens up considerably and the influence of Peter Paul Rubens is noticeable in paintings like the Adoration of the Magi (1630) in the Church of Our Lady, Bruges.