Italian Early Renaissance Painter, ca.1406-1469 Filippo Lippi was born in Florence. He took his vows in 1421 in the monastery S. Maria del Carmine, where Masaccio frescoed the Brancacci Chapel in the church (1426-1427). By 1430 Lippi is mentioned in church documents as "painter." Masaccio's influence, as well as Donatello's, can be seen in Lippi's early works, such as the Tarquinia Madonna of 1437 (National Gallery, Rome) and the Annunciation (S. Lorenzo, Florence) and Barbadori Altar (Louvre, Paris), both begun in 1437/1438. However, the severity of Masaccio and Donatello was mitigated by Lippi, who was instrumental in salvaging from the Gothic past the lyrical expressiveness of a linear mode which Masaccio had all but given up for modeling in chiaroscuro. Toward the middle of the 15th century Lippi's pictures became more finely articulated and his surface design more complex. It is probable that he had a large workshop, and the hand of assistants may be observed in the important fresco decoration started in 1452 in the choir chapel of the Prato Cathedral. After delays and strong protests this commission was finally completed in 1466. The cycle, a highly important monument of Early Renaissance painting, demonstrates Lippi's increasingly more mature style, revealing him to be witty, original, and well versed in all the artistic accomplishments of his time, to which he himself contributed. Through linear perspective Lippi was able to render a convincing illusion of recession and plausible three-dimensional figures. He knew how to express emotions, and he was a keen observer of nature. Lippi painted astonishing portrait likenesses and combined figures and space with an animated surface rhythm, the best example of which can be seen in the Feast of Herod, one of the last scenes in the Prato cycle. During his stay at Prato he was the cause of a scandal (later resolved by papal indulgence): he ran off with a nun, Lucrezia Buti, who bore him two children, one of whom, Filippino Lippi (ca. 1457-1504), was also a painter. In the Prato frescoes as well as in his contemporary panel pictures, such as the Madonna with Two Angels (Uffizi Gallery, Florence), or in the exquisite tondo of the Madonna (Pitti Palace, Florence), Filippo Lippi anticipated later developments in 15th-century painting. In these pictures are to be found the sources of Sandro Botticelli, Lippi's most illustrious pupil. Lippi's innovations extended also to iconography. In his quest for realism he introduced the "bourgeoise" Madonna: the type of contemporary Florentine lady elegantly dressed in the fashion of the time with the hair on her forehead plucked to stress the height of it. He also introduced the subject of the Madonna adoring the Child in the woods (Museum of Berlin, and Uffizi, Florence).   Related Paintings of LIPPI, Fra Filippo :. | Madonna with the Child and two Angels g | Madonna in the Forest f | Circumcision GGH | Disputation in the Synagogue (detail) sg | Madonna in the Forest (detail) dg |
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Salomon de Caus
b France, 1576; bur Paris, 28 Feb 1626,He was a Huguenot from the Dieppe region (Normandy). Between c. 1595 and 1598 he visited Italy, where he was strongly influenced by the gardens laid out c. 1570 by Bernardo Buontalenti at Pratolino, near Florence, and by their mechanical artifices. De Caus's work also reveals a knowledge of the gardens of the Villa d'Este in Tivoli. From c. 1598 to 1610 he was in Brussels, in the service of the Stadholder of the Netherlands, Albert, Archduke of Austria. There he was the engineer responsible for wells, fountains and the automatic works in the two grottoes (destr. 1768) in the garden of the Stadholder's residence. From 1610 he lived in England, moving in the artistic circle of Henry, Prince of Wales, to whom he taught drawing and for whom he built a picture gallery at Richmond. Together with Constantino de' Servi (1554-1622) he was engineer and supervisor of the waterworks at Richmond Palace. De Caus dedicated his first book, La Perspective (1612), to Prince Henry and included garden designs for the Prince in his second book, Les Raisons des forces movvantes (1615). He worked at several sites in England, including Somerset House in London, where he is thought to have erected a Parnassus, and at Greenwich Palace, Hatfield House and Gorhambury House (Herts) and Wilton House (Wilts). Nothing has survived of his work of this period.
Heinrich Martin Krabbe
painted Young Lady in 19th/20th century
Robert Delaunary
1885-1941 Orphism