Nicolas de Largilliere
1656-1746
French
Nicolas de Largilliere Gallery
Nicolas de Largilli??re (October 10, 1656 - March 20, 1746), French painter, was born in Paris.
His father, a merchant, took him to Antwerp at the age of three. As a boy, he spent nearly two years in London. Sometime after his return to Antwerp, a failed attempt at business led him to the studio of Goubeau. However, Largilli??re left at the age of eighteen to seek his fortune in England, where he was befriended and employed by Lely, for four years at Windsor.
His skills attracted Charles II, who wished to retain him in his service, but the fury aroused by the Rye House Plot against Roman Catholics alarmed Largilli??re. He left for Paris where he was well received by Le Brun and Van der Meulen. Despite his Flemish training as a portrait-painter, his reputation was soon established. Largilli??re's brilliant colour and lively touch attracted celebrities of his day??actresses, public men and popular preachers flocked to his studio. President Lambert, with his beautiful wife and daughter, were among his most noted subjects. Related Paintings of Nicolas de Largilliere :. | Die schone Strabburgerin | Portrait of Jean-Baptiste Forest | Portrait of Jeanne | Portrait of Jacques I, Prince of Monaco | Nature morte a l aiguiere | Related Artists: Circle of Pellegrino Tibaldipainted The Meeting of Mary and Elizabeth in the Presence of St. Jerome, St. Joseph and Others in 1550 - 1600
GiottoItalian
1267-1337
Giotto Galleries
Giotto di Bondone (c. 1267 ?C January 8, 1337), better known simply as Giotto, was an Italian painter and architect from Florence. He is generally considered the first in a line of great artists who contributed to the Italian Renaissance.
Giotto's contemporary Giovanni Villani wrote that Giotto was "the most sovereign master of painting in his time, who drew all his figures and their postures according to nature. And he was given a salary by the commune [of Florence] in virtue of his talent and excellence."
The later 16th century biographer Giorgio Vasari says of him "...He made a decisive break with the ...Byzantine style, and brought to life the great art of painting as we know it today, introducing the technique of drawing accurately from life, which had been neglected for more than two hundred years."
Giotto's masterwork is the decoration of the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua, commonly called the Arena Chapel, completed around 1305. This fresco cycle depicts the life of the Virgin and the life of Christ. It is regarded as one of the supreme masterpieces of the Early Renaissance. That Giotto painted the Arena Chapel and that he was chosen by the commune of Florence in 1334 to design the new campanile (bell tower) of the Florence Cathedral are among the few certainties of his biography. Almost every other aspect of it is subject to controversy: his birthdate, his birthplace, his appearance, his apprenticeship, the order in which he created his works, whether or not he painted the famous frescoes at Assisi, and where he was eventually buried after his death. John Kane1860-1934
American painter of Scottish birth. In 1879 Kane emigrated to western Pennsylvania. He worked as a bricklayer, coal miner, steel worker and carpenter in the Ohio River valley and, in 1890, began to sketch local scenery. After losing his leg in a train accident in 1891, he was employed painting railway carriages. When his son died in 1904, Kane left his family and spent years wandering and working in odd jobs; his earliest surviving paintings date from around 1910. Settling in Pittsburgh, he worked as a house painter and in his spare time painted portraits, religious subjects, the city's urban landscape and memories of his Scottish childhood. In 1927 the jury of the Carnegie International Exhibition, Pittsburgh, encouraged by the painter-juror Andrew Dasburg (b 1887), accepted Kane's Scene in the Scottish Highlands (1927; Pittsburgh, PA, Carnegie Mus. A.). Kane's success, at first considered a hoax by the press, was based on the modernist interest in primitive and folk art. His work was regarded as non-academic and boldly original, and he became the first contemporary American folk artist to be recognized by a museum. Larimer Avenue Bridge (1932; Pittsburgh, PA, Carnegie Mus. A.) is characteristic of his style with its meticulous detail, flat colour and dominant green and red. Though he sketched and painted on the site, Kane freely transposed pictorial elements to create a more pleasing composition. This innate compositional sense is evident in his Self-portrait (1929; New York, MOMA).
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