Flemish Baroque Era Painter, 1577-1640 Peter Paul Rubens (June 28, 1577 ?C May 30, 1640) was a prolific seventeenth-century Flemish Baroque painter, and a proponent of an exuberant Baroque style that emphasized movement, color, and sensuality. He is well-known for his Counter-Reformation altarpieces, portraits, landscapes, and history paintings of mythological and allegorical subjects. In addition to running a large studio in Antwerp which produced paintings popular with nobility and art collectors throughout Europe, Rubens was a classically-educated humanist scholar, art collector, and diplomat who was knighted by both Philip IV, king of Spain, and Charles I, king of England. Rubens was a prolific artist. His commissioned works were mostly religious subjects, "history" paintings, which included mythological subjects, and hunt scenes. He painted portraits, especially of friends, and self-portraits, and in later life painted several landscapes. Rubens designed tapestries and prints, as well as his own house. He also oversaw the ephemeral decorations of the Joyous Entry into Antwerp by the Cardinal-Infante Ferdinand in 1635. His drawings are mostly extremely forceful but not detailed; he also made great use of oil sketches as preparatory studies. He was one of the last major artists to make consistent use of wooden panels as a support medium, even for very large works, but he used canvas as well, especially when the work needed to be sent a long distance. For altarpieces he sometimes painted on slate to reduce reflection problems. His fondness of painting full-figured women gave rise to the terms 'Rubensian' or 'Rubenesque' for plus-sized women. The term 'Rubensiaans' is also commonly used in Dutch to denote such women.  Related Paintings of Peter Paul Rubens :. | The Holy Family with St Elizabeth | Judgement of Paris | Fustus Lipsius and his Pupils or The Four Pbilosopbers (mk01) | Konigin von Frankreich in Paris | Hercules and Minerva Fighting Mars (mk01) |
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Bartolomeo Spranger
Belgium 1546-1611
Samuel Howitt
English, 1756-1822,was an artist from England. Samuel Howitt was born into a wealthy Quaker family in Nottinghamshire, England. He began painting as a hobby and to amuse his friends. Hunting and racing were his hobbies and he mimicked this interest in his work. Howitt's family experienced financial difficulties, so Howitt decided to move to London. In London, Howitt made a career out of his talent, flourishing as a professional artist. He was published often in The Sporting Magazine and went on to illustrate various books. Howitt is best known for his lively and exotic sporting scenes. His superior watercolors and aquatints depict dramatic racing and hunting scenes as well as an array of conventional and exotic animals. Howitt's work is included in the Mellon Collection, which possesses no fewer than 160 of his watercolors, and many of his aquatints. Howitt exhibited at the Royal Academy and illustrated several books, including his own entitled The British Sportsman c.1812 and British Preserve c.1824. Samuel Howitt, "genius, artist, sportsman", concentrated his considerable artistic talents on picturing scenes of horse-racing and hunting in all its aspects. Born in Nottinghamshire, England, Howitt was largely self-taught ,"although he must have been helped by his companions George Morland, Rowlandson and John Raphael Smith. Howitt's watercolours of hunting, shooting and racing have delightful spontaneity.
Jean-Baptiste Le Prince
French Painter, 1734-1781,French painter, draughtsman and printmaker. Born to a family of ornamental sculptors and gilders, he became famous for creating a new kind of genre picture, based on the direct observation of Russian subjects, and also for perfecting aquatint technique. Sometime around 1750 he became a pupil of Fran?ois Boucher, thanks to the protection of the Mar?chal de Belle-Isle (1684-1761), governor of Metz. Boucher's saturated brushwork, highly finished surfaces and incisive drawing had a decisive impact upon the young artist, as did, perhaps, the diversity of his output. He was also inspired by 17th-century Dutch and Flemish genre and landscape painters.