Italian Early Renaissance Painter, ca.1422-1492 Italian painter and theorist. His work is the embodiment of rational, calm, monumental painting in the Italian Early Renaissance, an age in which art and science were indissolubly linked through the writings of Leon Battista Alberti. Born two generations before Leonardo da Vinci, Piero was similarly interested in the scientific application of the recently discovered rules of perspective to narrative or devotional painting, especially in fresco, of which he was an imaginative master; and although he was less universally creative than Leonardo and worked in an earlier idiom, he was equally keen to experiment with painting technique. Piero was as adept at resolving problems in Euclid, whose modern rediscovery is largely due to him, as he was at creating serene, memorable figures, whose gestures are as telling and spare as those in the frescoes of Giotto or Masaccio. His tactile, gravely convincing figures are also indebted to the sculpture of Donatello, an equally attentive observer of Classical antiquity. In his best works, such as the frescoes in the Bacci Chapel in S Francesco, Arezzo, there is an ideal balance between his serene, classical compositions and the figures that inhabit them, the whole depicted in a distinctive and economical language. In his autograph works Piero was a perfectionist, creating precise, logical and light-filled images (although analysis of their perspective schemes shows that these were always subordinated to narrative effect). However, he often delegated important passages of works (e.g. the Arezzo frescoes) to an ordinary, even incompetent, assistant.   Related Paintings of Piero della Francesca :. | berlin staatliche museen tempera on panel | Die Konigin von Saba betet das Kreuzesholz an | The Flagellation | the legend of the true cross, detail | Flagellation of Christ |
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Charles Hazelwood Shannon
English painter, printmaker and collector , 1863-1937 English artist, was born at Sleaford in Lincolnshire, the son of the Rev. Frederic Shannon. He attended the City and Guilds of London Art School (then known as South London School of Technical Art, formerly Lambeth School of Art), and was subsequently considerably influenced by his lifetime partner Charles Ricketts[2] and by the example of the great Venetians. In his early work he was addicted to a heavy low tone, which he abandoned subsequently for dearer and more transparent colour. He achieved great success with his portraits and his Giorgionesque figure compositions, which are marked by a classic sense of style, and with his etchings and lithographic designs. The Dublin Municipal Gallery owns his circular composition "The Bunch of Grapes" and "The Lady with the Green Fan" (portrait of Mrs Hacon). His "Study in Grey" is at the Munich Gallery, a "Portrait of Mr Staats Forbes" at Bremen, and a "Souvenir of Van Dyck" at Melbourne. One of his most remarkable pictures is "The Toilet of Venus" in the collection of Lord Northcliffe. Several of his portrait works are on display in the National Portrait Gallery in London. Complete sets of his lithographs and etchings have been acquired by the British Museum and the Berlin and Dresden print rooms. He was awarded a first-class gold medal at Munich in 1895 and a first-class silver medal in Paris in 1900.
Glackens, William James
American Ashcan School Painter, 1870-1938 American painter and illustrator. He graduated in 1889 from Central High School, Philadelphia, where he had known Albert C. Barnes, who later became a noted collector of modern art. He became a reporter-illustrator for the Philadelphia Record in 1891 and later for the Philadelphia Press. In 1892 he began to attend evening classes in drawing at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, studying under Thomas Anshutz. In the same year he became a friend and follower of Robert Henri, who persuaded him to take up oil painting in 1894. Henri's other students, some of whom were referred to as the Ashcan school, included George Luks
Wilhelm Ferdinand Bendz
(March 20, 1804 - November 14, 1832), Danish genre and portrait painter, is one of the main personages associated with the Golden Age of Danish Painting. He was educated at the Royal Danish Academy of Art (Det Kongelige Danske Kunstakademi) in Copenhagen from 1820 to 1825, winning both silver medals but never the gold prize. He studied under professor Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg, but may at the same time have acquired some knowledge of contemporary German painting. Today he is mainly remembered for his many technically accomplished portraits, though his ambition most of all ran towards a refined fusion of portrait, genre scene and allegorical history painting. His technical virtuosity is particularly visible in his depictions of the play of light cast from an obscured source and the resulting shadows. During his travel to Italy - which also brought him a one-year stay in Munich - he caught a sickness to the lungs and died at the age of 28 in 1832.