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 :. | Polyptych of Perugia | crucifixion | Madonna of Senigallia | the triumph of battista sforza | Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta |
Related Artists:
Johann M Culverhouse
1821-1895
BEUCKELAER, Joachim
Flemish Northern Renaissance Painter, ca.1534-1574 A native of Antwerp, he studied under his uncle, Pieter Aertsen. Many of his paintings contain scenes of kitchen and markets, with religious allusions in the background. His Four Elements series (as of 2004[update], in the National Gallery, London) exemplifies this theme on a large scale. Water, for example, shows a fish market selling twelve kinds of fish, representing the twelve disciples of Jesus. Through an archway in the background we can see Jesus walking on the Sea of Galilee after his resurrection, making fish appear miraculously in empty nets. Beuckelaer's work was influential on painters in Northern Italy, particularly Vincenzo Campi.
Maynard, George Willoughby
American, 1843-1923 American figure, marine, and mural painter, b. Washington, D.C., studied at the National Academy of Design and in Florence and Antwerp. Maynard created decorations for the Library of Congress and the old Metropolitan Opera House, New York City.