Italian High Renaissance Painter, 1483-1520 Italian painter and architect. As a member of Perugino's workshop, he established his mastery by 17 and began receiving important commissions. In 1504 he moved to Florence, where he executed many of his famous Madonnas; his unity of composition and suppression of inessentials is evident in The Madonna of the Goldfinch (c. 1506). Though influenced by Leonardo da Vinci's chiaroscuro and sfumato, his figure types were his own creation, with round, gentle faces that reveal human sentiments raised to a sublime serenity. In 1508 he was summoned to Rome to decorate a suite of papal chambers in the Vatican. The frescoes in the Stanza della Segnatura are probably his greatest work; the most famous, The School of Athens (1510 C 11), is a complex and magnificently ordered allegory of secular knowledge showing Greek philosophers in an architectural setting. The Madonnas he painted in Rome show him turning away from his earlier work's serenity to emphasize movement and grandeur, partly under Michelangelo's High Renaissance influence. The Sistine Madonna (1513) shows the richness of colour and new boldness of compositional invention typical of his Roman period. He became the most important portraitist in Rome, designed 10 large tapestries to hang in the Sistine Chapel, designed a church and a chapel, assumed the direction of work on St. Peter's Basilica at the death of Donato Bramante,   Related Paintings of RAFFAELLO Sanzio :. | The Triumph of Galatea (detail) | Portrat des Fedra Inghirami | Atila | Theological Virtues | Argue |
Related Artists:
Master Of Flemalle
Robert Campin (c. 1375 - 26 April 1444), now usually identified as the artist known as the Master of Flemalle, is usually considered the first great master of Flemish and Early Netherlandish painting. This had been a matter of controversy for decades; Campin's life is relatively well documented for the period, but no works in assessable condition could be securely connected with him, whilst a corpus of work had been attached to the unidentified "Master of Flemalle", named after the supposed origin of a work. Campin seems to have had relatives in Valenciennes. He first appears as settled in Tournai from the archives of 1405-6, as a free master of the guild of painters, and he bought citizenship in 1410, which suggests he was not born there. He eventually attained the office of dean of the guild, and wardenship of a church and other civic offices, and was running a large workshop. By 1432, however, he lost his civic positions because of scandals, and probably his role in political disturbances in the city. In 1429 he was found guilty of withholding evidence, and sentenced to go on a pilgrimage, and in 1432 was convicted of adultery and banished for a year. Margaret of Burgundy, wife of the Count of Holland and sister of John the Fearless, Duke of Burgundy intervened on his behalf, and this was reduced to a fine. The dated Werl Altarpiece (1438) shows he continued to work (the two outer wings are in the Prado; the main panel is lost).
John Christian Schetky
(1778-1874) Scottish painter. Schetky came from a cultured family: his father, Johann (1737-1824), was a German composer, and his mother, Maria, was the trumpeter Joseph Reinagle's sister. He took drawing lessons from Alexander Nasmyth and received a good education in Edinburgh before embarking on a Continental tour in 1801. After a spell as a drawing-master at the Royal Military College, Great Marlow, he was appointed Professor of Drawing at the Royal Naval College, Portsmouth, in 1811, a post he held for 25 years. He exhibited regularly at the Royal Academy between 1805 and 1872, his subjects ranging from ship portraits and royal embarkations to reconstructions of earlier sea battles of the time of Nelson. In 1820 he was made Marine Painter in Ordinary to George IV and was granted the same title by Queen Victoria in 1844.
John Thomson
John Thomson (14 June 1837 - 29 September 1921) was a pioneering Scottish photographer, geographer and traveller. He was one of the first photographers to travel to the Far East, documenting the people, landscapes and artifacts of eastern cultures. Upon returning home, his work among the street people of London cemented his reputation, and is regarded as a classic instance of social documentary which laid the foundations for photojournalism. He went on to become a portrait photographer of High Society in Mayfair, gaining the Royal Warrant in 1881. The son of William Thomson, a tobacco spinner and retail trader, and his wife Isabella, Thomson was born the eighth of nine children in Edinburgh in the year of Queen Victoria's accession. After his schooling in the early 1850s, he was apprenticed to a local optical and scientific instrument manufacturer, thought to be James Mackay Bryson. During this time, Thomson learned the principles of photography and completed his apprenticeship around 1858. During this time he also undertook two years of evening classes at the Watt Institution and School of Arts (formerly the Edinburgh School of Arts, later to become Heriot-Watt University). He received the "Attestation of Proficiency" in Natural Philosophy in 1857 and in Junior Mathematics and Chemistry in 1858. In 1861 he became a member of the Royal Scottish Society of Arts, but by 1862 he had decided to travel to Singapore to join his older brother William, a watchmaker and photographer.