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 :. | St George and the Dragon st | Portrait of Pietro Bembo | Holy Family below the Oak | Kill dragon | Portrait of a Young Man. | Related Artists:
Johann Michael RottmayrAustrian,1654-1730
Austrian painter and draughtsman. He is most notable for large-scale religious and secular decorative schemes, and his career heralded the important 18th-century German contribution to late Baroque and Rococo fresco painting. He was probably taught by his mother, who was a painter of wooden sculpture. Between 1675 and 1687-8 he was in Venice as a pupil and assistant of the Munich artist Johann Carl Loth, whose studio attracted many painters from Austria and southern Germany. It is possible that Rottmayr also visited other Italian cities, in particular Bologna and Rome. He returned to Salzburg in the late 1680s a mature painter and immediately received commissions for panels and frescoes. In 1689 he painted mythological scenes for the Karabinierisaal at the Residenz in Salzburg (in situ); in composition and style these are close to high Baroque models, particularly the work of Pietro da Cortona and Peter Paul Rubens. Such models, as well as the example of Loth, and Venetian painting, had an important influence on Rottmayr's panel paintings of this period, for example the Sacrifice of Iphigenia (c. 1691; Vienna, Belvedere) or St Agnes (1693-5) and St Sebastian (1694; both Passau, Cathedral). In these, the solidity of the figures is emphasized through the use of intense colours. For Rottmayr, however, the rational development of the figures and the composition was less important than the overall effect achieved by the use of colour. Incorrect details of anatomy and perspective found compensation in greater expressiveness, mainly conveyed by gesture and pose. Rottmayr's images are filled with plastic elements, creating a staccato effect. Several very important early commissions paved the way for Rottmayr's move to Vienna in the late 1690s.
Andrea del VerrocchioItalian Early Renaissance Sculptor, ca.1435-1488
Florentine sculptor and painter, whose real name was Andrea di Michele di Francesco di Cioni. He was a leading figure in the early Renaissance, and his workshop was a center for the training of young artists in Florence. A virtuoso metalworker, Verrocchio was primarily concerned with the spirited rendering of movement and the elaboration of detail. Many of his paintings are lost. Of the remaining panels, his hand is evident in the Baptism of Christ (Uffizi), assisted by Leonardo da Vinci. In the Pistoia altarpiece he was aided by Lorenzo di Credi. Other attributions are Tobias and the Angel (National Gall., London), two paintings of the Madonna and Child (National Gall., London; Berlin), and a Crucifixion with Saints (Argiano). Most of Verrocchio's achievements in sculpture have survived. His earlier work includes the bold group Incredulity of St. Thomas (Orsanmichele). In 1472 he designed the tombs of Piero and Giovanni de' Medici (San Lorenzo). In the same period he created the graceful Boy with a Dolphin and a lithe portrayal of David (Bargello). He went to Venice (c.1480) to work on the equestrian monument of the condottiere Bartolomeo Colleoni.
Henry ReuterdahlAmerican, 1871-1925
He was best known for his paintings of Navy warships and recruiting posters for World War