(1 August 1659 - 15 May 1734) was an Italian painter of the late Baroque school of Venice. About the same age as Piazzetta, and an elder contemporary of Tiepolo, he represents a late version of the vigorous and luminous Cortonesque style of grand manner fresco painting. He was born in Belluno, son of Andreana and Livio Ricci. In 1671, he apprenticed to Federico Cerebri of Venice. Others claim Ricci's first master was Sebastiano Mazzoni. In 1678, a youthful indiscretion led to an unwanted pregnancy, and ultimately to a greater scandal, when Ricci was accused of attempting to poison the young pregnant woman to avoid marriage. Imprisoned, he gained release only after intervention of a nobleman, probably a Pisani family member. He married the pregnant mother in 1691, although this was a stormy union. After his arrest, he moved to Bologna, where he domiciled near the Parish of San Michele del Mercato. His painting style there was apparently influenced by Giovanni Gioseffo dal Sole. On 28 September 1682 he was contracted by the "Fraternity of Saint John of Florence" to paint a Decapitation of John the Baptist for their Oratory. On 9 December 1685, the Count of San Segundo near Parma commissioned from Ricci the decoration of the Oratory of the Madonna of the Seraglio, which he completed in collaboration of Ferdinando Galli-Bibiena by October 1687, receiving a compensation of 4,482 Lira.   Related Paintings of Sebastiano Ricci :. | Die Familie der Dario vor Alexander dem Groben | Heilige Familie mit Hl Anna | L'infanzia di Ciro | Opfer fur die Gottin Vesta | Hl. Prokulus, Hl. Firmus und Hl. Rusticus von Verona sowie ein Engel |
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Claude Lorrain
French 1600-1682 Claude Lorrain Galleries In Rome, not until the mid-17th century were landscapes deemed fit for serious painting. Northern Europeans, such as the Germans Elsheimer and Brill, had made such views pre-eminent in some of their paintings (as well as Da Vinci in his private drawings or Baldassarre Peruzzi in his decorative frescoes of vedute); but not until Annibale Carracci and his pupil Domenichino do we see landscape become the focus of a canvas by a major Italian artist. Even with the latter two, as with Lorrain, the stated themes of the paintings were mythic or religious. Landscape as a subject was distinctly unclassical and secular. The former quality was not consonant with Renaissance art, which boasted its rivalry with the work of the ancients. The second quality had less public patronage in Counter-Reformation Rome, which prized subjects worthy of "high painting," typically religious or mythic scenes. Pure landscape, like pure still-life or genre painting, reflected an aesthetic viewpoint regarded as lacking in moral seriousness. Rome, the theological and philosophical center of 17th century Italian art, was not quite ready for such a break with tradition. In this matter of the importance of landscape, Lorrain was prescient. Living in a pre-Romantic era, he did not depict those uninhabited panoramas that were to be esteemed in later centuries, such as with Salvatore Rosa. He painted a pastoral world of fields and valleys not distant from castles and towns. If the ocean horizon is represented, it is from the setting of a busy port. Perhaps to feed the public need for paintings with noble themes, his pictures include demigods, heroes and saints, even though his abundant drawings and sketchbooks prove that he was more interested in scenography. Lorrain was described as kind to his pupils and hard-working; keenly observant, but an unlettered man until his death. The painter Joachim von Sandrart is an authority for Claude's life (Academia Artis Pictoriae, 1683); Baldinucci, who obtained information from some of Claude's immediate survivors, relates various incidents to a different effect (Notizie dei professoni del disegno). John Constable described Claude Lorrain as "the most perfect landscape painter the world ever saw", and declared that in Claude??s landscape "all is lovely ?C all amiable ?C all is amenity and repose; the calm sunshine of the heart"
Ljubov Popova
Russian Constructivist Painter and Designer, 1889-1924 Through a synthesis of styles Popova worked towards what she termed painterly architectonics. Exploring firstly Impressionism, by 1913, in Composition with Figures, she was experimenting with the particularly Russian development of Cubo-Futurism: a fusion of two equal influences from France and Italy. Portrait of a Philosopher (Artists's brother, Pavel Sergeyevich Popov), 1915From 1914-1915 her Moscow home became the meeting-place for artists and writers. In 1914-1916 Popova together with other avant-garde artists (Aleksandra Ekster, Nadezhda Udaltsova, Olga Rozanova) contributed to the two Jack of Diamonds exhibitions, then in Petrograd Tramway V and the 0.10, The Store in Moscow. In 1916 she joined the Supremus group with Kazimir Malevich, the founder of Suprematism, Aleksandra Ekster, Ivan Kliun, Nadezhda Udaltsova, Olga Rozanova, Ivan Puni, Nina Genke, Ksenia Boguslavskaya and others who at this time worked in Verbovka Village Folk Centre. However there was a tension between those who like Malevich saw art as a spiritual quest and others who responded to the need for the artist to create a new physical world. Popova embraced both of these ideals but eventually identified herself entirely with the early aims of the Revolution working in poster, book design, fabric and theatre design, as well as teaching. Her painting The Violin of 1914 reveals the development from cubism towards the "painterly architectonics" of 1917- 1918. Before joining the Supremus group her paintings, the architectonic series defined her artistic trajectory, quite distinct from that of Malevich, Rozanova, Tatlin and Mondrian, in abstract form. The canvas surface is an energy field of overlapping and intersecting angular planes in a constant state of potential release. At the same time the elements are held in a balanced and proportioned whole as if linking the compositions of the classical past to the future. By 1918 colour is used as the iconic focus; the strong primary colour at the centre drawing the outer shapes together. In 1918 Popova married von Eding, and gave birth to a son, but von Eding died the following year of typhoid fever. She worked on Agitprop designs, and in 1919 she contributed to Tenth State Exhibition: Non Objective Creativity and Suprematism. She painted more advanced abstract works in 1919-21. In 1921 she exhibited in the 5 x 5 Exhibition. From 1921-24 Popova became active in Constructivist projects, sometimes in collaboration with the architect Alexander Vesnin. She was active in stage designs: Vsevolod Meyerhold's production of Fernand Crommeldynck's The Magnanamous Cuckold, 1922; and in teaching: Spatial Force Constructions were used as the basis of an art teaching theory. She designed typography of books, production art and textiles, and contributed designs for dresses to LEF. Popova died in Moscow. A large exhibition of her work opened in Moscow on 21 December 1924.
Henry de Groux
Belgian 1867-1930 Henry de Groux (1866 in Brussels - 1930 in Marseilles) was a Belgian Symbolist painter, sculptor and lithographer. His 1889 painting Christ aux Outrages, widely described as his masterwork, depicted Jesus being attacked by a mob. Later in life, he produced many works depicting the horrors of the First World War. Ride of the Valkyries (ca. 1890) Royal Museums of Fine Arts, Brussels, BelgiumDe Groux was a member of les XX, but was expelled when he refused to have his works displayed in the same gallery as Vincent van Gogh. He subsequently moved to Paris, where he befriended Emile Zola; during the social unrest resulting from the Dreyfus affair, de Groux acted as one of Zola's bodyguards. As well, de Groux was a fervent diarist; beginning in 1892, he produced 18 volumes detailing the life of a European artist in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In 2002, his descendants donated these volumes to the Institut national d'histoire de l'art; selected excerpts were published in 2007 Henry de Groux 1866-1930 - journal - Henry De Groux, Rodolphe Rapetti, Pierre Wat - Editions Kime.