1283-1344 Italian Simone Martini Locations He was a major figure in the development of early Italian painting and greatly influenced the development of the International Gothic style. It is thought that Martini was a pupil of Duccio di Buoninsegna, the leading Sienese painter of his time. His brother-in-law was the artist Lippo Memmi. Very little documentation survives regarding Simone's life, and many attributions are debated by art historians. Simone Martini died while in the service of the Papal court at Avignon in 1344. Simone was doubtlessly apprenticed from an early age, as would have been the normal practice. Among his first documented works is the Maest?? of 1315 in the Palazzo Pubblico in Siena. A copy of the work, executed shortly thereafter by Lippo Memmi in San Gimignano, testifies to the enduring influence Simone's prototypes would have on other artists throughout the fourteenth century. Perpetuating the Sienese tradition, Simone's style contrasted with the sobriety and monumentality of Florentine art, and is noted for its soft, stylized, decorative features, sinuosity of line, and unsurpassed courtly elegance. Simone's art owes much to French manuscript illumination and ivory carving: examples of such art were brought to Siena in the fourteenth century by means of the Via Francigena, a main pilgrimage and trade route from Northern Europe to Rome. Simone's major works include the Maest?? (1315) in the Palazzo Pubblico in Siena, St Louis of Toulouse Crowning the King at the Museo di Capodimonte in Naples (1317), the S. Caterina Polyptych in Pisa (1319) and the Annunciation and two Saints at the Uffizi in Florence (1333), as well as frescoes in the Chapel of St. Martin in the lower church of the Basilica of San Francesco d'Assisi. Francis Petrarch became friend with Simone while in Avignon, and two of his sonnets make reference to a portrait of Laura de Noves he supposedly painted for the poet.   Related Paintings of Simone Martini :. | Museums national scenes out of life the Hl. Bertim | Annunciation with Two Saints and Four Prophets | The Dream of St. Martin | Guidoriccio da Fogliano | Virgin Annunciate |
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Jean-Achille Benouville
(15 July 1815, Paris - 8 February 1891, Paris) was a French landscape painter of the academic painting school, known for his Italian landscapes. François-Leon Benouville was his younger brother.
John Closterman
John Closterman (1660-1711) (also spelled Cloosterman, Klosterman), portrait-painter, born in Osnabruck, the son of an artist, who taught him the rudiments of design. In 1679 he went to Paris, accompanied by his countryman Tiburen, and there worked under Francois de Troy. In 1681 he came to England, and painted draperies for John Riley, at whose death, in 1691, Closterman finished several of his portraits. This recommended him to the Duke of Somerset, but he lost his favour on account of a dispute about a picture of Guercino, specially acquired for his grace, and which was afterwards purchased by Lord Halifax. In 1696 he was invited to the court of Spain, and executed the portraits of the king and queen; he also went to Italy twice, and made several acquisitions of works of art. On returning to England he obtained considerable employment, and married an Englishwoman. He buried his wife, Hannah, on 27 January 1702. According to Arnold Houbraken, he later took a mistress, who then ruined him by her extravagant habits, and ultimately left him in a state of dejection of body and mind that led to his ultimate decline. Jacob Campo Weyerman, who took much of his biographical material from Houbraken, states "Closterman had taken a beautiful mistress who, while he was away in the country, robbed him of his valuables and disappeared, actions which drove the painter into madness". He died in 1711, and was buried in Covent Garden churchyard.
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circa 1645-1694