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 :. | Petrach Virgil | Petrach's Virgil, title page | St Francis and St Louis of Toulouse | Sienese School | Orsini Diptych |
Related Artists:
Domenico Brusasorci
Italian High Renaissance Painter , Verona 1515 ca. - 1567
Jean Baptiste Wicar
Jean-Baptiste Wicar (22 January 1762, Lille - 27 February 1834, Rome) was a French Neoclassical painter and art collector. The son of a carpenter, Wicar studied drawing at the free school in Lille before further honing his talents in the studio of David. The drawings Wicar created of Tableaux, statues, bas-reliefs et camees de la Galerie de Florence et du palais Pitti (Paintings, statues, bas-reliefs and cameos in the Gallery of Florence and the Pitti Palace) were published in Paris in 4 volumes at the Lacombe publishing house from 1789 to 1807. Wicar headed the commission set up by Napoleon I of France to loot artworks from the Austrian Netherlands to enrich museums in France - an initial convoy left Antwerp on 11 August 1794, notably with paintings by Rubens, for the Louvre. Abbeys and castles were systematically emptied of their contents, furniture and works of art. Wicar was also a member of the commission des sciences et des arts on the Italian campaign, in the entourage of Bonaparte. This commission was charged with seizing artworks that could enrich French national museum collections. He finally permanently settled in Rome in 1800 and became a portraitist of European renown. On his death in Rome, Wicar left the major collection of 1,300 drawings he had accumulated over his lifetime to the Societe des Sciences, de leAgriculture et des Arts de Lille. Mostly from the Italian school, but also in some small measure from the northern schools, it held drawings by artists like Raphael, Albrecht Derer, Lucas Cranach, Nicolas Poussin and Jacques-Louis David.
Simon Pietersz Verelst
(1644, The Hague - 1710, London), was a Dutch Golden Age painter. According to the RKD he was the son of Pieter Harmensz Verelst and became a pupil in the Confrerie Pictura at the same time as his brother Herman in 1663. In 1668 he moved to London and called himself "the God of Flowers", but is known for portraits as well as flower and fruit still life paintings.