lunedì

:: Carracci, Annibale


::

:: Carracci, Annibale...












































































































CARRACCI, Annibale
(b. 1560, Bologna, d. 1609, Roma)

Biography
The Carracci was a family of Bolognese painters, the brothers
Agostino (1557-1602) and Annibale (1560-1609) and their cousin Lodovico (1555-1619), who were prominent figures at the end of the 16th century in the movement against the prevailing Mannerist artificiality of Italian painting.
They worked together early in their careers, and it is not easy to distinguish their shares in, for example, the cycle of
frescos in the Palazzo Fava in Bologna (c.1583-84). In the early 1580s they opened a private teaching academy, which soon became a center for progressive art. It was originally called the Accademia dei Desiderosi ('Desiderosi' meaning 'desirous of fame and learning'), but later changed its name to Academia degli Incamminati (Academy of the Progressives). In their teaching they laid special emphasis on drawing from the life (all three were outstanding graphic artists) and clear draughtsmanship became a quality particularly associated with artists of the Bolognese School, notably Domenichino and Reni, two of the leading members of the following generation who trained with the Carracci.
They continued working in close relationship until 1595, when Annibale, who was by far the greatest artist of the family, was called to Rome by Cardinal Odoardo Farnese to carry out his masterpiece, the decoration of the Farnese Gallery in the cardinal's family palace. He first decorated a small room called the Camerino with
stories of Hercules, and in 1597 undertook the ceiling of the larger gallery, where the theme was The Loves of the Gods, or, as Bellori described it, "human love governed by Celestial love". Although the ceiling is rich in the interplay of various illusionistic elements, it retains fundamentally the self-contained and unambiguous character of High Renaissance decoration, drawing inspiration from Michelangelo's Sistine Ceiling and Raphael's frescos in the Vatican Loggie and the Farnesina. The full untrammelled stream of Baroque illusionism was still to come in the work of Cortona and Lanfranco, but Annibale's decoration was one of the foundations of their style.
Throughout the 17th and 18th centuries the Farnese Ceiling was ranked alongside the Sistine Ceiling and Raphael's frescos in the Vatican Stanze as one of the supreme masterpieces of painting. It was enormously influential, not only as a pattern book of heroic figure design, but also as a model of technical procedure; Annibale made hundreds of drawings for the ceiling, and until the age of Romanticism such elaborate preparatory work became accepted as a fundamental part of composing any ambitious history painting. In this sense, Annibale exercised a more profound influence than his great contemporary
Caravaggio, for the latter never worked in fresco, which was still regarded as the greatest test of a painter's ability and the most suitable vehicle for painting in the Grand Manner.
Annibale's other works in Rome also had great significance in the history of painting. Pictures such as Domine, Quo Vadis? (National Gallery, London, c.1602) reveal a striking economy in figure composition and a force and precision of gesture that had a profound influence on
Poussin and through him on the whole language of gesture in painting. He developed landscape painting along similar lines, and is regarded as the father of ideal landscape, in which he was followed by Domenichino (his favorite pupil), Claude, and Poussin. The Flight into Egypt (Doria Gallery, Rome, c.1604) is Annibale's masterpiece in this genre.
In his last years Annibale was overcome by melancholia and gave up painting almost entirely after 1606. When he died he was buried accordingly to his wished near Raphael in the Pantheon. It is a measure of his achievement that artists as great and diverse as
Bernini, Poussin and Rubens found so much to admire and praise in his work.
Annibale's art also had a less formal side that comes out in his caricatures (he is generally credited with inventing the form) and in his early genre paintings, which are remarkable for their lively observation and free handling (The Butcher's Shop, Christ Church, Oxford). Agostino assisted Annibale in the Farnese Gallery from 1597 to 1600, but he was important mainly as a teacher and engraver. His systematic anatomical studies were engraved after his death and were used for nearly two centuries as teaching aids. He spent the last two years in Parma, where he did his own "Farnese Ceiling", decorating a ceiling in the Palazzo del Giardino with mythological scenes for Duke Ranuccio Farnese. It shows a meticulous but somewhat spiritless version of his brother's lively Classicism.
Ludovico left Bologna only for brief periods and directed the Carracci academy by himself after his cousins had gone to Rome. His work is uneven and highly personal. Painterly and expressive considerations always outweigh those of stability and calm Classicism in his work, and at its best there is a passionate and poetic quality indicative of his preference for Tintoretto and Jacopo Bassano. His most fruitful period was 1585-95, but near the end of his career he still produced remarkable paintings of an almost Expressionist force, such as the Christ Crucified above Figures in Limbo (Sta Francesco Romana, Ferrara, 1614).
The Caracci fell from grace in the 19th century along with all the other Bolognese painters, who were one of Ruskin's pet hates and whom he considered (1847) had "no single virtue, no color, no drawing, no character, no history, no thought". They were saddled with the label "eclectic" and thought to be ponderous and lacking in originality. Their full rehabilitation had to wait until the second half of the 20th century (the great Carracci exhibition held in Bologna in 1956 was a notable event), but Annibale has now regained his place as one of the giants of Italian painting.
Agostino's illegitimate son
Antonio (1589?-1618) was the only offspring of the three Carracci. He had a considerable reputation as an artist in his day, but after his early death was virtually forgotten, and it is only recently that his work has been reconsidered.




















:: Sacchi, Andrea...














SACCHI, Andrea
(b. 1599, Nettuno, d. 1661, Roma)

Biography
Italian painter, one of the leading artists of his day in Rome. He was a pupil of
Albani, but he was inspired chiefly by Raphael, and with the sculptors Algardi and Duquesnoy he became the chief exponent of the style sometimes called 'High Baroque Classicism'. In defence of the classical princples of order and moderation, Sacchi engaged in a controversy in the Academy of St Luke with Pietro da Cortona on the question of whether history paintings should have few figures (as Sacchi maintained) or many (Cortona). Sacchi's ideas were more immediately influential, but his ponderous ceiling fresco of Divine Wisdom (1629-33) in the Palazzo Barberini in Rome is completely outshone by Cortona's exhilarating ceiling of the Grand Salone in the same building.
Sacchi, indeed, was at his best on a much smaller scale - in altarpieces such as the grave, introspective
Vision of St Romuald (Vatican, c. 1631) and in portraits. His most important pupil was Maratti. Sacchi also worked as an architect, designing the Chapel of St Catherine of Siena (1637-39) in the Sacristy of Sta Maria sopra Minerva, a work of refined classical purity. He was a fine draughtsman.

giovedì

:: Tempel, Abraham Van Den...






TEMPEL, Abraham van den
(b. 1622/23, Leeuwarden, d. 1672, Amsterdam)

Biography
Dutch painter. He was the son of the Frisian painter and Mennonite minister
Lambert Jacobsz.. He received his training in Amsterdam from Jacob Backer c. 1642-6, after which he took up residence in Leiden. He married there in 1648. The influence of Backer is evident in several of his early biblical and allegorical paintings, for instance in three allegories, including the Maiden of Leiden Crowned by Minerva, which he painted in 1650-51 for the Lakenhal (the Cloth Hall) in Leiden (all Leiden, Stedelijk Museum Lakenhal). He later turned primarily to portrait painting, of which there are several dozen surviving works dating from 1660, when he moved to Amsterdam, until his death. Good examples are the pendant portraits of the Leiden cloth-manufacturer Pieter de la Court and his second wife Catharina van der Voort (1667; Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum).
Van den Tempel also painted group portraits, such as that of Albertina Agnes van Nassau-Dietz and her Children (1668; Leeuwarden, Fries Museum) and the portrait of the Amsterdam merchant David Leeuw with his Wife and Children (1671; Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum). These handsome portraits show some influence of Bartholomeus
van der Helst but nevertheless reflect his own slightly more sober style. His paintings are among the best Dutch portraits of the third quarter of the 17th century. His work is characterized by the combination of static poses and elegant execution of details, particularly in the rendering of textiles. Among his pupils were Frans van Mieris and Michiel van Musscher.

:: Tamm, Franz Werner von....


TAMM, Franz Werner von
(b. 1658, Hamburg, d. 1724, Wien)

Biography
German painter, active in Italy and Austria. He was first trained in Hamburg by Dietrich von Sosten (fl 1669; d 1695) and Johann Joachim Pfeiffer (1662-1701). Although he initially leant towards historical painting, later he painted only still-lifes. Resident in Rome from 1685 to 1695, he was introduced into the city's Flemish/Italian circle of artists by Gaspar van
Wittel. He worked occasionally with Pieter van Bloemen and Carel van Vogelaer (1653-95), then became a follower of Carlo Maratti, who painted the figures in his still-lifes. Through Maratti he gained commissions from the Roman patrician families, and their patronage made him known in Spain, France, England and Germany.

Franz Werner Von Tamm.
TAMM, Franz Werner von.
Franz Werner von Tamm on artnet .
Franz Werner Von Tamm.

Franz Werner von Tamm.
Franz Werner VON TAMM.
Franz Werner von Tamm .

Franz Werner von Tamm (1658 - 1724)

venerdì

:: Pellegrini, Giovanni Antonio...










PELLEGRINI, Giovanni Antonio
(b. 1675, Venezia, d. 1741, Venezia)

Biography
Venetian decorative painter, who was a pupil of
Sebastiano Ricci and one of the most important of Tiepolo's predecessors. Like Pittoni, he worked for many foreign patrons and travelled widely. He was first recorded as a painter in 1703 and soon after this he married the sister of Rosalba Carriera, who mentions him in her diary on several occasions. In 1707 Lord Manchester went on an embassy to Venice; he commissioned a picture to celebrate the event from Carlevaris and brought Pellegrini and Marco Ricci back to London with him in 1708. Pellegrini soon had considerable success and became a Director of Kneller's Academy in 1711.
Vertue says that Pellegrini 'painted prodigious quick, had a very noble and fruitfull invention' which may be seen in the decorations at Kimbolton Castle (now a school), done for Lord Manchester, or in the decorations at Castle Howard (1709, mostly destroyed in 1941). In these decorative series Pellegrini shows that he was a true precursor of Tiepolo in the lightness and gaiety of his touch which contrasts with the duller history painting of Pittoni.
In 1713 he went to Germany and Flanders; returning to England in 1719 when, according to Vertue, he was less successful because Marco Ricci had sent for his uncle Sebastiano, who was generally agreed to be a better painter. Pellegrini also painted a splendid ceiling for the Bank of France (since destroyed) in Paris, decorated the Great Hall in the Mauritshuis in The Hague (1718), and worked in Prague, Dresden and Vienna. There is a sketch of 1710 in London (Victoria and Albert Museum) which may represent his design for the cupola of St Paul's for which, according to Vertue, 'he made several designs and a moddle for painting the Cupolo at St Paul's for which he was paid tho' he had not the cupolo to paint'. There are works by him in Barnard Castle (Bowes Museum), Berlin, Birmingham, Boston, Cleveland Ohio, Dresden, Dublin, The Hague, Leeds, London (National Gallery), Oxford (Ashmolean), Paris (Louvre), Toledo Ohio, Vienna and elsewhere.

:: Teniera, David The YOUNGER...

























































TENIERS, David the Younger
(b. 1610, Antwerpen, d. 1690, Bruxelles)

Biography
Prolific Flemish painter of the Baroque period known for his genre scenes of peasant life. He was the son and pupil of
David Teniers the Elder. In 1637 he married Anna, daughter of the painter Jan Brueghel the Elder.
Teniers painted almost every kind of picture, but chiefly genre
scenes of peasant life, many of which were subsequently used for tapestry designs in the 18th century. His early works in this vein show the influence of Adriaen Brouwer (e.g., Twelfth-night, Museo del Prado, Madrid). Many of his finer works date from 1640 to 1650. He was brilliant at handling crowd scenes in an open landscape and adept at characterizing his figures with a warm, human, and often humorous touch (e.g., The Village Fête, 1646; Hermitage, St. Petersburg). His landscape settings are atmospheric, and his still-life details precise. In the same decade he also painted a number of monumental processions (e.g., Procession of the Antwerp Civic Guards, 1643; Hermitage, St. Petersburg).
Teniers developed a second career in 1651 when he moved to Brussels, becoming court painter and keeper of the art collections to the regent of the Netherlands, the archduke Leopold William. He painted several views of the
Archduke's picture gallery. He also made many small-scale individual copies of paintings in the Duke's collection by foreign artists, especially Italians. Of these, 244 were engraved in 1660 under the title Theatrum Pictorium. As a pictorial inventory of a great 17th-century collection, this book of engravings was unique in its time and still constitutes a valuable source for the art historian.
Teniers was also court painter to Don John of Austria, who succeeded the Archduke as regent in 1656, and was one of the prime movers in the foundation of the Brussels Academy of Fine Arts (1663) and subsequently the Academy in Antwerp (1665). Teniers' son, also named David (1638-85), often imitated his
father's work. There are several of his altarpieces in churches in Belgium.
Flemish painter (b. 1610, Antwerpen, d. 1690, Bruxelles)
Paintings (page 1)
Paintings (page 2)

:: Paolini, Pietro...


PAOLINI, Pietro
(b. 1603, Lucca, d. 1681, Lucca)

Biography
Italian painter. He was the son of Tommaso Paolini and Ginevra Raffaelli, both from Lucca. In 1619 Paolini's father sent him to study under
Angelo Caroselli in Rome. His artistic formation was also influenced by the circle of Italian and, especially, northern European followers of Bartolomeo Manfredi, who were active in Rome between 1620 and 1630. The following works, though undocumented, may be dated to this Roman period: Martha and Mary Magdalene (Rome, Galeria Pallavicini), the Concert of Female Musicians (Malibu, Getty Museum) and the Bacchic Concert (private collection). Paolini's first religious works, such as the Deposition (Lucca, S Frediano), as well as many portraits, also show signs of Roman influence. Around 1628 he went to Venice, where he stayed for two years. The effects of this visit can be seen in his later religious works, such as the Virgin and Saints (Rome, Palazzo Barberini) and the Virgin and Saints (Lucca, Villa Guinigi), and also in his history paintings, such as Esther and Ahasuerus (Denver, Art Museum).
He returned to Lucca in 1631, where, from these early experiences, he created an original style, in which he painted cabinet pictures, often on musical or allegorical themes, such as the Ages of Life (private collecton) and the series Music, Astronomy, Geometry, Philosophy (private collection). Around 1650 he opened, at his own expense, an academy based on the principle of 'art from nature', at which numerous artists, such as Girolamo Scaglia, Antonio Franchi, Simone del Tintore and his brother Francesco were trained. Paolini introduced still-life painting in Lucca, for example Still-life with Flowers, Fruit and a Dove in Flight (Potenza, Palazzo S Gervasio), a genre with which he had considerable success.

Pietro Paolini .
Pietro Paolini .
Pietro Paolini (1603 - 1681).
.
Pietro Paolini.
Pietro Paolini .
Pietro Paolini .

Pietro Paolini .

:: Palomino, Acislo Antonio...


PALOMINO, Acislo Antonio
(b. 1655, Bujalance, Córdoba, d. 1726, Madrid)

Biography
Spanish historical painter and writer on art, called the Spanish Vasari. (His full name is Acisclo Antonio Palomino de Castro y Velasco.) He was born of good family and studied philosophy, theology and law in Cordoba, receiving also lessons in painting from
Valdes Leal, who visited Córdoba in 1672, and afterwards from Alfaro (1675). He moved to Madrid in 1678 and married soon afterwards. In 1688 he was appointed painter to the king. He visited Valencia in 1697, and remained there three or four years devoting himself to fresco painting. Between 1705 and 1715 he resided for considerable periods at Salamanca, Granada and Córdoba. After the death of his wife in 1725 Palomino took priests orders.
He painted frescoes and easel pictures in Valencia, Córdoba, and Granada, but he is famous chiefly for his history of art (in 3 volumes, 1715-24), the third volume of which contains a wealth of biographical material concerning Spanish artists of the 16th and 17th centuries. It was partially translated into English in 1739; an abridgment of the original was published in London in 1742, and afterwards appeared in a French translation in 1749. A German version was published at Dresden in 1781, and a reprint of the entire work at Madrid in 1797.


Antonio Palomino .
PALOMINO, Acislo Antonio.
Acislo Antonio Palomino de Castro y Velasco ..

domenica

:: Metsu, Gabriel...
































METSU, Gabriel
(b. 1629, Leiden, d. 1667, Amsterdam)

Biography
Dutch painter, active in his native Leiden, then in Amsterdam, where he had moved by 1657. Houbraken says he trained with
Dou, but Metsu's early works are very different from his - typically historical and mythological scenes, broadly rather than minutely painted. Metsu also painted portraits and still-lifes, but his most characteristic works are genre scenes, some of which rank among the finest of their period. He concentrated on scenes of genteel middle-class life, fairly close to de Hooch and Terborch in style, but with a personal stamp. One of his best-known works, The Sick Child (Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam), is often compared with Vermeer. His work is rarely dated, so his development and relationships with

METSU, Gabriel