Contents
PAINTING IN EARLY AGES
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| Cave Painting |
The history of painting starts with caves. Early man lived in caves and he lived mainly by hunting, and gradually, he began to decorate the rock faces in the recesses of caves. Early man created images of bison and reindeer which he hunted, and these were the first paintings ever created.
These kinds of cave paintings have been discovered in many parts of the worlds, from Europe and Africa, to Australia. Nearly 30,000 years old rock face was discovered in a cave in Namibia in 1969. Later some more discovered in Southwest France and Northern Spain. Grotte Chauvet is a beautiful painted cave in France. This cave has several very large galleries with more than 300 paintings and engravings that were probably done 32,000 to 30,000 years ago. Most of the paintings shows the rhinoceroses, felines, bears, owls and mammoths, owls, hyenas and panthers...etc.
TYPES OF WESTERN PAINTINGS
There are two types of painting styles are there- Byzantine art
- Early Medieval Art
- Romanesque
- Gothic Art.
BYZANTINE ART
Byzantine art is the term commonly used to describe the artistic products of the Byzantine Empire from about the 4th century until the Fall of Constantinople in 1453.
The term can also be used for the art of Eastern Orthodox states which were contemporary with the Byzantine Empire and were culturally influenced by it, without actually being part of it (the "Byzantine commonwealth"), such as Bulgaria, Serbia, or Russia and also for the art of the Republic of Venice and Kingdom of Sicily, which had close ties to the Byzantine Empire despite being in other respects part of western European culture. Art produced by Eastern Orthodox Christians living in the Ottoman Empire is often called "post-Byzantine." Certain artistic traditions that originated in the Byzantine Empire, particularly in regard to icon painting and church architecture, are maintained in Greece, Serbia, Bulgaria, Russia and other Eastern Orthodox countries to the present day.
Just as the Byzantine empire represented the political continuation of the Roman Empire, Byzantine art developed out of the art of the Roman empire, which was itself profoundly influenced by ancient Greek art. Byzantine art never lost sight of this classical heritage. The Byzantine capital, Constantinople, was adorned with a large number of classical sculptures, although they eventually became an object of some puzzlement for its inhabitants. And indeed, the art produced during the Byzantine empire, although marked by periodic revivals of a classical aesthetic, was above all marked by the development of a new aesthetic.
The most salient feature of this new aesthetic was its "abstract" or anti-naturalistic character. If classical art was marked by the attempt to create representations that mimicked reality as closely as possible, Byzantine art seems to have abandoned this attempt in favour of a more symbolic approach.
EARLY MEDIEVAL ART
Migration period art is a general term for the art of the "barbarian" peoples who moved in to formerly Roman territories. Celtic art in the 7th and 8th centuries saw a fusion with Germanic traditions through contact with the Anglo-Saxons creating what is called the Hiberno-Saxon style or Insular art, which was to be highly influential on the rest of the Middle Ages. Merovingian art describes the art of the Franks before about 800, when Carolingian art combined insular influences with a self-conscious classical revival, developing into Ottonian art. Anglo-Saxon art is the art of England after the Insular period. Illuminated manuscripts contain nearly all the surviving painting of the period, but architecture, metalwork and small carved work in wood or ivory were also important media.
ROMANSQUE
Romanesque art refers to the period from about 1000 to the rise of Gothic art in the 12th century. This was a period of increasing prosperity, and the first to see a coherent style used across Europe, from Scandinavia to Switzerland. Romanesque art is vigorous and direct, was originally brightly coloured, and is often very sophisticated. Stained glass and enamel on metalwork became important media, and larger sculptures in the round developed, although high relief was the principal technique. Its architecture is dominated by thick walls, and round-headed windows and arches, with much carved decoration.
GOTHIC ART
Gothic art was a medieval art movement that developed in France out of Romanesque art in the mid-12th century, led by the concurrent development of Gothic architecture. It spread to all of Western Europe, but took over art more completely north of the Alps, never quite effacing more classical styles in Italy. In the late 14th century, the sophisticated court style of International Gothic developed, which continued to evolve until the late 15th century. In many areas, especially Germany, Late Gothic art continued well into the 16th century, before being subsumed into Renaissance art. Primary media in the Gothic period included sculpture, panel painting, stained glass, fresco and illuminated manuscript. The easily recognisable shifts in architecture from Romanesque to Gothic, and Gothic to Renaissance styles, are typically used to define the periods in art in all media, although in many ways figurative art developed at a different pace.
The earliest Gothic art was monumental sculpture, on the walls of Cathedrals and abbeys. Christian art was often typological in nature (see Medieval allegory), showing the stories of the New Testament and the Old Testament side by side. Saints' lives were often depicted. Images of the Virgin Mary changed from the Byzantine iconic form to a more human and affectionate mother, cuddling her infant, swaying from her hip, and showing the refined manners of a well-born aristocratic courtly lady.
The word "Gothic" for art was initially used as a synonym for "Barbaric", and was therefore used as a negative term of opprobrium: this type of medieval art was considered as unrefined and barbaric, too remote from the aesthetic proportions and shapes of Classical art and its resurgence during the Renaissance.
Painting in a style that can be called "Gothic" did not appear until about 1200, or nearly 50 years after the start of Gothic architecture and sculpture. The transition from Romanesque to Gothic is very imprecise and not at all a clear break and Gothic ornamental detailing is often introduced before much change is seen in the style of figures or compositions themselves. Then figures become more animated in pose and facial expression, tend to be smaller in relation to the background of scenes, and are arranged more freely in the pictorial space, where there is room. This transition occurs first in England and France around 1200, in Germany around 1220 and Italy around 1300.
Painting during the Gothic period was practiced in 4 primary crafts: frescos, panel paintings, manuscript illumination and stained glass. Frescoes continued to be used as the main pictorial narrative craft on church walls in southern Europe as a continuation of early Christian and Romanesque traditions. In the north stained glass was the art of choice until the 15th century. Panel paintings began in Italy in the 13th century and spread throughout Europe, so by the 15th century they had become the dominate form supplanting even stained glass. Illuminated manuscripts represent the most complete record of Gothic painting, providing a record of styles in places where no monumental works have otherwise survived. Painting with oil on canvas did not become popular until the 15th and 16th centuries and was a hallmark of Renaissance art.
In Northern Europe the important and innovative school of Early Netherlandish painting is in an essentially Gothic style, but can also be regarded as part of the Northern Renaissance, as there was a long delay before the Italian revival of interest in classicism had a great impact in the north. Painters like Robert Campin and Jan van Eyck, made use of the technique of oil painting to create minutely detailed works, correct in perspective, where apparent realism was combined with richly complex symbolism arising precisely from the realistic detail they could now include, even in small works.
Renaissance
The Term Renaissance refers to the revival of art and literature under the influence of classical models in 14th – 16th centuries. It was truly the golden age of painting.
In works from the middle ages, saints and biblical figures are arranged in unnatural, geometrical groups, and backgrounds are nothing more than washes of gold. The renaissance painters depicted the human figure as realistically as possible often with backgrounds of the natural world. Careful use of light and shadow made figures appear full and real. Renaissance painters not only portrayed objects with more realism, they often filled their canvases with more objects, all carefully and accurately depicted.
The Renaissance period has produced some of the most famous artists in the history of mankind. They include Brunelleschi, Masaccio, Andrea Mantegna, Piero della Francesca, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, along with a host of other artists and intellectuals.
CIMABUE
Cimabue often regarded as the 'First Modern Painter'. He was a major artist working in Florence at the end of the 13th century. He was born in Florence in 1240 AD. When Cimabue was learning to paint in the 1960's, Italian painters were still copying the style of Byzantine art which always had gold backgrounds, saints, angels, Jesus and Mary in very formal and stiff positions.
Cimbue was associated with a style of painting known as gothic art, and he was also an important forerunner of the later international gothic style. His most famous work was 'Madonna Enthroned'. So he is considered by some experts to be the 'first modern painter'.
GIOTTO DI BORDONE
Giotto di Bordone was an Italian painter, who was a student and contemporary of Cimabue. Giotto was a Sheppard boy scratching pictures of sheep on rocks when Cimabue discovered him. Giotto first worked on mosaics before his interest spread to painting, Sculpture and architecture.
Giotto was worked mainly in wall or fresco painting. He is known for beginning to put in natural landscape backgrounds to his paintings. He painted the outdoors with glorious realism and colours. He changed the history of painting by taking the portrayal of people and places to new levels. His art shines with truth and humanity and his figures are flush and blood individuals who convincingly express joy, anger, fear, horror and grief.
SIMONE MARTINI
Simone Martini was an Italian painter who was one of the most original and influential artists of the Sienese school. He was born in Siena, a city in west Central Italy. He apprenticed in the workshop of Sienese master 'Duccio di Buoninsegna'. Simone created his own versions of many of Duccio's greatest works. But, in doing so, he applied his own sense of decorative charm to traditional subjects, and soon became known for his unique combination of older Byzantine and French gothic Styles.
Simone became most famous in Siena with the fresco of the Maesta in the 'Palazzo Pubblico'. Simone was a master in depicting figures and portraits. He paid particular attention to facial features that gave his subjects complex characters and emotions. Figures were always finished with scrupulous to detail, and his work is admired to this day both for its spirituality and realism.
FRA ANGELICO
Fra Angelico was a Dominician monk and famous Italian painter of the early Renaissance Florentine School. His name was 'Fra Giovanni da Fiesole'; he earned his nickname through his unusually pious nature. One of the Fra Angelico's most extensive projects was the decoration of Dominican Monastery of San Marco in Florence between 1435 and 1445. His skill in creating monumental figures representing motion and suggesting deep space, mark him as one of the foremost painters of the Renaissance. He earned fame for his technical skill, and he never retouched or altered any of his paintings, for he believed that to do so would be going against the will of god.
JAN VAN EYCK
Jan Van Eyck was the greatest artist from Netherlands. His speciality was Oil Paintings. He used the medium so skilfully that he was able to capture even the smallest detail. He had a remarkable memory, and it is said that his eye acted both like a telescope, and microscope. His paintings combine fantasy with reality. He believed that people, nature, and daily life are fascinating subjects that can be captured in a spiritual manner. He was called 'a prince of painters'.
PABLE UCCELLO
Pable Uccello was an Italian painter who wanted to present objects in three dimensional forms in order to create a feeling of depth in his paintings. It is said that he would stay up all night, trying to determine the exact vanishing point of an object. He loved using forms and movements of humans and animals in his paintings. In fact, Pablo Uccello's paintings are very famous for their tangles of horses, riders, lances and pennants, helmets and bits of landscape.
Uccello's greatest paintings were three panels titled 'The Battle of San Romano', 'Night Hunt' and 'The Deluge'. Other paintings are 'Portraits of Sir John Hawkins','Giotto','Brunelleschi','Donatello', and 'St. George and the Dragon'. Uccello's paintings resemble life, and confuse us into mistaking illusions for reality. His use of brilliant colours and the fantastic effects left a lasting impact of his viewers, and he was considered one the founders of the Renaissance movements in paintings.
ROGIER VAN DER WEYDEN
Rogier van der Weyden was from Netherlands and belongs to the beginning of the 15th century. Rogier van der Weyden was a Flemish painter who became famous for the detailed realism that characterizes his works. He settled in Brussels, and soon he was appointed as the city painter, which led to numerous public and private commissions. Rogier operated a large work shop with many assistants, including his son Pieter, who succeeded him as city painter in Brussels. His paintings were dramatic and emotional, and he was often referred to as the 'Master of Passion'.
In his own life time, his paintings were sent all over Europe. Rogierls portraits, usually serene and aristocratic, were also much imitated, influencing Dutch, Spanish and German art.
TOMASSO MASACCIO
Tomasso Masaccio was a renowned painter of frescoes during the Italian Renaissance. 'Masaccio' meaning 'Sloppy' was a nickname given to him, because his dedication to his painting was so great that he gave little attention to his personal hygiene. Masaccio is noted for his advanced use of perspective in order to create more realistic figures. He also moved away from Gothic style of the time to a more naturalistic style. His greatest works were his frescoes done for the Brancacci Chapel in Florence. Masaccio was a major influence on the later Italian Renaissance Painters, primarily Michelangelo.
Masaccio managed to paint a few pictures of such enormous impact as to affect not only the whole future course of Florentine painting, but also that of European fine art painting. As a result, he is considered as one of the founding fathers of renaissance art.
ANDREA MANTEGNA
Andrea Mantegna was an Italian Painter and engraver. A series of nine paintings, titled 'Triumph of Caesar', that Mantegna started in 1486 shows his interest in imperial Rome. In one famous work, called the 'Camera degli Sposi' or the 'Wedding chamber', he painted the walls and ceiling of a small interior room, transforming it into an open-air pavilion. Rooms creating this sort of illusion became very popular in the 1600's.
Andrea Mantegna died in Mantua in 1506, and received the special honour of having a funeral chapel in the church of Santa Andrea dedicated him. This famous church also safeguards golden vessels said to hold earth soaked by the blood of Christ.
SANDRO BOTTICELLI
Botticelli was born in 1445. He was an important painter during the Italian Renaissance. He is known for the dreamy look of the people, gods, goddess, and angels in his paintings. The way he painted faces was so special. Each face was different, but full of life and beautiful in its own way.
Botticelli painted many religious and mythological scenes. One of his most famous paintings is the 'Birth of Venus'. This shows the goddess Venusemerging from a seashell, and the painting is remarkable in that the weight of the body is distributed unequally so that the figure forms one continuous curve. It remains, to this day, one of the greatest masterpieces of all time.
HIERONYMUS BOSCH
Hieronymus Bosch was a painter from Netherlands who lived during the 15th and 16th centuries. Many of his works depict sin and human moral failings. Bosch, who used images of demons, half-human animals, and machines to evoke fear and confusion to portray the evil of man, produced some of the most inventive fantasy paintings that have ever existed.
Bosch has been called 'The master of the Monstrous, the discoverer of the unconscious', for his paintings show a keen insight into human psychology. He was a superb craftsman too, and used to work directly on the canvas with no under painting. At the time of his death, Bosch was internationally celebrated as an eccentric painter of religious visions, who dealt in particular with the torments of hell.
LEONARDO DA VINCI
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| Mona Lisa |
Leonardo da Vinci was an Italian painter. He is the creator of the 'Mona Lisa' painting. It is said that when he was 14, Leonardo had painted the picture of a dragon that looked so real that it actually scared his father! Leonardo da Vinci is considered one of the greatest artists and thinkers of all time. In addition to his paintings, da Vinci was an accomplished sculptor, architect, musician, engineer and scientist.
Mona Lisa painting shows a beautiful woman seated on an armchair on a balcony. Behind her, a landscape can be seen. Leonardo has seated her so that the figure seems almost alive. Her smile is mysterious, and nothing in the painting appeared fixed. All the shapes seem to sway and flow gently into one another, and the figure and landscape are perfectly harmonized. Experts believe Leonardo painted the Mona Lisa in Italy over a long period beginning about 1500's.
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| The Last Supper |
'The Last Supper' is another masterpiece from Leonardo da Vinci. That was painted on a wall of the dining hall in the 'Convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie' in Milan, Italy. The idea was that the monks would be able to focus on the last meal of Jesus while they were eating. It is the largest picture that Leonardo ever painted. The painting is laid out in such a way that it looks like Jesus and his apostles were sitting at the end of the dining hall. The disciples are all reacting in horror to the thought that someone at that table would betray their master. This painting is remarkable, because the disciples are all portraying very human, easily identifiable emotions. We can see that every single element of the painting directs one's attention straight to the midpoint of the composition which is Jesus Christ's head.
In this work, Leonardo wanted to experiment with a new style he had invented called 'tempera'. It is a method of painting with pigments dispersed in an emulsion miscible with water, typically egg yolk. The painting took him four years to complete 1495 to 1498. Unfortunately, Leonardo's new experiment was a disaster. The paint almost immediately began falling off the plaster. Art experts tried to recreate what they thought the painting must have looked like. There is a lot of debate about whether those experts really did 'fix' the painting, or if they changed its meaning by making changes in colour and detail.
ALBERT DURER
Albert Durer was the greatest German artist of the Renaissance era. In 1486, he was apprenticed to the painter and printmaker Michael Wolgemut, and began to work with woodcuts and copper engravings as well. Durer's work includes altarpieces, numerous portraits, and self-portraits, and copper engravings. His still-famous works include the 'Apocalypse woodcuts', 'Knight, Death and the Devil', 'Saint Jerome in his study' and 'Melencolia' which has been the subject of extensive analysis and interpretation. His water colours mark him as one of the first European landscape artists, while his ambitious woodcuts revolutionized that medium.
MICHELANGELO
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| Ceiling of the Sistine Chapel |
Michelangelo was an Italian sculptor, painter, architect, and poet. He was one of the most important artists of the Renaissance. At age 23, Michelangelo completed his magnificent 'Pieta', a marble statue that shows the Virgin Mary grieving over the dead Jesus. He began work on the colossal figure of 'David' in 1501, and by 1504, the sculpture was in place outside the Palazzo Vecchio. After finishing his most famousing project, the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, he later painted 'The Last Judgment' on the altar wall of the Sistine Chapel.
The Sistine Chapel ceiling paintings by Michelangelo were commissioned by Pope Julius II in 1508, and were completed in 1512. It was arduous work that required the artist to constantly paint while lying on his back. The painting took four years to complete, and it was physically, artistically, and emotionally a tremendous feat by the artist, who created this masterpiece. The painting covers 520 square meters of the ceiling, and the central area is made up of nine panels showing scenes from the Old Testament. These panels are surrounded by figures from Greek mythology and Hebrew prophets. To this day, these ceiling paintings continue to inspire millions of pilgrims and tourists in Vatican City each year.
In 1546, he was made chief architect of the partly finished St. Peter's Basilica in Rome.
RAPHAEL
Raphael had great talent, and he received early training in art from his father, Giovanni Santi. He also learned new techniques from Leonardo ad Vinci and Michelangelo. Raphael painted the Madonna dell Granduca, the small Cowper Madonna, and the Alba Madonna. He is painted Stanza dell Incendio, and four large scale paintings which were 'Marriage of the Virgin','Sposalizio','The Crucified Christ with Virgin mary and Saints and Angels'.
Raphael was a classical perfectionist, and he was thought to be one of the most detailed Painters of all portraitists. He was known as leader of Renaissance, for he made people think of personality when they looked at his paintings into which he put realistic emotions.
TITIAN
Titian was the leader of the 16th Century Venetian school of the Italian Renaissance. He was recognized early in his own lifetime as a supremely great painter. Titian was equally adept with portraits and landscapes, mythological, and religious subjects. His deep interest in colours makes him a master painter. Titian's most important innovations were made in portraiture, with his search and penetration in human character.
Titian also transformed the art of oil painting with new techniques that changed the way that Renaissance artists used paints. His work gradually become very free and he seemed to paint from pure emotion. Titian is an inspiration to the young artists of his own day, and influenced the grat masters of the next century.
HANS HOLBEIN
Hans Holbein was an outstanding portrait and religious painter of the northern Renaissance. He was known as Hans Holbein the younger because his father, Hans Holbein the Elder, was also an accomplished painter. Hans showed his diverse interests early in his career by designing woodcuts and glass paintings, illustrating books, and painting portraits and altarpieces. Between 1519 and 1526, Hans decorated many buildings in Basel, including the Town hall. He also painted the celebrated 'Dead Christ', as well as the altarpiece of the 'Madonna with St. Ursus and Bishop Saint', and the famous 'Madonna of Burgomaster Meyer' altarpiece. Also of this period are numerous portraits in which he shows his true genius. In 1536, he became court painter to Henry VIII, and made numerous portraits and drawings of the king and his wives.
JACOPO ROBUSTI TINTORETTO
Jacope Robusti Tintoretto is best known for his monumental and dramatic religious art. The artist was born in Venice and lived there all his life. Tintoretto's most notable work includes the early 'St Mark Freeing the Slave', as well as the series of religious paintings he completed for the Scuola di San Rocco between 15564 and 1588. His last picture of considerable importance was the vast 'Paradise'. It was reputed to be the largest painting ever done upon canvas. He also painted the 'The Last Supper' which is dramatically different from that which was painted by 'da Vinci'.
Tintoretto's early works adhered quite strictly to the Mannerist tradition of the Venetian Renaissance. However, he late developed his own style that was highly dynamic and extravagant.
PIETER BRUEGEL
Pieter Bruegel was the first in a family of Flemish painters, and is generally considered the greatest Flemish painter of the 16th century. Bruegel's paintings, including landscapes and scenes of peasant life are full of zest and fine details. He tried to tell the story by combine the several scenes into it. He was sometimes called the 'Peasant Bruegel' because his paintings were populated by peasants.
SOFONISBA ANGUISSOLA
Sofonisba was one of the first women to gain the international reputation as a painter. She made history when she went to study painting under the renowned artist campi, because at the time, women were not generally accepted into painter's studios. She concentrated on portraits, and her style was unique, and therefore historically significant.
In the 1550's, Sofonisba joined the Spanish court as a lady in waiting to the queen. There she produced some of the most exquisite works, full of intricate and delicate fabrics, fabulous jewellery, and furs. Her greatest contribution was that she opened the art world up to women painters. She was undoubtedly the most successful women painter of the Spanish Golden Age.
EI GRECO
Ei Greco was a Cretan-born painter, sculptor, and architect who settled in Spain. His painting style was different, and it gave rise to many myths about life and art. one of his greatest works 'The Burial of Count Orgaz' portrays a nobleman's soul rising to heaven, surrounded by angels and political figures of the times. He has been called a prophet of modern art, a mystic, and even a man whose sight was distorted all misconceptions that have clouded understanding of his distinctive, but deliberate style.
CARAVAGGIO
Caravaggio was probably the most revolutionary artist of his time. An Italian painter, he abandoned the rules that had guided a century of artists before him. His religious paintings were realistic and dramatic, not idealized form of gods and men. The models chosen for saints were real peasants with wrinkled faces and dirty feet, not beautiful, aristocratic looking men and women. He placed religious arts in a new style.PETER PAUL RUBENS
Peter Paul Rubens was a prolific seventeenth century Flemish painter, who was internationally known for an exuberant style that emphasized movement, colour, and sensuality. He gained fame for his Counter Reformation altarpieces, portraits, landscapes, and history paintings of mythological subjects. Rubens created the fusion of the realistic tradition of Flemish painting with the imaginative freedom and classical themes of Italian renaissance painting. His paintings often depicted religious and mythical heroes in realistic and exuberant poses, but he equally respected for his landscapes and portraits. Rubens was classically educated humanist scholar, art collector, and diplomat who were knighted by Philip IV, King of Spain, and Charles I, King of England.
ARTEMISIA GENTILESCHI
Artemisia Gentileschi was one of the women artists to achieve recognition in the male dominated world of post renaissance art. In an era when female artists are limited to portrait painting and imitative poses, she was the first women to paint major historical and religious scenarios.
Her work became a symbolic attempt to deal with the physical, mental, and emotional traumas that she was experiencing. The heroines of her art are powerful women exacting revenge on male evildoers. Artemisia was without doubt the most important women painter of Early Modern Europe.
DIEGO VELAZQUEZ
Diego Velazquez was a Spanish painter who was the leading artist in the court of King Philip IV. When he was 24, Diego painted a portrait of Philip IV, who became his patron. His paintings include landscapes, mythological and religious subjects, and scenes from the common life, called genre pictures.
Diego was a master realist, and no painter has surpassed him in the ability to seize essential features and fix them on canvas with a few broad, sure strokes. He has great skill in merging colour, light, space rhythm of line, and mass in such a way that all have equal value. He was known as 'The Painter's Painter'.
NICOLAS POUSSIN
Nicolas Poussin was the greatest French artist of the 17th century. With him, French painting went beyond France and became a European affair, mirroring the power of the age of Louis XIV. By the mid 1630's, he began exploring a serene, classical style inspired by Raphael and antiquity. His great passion was history, and he told noble, epic and stirring tales through his art. He made meticulous preparations before starting painting. He did historical research, trained himself in archaeology and the study of coins, and carefully checked the authenticity of his research. The finest collection of Poussin's paintings, in addition to his drawings, is located in the Louvre in Paris.
CLAUDE LORRAINE
Claude Lorraine was an n influential and successful artist in the seventeenth century. His paintings were picturesque, and full of the rough textures of wild nature with romantic old castles or classical ruins. Claude created landscapes that were expansive and dramatic. His chief contribution to classical landscape painting was the masterly treatment of light. He often gave the foreground strong contrasts of light and shadow, while the middle distance had less contrast. The far background was rendered even lighter, and with fewer contrasts to give a sense of great distance.
While the subjects of his paintings and drawings were often from the bible or classical mythology, the mood and atmosphere of the landscape was the real subject. The Libra Veritatis is a collection of about 200 drawings by the French artist Claude Lorraine. It was compiled by him, and made up in book form as a couvenir of paintings he had disposed of, to guard against forgeries, and possibly containing some outlines for future paintings as well. Claude valued it highly and specially mentioned it in his will.
REMBRANDT VAN RIJN
Rembrandt Van Rijn was a Dutch painter, draftsman, and etcher of the 17th century, and a giant in the history of art. His paintings are characterized by luxuriant brush work, rich colour and a mastery of chiaroscuro, or the interplay between light and shade. He became the leading the leading portrait painter in Holland, and received many commissions for portraits as well as for paintings of religious subjects.
His landscape paintings are highly imaginative, rich portrayals of the land around him. Rermbrabdt was at his most inventive in the work popularly known as 'The Night Watch' painted in 1642. The canvas is brilliant with colour, movement and light. Rembrandt is generally considered one of the greatest painters and printmakers in European art history, and the most important in Dutch history. His contributions to art came in a period that historians call the 'Dutch Golden Age'.
JOHANNES VERMEER
Johannes Vermeer was a Dutch painter who created some of the most exquisite paintings in western art. Of the 35 or 36 paintings generally attributed to him, most portray figures in interiors. All his works are admired for the sensitivity with which he rendered effects of light and colour, and for the poetic quality of his images. During the late 1650's, Vermeer began to experiment with 'Camera obscure'. This was an optical device that could project the image of sunlit objects placed before it with extraordinary realism. It is believed that Vermeer would first sketch the projected image in black and white. He would then paint the finished version over it slowly and painstakingly.
JEAN ANTOINE
Jean Antoine Watteau was a French painter whose brief career spurred the revival of interest in colour and movement. He invented a new type of painting, called the 'fete galante'. These large scenes of well-to-do men and women enjoying themselves outdoors allowed him to showcase his talent for conveying the delights and enchantments of nature. Some of his best known subjects were drawn from the world of Italian comedy and ballet.
Jean Antoine showed artistic ability at a young age. He went to Paris in 1702 with the hope of entering a studio where he could refine his art. Around 1708, his small and human battle paintings attracted attention of perceptive dealers and collectors. He was invited by the financier Crozat to live and work in his home, filled with Venetian and Flemish paintings and drawings, and it was there that he developed the fete gallante. During his 15 year artistic career, Antoine dealt with a wide variety of subjects and techniques, and is now regarded as a forerunner of the impressionists in his handling of colour and study of nature.
WILLIAM HOGARTH
William Hogarth was one of the leading British artists of the first half of the 18th century. His paintings are witty and full of an earthy realism, and are a social commentary on the morals of the time, as well as being works of art in their own right. Hogarth brushed aside the great mythological, religious and historical themes, preferring subjects drawn from quick and often malicious observations of those around him. He ensured that his art reached the greatest number of people possible, and to 'educate their taste', he had his works reproduced as engravings. Though Hogarth had the gift of telling story through his paintings, people's interest lay in the details and amusing incidents found in his works rather than in their beauty.
FRANCISCO DE GOYA
Francisco De Goya is regarded as the most important Spanish artist of the late eighteenth, and early nineteenth centuries. Over the course of his long career, Goya's paintings, drawings, etchings, and frescos moved from the jolly and light-hearted, to the deeply pessimistic and searching. Goya entered the world of art when he won the second place in a painting competition held in Italy. His first commission in Spain was in 1774 for 43 cartoons for the tapestries for the royal factory of Santa Barbara. He became the official painter of King Charles III when he was 39 years old.
In 1792, Goya became deaf. As a result, his style of painting also changed. His work became tragic and analytical. He introduced a world of witches, ghosts, and fantastic creatures that invade the mind, particularly during dreams, and nightmarish visions symbolizing a world against reason. His work changed the way artists would interpret the world.
JACQUESS DAVID
Jacques-Louis David, a French painter, was a supporter of the French revolution, and one of the leading figures of the style known as Neoclassicism. He spent six years in Rome, and it was during this period that he abandoned the great manner of his early work, and turned to stark and highly finished style. David later became an active supporter of the French revolution, and was effectively a dictator of the arts under the French republic. Later he was imprisoned and on his release, he became a supporter of Napoleon I. It was at this time that he developed his 'Empire Style', notable for its use of warm Venetian colours. David had a huge number of pupils, making him the strongest influence in the French art of the 19th century.
WILLIAM BLAKE
William Blake was an English artist, mystic, and poet. As a child he was prone to fantastic visions, including seeing god, angels in a tree. He would later claim that he had regular conversations with his deceased brother Robert. It was soon apparent that Blake's visions would be his inspiration throughout his life.
Blake's early ambitions lay not with poetry, but with painting, and at the age of 14, after attending drawing school, he was apprenticed to James Basire, an engraver. After his seven year term was complete, Blake studied at the Royal Academy. In 1788, at the age of thirty one, Blake began to experiment with 'relief etching', which was the method used to produce most of his books of poems. The process is also referred to as 'illuminated printing', and final products as 'illuminated books', or 'prints'. Blake's paintings focused on religious subjects, the most famous being the 'Book of Job'. He used rigid geometrical patterns, and emphasized line and colour as a means of expression. His life is summed up by his statement that 'The imagination is not a state: it is the human existence itself'.
JOHN CONSTABLE
John Constable was one of the great English landscape painters of the 19th Century. He developed his own style of painting by first sketching in pencil, ink wash, and occasional water colours, and also by making many notes on light and atmosphere at the same time. Only after these preparations were complete, would he actually start painting.
Constable developed a unique style combining detailed studies of nature with a deeply personal vision of the country side round his boyhood home. His unique ability to combine scientific knowledge and keen observation with poetry and originality made him different from traditional landscape painters.
CASPAR DAVID FRIEDRICH
Caspar David Friedrich was a landscape painter of the 19th century German Romantic movement, of which he is now considered the most important painter. His main interest as an artist was nature. Friedrich's landscapes are based entirely on scenes from Northern Germany and are beautiful renderings of trees, hills, harbours, morning mists, and other light effects based on his close observation. Many of his scenes are peopled by small, anonymous figures that stand in awed contemplation of the limitless expanse of nature. Though Friedrich studied in Copenhagen, he chose to live in Dresden, and his beautiful surroundings inspired many of his exquisite landscapes.
For nine years, he worked only in pencil or sepia, and when he switched to oil paints, he created a sensation with his work 'Cross in the Mountain'. Some of Friedrich's best known paintings are expressions of a religious mysticism. He was, without doubt, one of the greatest exponents in European art of the symbolic landscape.
JEAN AUGUSTE DOMINIQUE
Jean Auguste Dominique was a French neo-classical painter, and one of the major portrait painters of the 19th Century. He felt that drawing was the very heart of painting, and he drew and redrew whatever he was to paint until he understood all its elements. Though he valued history painting above all else, he also often produced portraits, some of the best of which are drawings. He lived in Rome from 1806 to 1820, and it was there that he developed his extraordinary gifts for drawing and design.
THEODORE GERICAULT
Theodore Gericault's most famous work is 'Raft of the Medusa', a turbulent painting of men at sea who are shipwrecked and dying. The event depicted is the aftermath of the 19th century sinking of a ship called the Medusa. From an original group of 149 on board, there were only 15 survivors after nearly two weeks at sea on this raft. Gericault was extremely daring in organizing his painting around a pyramid, at the top of which the figure of the Negro is seen, waving a rag.
EUGENE DELACROIX
Eugene Delacroix was the most important of the French Romantic painters. His inspiration came chiefly from historical or contemporary events or literature, and a visit to Morocco in 1832 provided him with further exotic subjects. His remarkable use of colour was to later influence even modern artists.
He became one of the greatest wildlife painters, and made his painted animals seem alive. He loved natural beauty in the movements of animals, and spent time at the zoo sketching tigers, lions, horses, and any other animals that caught his imagination.
JEAN FRANCOIS MILLET
French painter Jean Francois Millet was one of the founding members of the Barbizon Landscape School in France. He was the son of a small peasant of Greville in Normandy. His early work comprised of conventional portraits and fashionable eighteenth century pastoral scenes. However, he gained fame for his depiction of the life of the peasants of that time. Millet painted labourers going about their daily business. He made countryside look dignified, and his peasants look heroic. In 'The Angelus', his best known work, millet shows a hard working couple at work in the fields with their heads bowed before the magnificence of nature. Among the French artists of the 19th century, he stands out as a man who found inspiration in the everyday life of ordinary people.
Gustav Courbet
Gustav Courbet was an artist who led the realist movement in 19th century French painting. He believed that every artist should be his own teacher. By 1850, he was shocking the public with the style known as Realism, and with scale of his paintings. In December of that year, he exhibited three huge can
