Italian High Renaissance Painter, ca.1485-1576
Italian painter active in Venice. As a young man he was taught by the Bellini family and worked closely with Giorgione. His early works are so similar in style to Giorgione's as to be indistinguishable, but soon after Giorgione's early death Titian established himself as the leading painter of the Republic of Venice. Among his most important religious paintings is the revolutionary and monumental Assumption (1516 ?C 18) for Santa Maria dei Frari, in which the Virgin ascends to heaven in a blaze of colour accompanied by a semicircle of angels. Titian was also interested in mythological themes, and his many depictions of Venus display his work's sheer beauty and inherent eroticism. Bacchus and Ariadne (1520 ?C 23), with its pagan abandon, is one of the greatest works of Renaissance art. Titian was sought after for his psychologically penetrating portraits, which include portrayals of leading Italian aristocrats, religious figures, and Emperor Charles V. He reached the height of his powers in The Rape of Europa (c. 1559 ?C 62), one of several paintings done for Philip II of Spain. He was recognized as supremely gifted in his lifetime, and his reputation has never declined. Related Paintings of Titian :. | Violante | Details of Venus of Urbino | Portrait of Titians daughter Lavinia | La Bella | Herr in Blau | Related Artists:
Thomas FearnleyNorwegian Painter, 1802-1842
Norwegian painter. He was descended from a Yorkshire merchant who had settled in Norway in 1753. In 1819 he went into business but at the same time entered the Kongelige Tegneskole in Christiania (now Oslo) and received further training at the art colleges in Copenhagen (1821-3) and Stockholm (1823-7), where Karl XIV commissioned work from him. Fearnley spent much of his life travelling. In Norway in the summer of 1826 he met J. C. Dahl, with whom he later studied in Dresden (1829-30), learning especially to observe nature. After two years in Munich (1830-32),
CIMA da ConeglianoItalian Painter, ca.1459-1517
Italian painter. He belonged to the generation between Giovanni Bellini and Giorgione and was one of the leading painters of early Renaissance Venice. His major works, several of which are signed, are almost all church altarpieces, usually depicting the Virgin and Child enthroned with saints; he also produced a large number of smaller half-length Madonnas. His autograph paintings are executed with great sensitivity and consummate craftsmanship. Fundamental to his artistic formation was the style that Bellini had evolved by the 1470s and 1480s; other important influences were Antonello da Messina and Alvise Vivarini. Although Cima was always capable of modest innovation, his style did not undergo any radical alteration during a career of some 30 years, and his response to the growing taste for Giorgionesque works from the early 16th century remained superficial. He seems to have maintained a sizeable workshop,
Horatio MccullochScottish Landscape painter ,1805-1867
Scottish painter. He was trained in the studio of the Glasgow landscape painter John Knox (1778-1845) and at first earned his living as a decorative painter. By the early 1830s McCulloch's exhibits with the Glasgow Dilettanti Society and with the Royal Scottish Academy had begun to attract buyers, notably the newly instituted Association for the Promotion of the Fine Arts in Scotland. Commissions from book and print publishers allowed him to concentrate on easel painting. On his election as full Academician of the Scottish Academy in 1838, McCulloch settled in Edinburgh and soon became a prominent figure in the artistic life of the capital and a prolific contributor to the Royal Scottish Academy exhibitions. At the same time contact with Glasgow was maintained: McCulloch's favourite sketching grounds were in the west, he exhibited regularly in the city and his most loyal patrons were wealthy Glasgow industrialists such as David Hutcheson (1799-1881), the steamship owner. He seldom exhibited outside Scotland and only once at the Royal Academy, London (1843), but he kept in touch with London artist-friends, John Phillip, David Roberts and John Wilson (1774-1855), through correspondence and visits. His own art collection was evidence of his admiration for 17th-century Dutch painters, for J. M. W. Turner and Richard Wilson.