Greek-born Spanish Mannerist Painter, 1541-1614
Considered a representative of late Renaissance Spanish art, El Greco was actually born in Greece, on the island of Crete. After studying in Venice under Titian, El Greco settled in Toledo, Spain in 1577. At the time he was wildly popular, his emotionally religious paintings being just the ticket for the hometown of the Spanish Inquisition. After his death his work was largely ignored until the beginning of the 20th century; now he considered one of the inspired geniuses of Western art. His distinctive style features bold shapes and colors, with elongated and slightly distorted figures.
In Toledo El Greco was in constant demand and liked living large: he maintained a private orchestra to accompany his meals. Related Paintings of El Greco :. | The Holy Family with St Anne and the Young St JohnBaptist | The Immaculate Conception | Laokoon | The Agony in the Garden | st.joseph and the child | Related Artists:
George L. SeymourBritish, act. 1876 - 1916
Seymour was a son of Lord Hugh Seymour (himself a son of Francis Seymour-Conway, 1st Marquess of Hertford) and Anna Horatia Waldegrave (a daughter of James Waldegrave, 2nd Earl Waldegrave) and entered the Royal Navy in 1797. He captained HMS Pallas during the Battle of Basque Roads and HMS Leonidas and HMS Fortun??e during the War of 1812. For his part in the latter war, he was appointed a CB in 1815 (alongside many other Captains) and a KCH in 1831 (and later a GCH in 1834). He rose through the ranks in the navy over the years and in 1852 was appointed a KCB (and later a GCB in 1860) and finally as an Admiral of the Fleet in 1866.
Makovsky, VladimirRussian, 1846-1920
Painter, brother of Konstantin Makovsky. He studied at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture from 1861 to 1866 under Sergey Zaryanko and other artists. From 1872 Makovsky was a member of the WANDERERS (Peredvizhniki). In his early pictures, Makovsky usually portrayed contemporary manners and morals in a spirit of gentle irony, as in the Lovers of Nightingales (1872-3; Moscow, Tret'yakov Gal.). Such works reveal Makovsky's skill in defining precisely and carefully the role of each figure in the scene. In the mid-1870s Makovksy began to concentrate on the central theme of most of his subsequent work: the glaring social contrasts of Russian life.
Alonso VazquezSpanish
?-1608
was a Spanish sculptor and painter of the Renaissance period. Vazquez was born in Ronda, and learned painting in the school of Arfian at Seville. He passed through the usual apprenticeship of painting "sargas" and at length painted frescoes and oil-pictures. For the Cathedral and the convents of St. Francis and St. Paul, he painted a variety of works, no longer extant. He painted a series of canvases on the life of St. Raymond, for the cloister of the friars of the order of Mercy. Vazquez was one of the artists chosen by the city of Seville to paint the great catafalque erected in the Cathedral, at the time of public mourning for the death of Philip II. He died either in Seville or in Mexico,