1598-1664 Spanish Francisco de Zurbaran Galleries Spanish baroque painter, active mainly at Llerena, Madrid, and Seville. He worked mostly for ecclesiastical patrons. His early paintings, including Crucifixion (1627; Art Inst., Chicago), St. Michael (Metropolitan Mus.), and St. Francis (City Art Museum, St. Louis), often suggest the austere simplicity of wooden sculpture. The figures, placed close to the picture surface, are strongly modeled in dramatic light against dark backgrounds, indicating the influence of Caravaggio. They were clearly painted as altarpieces or devotional objects. In the 1630s the realistic style seen in his famous Apotheosis of St. Thomas Aquinas (1631; Seville) yields to a more mystical expression in works such as the Adoration of the Shepherds (1638; Grenoble); in this decade he was influenced by Ribera figural types and rapid brushwork. While in Seville, Zurbur??n was clearly influenced by Velazquez. After c.1640 the simple power of Zurbaran work lessened as Murillo influence on his painting increased (e.g., Virgin and Child with St. John, Fine Arts Gall., San Diego, Calif.). There are works by Zurbar??n in the Hispanic Society of America, New York City; the National Gallery, Washington, D.C.; and the Philadelphia Museum of Art..  Related Paintings of Francisco de Zurbaran :. | blessed john houghton | the eternal father | Tiago Maior | The Death of St. Bonaventure | the girl virgin asleep |
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Jan provoost
Dutch, born circa 1465-1529,South Netherlandish painter. He probably came into contact with Simon Marmion, the renowned painter and book illuminator from Valenciennes, via Jacquemart Pilavaine, a publisher and illuminator in his native Bergen. Provoost married Marmion's widow, Jeanne de Quaroube, before 1491, and it is thus assumed that Marmion was his teacher. In 1493 Provoost moved to Antwerp, a promising town for artists, where he registered as a master in the Guild of St Luke, but in 1494 he travelled to Bruges. He became a citizen there and soon played an important part in the painters' guild. In 1506 Maximiliaen Frans (1490-1547) was his pupil. Provoost received commissions for decorative work from the town council and church authorities in 1509, 1513 and 1520, the year of the Triumphal Entry of Charles V into Bruges, for which he worked on the decorations. He returned to Antwerp the same year to meet Albrecht Derer, who may have drawn his portrait. Derer visited Bruges in April 1521 and was Provoost's guest. Of Jan Provoost's children, Adriaen Provoost (b 1508) became a painter and Thomas Provoost a glassmaker, both active in Bruges. Jan Provoost's time as a pupil in a northern French miniaturist's workshop was of decisive influence on his later oeuvre. His work radiates assurance, with its precise drawing, restrained expression and airy landscapes, and he was successful in Bruges, where there was little competition after Hans Memling's death in 1494.
Cristofano Gherardi
(November 25, 1508 - April 1556) was an Italian painter of the late-Renaissance or Mannerist period, active mainly in Florence and Tuscany. He was born in Borgo San Sepolcro and also called il Doceno dal Borgo. He was the pupil of the painter Raffaellino del Colle, in whose shop he encountered Rosso Fiorentino and Giorgio Vasari. He painted under Vasari's direction, the one assistant of Vasari's whom Sidney J. Freedberg singles out. In 1536 Vasari invited him to Florence to assist in producing the decorations for the ceremonial entry of Charles V into Florence. The following year, in the reaction after Duke Alessandro's death, Gherardi was among those banished from Florence, so his work for Vasari was confined to projects outside Florence, until his banishment was lifted in 1554 and he was permitted to return . In the long interval he had painted the Visitation of Mary to Elizabeth for the church of San Domenico in Citte di Castello, church decorations in San Sepolcro, and works for the Vitelli, who were long-term patrons. Gherardi, in the two years left to him, assisted Vasari in the Quartiere degli Elementi in Palazzo Vecchio. Vasari's main assistant after Gherardi's demise was Jan van der Straat, called Giovanni Stradano.
GRANACCI, Francesco
Italian High Renaissance Painter, ca.1469-1543 was an Italian painter of the Renaissance. Born at Villamagna di Volterra, he trained in Florence in the studio of Domenico Ghirlandaio, and was employed painting frescoes for San Marco on commission of Lorenzo de'Medici. He is featured in Giorgio Vasari's Vite. His early works, such as the Enthroned Madonna between Saint Michael and John the Baptist (Staatliche Museen, Berlin), Adoration of the Child (Honolulu Academy of Arts) and four histories of Saint John the Baptist, were influenced by the style of Filippino Lippi. In 1508, Granacci went to Rome, where he and other artists helped his lifelong friend Michelangelo to transfer cartoons to the Sistine chapel ceiling. Returning to Florence, Granacci painted a Madonna with Child with Saints Francesco and Jerome for the Augustinian convent of San Gallo (now in the Gallery of the Academy), a Madonna della Cintola for the Company of San Benedetto Bigi, and in 1515 he participated in creating the decorations to celebrate the visit to Florence of Pope Leo X. In 1519, he painted a Madonna with Child and Saint John. Works of the years 1520-1525 betray a direct influence of Fra Bartolomeo, including a Madonna in throne between Saints Sebastiano and Francesco for Castelfiorentino and a Sacred Conversation for Montemurlo. An altarpiece of the Assumption is influenced by Pietro Perugino.