1580-1666 Frans Hals Galleries In the field of group portraiture his work is equalled only by that of Rembrandt. Hals's portraits, both individual and group, have an immediacy and brilliance that bring his sitters to life in a way previously unknown in the Netherlands. This effect, achieved by strong Baroque designs and the innovative use of loose brushstrokes to depict light on form, was not to the taste of critics in the 18th century and the early 19th, when his work was characterized as lazy and unfinished. However, with the rise of Realism and, later, Impressionism, Hals was hailed as a modern painter before his time. Since then his works have always been popular.  Related Paintings of Frans Hals :. | Gruppenportrat der Regentinnen des Altfrauenhospitzes in Haarlem | mansportratt | Pieter van den Broecke | Portrait of an Elderly Lady | Portrait of a Man Holding a Skull. |
Related Artists:
Willem van Aelst
(May 16, 1627 - in or after 1683) was a Dutch artist who specialized in still-life painting with flowers or game. Van Aelst was born in Delft to a family of prominent city magistrates. He learned to paint from his uncle, the still-life painter Evert van Aelst. On 9 November 1643 he enrolled as a master of the Guild of Saint Luke at Delft. Between 1645 and 1649 he lived in France. In 1649 Van Aelst travelled to Florence, where he served as court painter to Ferdinando II de' Medici, grand duke of Tuscany. At this time, the grand duke also employed two fellow Dutchmen Matthias Withoos and Otto Marseus van Schrieck, the latter also a still-life painter who probably influenced Van Aelst's style. In 1656 he returned to the Netherlands to settle permanently in Amsterdam. He became one of the most prominent still-life painters of his generation, which allowed him to live on the Prinsengracht. He must have at Amsterdam died in 1683 or shortly thereafter, as his latest dated work is from that year. Van Aelst taught Rachel Ruysch and several others.
Jean-Baptiste Oudry
(17 March 1686 - 30 April 1755) was a French Rococo painter, engraver, and tapestry designer. He is particularly well known for his naturalistic pictures of animals and his hunt pieces depicting game. Jean-Baptiste Oudry was born in Paris, the son of Jacques Oudry, a painter and art dealer, and of his wife Nicole Papillon, who belonged to the family of the engraver Jean-Baptiste-Michel Papillon. His father was a director of the Academie de St-Luc art school, which Oudry joined. At first, Oudry concentrated on portraiture, and he became a pupil and perhaps a collaborator of Nicolas de Largilliere from 1707 to 1712. He graduated at only 22 years of age, on 21 May 1708, at the same time as his two older brothers. The next year, he married Marie-Marguerite Froisse,[1] the daughter of a miroitier (a mirror-maker) to whom he gave lessons in painting. Oudry became an assistant professor at Academie de Saint-Luc in 1714, and professor on 1 July 1717. He was inducted as a member of the prestigious Academie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture in 1719, and was engaged as a professor there in 1743. After producing mainly portraits, Oudry started to produce still life paintings of fruits or animals, aa well as paintings of religious subjects, such as the Nativity, Saint Giles, and the Adoration of the Magi.
Thomas Ruckle
was a house painter and sign painter in early nineteenth century Baltimore, Maryland, and an amateur painter. He is best known for his paintings The Battle of North Point, and The Defense of Baltimore. Ruckle was a veteran of the War of 1812, in which he had served as a corporal in the 5th Maryland Regiment of the Maryland Militia. Ruckle was born in Ireland and, having moved to Baltimore, Maryland, he became a sign painter and house painter. It is likely that he had very little, if any, formal training as an artist.