(also called Giambattista Piazzetta or Giambattista Valentino Piazzetta) (February 13, 1682 or 1683 ?C April 28, 1754) was an Italian rococo painter of religious subjects and genre scenes. Piazzetta was born in Venice, the son of a sculptor Giacomo Piazzetta, from whom he had early training in wood carving. Starting in 1697 he studied with the painter Antonio Molinari. By Piazzetta's account, he studied under Giuseppe Maria Crespi while living in Bologna in 1703-05, although there is no record by Crespi of formal tutelage. Piazzetta did find inspiration in Crespi's art, in which the chiaroscuro of Caravaggio was transformed into an idiom of graceful charm. He was also greatly impressed by the altarpieces created by another Bolognese painter of a half-century earlier, Guercino. Around 1710, he returned to Venice. There he won recognition as a leading artist despite his limited output and his unassuming nature, but he ultimately was less patronized, both in Venice and especially abroad, than two other eminent stars in Venetian late-Baroque/Rococo, Ricci and Tiepolo. These two painters had a luminous palette and facile ease that allowed them to carpet meters of ceiling with frescoes, although with a superficiality and glamor that is absent from Piazzetta's darker and more intimate depictions. Nonetheless,Tiepolo, who collaborated with Piazzetta on some projects, was greatly influenced by the older artist; in turn, the luminosity and brilliance of Tiepolo's palette would influence Piazzetta in his later years. Piazzetta created an art of warm, rich color and a mysterious poetry. He often depicted peasantry, even if often in a grand fashion. He was highly original in the intensity of color he sometimes used in his shadows, and in the otherworldly quality he gave to the light which throws part of a composition into relief. The gestures and glances of his protagonists hint at unseen dramas, as in one of his best-known paintings, The Soothsayer(1740, now in Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice). He brought similar elusiveness to works of a religious nature, such as the Sotto in su Glory of St. Dominic in the Church of Santi Giovanni e Paolo. Also notable are his many carefully rendered drawings of half-length figures or groups of heads. Usually in charcoal or black chalk with white heightening on gray paper, these are filled with the same spirit that animates his paintings, and were purchased by collectors as independent works. He also produced engravings. In 1750 Piazzetta became the first director of the newly founded Scuola di Nudo, and he devoted himself in the last few years of his life to teaching. He was elected a member of the Bolognese Accademia Clementina in 1727. Among the painters in his studio were Domenico Maggiotto, Francesco Dagiu (il Capella), John Henry Tischbien the Elder, Egidio Dall'Oglio, and Antonio Marinetti.[1] Among younger painters who emulated his style are Giulia Lama, Federico Bencovich, and Francesco Polazzo (1683?C1753). He died in Venice in 1754.   Related Paintings of Giovanni Battista Piazzetta :. | Rebecca am Brunnen | Art Institute, Chicago | Death of Joseph | Die Wahrsagerin | Beggar boy |
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Wille Pierre Alexandre
French Painter , 1748--Paris 1821 Painter, son of Jean-Georges Wille. Between 1761 and 1763 he trained under Jean-Baptiste Greuze, who was a friend of his father, and later under Joseph-Marie Vien. Approved by the Acad?mie Royale in 1774, he devoted himself to painting sentimental genre scenes, such as the Last Moments of a Beloved Wife (1784; Cambrai, Mus. Mun.), in Greuze's manner. He also executed paintings for his father to engrave, including French Patriotism (1781) and the Double Reward of Merit (1785; both Bl?rancourt, Cheteau, Mus. N. Coop. Fr.-Amer.).
Francesco Primaticcio
Italian 1504-1570 Francesco Primaticcio Gallery Born in Bologna, he trained under Giulio Romano in Mantua and became a pupil of Innocenzo da Imola, executing decorations at the Palazzo Te before securing a position in the court of Francis I of France in 1532. Together with Rosso Fiorentino he was one of the leading artists to work at the Chateau Fontainebleau (where he is grouped with the so-called "First School of Fontainebleau") spending much of his life there. Following Rosso's death in 1540, Primaticcio took control of the artistic direction at Fontainebleau, furnishing the painters and stuccators of his team, such as Nicol?? dell'Abate, with designs. He made cartoons for tapestry-weavers and, like all 16th-century court artists, was called upon to design elaborate ephemeral decorations for masques and f??tes, which survive only in preparatory drawings and, sometimes, engravings. François trusted his eye and sent him back to Italy on buying trips in 1540 and again in 1545. In Rome, part of Primaticcio's commission was to take casts of the best Roman sculptures in the papal collections, some of which were cast in bronze to decorate the parterres at Fontainebleau.[1] Primaticcio retained his position as court painter to François' heirs, Henri II and François II. His masterpiece, the Salle d'Hercule at Fontainebleau, occupied him and his team from the 1530s to 1559. Primaticcio's crowded Mannerist compositions and his long-legged canon of beauty influenced French art for the rest of the century. Primaticcio turned to architecture towards the end of his life, his greatest work being the Valois Chapel at the Abbey of Saint-Denis, although this was not completed until after his death and was destroyed in 1719.
Francisco Oller y Cestero
San Juan,Puerto Rico 1833-Santurce 1917 Puerto Rican painter. He studied from 1851 to 1853 at the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando in Madrid under Federico de Madrazo y Kentz and in Paris from 1858 to 1863 under Thomas Couture and Charles Gleyre at the Ecole Imperiale et Speciale de Dessin and at the Academie Suisse. There he met Camille Pissarro, Paul Cezanne and Armand Guillaumin, who together with Couture and the work of Courbet influenced his work towards Realism and Impressionism.