Flemish Northern Renaissance Painter, ca.1465-1530 Quentin Massys, also spelled Matsys or Metsys, was born in Louvain, the son of a blacksmith. He is traditionally thought to have been trained in that craft by his father. Art in Louvain while Massys was growing up was dominated by Dirk Bouts. Massys became a member of the painters' guild in Antwerp in 1491 and died there in 1530. He represented a current of painting that flourished in Antwerp at this time of its sudden new prosperity. Erwin Panofsky (1953) described this trend, "archaism of around 1500," as "a prelude to, in fact a fact of, the Renaissance in Netherlandish painting," which prevailed in the southern Netherlands. The monumental Enthroned Madonna (Brussels), an early work by Massys, has features recalling both Robert Campin and Jan van Eyck. The central panel of Massys' imposing St. Anne Altarpiece, or the Holy Kinship (Brussels), which was commissioned for the church of St-Pierre in Louvain in 1507 and signed and dated 1509, has a prototype in the Holy Kinship of Geertgen tot Sint Jans. Even the physical types and costumes in Massys' version refer to Geertgen's. But Massys placed his rhythmically balanced figure groups in a domed, arcaded loggia that in architectural style appears to be reaching for a Renaissance vocabulary it cannot quite attain; certainly the architecture evokes a later period than that represented by the Gothic throne of the Enthroned Madonna. The calm and restraint of the St. Anne Altarpiece are replaced by heightened emotional expression in the next important painting by Massys that can be firmly dated, the Deposition triptych (Antwerp). This was commissioned in 1508 by the guild of joiners in Antwerp for their chapel in the Cathedral; Massys completed the composition in 1511. It was inspired by Rogier van der Weyden's great Deposition, which was in the church of St-Pierre in Louvain in Massys' time, and also quotes from Rogier's Entombment. Massys painted genre subjects, possibly with emblematic meaning, such as A Money Changer and His Wife, which belonged to a Netherlandish tradition that maintained its popularity right through the 17th century. In portraiture he made significant contributions. His pair of portraits of Erasmus and Petrus Aegidius, painted in 1517 for Sir Thomas More, set the pattern for representations of the scholar in his study.   Related Paintings of MASSYS, Quentin :. | Portrait of an Old Man sg | Portrait of Erasmus of Rotterdam sg | St John Altarpiece (right wing) dh | St John Altarpiece | St Anne Altarpiece (detail) rfg |
Related Artists:
Georges Seurat
French Pointillist Painter, 1859-1891 Georges-Pierre Seurat (2 December 1859 ?C 29 March 1891) was a French painter and draftsman. His large work Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte, his most famous painting, altered the direction of modern art by initiating Neo-impressionism, and is one of the icons of 19th century painting Seurat took to heart the color theorists' notion of a scientific approach to painting. Seurat believed that a painter could use color to create harmony and emotion in art in the same way that a musician uses counterpoint and variation to create harmony in music. Seurat theorized that the scientific application of color was like any other natural law, and he was driven to prove this conjecture. He thought that the knowledge of perception and optical laws could be used to create a new language of art based on its own set of heuristics and he set out to show this language using lines, color intensity and color schema. Seurat called this language Chromoluminarism. His letter to Maurice Beaubourg in 1890 captures his feelings about the scientific approach to emotion and harmony. He says "Art is Harmony. Harmony is the analogy of the contrary and of similar elements of tone, of color and of line, considered according to their dominance and under the influence of light, in gay, calm or sad combinations". Seurat's theories can be summarized as follows: The emotion of gaiety can be achieved by the domination of luminous hues, by the predominance of warm colors, and by the use of lines directed upward. Calm is achieved through an equivalence/balance of the use of the light and the dark, by the balance of warm and cold colors, and by lines that are horizontal. Sadness is achieved by using dark and cold colors and by lines pointing downwards.
Hieronymus Janssens
1573 - 1632
fredrik westin
Fredric Westin, född den 22 september 1782 i Stockholm, död 13 maj 1862 i Stockholm, historie- och porträttmålare. Westin hade varit elev hos Lorens Pasch d.y. och Louis Masreliez på Konstakademien. Sedan han 1808 blivit kallad till akademiens agr?? och förordnad till konduktör vid kungliga museet blev han 1812 invald i Konstakademiens styrelse. Han blev 1815 vice professor och 1816 professor vid Konstakademien. Där var han också 1828-1840 direktör. 1843 utnämndes han till hovintendent. Till hans tidigare skede och till hans främsta alster hör "Dagens stunder", fyra dörrstycken i Karl Johans sängkammare på Rosersbergs slott med antikiserande figurer: Aurora som strör blommor över jorden, Apollon med sitt fyrspann, Diana följd av Aftonrodnaden samt Natten med sitt stjärnströdda dok (1812-13). På Säfstaholms slott finns "De fyra årstiderna presiderade av jordens gudinna" (1843), på Rosendals slott "Hebe med örnen" (1832) och "Flora bekransande Linn??s byst" (1843) och vid Stockholms universitet "Musiken, föreställd av en grupp unga flickor". Han målade också kompositioner ur den svenska historien ("Olof Skötkonungs dop", "Lutherska lärans antagande"). Westin målade en stor mängd porträtt då han under Karl XIV Johans tid var konstnären på modet. Som porträttmålare var han dock inte enhälligt uppskattad. En kritiker som Silverstolpe beklagade 1809 att en konstnär som "äger så mycken färdighet till stöd för sitt sökande av idealet" sysselsatte sig med en konst av så lågt värde och hoppades att han "måtte återvända från den platta verkliga världen till den poetiska." Hammarsköld menade 1818 att av de svenska konstnärerna var det Westin som hade de ringaste anlagen för porträttmålning. Scholander kallade hans porträtt för "vaxgubbar". Andra hade lovord att fälla över Westins porträtt. Gerss ansåg att Westins porträtt hade likhet och behag i uttrycket, enkelhet i ställning och klädsel, urval av natur i formerna och säkerhet och sanning i utförandet. Wennberg kallade honom "den förste svenske tecknarens Lorenz Paschs så värdige fosterson". Under Karl XIV Johans tid målade han rad porträtt på kungafamiljen. 1824 målade han en populär allegori över kronprinsessan Josefinas ankomst till Sverige, där Saga i gul och blå dräkt sitter på marken framför en runsten och blickar upp mot skyn där kronprinsessan i röd och vit dräkt svävar ned på en molntapp omgiven av tre amoriner. 1838 målade han Karl XIV Johan till häst på Ladugårdsgärdet hälsande med den trekantiga hatten. Efter att Sandbergs altartavla för Sankt Jacobs kyrka hade underkänts vände sig de ansvariga till Westin med uppdraget att måla en altartavla. Målningen, "Kristi förklaring" var klar 1828 och resultatet blev både hyllat och kritiserat. Andra altartavlor av Westin finns i Kungsholms kyrka ("Kristi uppståndelse", 1825), Åbo domkyrka ("Kristi förklaring", 1836), Uddevalla kyrka ("Kristus välsignar barnen") samt Carl Gustafs kyrka ("Kristi begravning", 1832).