German Northern Renaissance Painter, ca.1470-1528,was an important German Renaissance painter of religious works, who ignored Renaissance classicism to continue the expressive and intense style of late medieval Central European art into the 16th century. Only ten paintings (several consisting of many panels) and thirty-five drawings survive, all religious, although many others were lost at sea in the Baltic on their way to Sweden as war booty. His reputation was obscured until the late nineteenth century, and many of his paintings were attributed to Albrecht D??rer, who is now seen as his stylistic antithesis. His largest and most famous work is the Isenheim Altarpiece in Colmar, Alsace (now in France). The details of his life are unusually unclear for a painter of his significance at this date, despite the fact that his commissions show that he had reasonable recognition in his own lifetime. His real name remains uncertain, but was definitely not Grunewald; this was a mistake by the 17th-century writer, Joachim von Sandrart, who confused him with another artist. He is documented as "Master Mathis" or "Mathis the Painter" (Mathis der Maler), and as using as surname both Gothart and Neithardt - this last may have been his surname, or more likely that of his wife. He was probably born in Wurzburg in the 1470s. It is possible he was a pupil of Hans Holbein the Elder. From about 1500 he seems to have lived at Seligenstadt, when not working elsewhere. His first dated painting is probably in Munich, dated 1503 on a much later note which apparently records an older inscription. From about 1510 to 1525 he served in the Rhineland as court painter,  Related Paintings of Matthias Grunewald :. | St Sebastian | Isenheimer Altar, ehemals Hauptaltar des Antoniterklosters in Isenheim, zweite Schauseite, rechter | Fourteen Saints Altarpiece | Nativity | The Mocking of Christ |
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SIRANI, Elisabetta
Italian Baroque Era Painter, 1638-1665 Italian painter. She was the daughter of Giovanni Andrea Sirani (1610-70), who had been Guido Reni's principal assistant. Encouraged by Carlo Malvasia, her mentor and eventual biographer, she was painting professionally by the age of 17. Her prolific talent, as well as her reputed beauty and modesty, soon brought her European renown. The details of her training are unclear, but as a woman she would not have had access to an academy and (like many other professional women painters prior to the 20th century) she was probably taught by her father. Her sisters Anna Maria (1645-1715) and Barbara (alive in 1678) were also practising artists and Elisabetta herself is known to have had female students. As women, they could not undertake any formal study of the male nude, and Sirani's weakness in depicting male anatomy is sometimes clearly detectable in her work Sirani's drawings employ a highly individual pen-and-wash method, eschewing outline and employing quick, blunt strokes of barely dilute ink to create striking chiaroscuro effects
John Masey Wright
1777-1866
Hugo van der Goes
1440-1482 Flemish Hugo van der Goes Galleries Hugo became a member of the painters' guild of Ghent as a master in 1467. In 1468 he was involved in the decoration of the town of Bruges in celebration of the marriage between Charles the Bold and Margaret of York and he provided heraldic decorations for Charles's joyeuse entr??e to Ghent in 1469 and again in 1472. He was elected dean of the Ghent guild in 1473 or 1474. In 1475, or some years later, Hugo entered Rooklooster, a monastery near Brussels belonging to the Windesheim Congregation, and professed there as a frater conversus. He continued to paint, and remained at Rooklooster until his death in 1482 or 1483. In 1480 he was called to the town of Leuven to evaluate the Justice Scenes left unfinished by the painter Dieric Bouts on his death in 1475. Shortly after this, Hugo, returning with other members of his monastery from a trip to Cologne, fell into a state of suicidal gloom, declaring himself to be damned. After returning to Rooklooster, Hugo recovered from his illness, and died there. His time at Rooklooster is recorded in the chronicle of his fellow monk, Gaspar Ofhuys. A report by a German physician, Hieronymus M??nzer, from 1495, according to which a painter from Ghent was driven to melancholy by the attempt to equal the Ghent Altarpiece, may refer to Hugo. His most famous surviving work is the Portinari Triptych (Uffizi, Florence), an altarpiece commissioned for the church of San Egidio in the hospital of Santa Maria Nuova in Florence by Tommaso Portinari, the manager of the Bruges branch of the Medici Bank. The triptych arrived in Florence in 1483, apparently some years after its completion by van der Goes. The largest Netherlandish work that could be seen in Florence, it was greatly praised. Giorgio Vasari in his Vite of 1550 referred to it as by "Ugo d'Anversa" ("Hugo of Antwerp"). This the sole documentation for its authorship by Hugo; other works are attributed to him based on stylistic comparison with the altarpiece. Hugo appears to have left a large number of drawings, and either from these or the paintings themselves followers made large numbers of copies of compositions that have not survived from his own hand. A drawing of Jacob and Rachel preserved at Christ Church, Oxford is thought to be a rare surviving autograph drawing.