1438-1494 Italian Melozzo da Forli Location Melozzo came, it is supposed, of a wealthy family named Ambrosi from Forl??. Nothing is known about his early years, and it is only a hypothesis that he formed at the Forlivese school of art, then ruled by Ansuino da Forl??, for they were both influenced by the Mantegna manner. It has been said that he became a journeyman and color-grinder to some of the best masters, in order to prosecute his studies; this lacks confirmation. His presence his first mentioned in his birthplace in 1460 and again in 1464. Around this period, together with Antoniazzo Romano, frescoed the Bessarione chapel in the basilica dei Santi Apostoli in Rome. Melozzo presumably moved to in Urbino between 1465 and 1475: here he met the highly theoretical and mathematical Piero della Francesca, who profoundly influenced the Melozzo style and use of perspective. He should have also studied the architectures by Bramante and other Flemish painters then working for the duke Federico da Montefeltro: perhaps Melozzo worked with Justus of Ghent and Pedro Berruguete to the decoration of the studiolo of the famous Ducal Palace of the city. In 1475 Melozzo transferred to Rome, though some authorities claim his presence in Rome ten (or five) years earlier to work in the Basilica di San Marco. In 1477 he finished his first major work in the new seat, a fresco now transferred to canvas and placed in the Pinacoteca Vaticana, representing the appointment of Bartolomeo Platina by Sixtus IV as librarian of the restored Vatican Library. In 1478 he was one of the original members of the academy of St Luke, founded by Sixtus IV to unite the main painters working in the city. About 1480 Melozzo was commissioned by Pietro Riario to paint the vault of the apse in the basilica dei Santi Apostoli in Rome, his subject being the Ascension. The figure of Christ is so boldly and effectively foreshortened that it seems to burst through the vaulting; this fresco was taken down in 1711, and the figure of Christ is now in the Quirinal Palace; while some of the other portions, almost Raphaelesque in merit, are in the sacristy of St Peter: a hall in the Vatican Museums is designed for angels and apostles by Melozzo taken down the same fresco. Another work of the Roman period is an Annunciation that can still be seen in the Pantheon. Melozzo last work in Rome is a chapel, now destroyed, in the church of Santa Maria in Trastevere. After the death of Sixtus IV in 1484 he moved from Rome to Loreto. Here he painted the fresco in the cupola of San Marco sacristy in the basilica della Santa Casa, commissioned by cardinal Girolamo Basso della Rovere. It is one of the first examples of a cupola decorated both with architectures and figures, with a profound influence from the Camera Picta by Mantegna. In 1489 Melozzo returned in Rome. In this second period he probably drew some cartoons for the mosaics of Jesus blessing in the St. Helen chapel of the basilica of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme. Pope Sixtus IV appoints Bartolomeo Platina prefect of the Vatican Library, c. 1477 (fresco) (Vatican Museums)Melozzo also painted the cupola of the Capuchin church at Forl??, destroyed in 1651; and it has been said that he executed at Urbino some of the portraits of great men (Plato, Dante, Sixtus IV, etc.) which are now divided between the Barberini Palace and the Campana collection in Paris. In 1493 he worked to some ceilings of the Palazzo Comunale of Ancona, which have gone lost. Eventually Melozzo moved to Forl??, where, together with his pupil Marco Palmezzano, decorated the Feo Chapel in the church of San Biagio, which was destroyed during World War II. The Pinacoteca of Forl?? houses a fresco by Melozzo, termed the Pestapepe, or Pepper-grinder, originally painted as a grocer sign; it is an energetic specimen of rather coarse realism, now much damaged. It is the only non-religious subject by Melozzo.  Related Paintings of Melozzo da Forli :. | Pope Sixtus IV appoints Platina as Prefect of the Vatican Library (mk45) | One of Melozzo famous angels from the Basilica dei Santi Apostoli | Sixtus II with his Nephews and his Librarian Palatina | Sixtus IV,his Nephews and his Librarian Palatina | Pope Sixtus IV appoints Bartolomeo Platina prefect of the Vatican Library |
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Raimundo de Madrazo y Garreta
1841-1920 Spanish Son of Federico de Madrazo y Kentz. Because of his ability and training with his father, Federico, in the Real Academia de S Fernando in Madrid and with Leon Cogniet in Paris, he seemed destined to continue the family tradition of academic painting. However, due to the influence of the Belgian Alfred Stevens, of his brother-in-law, Mariano Jose Bernardo Fortuny y Marsal, and the Parisian environment, he exchanged dry historical painting for the preciousness of the tableautin, the small, intimate genre painting. He lived in Paris and New York and became so remote from Spanish artistic life that he and Fortuny y Marsal were the only Spanish artists not to participate in any national exhibition, and because of this the Spanish state never directly acquired their works. In 1882, with Giuseppe De Nittis, Stevens and the gallery owner Georges Petit, he co-founded the Exposition Internationale de Peinture, designed to promote foreign artists in Paris. Madrazo Garreta most characteristic works are the female portrait and the witty and elegant genre painting, with soft, delicate tones and suggestive poses. The influence of the Rococo and of Japanese art is reflected in his painting, which expresses an exquisite aristocratic or bourgeois ideal, the illusion of a refined, sensual and superficial life. Consequently, his works are also described as representing the Parisian seraglio. American collectors paid high prices for his paintings, for example Alexander Turney Stewart bought Lady with a Parrot; Carnival Festival (1878) was purchased by L. Wolfe; and Girls at the Window (1875) was bought by J. W. Vanderbilt, the last two now being in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. His portraits were better received in Spain although because of collectors such as Ramen de Errazu (d 1909), the Museo del Prado has a good number of his paintings (e.g. After the Bath).
STRIGEL, Bernhard
German Northern Renaissance Painter, ca.1460-1528..Painter, son or nephew of Hans Strigel II. His training with Hans Striegel II shows stylistically in his early works in the Grisons, e.g. the Last Judgement (1486; Brigels, pilgrimage chapel of St Eusebius) and an altarpiece at Disentis (1489; St Johann Baptist). In the 1480s and 1490s he also worked in the studio of Ivo Strigel. Motifs in his pictures stem from engravings by Martin Schongauer and from Ulm book woodcuts. He met Bartholomus Zeitblom as a fellow worker on the high altar (1493-4) of Blaubeuren Abbey, both being influenced by Netherlandish art: Zeitblom by Rogier van der Weyden but Strigel primarily by Dieric Bouts. This influence is also seen in his Adoration of the Magi altarpiece (c. 1500; Memmingen, Stedtmus.). The altar of the Virgin for the monastery at Salem (1507-8; Salem, Schloss) has links with D?rer's graphic work: an increasing three-dimensionality and monumentalization of the objects and figures, and their disposition in space.
Antoine Vollon
(April 23, 1833 - August 27, 1900) was a French realist artist, best known as a painter of still lifes, landscapes and figures. During his lifetime, Vollon was a successful celebrity, enjoyed an excellent reputation, and was called a "painter's painter".