b Caprese 1475 d Rome 1564 Born: March 6, 1475 Caprese, Italy Died: February 18, 1564 Rome, Italy Italian artist Michelangelo was one of the greatest sculptors of the Italian Renaissance and one of its greatest painters and architects. Early life Michelangelo Buonarroti was born on March 6, 1475, in Caprese, Italy, a village where his father, Lodovico Buonarroti, was briefly serving as a Florentine government agent. The family moved back to Florence before Michelangelo was one month old. Michelangelo's mother died when he was six. From his childhood Michelangelo was drawn to the arts, but his father considered this pursuit below the family's social status and tried to discourage him. However, Michelangelo prevailed and was apprenticed (worked to learn a trade) at the age of thirteen to Domenico Ghirlandaio (1449?C1494), the most fashionable painter in Florence at the time. After a year Michelangelo's apprenticeship was broken off. The boy was given access to the collection of ancient Roman sculpture of the ruler of Florence, Lorenzo de' Medici (1449?C1492). He dined with the family and was looked after by the retired sculptor who was in charge of the collection. This arrangement was quite unusual at the time. Early works Michelangelo's earliest sculpture, the Battle of the Centaurs (mythological creatures that are part man and part horse), a stone work created when he was about seventeen, is regarded as remarkable for the simple, solid forms and squarish proportions of the figures, which add intensity to their violent interaction. Soon after Lorenzo died in 1492, the Medici family fell from power and Michelangelo fled to Bologna. In 1494 he carved three saints for the church of San Domenico. They show dense forms, in contrast to the linear forms which were then dominant in sculpture. Rome After returning to Florence briefly, Michelangelo moved to Rome. There he carved a Bacchus for a banker's garden of ancient sculpture. This is Michelangelo's earliest surviving large-scale work, and his only sculpture meant to be viewed from all sides. In 1498 the same banker commissioned Michelangelo to carve the Piet?? now in St. Peter's. The term piet?? refers to a type of image in which Mary supports the dead Christ across her knees. Larger than life size, the Piet?? contains elements which contrast and reinforce each other: vertical and horizontal, cloth and skin, alive and dead, female and male. Florence On Michelangelo's return to Florence in 1501 he was recognized as the most talented sculptor of central Italy. He was commissioned to carve the David for the Florence Cathedral. Michelangelo's Battle of Cascina was commissioned in 1504; several sketches still exist. The central scene shows a group of muscular soldiers climbing from a river where they had been swimming to answer a military alarm. This fusion of life with colossal grandeur henceforth was the special quality of Michelangelo's art. From this time on, Michelangelo's work consisted mainly of very large projects that he never finished. He was unable to turn down the vast commissions of his great clients which appealed to his preference for the grand scale. Pope Julius II (1443?C1513) called Michelangelo to Rome in 1505 to design his tomb, which was to include about forty life-size statues. Michelangelo worked on the project off and on for the next forty years. Sistine Chapel In 1508 Pope Julius II commissioned Michelangelo to decorate the ceiling of the chief Vatican chapel, the Sistine. The traditional format of ceiling painting contained only single figures. Michelangelo introduced dramatic scenes and an original framing system, which was his earliest architectural design. The chief elements are twelve male and female prophets (the latter known as sibyls) and nine stories from Genesis. Michelangelo stopped for some months halfway along. When he returned to the ceiling, his style underwent a shift toward a more forceful grandeur and a richer emotional tension than in any previous work. The images of the Separation of Light and Darkness, and Ezekiel illustrate this greater freedom and mobility. After the ceiling was completed in 1512, Michelangelo returned to the tomb of Julius and carved a Moses and two Slaves. His models were the same physical types he used for the prophets and their attendants in the Sistine ceiling. Julius's death in 1513 halted the work on his tomb. Pope Leo X, son of Lorenzo de' Medici, proposed a marble facade for the family parish church of San Lorenzo in Florence to be decorated with statues by Michelangelo. After four years of quarrying and designing the project was canceled. Medici Chapel In 1520 Michelangelo was commissioned to execute the Medici Chapel for two young Medici dukes. It contains two tombs, each with an image of the deceased and two allegorical (symbolic) figures: Day and Night on one tomb, and Morning and Evening on the other. A library, the Biblioteca Laurenziana, was built at the same time on the opposite side of San Lorenzo to house Pope Leo X's books. The entrance hall and staircase are some of Michelangelo's most astonishing architecture, with recessed columns resting on scroll brackets set halfway up the wall and corners stretched open rather than sealed. Poetry Michelangelo wrote many poems in the 1530s and 1540s. Approximately three hundred survive. The earlier poems are on the theme of Neoplatonic love (belief that the soul comes from a single undivided source to which it can unite again) and are full of logical contradictions and intricate images. The later poems are Christian. Their mood is penitent (being sorrow and regretful); and they are written in a simple, direct style. Last Judgment In 1534 Michelangelo left Florence for the last time, settling in Rome. The next ten years were mainly given over to painting for Pope Paul III (1468?C1549).   Related Paintings of Michelangelo Buonarroti :. | Tomb of Giuliano de' Medici | The Brazen Serpent | Ignudo | The Conversion of Saul | The Doni Tondo (nn03) |
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Baron Gerard
There have been three baronies created for descendants of the Gerard family who resided at Bryn, Ashton in Makerfield, Lancashire and Kingsley, Cheshire in the 13th century. The title Baron Gerard of Gerards Bromley, was created in the Peerage of England on 21 July 1603 for Sir Thomas Gerard (d. 1617), son of Sir Gilbert Gerard (d. 1593) Attorney General between 1559 and 1581 and Master of the Rolls in 1581, who acquired estates at Gerards Bromley and Hilderstone, Staffordshire. The first Baron was Lord President of Wales between 1610 and 1617. The barony passed in direct line of succession until the death of the fifth Baron in 1684 when it passed to his second cousin Charles, and upon his death without a male heir , to his brother Philip Gerard, a Jesuit priest who died childless in 1773 when the barony expired. The title of Baron Gerard of Bryn in the County Palatine of Lancaster, was created in the Peerage of the United Kingdom in 1876 for Sir Robert Gerard, 13th Baronet. The title followed the line of the first Baron's eldest son until the death of the latter's grandson, the fourth Baron, in 1992. He was succeeded by his second cousin once removed, the fifth and present holder of the barony. He is the great grandson of Captain the Hon. Robert Joseph Gerard-Dicconson, second son of the first Baron. A Gerard Baronetcy had been created in the Baronetage of England in 1611 for Thomas Gerard, Member of Parliament for Liverpool, Lancashire, and Wigan who was a direct descendant of the family of Bryn. He was succeeded by his son, the second Baronet. He also represented Liverpool in the House of Commons. His son, the third Baronet, was a Royalist during the Civil War and spent a large part of his estate in in his support for King Charles I. His great-great-great-grandson was the aforementioned thirteenth Baronet, who was elevated to the peerage in 1876. For the title Baron Gerard of Brandon, in the County of Suffolk, created in 1645 for a great-grandson of Sir Gilbert Gerard (mentioned above), see Earl of Macclesfield.
Ferdinand Victor Eugene Delacroix
Charenton Saint Maurice 1798-Paris 1863,was a French Romantic artist regarded from the outset of his career as the leader of the French Romantic school. Delacroix's use of expressive brushstrokes and his study of the optical effects of colour profoundly shaped the work of the Impressionists, while his passion for the exotic inspired the artists of the Symbolist movement. A fine lithographer, Delacroix illustrated various works of William Shakespeare, the Scottish writer Sir Walter Scott, and the German writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. In contrast to the Neoclassical perfectionism of his chief rival Ingres, Delacroix took for his inspiration the art of Rubens and painters of the Venetian Renaissance, with an attendant emphasis on color and movement rather than clarity of outline and carefully modeled form. Dramatic and romantic content characterized the central themes of his maturity, and led him not to the classical models of Greek and Roman art, but to travel in North Africa, in search of the exotic.Friend and spiritual heir to Theodore Gericault,
Marie Ellenrieder
Anna Marie Ellenrieder (March 20, 1791 - June 5, 1863, Konstanz) was a German painter. She was born in Konstanz, Germany, the daughter of Konrad and Anna Maria Herrmann, and the granddaughter of Franz Ludwig Herrmann. She studied under the miniature painter Joseph Einsle. Her portraits, similar in style to the ones of Angelica Kauffmann, made her the first woman to enter the Academy of Fine Arts Munich. She spent the time between 1822 and 1824 in Rome, where she became a disciple of Friedrich Johann Overbeck. After this journey, she started painting religious topics such as "Christ Blessing Little Children" and "Mary and the Infant Jesus." Her two paintings "Der 12 jährige Jesus im Tempel / The 12 year old Jesus in the Temple", 1849 (oil on canvas, 203,2 x 139,7 cm) and "Hl Felicitas und ihre sieben Söhne / Holy Felicitas and her Seven Sons", 1847 (oil on canvas, 127 x 177,8 cm) were acquired by Queen Victoria who had been introduced to her work by the Prince Consort, who in turn had encountered the artist on his travels to Rome. They are now part of the Royal Collection in Osborne House. She died in her home town of Konstanz.