Russian Painter.1914-1955
was a painter known for his use of a thick impasto and his highly abstract landscape painting. He also worked with collage, illustration and textiles Nocolas de Stael was born in the family of a Russian Lieutenant General, Baron Vladimir Stael von Holstein, (a member of the Stael von Holstein family, and the last Commandant of the Peter and Paul Fortress) and his wife, Olga Sakhanskaya. De Stael's family was forced to emigrate to Poland in 1919 because of the Russian Revolution; Both, his father and stepmother, would die in Poland and the orphaned Nicolas de Stael would be sent with his older sister Marina to Brussels to live with a Russian family (1922). He eventually studied art at the Brussels Acad??mie royale des beaux-arts (1932). In the 1930s, he travelled throughout Europe, lived in Paris (1934) and in Morocco (1936) (where he first met his companion Jeannine Guillou, also a painter and who would appear in some of his paintings from 1941-1942) and Algeria. In 1936 he had his first exhibition of Byzantine style icons and watercolors at the Galerie Dietrich et Cie, Brussels. He joined the French Foreign Legion in 1939 and was demobilized in 1941. Related Paintings of Nicolas de Stael :. | The Port of Boat | The Portrait of Olek Teslar | Figure | Blue Nude Girl Lying | The gray background of the figure | Related Artists:
John Gadsby Chapman American Painter, 1808-1889,was an American artist famous for The Baptism of Pocahontas, which was commissioned by the United States Congress and hangs in the United States Capitol rotunda. John Chapman was born in 1808 in Alexandria, Virginia. Chapman began his study of art in Philadelphia for two years, then departed for Europe where he eventually spent time in Italy. In 1831, Chapman returned to his hometown of Alexandria, and exhibited his artwork in the nearest metropolitan areas, such as Washington, D.C., Richmond, and Philadelphia. He specialized in landscapes and portraits. By 1834, Chapman had moved to New York City and become a member of the National Academy of Design, and found work as an illustrator. In New York, Chapman embarked on a series of historic paintings, such as Landing at Jamestown and the Crowning of Powhatan. The success of these paintings helped Chapman land a commission from the United States Congress in February 1837 to paint a historical scene for the rotunda of the Capitol building. For this work, Chapman received a total payment of $10,000. On November 30th, 1840, The Baptism of Pocahontas was formally unveiled in the Capitol rotunda. On the swell of this success, Chapman moved his family to Rome, and made an earnest living selling paintings of rural Campagna to American visitors. However, at the onset of the American Civil War, the tourist industry dried up, affecting Chapman fortunes greatly. In addition, Chapman own son, Conrad Chapman, returned to America to fight on the side of the Confederate States of America. The economic deprivation inflicted on Chapman during the 1860s became insurmountable. In Rome, he was forced to live off the kindness of fellow expatriates, and finally returned to America, sick and poor, to spend his last days with another son, John Linton Chapman, in Brooklyn, New York. It was there, in 1889, that he died a pauper.
Luca SignorelliCrtona 1441-1523
.Italian painter of the Umbrian school, who probably studied with Piero della Francesca. He worked in Cortona, where some of his paintings have remained. Subsequently he worked in the Cathedral of Perugia, in Volterra, and at Monte Oliveto before undertaking (1499) the decoration of the Cappella Nuova in the Orvieto Cathedral. There he represented the apocalyptic series of the Story of the Anti-Christ, the End of the World, the Resurrection of the Bodies, Paradise, and the Inferno, as well as figurations from antique poems and the Divine Comedy. The infernal scenes are remarkable for their imaginative evocation of fiends and tortures of Hell. Michelangelo was influenced by his powerful treatment of anatomy and the vivid realism he used for dramatic ends. Signorelli's paintings in the Vatican, where he went in 1508, were later sacrificed to make way for some of Raphael's work.
Hindu painterRichard Ettinghausen believes this work to have been painted in Agra in about 1625