Flemish Baroque Era Painter, 1577-1640 Peter Paul Rubens (June 28, 1577 ?C May 30, 1640) was a prolific seventeenth-century Flemish Baroque painter, and a proponent of an exuberant Baroque style that emphasized movement, color, and sensuality. He is well-known for his Counter-Reformation altarpieces, portraits, landscapes, and history paintings of mythological and allegorical subjects. In addition to running a large studio in Antwerp which produced paintings popular with nobility and art collectors throughout Europe, Rubens was a classically-educated humanist scholar, art collector, and diplomat who was knighted by both Philip IV, king of Spain, and Charles I, king of England. Rubens was a prolific artist. His commissioned works were mostly religious subjects, "history" paintings, which included mythological subjects, and hunt scenes. He painted portraits, especially of friends, and self-portraits, and in later life painted several landscapes. Rubens designed tapestries and prints, as well as his own house. He also oversaw the ephemeral decorations of the Joyous Entry into Antwerp by the Cardinal-Infante Ferdinand in 1635. His drawings are mostly extremely forceful but not detailed; he also made great use of oil sketches as preparatory studies. He was one of the last major artists to make consistent use of wooden panels as a support medium, even for very large works, but he used canvas as well, especially when the work needed to be sent a long distance. For altarpieces he sometimes painted on slate to reduce reflection problems. His fondness of painting full-figured women gave rise to the terms 'Rubensian' or 'Rubenesque' for plus-sized women. The term 'Rubensiaans' is also commonly used in Dutch to denote such women.  Related Paintings of Peter Paul Rubens :. | The Four Quarters of the Globe | The Drunken Hercules | Persimmon (mk01) | The Temle of Janus | The Raising of the Cross (mk05) |
Related Artists:
Gabriel von Max
(August 23, 1840 - November 24, 1915) was a Prague-born Austrian painter. He was born Gabriel Cornelius Max, the son of Czech sculptor Joseph Max and Anna Schumann. He studied between 1855 and 1858 at the Prague Academy of Arts with Eduard von Engerth. His studies included parapsychology (somnambulism, hypnotism, spiritism), Darwinism, Asiatic philosophy, the ideas of Schopenhauer, and various mystical traditions. The spiritual-mystical movement was emphasized by the writings of Carl du Prel, and the Munich painter Albert Keller was also an influence. His first large canvas was painted in 1858 while he was a student at the Prague Academy. He continued his studies at the Viennese Academy of Art with Karl von Blaas, Karl Mayer, Christian Ruben and Carl Wurzinger. From 1863 to 1867 he studied at the Munich Academy with Karl Theodor von Piloty, and also Hans Makart and Franz Defregger. His first critical success was in 1867 with the painting "Martyr at the Cross": that painting transformed the "Ungl?-ksmalerei" (dark palette) of Piloty into a religious-mystical symbolism using a psychological rendering of its subject. He continued to use the dark palette of the Piloty school well into the 1870s, later moving toward a more muted palette, using fewer,clearer colors. From 1869, Gabriel von Max had his studio in Munich; in the summer, he was in the Ammerland at Starnberger Lake. From 1879-1883, Gabriel Max was a professor of Historical Painting at the Munich Academy; he also became a Fellow of The Theosophical Society. In 1900 he was ennobled and became a Ritter. He died in Munich in 1915. His interest in anthropological studies also showed in his work. He owned a large scientific collection of prehistoric ethnological and anthropological finds: the collection now resides in the Stadtischen Reiss Museum in Mannheim. At his residence in Starnberger Lake, Gabriel Max surrounded himself with a family of monkeys, which he painted often, sometimes portraying them as human. Max, along with his colleagues, often used photographs to guide painting. The great number of monkey photographs in his archive testify to their use as direct translation into his paintings. In 1908, his painting "The Lion's Bride" became celebrated, and was depicted in motion pictures as an hommage in the Gloria Swanson film, Male and Female, (1919), directed by Cecil B. de Mille. Gabriel von Max was a significant artist to emerge from the Piloty School, because he abandoned the themes of the Grunderzeitliche (genre and history), in order to develop an allegorical-mystical pictorial language, which became typical of Secessionist Art. Characteristic of the ethereal style of Gabriel Max is "The Last Token" (in the Metropolitan Museum), and "Light" (in the Odessa Museum of Western and Eastern Art, Ukraine).
Bierstadt, Albert
The landscape painter Bierstadt joined a surveying expedition to the western United States in 1858 after studying painting in Germany.
villelm melbye
Danish, 1824-1882 The brother of Anton and Fritz, both Danish artists, Vilhelm Knut Frederik Melbye was born in Denmark and would finish his career as a Professor in the Copenhagen Academy, appointed in 1880. His years between would see him work out of the important venues of Dusseldorf, Venice, Paris and London. His paintings may almost be used as a travelogue to his career. Working in the Netherlands and paintings scenes of the North and Black Seas through the late 1840s, he exhibited regularly at Charlottenborg in Copenhagen. Melbye lands in London by the early 1850s and ??anglicizes?? his signature to Wilhelm Melby. Paintings by him of Gibraltar and the Italian Mediterranean are in prominent public collections with dates from 1854-62. British subjects reappear in the 1860s, and in 1878, he exhibits at the Parisian Academies. Some later works are signed with initials or his given name once again. The heart of all his paintings is his obvious attraction to the coastal harbors and marine settings of Europe. They dominate his output, and are compositions full of realistic and dramatic elements emphasizing humanity??s maritime efforts. Cool light, layered shadows and a talent for translating visual depth are noticeable elements in his paintings.