Italian Early Renaissance Painter, ca.1422-1492 Italian painter and theorist. His work is the embodiment of rational, calm, monumental painting in the Italian Early Renaissance, an age in which art and science were indissolubly linked through the writings of Leon Battista Alberti. Born two generations before Leonardo da Vinci, Piero was similarly interested in the scientific application of the recently discovered rules of perspective to narrative or devotional painting, especially in fresco, of which he was an imaginative master; and although he was less universally creative than Leonardo and worked in an earlier idiom, he was equally keen to experiment with painting technique. Piero was as adept at resolving problems in Euclid, whose modern rediscovery is largely due to him, as he was at creating serene, memorable figures, whose gestures are as telling and spare as those in the frescoes of Giotto or Masaccio. His tactile, gravely convincing figures are also indebted to the sculpture of Donatello, an equally attentive observer of Classical antiquity. In his best works, such as the frescoes in the Bacci Chapel in S Francesco, Arezzo, there is an ideal balance between his serene, classical compositions and the figures that inhabit them, the whole depicted in a distinctive and economical language. In his autograph works Piero was a perfectionist, creating precise, logical and light-filled images (although analysis of their perspective schemes shows that these were always subordinated to narrative effect). However, he often delegated important passages of works (e.g. the Arezzo frescoes) to an ordinary, even incompetent, assistant.   Related Paintings of Piero della Francesca :. | madonna della misericordia, central panel of the polyptych of the misericordia | Portrait of Sigismondo Malatesta (mk05) | the legend of the true cross, detail | St Benedict | portrait of battista sforza |
Related Artists:
Jules Lefebvre
Tournan-en-Brie, 1834-Paris 1912. French Academic Painter.
Nicolas Poussin
French 1594-1665 Nicolas Poussin Galleries The finest collection of Poussin's paintings, in addition to his drawings, is located in the Louvre in Paris. Besides the pictures in the National Gallery and at Dulwich, England possesses several of his most considerable works: The Triumph of Pan is at Basildon House, near to Pangbourne, (Berkshire), and his great allegorical painting of the Arts at Knowsley. The later version of Tancred and Erminia is at the Barber Institute in Birmingham. At Rome, in the Colonna and Valentini Palaces, are notable works by him, and one of the private apartments of Prince Doria is decorated by a great series of landscapes in distemper. Throughout his life he stood aloof from the popular movement of his native school. French art in his day was purely decorative, but in Poussin we find a survival of the impulses of the Renaissance coupled with conscious reference to classic work as the standard of excellence. In general we see his paintings at a great disadvantage: for the color, even of the best preserved, has changed in parts, so that the harmony is disturbed; and the noble construction of his designs can be better seen in engravings than in the original. Among the many who have reproduced his works, Audran, Claudine Stella, Picart and Pesne are the most successful.
Laurits Andersen Ring
Danish, 1854-1933 Laurits Andersen Ring (1854-1933) was one of the foremost painters of Danish symbolism. He was born as Laurits Andersen in the village Ring in southern Zealand. In 1881 he the took the name of his birth place, and was since known as L.A. Ring. For a while, he lived at Baldersbronde near Hedehusene in the old school building, which was later to be the home of another painter, Ludvig Find. Ring has produced several paintings from these towns. As a painter, he never distanced himself from his humble origin, but rather made it his dominant theme. Most of his paintings depict the village life and landscapes of southern Zealand from Præsto to Nestved. There are several examples of his work at practically every Danish art museum including the Hirschsprung Collection in Copenhagen. He was married on July 25, 1896 to fellow painter Sigrid Kahler, who was the daughter of ceramic artist Herman Kahler.