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 :. | The Baptim of Christ | Augustinian nun | Polyptych of the Misericordia: Archangel Gabriel | The Death of Adam, detail of Adam and his Children | the legend of the true cross, detail |
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Willem Bastiaan Tholen
was a Dutch painter, draftsman and printmaker, born in Amsterdam, 13 Feb 1860, died in The Hague, 5 Dec 1931. He came from an artistic family, who lived in Kampen from 1864. There he developed at an early age a lasting love of the Zuiderzee. In Kampen he became friendly with the young Jan Voerman; they entered the Amsterdam academy together in 1876, where Tholen studied under August Allebe. Subsequently he learned technical drawing at the Polytechnische School in Delft until 1878. Thereafter he spent three months in the studio of Paul Gabriël in Brussels, from whom he received his first real instruction in painting. In the following years Gabriël's advice was of particular importance for Tholen, as they worked together en plein air for many summers near Kampen and Giethoorn, among other places. In Gouda (1878-9) and Kampen (1880-85) he taught draftsmanship in order to support himself but after 1885 concentrated entirely on his own work. From 1887 he lived in The Hague, where he became friendly with the painters of The Hague school. He took an active part in the artistic life of The Hague and was a member of the Pulchri Studio.
Cazin Jean-Charles
French landscapes painter and ceramist , 1841-Le Lavandou 1901 Painter and ceramicist. His earliest paintings reveal close affinities with the realist tradition, while his later compositions (mostly landscapes of northern France) demonstrate an awareness of Impressionism and a commitment to recording the changing effects of light and atmosphere. He was sent to England for health reasons but by 1862 or 1863 was living in Paris and active in avant-garde artistic circles.
Giuseppe Maria Terreni
Italian , (1739-1811)