b Pontormo, nr Empoli, 26 May 1494; d Florence, 31 Dec 1556). Italian painter and draughtsman. He was the leading painter in mid-16th-century Florence and one of the most original and extraordinary of Mannerist artists. His eccentric personality, solitary and slow working habits and capricious attitude towards his patrons are described by Vasari; his own diary, which covers the years 1554-6, further reveals a character with neurotic and secretive aspects. Pontormo enjoyed the protection of the Medici family throughout his career but, unlike Agnolo Bronzino and Giorgio Vasari, did not become court painter. His subjective portrait style did not lend itself to the state portrait. He produced few mythological works and after 1540 devoted himself almost exclusively to religious subjects. His drawings, mainly figure studies in red and black chalk, are among the highest expressions of the great Florentine tradition of draughtsmanship; close to 400 survive, forming arguably the most important body of drawings by a Mannerist painter. His highly personal style was much influenced by Michelangelo  Related Paintings of Pontormo, Jacopo :. | St Luke | Vertumnus and Pomona | Madonna and Child with St. Joseph and Saint John the Baptist | The Visitacion | Portrait of a Lady in Red |
Related Artists:
Pollaiuolo, Piero
Italian, 1443-96
Martin Archer Shee
RA (December 23, 1769 - August 13, 1850) was a British portrait painter and president of the Royal Academy. He was born in Dublin, of an old Catholic Irish family, and his father, a merchant, regarded the profession of a painter as an unsuitable occupation for a descendant of the Shees. Martin Shee nevertheless studied art in the Dublin Society, and came to London. There, in 1788, he was introduced by William Burke to Joshua Reynolds, on whose advice he studied in the schools of the Royal Academy. In 1789 he exhibited his first two pictures, the "Head of an Old Man" and "Portrait of a Gentleman." Over the next ten years he steadily increased in practice. He was chosen an associate of the Royal Academy in 1798, in 1789 he married, and in 1800 he was elected a Royal Academician. He moved to George Romney's former house in Cavendish Square, and set up as his successor. Shee continued to paint with great readiness of hand and fertility of invention, although his portraits were eclipsed by more than one of his contemporaries, and especially by Thomas Lawrence. The earlier portraits of the artist are carefully finished, easy in action, with good drawing and excellent discrimination of character. They show an undue tendency to redness in the flesh painting defect which is still more apparent in his later works, in which the handling is less "square," crisp and forcible. In addition to his portraits he executed various subjects and historical works, such as Lavinia, Belisarius, his diploma picture "Prospero and Miranda", and the "Daughter of Jephthah." In 1805 he published a poem consisting of Rhymes on Art, and a second part followed in 1809. Lord Byron spoke well of it in his English Bards and Scotch Reviewers. Shee published another small volume of verse in 1814, entitled The Commemoration of Sir Joshua Reynolds, and other Poems, but this was less successful. He also produced a tragedy, Alasco, set in Poland. The play was accepted at Covent Garden, but was refused a licence, on the grounds that it contained treasonable allusions, and Shee angrily resolved to make his appeal to the public. He carried out his threat in 1824, but Alasco was still on the list of unacted dramas in 1911. He also published two novels - "Oldcourt" (1829, in 3 volumes) and "Cecil Hyde" (1834).
Matevz Langus
Matevž Langus, slovenski slikar in freskant, * 9. september 1792, Kamna Gorica pri Kropi, † 19. julij 1855, Ljubljana. Rodil se je v fužinarskem kraju pod Jelovico v kovaški družini. Sprva je delal kot žebljar v domači vasi, nato pa se je šolal v Celovcu v delavnici Johanna Schreibersa, pri katerem je ostal šest let. Leta 1817 se je vrnil na Kranjsko in se naselil v Ljubljani. Kasneje bil po priporočilu profesorja Kavčiča sprejet na dunajsko akademijo, vendar je zaradi gmotnih težav opravil le dva letnika študija. Leta 1821 se je ponovno naselil v Ljubljani kot poklicni slikar. V letih 1824 do 1826 je živel v Rimu, kjer je bil vpisan na rimsko Francosko akademijo (L'Academie de France).