Italian High Renaissance Painter, 1483-1520
Italian painter and architect. As a member of Perugino's workshop, he established his mastery by 17 and began receiving important commissions. In 1504 he moved to Florence, where he executed many of his famous Madonnas; his unity of composition and suppression of inessentials is evident in The Madonna of the Goldfinch (c. 1506). Though influenced by Leonardo da Vinci's chiaroscuro and sfumato, his figure types were his own creation, with round, gentle faces that reveal human sentiments raised to a sublime serenity. In 1508 he was summoned to Rome to decorate a suite of papal chambers in the Vatican. The frescoes in the Stanza della Segnatura are probably his greatest work; the most famous, The School of Athens (1510 C 11), is a complex and magnificently ordered allegory of secular knowledge showing Greek philosophers in an architectural setting. The Madonnas he painted in Rome show him turning away from his earlier work's serenity to emphasize movement and grandeur, partly under Michelangelo's High Renaissance influence. The Sistine Madonna (1513) shows the richness of colour and new boldness of compositional invention typical of his Roman period. He became the most important portraitist in Rome, designed 10 large tapestries to hang in the Sistine Chapel, designed a church and a chapel, assumed the direction of work on St. Peter's Basilica at the death of Donato Bramante, Related Paintings of RAFFAELLO Sanzio :. | Argue | Madonna dell'Impannata | The Cardinal Virtues | The virgin mary | Christ Bury | Related Artists:
George Loring BrownAmerican Hudson River School Painter, 1814-1889,American painter and illustrator. He was apprenticed at about 14 to the Boston wood-engraver Alonzo Hartwell and had produced scores of illustrations by 1832, when he turned to painting and sailed to Europe for further training. After brief stays in Antwerp and London, he settled in Paris, where he was admitted to the atelier of Eugene Isabey. Returning to America in 1834, Brown produced illustrations, portraits and landscapes. He travelled throughout the north-eastern USA, sketching in watercolour and in oil.
William Andrews NesfieldBritish Painter, 1793-1881
was born in Lumley Park, County Durham. In 1808, after the death of William's mother, the family moved the few miles to Brancepeth where his father became rector of St Brandon's Church. His stepmother was Marianne Mills of Willington Hall, whose nephew was the noted architect Anthony Salvin. William's younger sister in fact married Salvin. Nesfield was educated at Durham School, then located on Palace Green, before entering the army. He fought under Wellington in Spain and at Waterloo and also served for two years in Canada. He retired in 1816 and took up a career as a painter of watercolours, particularly of waterfalls, earning the praise of John Ruskin in Modern Painters. While still exhibiting at the Old Water Colour Society, Nesfield began work as a professional landscape architect, with the encouragement of Salvin. From 1840 until his death he was responsible, either singly or with his sons Arthur Markham and William Eden for no fewer than 259 commissions in the British Isles.
Charles Hazelwood ShannonEnglish painter, printmaker and collector , 1863-1937
English artist, was born at Sleaford in Lincolnshire, the son of the Rev. Frederic Shannon. He attended the City and Guilds of London Art School (then known as South London School of Technical Art, formerly Lambeth School of Art), and was subsequently considerably influenced by his lifetime partner Charles Ricketts[2] and by the example of the great Venetians. In his early work he was addicted to a heavy low tone, which he abandoned subsequently for dearer and more transparent colour. He achieved great success with his portraits and his Giorgionesque figure compositions, which are marked by a classic sense of style, and with his etchings and lithographic designs. The Dublin Municipal Gallery owns his circular composition "The Bunch of Grapes" and "The Lady with the Green Fan" (portrait of Mrs Hacon). His "Study in Grey" is at the Munich Gallery, a "Portrait of Mr Staats Forbes" at Bremen, and a "Souvenir of Van Dyck" at Melbourne. One of his most remarkable pictures is "The Toilet of Venus" in the collection of Lord Northcliffe. Several of his portrait works are on display in the National Portrait Gallery in London. Complete sets of his lithographs and etchings have been acquired by the British Museum and the Berlin and Dresden print rooms. He was awarded a first-class gold medal at Munich in 1895 and a first-class silver medal in Paris in 1900.