1283-1344 Italian Simone Martini Locations He was a major figure in the development of early Italian painting and greatly influenced the development of the International Gothic style. It is thought that Martini was a pupil of Duccio di Buoninsegna, the leading Sienese painter of his time. His brother-in-law was the artist Lippo Memmi. Very little documentation survives regarding Simone's life, and many attributions are debated by art historians. Simone Martini died while in the service of the Papal court at Avignon in 1344. Simone was doubtlessly apprenticed from an early age, as would have been the normal practice. Among his first documented works is the Maest?? of 1315 in the Palazzo Pubblico in Siena. A copy of the work, executed shortly thereafter by Lippo Memmi in San Gimignano, testifies to the enduring influence Simone's prototypes would have on other artists throughout the fourteenth century. Perpetuating the Sienese tradition, Simone's style contrasted with the sobriety and monumentality of Florentine art, and is noted for its soft, stylized, decorative features, sinuosity of line, and unsurpassed courtly elegance. Simone's art owes much to French manuscript illumination and ivory carving: examples of such art were brought to Siena in the fourteenth century by means of the Via Francigena, a main pilgrimage and trade route from Northern Europe to Rome. Simone's major works include the Maest?? (1315) in the Palazzo Pubblico in Siena, St Louis of Toulouse Crowning the King at the Museo di Capodimonte in Naples (1317), the S. Caterina Polyptych in Pisa (1319) and the Annunciation and two Saints at the Uffizi in Florence (1333), as well as frescoes in the Chapel of St. Martin in the lower church of the Basilica of San Francesco d'Assisi. Francis Petrarch became friend with Simone while in Avignon, and two of his sonnets make reference to a portrait of Laura de Noves he supposedly painted for the poet.   Related Paintings of Simone Martini :. | The Angel of the Annunciation | Equestrian Portrait of Guidoricco da Fogliano | St.Martin Renouncing the Sword | Blessed Agostino Novello Altarpiece | The Virgin of the Annunciation |
Related Artists:
FALCONE, Aniello
Italian painter, Naples school (b. 1607, Napoli, d. 1656, Napoli). Italian painter and draughtsman. He trained briefly with Jusepe de Ribera, the Caravaggesque Spanish painter. He quickly won fame as a specialist in scenes of battle, and his contemporaries nicknamed him the 'oracle' of this genre. Falcone created the 'battle scene without a hero' (Saxl): he showed the battle as a brutal, confused struggle between anonymous troops, without heroes, without defeats and without particular historical incidents. The Battle between Turks and Christians (1621; Paris, Louvre; see fig.) is one of the earliest. The frieze-like composition is elaborately structured, yet the picture is rich in intensely naturalistic, vividly coloured details of armour and weapons and precisely observed expressions of anger and pain. The famous dealer and collector Gaspar Roomer and other Neapolitan collectors commissioned many battle pictures from him, and these were soon introduced throughout Europe. He was especially favoured by Ferrante Spinelli, Prince of Tarsia, who gave Falcone a residence in his palace after 1651.
William John Hennessy
(July 11, 1839 - December 27, 1917) was an Irish artist. William John Hennessy was born in Thomastown, County Kilkenny in 1839. His father, John Hennessy, was forced to leave Ireland in 1848 as a result of his involvement in the Young Ireland movement. He landed in Canada and settled in New York. William, his mother Catherine, and brother joined their father there in 1849. He gained admittance to the National Academy of Design in 1854 and exhibitioned his first works there. Hennessy developed a skill in wood engraving and was hired to illustrate the works of renowned poets, including that of Tennyson, Longfellow and Whittier. As an American he became the co-founder of the Artists Fund Society, and an honorary member of the American Society of Painters in Watercolours. In 1870 he moved to London where he became a member of the Royal Institute of Oil Painters in 1902. Between 1879 and 1907 the Royal Hibernian Academy displayed eight of his paintings.
Juan Ribalta
b. 1597, Madrid, d. 1628, Valencia,was a Spanish painter of the Baroque period. Born and died in Valencia. His father, Francisco Ribalta, was a famous painter, active in the style of Caravaggio. Juan's works and style are similar to that of his father.