French Romantic Painter, 1791-1824
Born in Rouen, France, Gericault was educated in the tradition of English sporting art by Carle Vernet and classical figure composition by Pierre-Narcisse Gu??rin, a rigorous classicist who disapproved of his student impulsive temperament, but recognized his talent.
The Charging Chasseur, 1812.Gericault soon left the classroom, choosing to study at the Louvre instead, where he copied from paintings by Peter Paul Rubens, Titian, Diego Vel??zquez, and Rembrandt for about six years, from 1810 to 1815. There he found a vitality which he preferred to the prevailing school of Neoclassicism. Related Paintings of Theodore Gericault :. | Raft of the Medusa | sacrifice antique | Raft of the Medusa | la predication de saint paul a ephese | nymphe et satyre | Related Artists:
PANTOJA DE LA CRUZ, JuanSpanish Painter, 1553-1608
Spanish painter. He must have moved to Madrid when he was very young, receiving his training in the workshop of Alonso S?nchez Coello, painter to Philip II. On numerous occasions he declared himself to be a follower of S?nchez Coello, in whose workshop he was an oficial, and he probably collaborated to a considerable degree on many of his master's mature works. There are very few signed works by Pantoja from before the death of S?nchez Coello, although some anonymous paintings from the workshop are probably by him. In Madrid in 1587 Pantoja married a woman of some means, and by the following year, when S?nchez Coello died, he was an independent painter, aspiring to his master's position. Documentation exists from 1590 concerning portraits by Pantoja of members of the royal family including one of Don Felipe, the future Philip III (1593; Vienna, Ksthist. Mus.). On Philip's accession to the throne in 1598 Pantoja painted another portrait of him (Vienna, Ksthist. Mus.) and became the official portrait painter for the court and for the nobility of Madrid; there is detailed documentation for his work from this time. He painted clothing and jewels with precision, in minute detail and with a dry objectivity in the Flemish tradition. His treatment of faces, however, clearly reveals his study of Venetian portraiture, and in particular that of Titian, as well as sharp psychological penetration. In his portraits of royal children he maintained, albeit with a certain rigidity, the charm that S?nchez Coello in his paintings had given these infant figures tightly swathed in official robes
Carlo BononiItalian, 1569-1632,Italian painter. He was among the last great painters of the Ferrarese school, his style uniting warm Venetian colour with the lyrical effects of light and elegant draughtsmanship of Ludovico Carracci. He was a pupil of Giuseppe Mazzuoli (c. 1536-89), but his early activity is little documented. The Martyrdom of St Paul (Pommersfelden, Schloss Weissenstein), which is indebted to Mazzuoli and combines elements of Ferrarese and Venetian traditions, may represent the earliest phase of his development. Later, through a study of the art of Ludovico Carracci, modified by a response to Dosso Dossi and to Correggio, he developed a more individual style. An altarpiece of the Virgin with SS Maurilius and George (Vienna, Ksthist. Mus.) is unanimously dated before 1600. It is probable that Bononi made study tours to Bologna, Parma, Verona and Venice. Between 1605 and 1610 he spent two years in Rome (Baruffaldi), a visit confirmed by three paintings of scenes from the Life of St Paternian in the church of S Paterniano in Fano; dated between 1610 and 1612 (Emiliani), these reflect a direct study of Caravaggio and of his early Roman followers, such as Orazio Borgianni.
John OpieEnglish Painter, 1761-1807,English painter. He was born in a tin-mining district, where his father was a mine carpenter. He had a natural talent for drawing and was taken up by an itinerant doctor, John Wolcot (the poet Peter Pindar, 1738-1819), who was an amateur artist and had a number of well-connected friends. Wolcot taught Opie the rudiments of drawing and painting, providing engravings for him to copy and gaining him access to country-house collections. Opie's early portraits, such as Dolly Pentreath (1777; St Michael's Mount, Cornwall, Lord St Levan priv. col.), are the work of a competent provincial painter and owe much to his study of engravings after portraits by Rembrandt. His attempts at chiaroscuro and impasto in Rembrandt's manner gave his pictures a maturity that clearly startled contemporary audiences expecting to see works by an untutored artist. Thus in 1780, when a picture by him was exhibited in London at the Society of Artists with the description 'a Boy's Head, an Instance of Genius, not having ever seen a picture', Opie was hailed as 'the Cornish Wonder'. When he himself arrived in London, where he was promoted by Wolcot and his paintings were exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1781 and 1782, he was seen as a phenomenon, impressing even Joshua Reynolds, who is reputed to have remarked that Opie was 'like Caravaggio and Velasquez in one'.