Italian 1267-1337 Giotto Galleries Giotto di Bondone (c. 1267 ?C January 8, 1337), better known simply as Giotto, was an Italian painter and architect from Florence. He is generally considered the first in a line of great artists who contributed to the Italian Renaissance. Giotto's contemporary Giovanni Villani wrote that Giotto was "the most sovereign master of painting in his time, who drew all his figures and their postures according to nature. And he was given a salary by the commune [of Florence] in virtue of his talent and excellence." The later 16th century biographer Giorgio Vasari says of him "...He made a decisive break with the ...Byzantine style, and brought to life the great art of painting as we know it today, introducing the technique of drawing accurately from life, which had been neglected for more than two hundred years." Giotto's masterwork is the decoration of the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua, commonly called the Arena Chapel, completed around 1305. This fresco cycle depicts the life of the Virgin and the life of Christ. It is regarded as one of the supreme masterpieces of the Early Renaissance. That Giotto painted the Arena Chapel and that he was chosen by the commune of Florence in 1334 to design the new campanile (bell tower) of the Florence Cathedral are among the few certainties of his biography. Almost every other aspect of it is subject to controversy: his birthdate, his birthplace, his appearance, his apprenticeship, the order in which he created his works, whether or not he painted the famous frescoes at Assisi, and where he was eventually buried after his death.  Related Paintings of Giotto :. | St Francis Giving his Cloak to a Poor Man (mk08) | St Francis Preaching before Honorius III | Creation of Adam | Presentation in the Temple | Joachims Traum |
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Rachel Ruysch
Dutch 1664-1750 Rachel Ruysch (June 3, 1664 ?? Amsterdam, August 12, 1750) was a Dutch artist who specialized in still-life paintings of flowers. She was born in The Hague, but moved to Amsterdam when she was three. Her father Frederik Ruysch, a famous anatomist, and botanist, was appointed a professor there. He gathered a huge collection of rarities in his house. She assisted her father decorating the prepared specimen in a liquor balsamicum with flowers and lace. At fifteen Ruysch was apprenticed to Willem van Aelst, a prominent Delft painter, known for his flower paintings. In 1693, she married a portrait painter, Juriaen Pool (1666-1745), with whom she had ten children. Her sister Pieternel was married to Jan Munnicks, a young man who drew flowers in the Hortus Botanicus Amsterdam. In 1701 Ruysch was inducted into the painters' guild in The Hague. Several years later Ruysch was invited to work for the court in D??sseldorf and serve as court painter to Johann Wilhelm, Elector Palatine. She remained working for him and his wife from 1708 until the prince's death in 1716. Also Jan Weenix and Adriaen van der Werff were invited to deliver paintings, after Eglon van der Neer died. In 1723 she won the lottery. Ruysch kept painting for her prominent clients. Ruysch lived eighty-five years and her dated works establish that she painted from the time she was a young woman until she was an octogenarian. About a hundred paintings by her are known. The background of the paintings are usually dark. Ruysch was also noted for her paintings of detailed and realistic crystal vases.
Alexander Kucharsky
Alexander Kucharsky (18 March 1741 - 5 November 1819) also Alexandre Kucharsky, was a Polish portrait painter who spent his adult life in France. He himself used the spelling Kucharsky, but Kucharski is also often used. In the past, in France, the name has been given as Couaski.
Nicolas Lancret
French 1690-1743 Nicolas Lancret (22 January 1690 ?C 14 September 1743), French painter, was born in Paris, and became a brilliant depicter of light comedy which reflected the tastes and manners of French society under the regent Orleans. His first master was Pierre d'Ulin, but his acquaintance with and admiration for Watteau induced him to leave d'Ulin for Gillot, whose pupil Watteau had been. Two pictures painted by Lancret and exhibited on the Place Dauphine had a great success, which laid the foundation of his fortune, and, it is said, estranged Watteau, who had been complimented as their author. Lancret's work cannot now, however, be taken for that of Watteau, for both in drawing and in painting his touch, although intelligent, is dry, hard and wanting in that quality which distinguished his great model; these characteristics are due possibly in part to the fact that he had been for some time in training under an engraver. The number of his paintings (of which over eighty have been engraved) is immense; he executed a few portraits and attempted historical composition, but his favorite subjects were balls, fairs, village weddings, etc. The British Museum possesses an admirable series of studies by Lancret in red chalk, and the National Gallery, London, shows four paintings--the "Four Ages of Man" (engraved by Desplaces and l'Armessin), cited by d'Argenville amongst the principal works of Lancret. In 1719 he was received as Academician, and became councillor in 1735; in 1741 he married a grandchild of Boursault, author of Aesop at Court.