Italian Early Renaissance Painter, ca.1422-1492 Italian painter and theorist. His work is the embodiment of rational, calm, monumental painting in the Italian Early Renaissance, an age in which art and science were indissolubly linked through the writings of Leon Battista Alberti. Born two generations before Leonardo da Vinci, Piero was similarly interested in the scientific application of the recently discovered rules of perspective to narrative or devotional painting, especially in fresco, of which he was an imaginative master; and although he was less universally creative than Leonardo and worked in an earlier idiom, he was equally keen to experiment with painting technique. Piero was as adept at resolving problems in Euclid, whose modern rediscovery is largely due to him, as he was at creating serene, memorable figures, whose gestures are as telling and spare as those in the frescoes of Giotto or Masaccio. His tactile, gravely convincing figures are also indebted to the sculpture of Donatello, an equally attentive observer of Classical antiquity. In his best works, such as the frescoes in the Bacci Chapel in S Francesco, Arezzo, there is an ideal balance between his serene, classical compositions and the figures that inhabit them, the whole depicted in a distinctive and economical language. In his autograph works Piero was a perfectionist, creating precise, logical and light-filled images (although analysis of their perspective schemes shows that these were always subordinated to narrative effect). However, he often delegated important passages of works (e.g. the Arezzo frescoes) to an ordinary, even incompetent, assistant.   Related Paintings of Piero della Francesca :. | The Baptism of Christ | Polyptych of Saint Augustine fy | the legend of the true cross, detail | legend of the true cross | st claire from the predella of the st anthony polytych |
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Juriaen van Streeck
(1632 - 1687) was a Dutch Golden Age painter of still lifes. According to Houbraken, he was good at all sorts of still life subjects, including helmets, books, letters, musical instruments, and skulls or dead animals to indicate the transcience of life. He was a follower of Willem Kalf and influenced Barend van der Meer.Houbraken also wrote an entry for his son Hendrick van Streeck, who became a student of Emanuel de Witte and painted church interiors.
Rodolfo Amoedo
(born in Salvador, Bahia on December 11, 1857; died in Rio de Janeiro on May 31, 1941) was a Brazilian history painter. He began his career as an artist in 1873 as a student of Victor Meirelles. In 1878 he won the first prize at the Brazilian Academy, which allowed him to travel to Paris, where he lived from 1879 to 1887 studying at the École des Beaux Arts. He was a pupil of Alexandre Cabanel and also worked with Paul-Jacques-Aime Baudry. He was a professor and later director of the Brazilian Academy, renamed School of Fine Arts ou Escola Nacional de Belas Artes at the fall of the Brazilian Empire. His students include Eliseu Visconti. He died forgotten and so poor his friends had to help the widow pay for his funeral. His paintings still hang at the National Museum Museu Nacional de Belas Artes in Rio de Janeiro.
Gustav Klimt
Austrian Art Nouveau Painter, 1862-1918 Gustav Klimt (July 14, 1862 ?C February 6, 1918) was an Austrian Symbolist painter and one of the most prominent members of the Vienna Art Nouveau (Vienna Secession) movement. His major works include paintings, murals, sketches, and other art objects, many of which are on display in the Vienna Secession gallery. Klimt's primary subject was the female body, and his works are marked by a frank eroticism--nowhere is this more apparent than in his numerous drawings in pencil. Klimt's work is distinguished by the elegant gold or coloured decoration, often of a phallic shape that conceals the more erotic positions of the drawings upon which many of his paintings are based. This can be seen in Judith I (1901), and in The Kiss (1907?C1908), and especially in Danaë (1907). One of the most common themes Klimt utilized was that of the dominant woman, the femme fatale. Art historians note an eclectic range of influences contributing to Klimt's distinct style, including Egyptian, Minoan, Classical Greek, and Byzantine inspirations. Klimt was also inspired by the engravings of Albrecht D??rer, late medieval European painting, and Japanese Rimpa school. His mature works are characterized by a rejection of earlier naturalistic styles, and make use of symbols or symbolic elements to convey psychological ideas and emphasize the "freedom" of art from traditional culture.