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 legend of the true cross, detail | Augustinian monk | The Crucifixion | Federigo da Montefeltro and his Wife Battista Sforza (mk45) | The christening of Christ |
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Janis Rozentals
(March 18, 1866, Bebri Farmstead, Saldus parish, Courland Governorate - December 26, 1916) was a Latvian painter. Rozentels received the basic education at H.Krause's Elementary School in Saldus and Kuldega District School. At the age of fifteen the boy left for Riga and consistently tried to realize his dream about art, later entering St.Petersburg Academy of Art. During study vacations the developing artist visited his native land to relax from the hectic rhythm of the large city, paint motifs from nature and commissioned portraits. For his diploma work he took as models the young educated Latvians and local farmers. A little later the artist decided to settle in Saldus as he wanted to live among his people and create art appropriate to its aspirations and feelings. In spring 1899 Rozentels bought a building plot at the Striķu street and set up a studio, but his intents were not well received in the provincial town and he moved to Riga two years later. Now a memorial museum is arranged in the building designed by the artist. Fateful turn in life of the painter happened in November, 1902, when Janis Rozentels got acquainted with Elli Forsell(1871 - 1943), a Finnish singer, in Riga. On February 20, 1903, they got married. They found home in a flat- studio, in Alberta street, in Riga. they had three children - Laila, Irja and Miķelis. World War I interrupted the family's life in Riga and in 1915 they relocated to Finland. He died suddenly on December 26, 1916 and was buried in Helsinki, though later was reburied in his homeland. Today, the Janis Rozentels Art Highschool in Riga is named after him, and has had his name since 1946.
Marescalco, Il
Italian, approx. 1470-1538
David Teniers
Belgian 1610-1690 David Teniers Gallery Flemish painter. His father, also named David Teniers (1582 ?C 1649), was a painter of primarily religious subjects. The younger Teniers was highly prolific and is best known for his genre scenes of peasant life, many of which were used for tapestry designs in the 18th century. He was brilliant at handling crowd scenes in an open landscape and adept at characterizing his figures with a warm, human, and often humorous touch. As court painter to the archduke Leopold William, he also made many small-scale copies of paintings in the archduke collection; engraved and published as Theatrum Pictorium (1660), they constitute a valuable source as a pictorial inventory of a great 17th-century collection.