b Pontormo, nr Empoli, 26 May 1494; d Florence, 31 Dec 1556). Italian painter and draughtsman. He was the leading painter in mid-16th-century Florence and one of the most original and extraordinary of Mannerist artists. His eccentric personality, solitary and slow working habits and capricious attitude towards his patrons are described by Vasari; his own diary, which covers the years 1554-6, further reveals a character with neurotic and secretive aspects. Pontormo enjoyed the protection of the Medici family throughout his career but, unlike Agnolo Bronzino and Giorgio Vasari, did not become court painter. His subjective portrait style did not lend itself to the state portrait. He produced few mythological works and after 1540 devoted himself almost exclusively to religious subjects. His drawings, mainly figure studies in red and black chalk, are among the highest expressions of the great Florentine tradition of draughtsmanship; close to 400 survive, forming arguably the most important body of drawings by a Mannerist painter. His highly personal style was much influenced by Michelangelo  Related Paintings of Pontormo, Jacopo :. | Vertumnus and Pomona | Christ the Judge with the Creation of Eve | Hermaphrodite Figure | Kicking Player | Madonna and Child with St Anne and Other Saints |
Related Artists:
Theodore Roos
Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt, October 27, 1858 - January 6, 1919, was the 26th President of the United States (1901-1909). He is noted for his exuberant personality, range of interests and achievements, and his leadership of the Progressive Movement, as well as his "cowboy" persona and robust masculinity. He was a leader of the Republican Party and founder of the short-lived Progressive ("Bull Moose") Party of 1912. Before becoming President, he held offices at the city, state, and federal levels. Roosevelt's achievements as a naturalist, explorer, hunter, author, and soldier are as much a part of his fame as any office he held as a politician.
Archip Iwanowitsch Kuindshi
painted Nacht in ca. 1905e1908
Thomas Beach
British Painter, 1738-1806,English painter. He studied with Joshua Reynolds from 1760 until early in 1762, during which time he was also a student at the St Martin's Lane Academy, London. He probably settled in Bath; his recorded portraits of the 1760s are all of sitters from Dorset or Somerset, and he sent two portraits from an address in Bath to the Society of Artists exhibition of 1772. He exhibited with the Society until 1783, becoming its vice-president (1782) and president (1783) he also exhibited at the Royal Academy (1785-90, 1797). He probably divided his mature practice between London and Bath. His early reliance on Reynolds's ideas of propriety gave way to a more direct approach, seen at its best in such group portraits as The Stapleton Family (1789; U. Bath, Holburne of Menstrie Mus.). In this work, the four children are shown in costume, as a fortune-teller and her customers. The theatrical element in Beach's work, reflecting his interest in the stage, is seen most strikingly in Sarah Siddons and John Philip Kemble in 'Macbeth' Act 2, Scene ii (1786; London, Garrick Club). Beach's diary for 1798, the only one to have survived, chronicles what appears to have been an annual tour of the west country; that year he completed 31 portraits between June and December. Beach was able to capture a strong likeness and this, despite a certain naivety and awkwardness in composition, was enough to establish his reputation in moderately fashionable provincial circles. His last recorded work is a Self-portrait