1728-1779 Dutch Anton Raphael Mengs Gallery Mengs was born in 1728 at Usti nad Labem (German: Aussig) in Bohemia on 12 March 1728; he died in Rome 29 June 1779. His father, Ismael Mengs, a Danish painter, established himself finally at Dresden, whence in 1741 he took his son to Rome. In Rome, his fresco painting of Parnassus at Villa Albani gained him a reputation as a master painter. The appointment of Mengs in 1749 as first painter to Frederick Augustus, elector of Saxony did not prevent his spending much time in Rome, where he had married Margarita Quazzi who had sat for him as a model in 1748, and abjured the Protestant faith, and where he became in 1754 director of the Vatican school of painting, nor did this hinder him on two occasions from obeying the call of Charles III of Spain to Madrid. There Mengs produced some of his best work, and specially the ceiling of the banqueting-hall of the Royal Palace of Madrid, the subject of which was the Triumph of Trajan and the Temple of Glory. Among his pupils there was Agust??n Esteve. After the completion of this work in 1777, Mengs returned to Rome, and there he died, two years later, in poor circumstances, leaving twenty children, seven of whom were pensioned by the king of Spain. His portraits and autoportraits recall an attention to detail and insight, often lost from the grand manner paintings. Besides numerous paintings in the Madrid gallery, the Ascension and St Joseph at Dresden, Perseus and Andromeda at Saint Petersburg, and the ceiling of the Villa Albani must be mentioned among his chief works. In 1911, Henry George Percy, 7th Duke of Northumberland, possessed a Holy Family, and the colleges of All Souls and Magdalen, at Oxford, possessed altar-pieces by Mengs's hand. In his writings, in Spanish, Italian and German, Mengs has put forth his eclectic theory of art, which treats of perfection as attainable by a well-schemed combination of diverse excellences Greek design, with the expression of Raphael, the chiaroscuro of Correggio, and the colour of Titian. He would have fancied himself the first neoclassicist, while in fact he may be the last flicker of Baroque art. Or in the words of Wittkower, In the last analysis, he is as much an end as a beginning. His intimacy with Johann Joachim Winckelmann, who constantly wrote at his dictation, has enhanced his historical importance, for he formed no scholars, and the critic must now concur in Goethe's judgment of Mengs in Winckelmann und sein Jahrhundert; he must deplore that so much learning should have been allied to a total want of initiative and poverty of invention, and embodied with a strained and artificial mannerism. Mengs was famous for his rivalry with the contemporary Italian painter Pompeo Batoni.  Related Paintings of Anton Raphael Mengs :. | Portrait of Isabel Parreno Arce Ruiz de Alarcon y Valdes, Marchioness of Llano | Infanta Maria Josefa | Retrato de la Marquesa de Llano | Unknown Cardinal | Infantin Maria Theresa von Neapel |
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Lodewijk de Vadder
Lodewijk de Vadder (1605, Grimbergen - 1655, Brussels) was a Flemish Baroque landscape painter and engraver. He became a master of Antwerp's Guild of St. Luke in 1628, and learned painting from his father and brothers. He specialized in landscapes with woods, in the manner of his contemporary Jacques d'Arthois and his pupil Lucas Achtschellinck[1]. They are usually referred to collectively as "The Sonian Forest Painters".
Gioacchino Assereto
(1600 - 28 June 1649) was an Italian painter of the early Baroque period, active in Genoa. Gioacchino Assereto, David with the Head of Goliath.He initially apprenticed with Luciano Borzone and later Giovanni Andrea Ansaldo. He painted two vault frescoes in the church of Santissima Annunziata del Vastato: David and Abimelech and Santi Giovanni and Pietro healing the lame. He also shows the influence of Bernardo Strozzi, a tenebrism moderated by venetian coloristic effects and garbing the subjects in modern peasant garb, in paintings such as Moses obtaining water from the Rock (Prado Museum, Madrid). Orazio dee Ferrari may have worked with Assereto in Ansaldoes studio. Paintings by Gioacchino Assereto can also be seen at the Detroit Institute of Art and the Museum of Fine Arts in Budapest,Hungary.
Cristobal Rojas
Cristobal Rojas (Cua, Miranda, 15 December 1857 e Caracas, 8 November 1890) was one of the most important and high-profile Venezuelan painters of the 19th century. Rojas's styles varied considerably throughout his life, and he displayed talents in painting that ranged primarily for dramatic effect, to works done in the Impressionist style. Cristebal Rojas Poleo was born in the city of Cea in the Valles del Tuy to parents who worked in the medical profession. Part of his childhood occurred during the middle of the federal war (1859 - 1863) and Cea was particularly affected by the events of the war. He initiated studies under his grandfather, Jose Luis Rojas, who taught him how to draw and motivated him to improve. At 13 years old, his father died and he was forced to begin work in a tobacco factory in Cea to help support his family. In 1878, an earthquake devastated the Valles del Tuy region, and the Rojas faced poverty. As a result he moved to Caracas where he continued his painting studies, despite again having to work in the tobacco industry to support his mother and family. In Caracas he attended classes by Jose Manuel Mauco at the Universidad Central de Venezuela. Between 1880 and 1882, he developed a keen interest in oils and displayed a primitive technique that would prevail in his later paintings such as Ruinas de Cea despues del Terremoto and Ruinas del templo de la Merced. During this time he became acquainted with the painter Antonio Herrera Toro, also coming under contract as Toro's assistant to paint Caracas Cathedral.