Spanish 1618-1682 Bartolome Esteban Murillo Galleries Murillo began his art studies under Juan del Castillo in Seville. Murillo became familiar with Flemish painting; the great commercial importance of Seville at the time ensured that he was also subject to influences from other regions. His first works were influenced by Zurbaran, Jusepe de Ribera and Alonso Cano, and he shared their strongly realist approach. As his painting developed, his more important works evolved towards the polished style that suited the bourgeois and aristocratic tastes of the time, demonstrated especially in his Roman Catholic religious works. In 1642, at the age of 26 he moved to Madrid, where he most likely became familiar with the work of Velazquez, and would have seen the work of Venetian and Flemish masters in the royal collections; the rich colors and softly modeled forms of his subsequent work suggest these influences. He returned to Seville in 1645. In that year, he painted thirteen canvases for the monastery of St. Francisco el Grande in Seville which gave his reputation a well-deserved boost. Following the completion of a pair of pictures for the Seville Cathedral, he began to specialise in the themes that brought him his greatest successes, the Virgin and Child, and the Immaculate Conception. After another period in Madrid, from 1658 to 1660, he returned to Seville. Here he was one of the founders of the Academia de Bellas Artes (Academy of Art), sharing its direction, in 1660, with the architect, Francisco Herrera the Younger. This was his period of greatest activity, and he received numerous important commissions, among them the altarpieces for the Augustinian monastery, the paintings for Santa Mar??a la Blanca (completed in 1665), and others.  Related Paintings of Bartolome Esteban Murillo :. | The adoracion of the Kings | Vision of St.Anthony of Padua | Virgin and the Son | Madonna and Child | Passion |
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John Gadsby Chapman
American Painter, 1808-1889,was an American artist famous for The Baptism of Pocahontas, which was commissioned by the United States Congress and hangs in the United States Capitol rotunda. John Chapman was born in 1808 in Alexandria, Virginia. Chapman began his study of art in Philadelphia for two years, then departed for Europe where he eventually spent time in Italy. In 1831, Chapman returned to his hometown of Alexandria, and exhibited his artwork in the nearest metropolitan areas, such as Washington, D.C., Richmond, and Philadelphia. He specialized in landscapes and portraits. By 1834, Chapman had moved to New York City and become a member of the National Academy of Design, and found work as an illustrator. In New York, Chapman embarked on a series of historic paintings, such as Landing at Jamestown and the Crowning of Powhatan. The success of these paintings helped Chapman land a commission from the United States Congress in February 1837 to paint a historical scene for the rotunda of the Capitol building. For this work, Chapman received a total payment of $10,000. On November 30th, 1840, The Baptism of Pocahontas was formally unveiled in the Capitol rotunda. On the swell of this success, Chapman moved his family to Rome, and made an earnest living selling paintings of rural Campagna to American visitors. However, at the onset of the American Civil War, the tourist industry dried up, affecting Chapman fortunes greatly. In addition, Chapman own son, Conrad Chapman, returned to America to fight on the side of the Confederate States of America. The economic deprivation inflicted on Chapman during the 1860s became insurmountable. In Rome, he was forced to live off the kindness of fellow expatriates, and finally returned to America, sick and poor, to spend his last days with another son, John Linton Chapman, in Brooklyn, New York. It was there, in 1889, that he died a pauper.
Gideon Jacques Denny
(1830-1886) was a marine artist who was born in Wilmington, Delaware on July 15, 1830. As a young man, he worked on ships in the Chesapeake Bay. He traveled to California in 1849 with the Gold Rush. He worked as a teamster on the San Francisco docks and was a member of the San Francisco Committee of Vigilance. After two years in California, he moved to Milwaukee, where he studied painting with Samuel Marsden Brookes. After six years of study in Milwaukee, Denny returned to San Francisco and established a studio on Bush Street. In 1862, Brooks moved to San Francisco and shared a studio with Denny. In 1868, Denny spent two months in Hawaii visiting several islands. He is also known to have visited Canada and South America. Denny died of malaria in Cambria, California on Oct. 7, 1886. The Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, the Bishop Museum (Honolulu), the Crocker Art Museum (Sacramento, California), the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, Monterey Peninsula Museum of Art, and the Oakland Museum of California are among the public collections holding works by Gideon Jacques Denny.
Jean antoine Watteau
French Rococo Era Painter, 1684-1721 He is best known for his invention of a new genre, the f?te galante, a small easel painting in which elegant people are depicted in conversation or music-making in a secluded parkland setting (see under F?TE CHAMP?TRE). His particular originality lies in the generally restrained nature of the amorous exchanges of his characters, which are conveyed as much by glance as by gesture, and in his mingling of figures in contemporary dress with others in theatrical costume