1581-1644 Italian Bernardo Strozzi Galleries Strozzi was born in Genoa. He was probably not related to the other Strozzi family. In 1598, at the age of 17, he joined a Capuchin monastery, a reform branch of the Franciscan order. When his father died c1608, he left the order to care for his mother, earning their living with his paintings, which were often influenced by Franciscan teachings, for example his Adoration of the Shepherds (c. 1615) . In 1625, he was charged with illegally practicing as a painter. When his mother died c1630, Bernardo was pressured in court by the Capuchin's to re-enter the order. He was briefly imprisoned in Genoa , and upon release fled to Venice to avoid confinement in a monastery in 1631. He became nicknamed all his life as il prete Genovese (the Genoa priest). Saint Christopher, by Strozzi.Early paintings, such as The Ecstasy of St Francis show the dark emotionalism of Caravaggio. But by the second decade of the 17th century, while working in Venice, Strozzi had synthesized a personal style which fused painterly influences of the North (including Rubens and Veronese) with a monumental realistic starkness. For example, in the painting The Incredulity of Thomas, the background is muted, yet Jesus' face, haloed and his outline, misty, in a style atypical of Caravaggio. Never as dark as the Caravaggisti, Venice infused his painting with a gentler edge, a style more acceptable to the local patronage, and one derived from his precursors in Venice, Jan Lys (died 1629) and Domenico Fetti (died 1626), who had also fused the influence of Caravaggio into Venetian art. Examples of this style can be found in his Parable of the Wedding Guests (1630),Christ giving keys of Heaven to Saint Peter (1630),, Saint Lawrence distributing Alms at San Nicol?? da Tolentino[7] and a Personification of Fame (1635-6). He was also likely influenced by Velazquez (who visited Genoa in 1629-30). After a commission to paint Claudio Monteverdi his fame grew, and his portrait paintings included many of the leading Venetians. His pupils and painter strongly influenced by him included Giovanni Andrea de Ferrari (1598-1669), Giovanni Bernardo Carbone, Valerio Castello and, Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione.  Related Paintings of Bernardo Strozzi :. | Portrait of a Maltese Knight | Vanitas Allegory | Saint Cecilia | The Release of St Peter | Bernardo Strozzi, Joueuse de viole de gamb |
Related Artists:
Henry Alken Jnr
British 1810-94
CARRACCI, Lodovico
Italian Baroque Era Painter, 1555-1619
Hugh Douglas Hamilton
(c. 1740 - 10 February 1808) was an Irish portrait-painter. Biography Hamilton was born in Crow Street, in Dublin, Ireland, in 1740, the son of a peruke maker. Unfortunately there is very little concrete evidence for his earlylife, apart from his own drawings. He studied art under Robert West at the Dublin Society House - and won some early success with crayon and pastel portraits there. He was very adept at building relationships with patrons from the early days, taking up with the famous La Touche banking family of Dublin, who had close ties with the Bank of Ireland. Very little is known of Hamilton's career between 1756 and 1764, when he moved to London. Hamilton found great success in London through his pastel oval portraits, portraying royalty, politicians and celebrities of the day through this medium. Hamilton was often overwhelmed with orders, including commissions from the British royal family - such as Queen Charlotte (1764) and others now in the British Royal Collection. He showed with the Society of Artists and the Free Society of Artists from the mid-1760s to the mid-1770s. From the mid-1770s on, Hamilton became very interested in a softer, more textural form of pastel "fresco", in which he blended crayons and chalk to further the pastel's ability to imitate flesh. In 1779 he travelled to Italy, where he remained for the next twelve years, occasionally visiting Florence but mainly based in Rome, where he knew Antonio Canova. On the advice of artist John Flaxman Hamilton turned to oil painting, and achieved great success with small oval portraits of Irish and British visitors. His portraits of this period include those of Dean Kirwan (displayed at the Royal Dublin Society), George John, 2nd Earl Spencer, Countess Cowper (1787), and the exiled Charles Edward Stuart ( Lord Edward, 1785). In 1791 Hamilton returned to Dublin, where he died. In 1796 he painted Lord Edward Fitzgerald, the Irish revolutionary.