Italian Baroque Era Painter, 1559-1613 was an Italian painter and architect of the late Mannerist and early Baroque period, trained and active in his early career in Florence, and spending the last nine years of his life in Rome. Lodovico Cardi was born at Villa Castelvecchio di Cigoli, in Tuscany, whence the name by which he is commonly known. Initially, Cigoli trained in Florence under the fervid mannerist Alessandro Allori. Later, influenced by the most prominent of the Contra-Maniera painters, Santi di Tito, as well as by Barocci, Cigoli shed the shackles of mannerism and infused his later paintings with an expressionism often lacking from 16th century Florentine painting. For example, for the Roman patron, Massimo Massimi, he painted an Ecce Homo[1] (now in Palazzo Pitti). Supposedly unbenknownst to any of the painters, two other prominent contemporary painters, Passignano and Caravaggio, had been requested canvases on the same theme. It is unclear if they are completely independent. Cigoli's painting seems to have been made with knowledge of Caravaggio's canvas; however, while Cigoli's work lacks the power of Caravaggio's naturalism, the background shade and sparse foreground shows how much he was moving away from crowded Florentine historical paintings. This work was afterwards taken by Bonaparte to the Louvre, and was restored to Florence in 1815. One of his early paintings was of Cain slaying Abel. He then gained the employ of the Grand-Duke in some works for the Pitti Palace, where he painted a Venus and Satyr and a Sacrifice of Isaac. Other important pictures are St. Peter Healing the Lame Man in St Peter's; Conversion of St. Paul in the church of San Paolo fuori le Mura, and a Story of Psyche in a fresco incorporated in the decorative scheme of the Villa Borghese; a Martyrdom of Stephen, which earned him the name of the "Florentine Correggio", a Stigmata of St. Francis at Florence. Cigoli was made a Knight of Malta at the request of Pope Paul III. Cigoli, a close personal friend of Galileo Galilei, painted a last fresco in the dome of the Pauline chapel of the church of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome, depicting the Madonna standing upon a pock-marked lunar orb. This is the first extant example of Galileo's discoveries about the physical nature of the moon (as he himself drew it in Sidereus Nuncius) having penetrated the visual arts practice of his day. Until this image, the moon in pictures of the Virgin had always been mythical and smooth, perfectly spherical as described by Platonic & Ptolemaic tradition.   Related Paintings of CIGOLI :. | songe de hacob | The Sacrifice of Isaac | Ecce Homo f | St.Francis in Prayer | Portrait of Cosimo I de Medici |
Related Artists:
Thomas Hill
1829-1908 Thomas Hill was born in England on September 11, 1829. At the age of 15, he emigrated to the United States with his family. They settled in Taunton, Massachusetts. In 1851, he married Charlotte Elizabeth Hawkins. They had nine children. At the age of 24, Hill attended evening classes at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA) and studied under American painter Peter Frederick Rothermel (1812-1895). During his years as a student, Hill traveled to the White Mountains in New Hampshire as early as 1854 and sketched alongside members of the Hudson River School, such as Benjamin Champney. In 1856, Hill and his family moved to San Francisco, California. With painter Virgil Williams and photographer Carleton Watkins, Hill made his first trip to the Yosemite Valley in 1865. The next year, Hill traveled to the East Coast and Europe. He established his family on the East Coast but continued to take sketching trips to the West Coast and to attend meetings of the San Francisco Art Association. He moved his family back to San Francisco in 1873. Hill made yearly sketching trips to Yosemite, Mount Shasta, and, back east, to the White Mountains. Hill ran an art gallery and art supply store. He briefly acted as the interim director for the SFAA School of Design and went to Alaska on a commission for environmentalist John Muir. He lived on his stock market investments as well as his art proceeds. His marriage ended in the 1880s. Toward the end of his life, he maintained a studio at Yosemite??s Wawona Hotel. After suffering a stroke, Hill left Yosemite and traveled up and down the California coast, including stops in Coronado, San Diego and Santa Barbara. He died in Raymond, California, on June 30, 1908, and is buried at Mountain View Cemetery in Oakland, California.
Charles Parsons
American Painter , 1821-1910
Jean-Baptiste Pater
Jean-Baptiste Pater (December 29, 1695 - July 25, 1736) was a French rococo painter. Born in Valenciennes, Pater was the son of sculptor Antoine Pater and studied under him before becoming a student of painter Jean-Baptiste Guide. Pater then moved to Paris, briefly becoming a pupil of Antoine Watteau in 1713. Watteau, despite treating Pater badly, had a significant influence on him. However the two quarreled and Pater returned to Valenciennes, where he remained for two years. In 1721, Pater and the dying Watteau reconciled; subsequently Pater became a student of Watteau once again, although only for a month before the latter's death. Pater later claimed to have learnt everything he knew during those few weeks with Watteau. He was accepted into the Academie in 1728, presenting a large military work in the popular Watteau style - La Rejouissance des Soldats (Louvre).[1] Pater adopted the popular Fete galante subject matter, heavily imitating his teacher Watteau, indeed he directly copied some of his figures. Pater used a traditional Rococo pastel palette. His most characteristic difference in style from other artists of the time surrounded his use of shimmering lines. His most prominent customer was Frederick the Great, who sat for two portraits in the "Turquerie" style: LeSultan au Harem and Le Sultan au Jardin. One of Pater's most renowned works is Landscape with a Cart (Schloss Charlottenburg), which is considered to display a feathery application of paint that anticipates Francesco Guardi. The delicately constructed subject matter and figures subordination to the buildings represent a movement away from fete galante, however this development was cut short by Pater's death in 1736.