Fra Angelico Galleries b.c. 1400, Vicchio, Florence d.Feb. 18, 1455, Rome Fra Angelico (c. 1395 ?C February 18, 1455), born Guido di Pietro, was an Early Italian Renaissance painter, referred to in Vasari's Lives of the Artists as having "a rare and perfect talent". Known in Italy as il Beato Angelico, he was known to his contemporaries as Fra Giovanni da Fiesole (Brother John from Fiesole). In Giorgio Vasari's Lives of the Artists, written prior to 1555, he was already known as Fra Giovanni Angelico (Brother Giovanni the Angelic One). Within his lifetime or shortly thereafter he was also called Il Beato (the Blessed), in reference to his skills in painting religious subjects. In 1982 Pope John Paul II conferred beatification, thereby making this title official. Fiesole is sometimes misinterpreted as being part of his formal name, but it was merely the name of the town where he took his vows, used by contemporaries to separate him from other Fra Giovannis. He is listed in the Roman Martyrology as Beatus Ioannes Faesulanus, cognomento Angelicus??"Blessed Giovanni of Fiesole, nicknamed Angelico". Fra Angelico was working at a time when the style of painting was in a state of change. This process of change had begun a hundred years previous with the works of Giotto and several of his contemporaries, notably Giusto de' Menabuoi, both of whom had created their major works in Padua, although Giotto was trained in Florence by the great Gothic artist, Cimabue, and painted a fresco cycle of St Francis in the Bardi Chapel in Santa Croce. Giotto had many enthusiastic followers, who imitated his style in fresco, some of them, notably the Lorenzetti, achieving great success.  Related Paintings of Fra Angelico :. | St Lawrence Receiving the Church Treasures (mk08) | The Deposition | Decapitation of Saints Cosmas and Damian | Story of St Nicholas | The Attempted artyrdom of ss cosmas and damian |
Related Artists:
William Strang
British Painter, 1859-1921,Scottish painter and printmaker. Following a brief apprenticeship with a shipbuilding firm in Clydesdale, he entered the Slade School of Art (1876) where he adhered to the uncompromising realism advocated by his teacher Alphonse Legros. After completing his studies at the Slade (1880), Strang became Legros's assistant in the printmaking class for a year. For the next 20 years he worked primarily as an etcher. His etchings include landscapes in the tradition of Rembrandt, pastoral themes indebted to Giorgione and macabre genre subjects, marked by a sense of tension and suspended animation. He also etched 150 portraits of leading artistic and literary figures. The commitment to realism and psychological intensity that characterizes the best of Strang's etched work is also evident in the paintings that dominated the latter half of his career. The influence of the Belgian and French Symbolists' work and Strang's growing confidence in the handling of colour combined in his mature style with a linear clarity and schematic colouring that is best seen in such works as Bank Holiday (1912; London, Tate). His oil portraits, for example Vita Sackville-West as Lady In a Red Hat (1918; Glasgow, A.G. & Mus.), are strikingly potent images of their time. An important collection of Strang's graphic work is in the Art Gallery and Museum in Glasgow.
Joseph A Kleitsch
1885-1931 Joseph Kleitsch (1885-1931) was an American painter who holds a high place in the early California School of Impressionism. Born in Banad, Hungary on June 6th, 1885, young Joseph Kleitsch was drawn to paint at the early age of seven, he later pursued his professional art training at Budapest, Munich and Paris. Influenced by his visits to the famous museums of Europe, Kleitsch continued with his love of portrait and figuritive painting after relocating to California. There he rose to the challenge of capturing his new environment's brilliant light and diverse landscape. Living in Los Angeles for a while, Kleitsch fell in love with the rustic artist village of Laguna Beach. There he painted the town's eucalyptus lined streets, the crashing waves of the Pacific coastline and the nearby Mission San Juan Capistrano. Arthur Millier of the Los Angeles Times in 1922 was quoted saying of Kleitsch "he was a born colorist; he seemed to play on canvas with the abandon of a gypsy violinist". Joseph Kleitsch died at the age of forty-nine in Santa Ana, California on November 16th, 1931.
Luke Clennell
Born, 1781, Back. Died, 1840, Country, England was an English engraver and painter. Born in Morpeth, Northumberland, the son of a farmer, he was apprenticed to the engraver Thomas Bewick in 1797. Between 1799 and 1803 he acted as Bewick's principal assistant on the second volume of the History of British Birds. After completing his seven-year apprenticeship with Bewick he moved to London, where he married a daughter of the copper-engraver Charles Turner Warren (1762-1823). Through his marriage he became acquainted with such book illustrators as William Finden and Abraham Raimbach. He gained a reputation as an engraver and in May 1806 he was awarded the gold palette of the Society of Arts for a wood-engraving of a battle scene. He subsequently gave up engraving for painting. In 1814 he received from the Earl of Bridgewater a commission for a large picture to commemorate the banquet given to the Allied Sovereigns at the Guildhall, London. He experienced great difficulty in getting the distinguished guests to sit for their portraits, and suffered a mental breakdown. After a spell in an asylum, he recovered and returned home.