1712-1793 Italian Francesco Guardi Galleries Francesco Guardi was born in Venice into a family of lesser nobility from Trentino. His father Domenico (born in 1678) and his brothers Niccolo and Gian Antonio were also painters, the latter inheriting the family workshop after the father's death in 1716. They probably all contributed as a team to some of the larger commissions later attributed to Francesco. His sister Maria Cecilia married the pre-eminent Veneto-European painter of his epoch, Giovanni Battista Tiepolo. In 1735, Guardi moved to the workshop of Michele Marieschi, where he remained until 1743. His first certain works is from 1738, for a parish at Vigo d'Anuania, in Trentino. In this period he worked alongside his better-known brother, Gian Antonio. The first work signed by Francesco is a Saint Adoring the Eucarist (circa 1739). His works in this period included landscapes as well as figure representations. His early vedutas show influence both from Canaletto and Luca Carlevarijs. On February 15, 1757 he married Maria Mattea Pagani, the daughter of painter Matteo Pagani. In the same year his brother Gian Antonio died and his first son, Vincenzo, was born. His second son, Giacomo, was born in 1764. In 1763 he worked in Murano, in the church of San Pietro Martire, finishing a Miracle of a Dominican Saint clearly influenced by Alessandro Magnasco in its quasi-expressionistic style. Francesco Guardi's most important later works include the Doge's Feasts, a series of twelve canvases celebrating the ceremonies held in 1763 for the election of Doge Alvise IV Mocenigo. In his later years, Canaletto's influence on his art diminished, as showed by the Piazzetta in the Ca' d'Oro of Venice. In circa 1778, he painted the severe Holy Trinity Appearing to Sts. Peter and Paul in the parish church of Roncegno. Miracle of a Dominicane Saint (1763), Lugano, private collection.In 1782 Guardi was commissioned by the Venetian government six canvases to celebrate the visit of the Russian Archdukes in the city, of which only two remain, and two others for that of Pope Pius VI. On September 12 of that year he was admitted to the Fine Art Academy of Venice. A stronger attention to colours is present in late works such as the Concerto of 80 Orphans of 1782, now in Munich, in the Façade of Palace with Staircase in the Accademia Carrara of Bergamo. Guardi died at Venice in 1793.  Related Paintings of Francesco Guardi :. | The Departure of the Doge on Ascension Day | Fantastic Landscape | The Little Square of St. Marc | rThe Doge Grants an Andience in the Sala del Collegin in the Ducal Palace (mk05) | Landscape |
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BRUNELLESCHI, Filippo
Italian Early Renaissance Sculptor and Architect, 1377-1446 Filippo Brunelleschi (1377 ?C April 15, 1446) was one of the foremost architects and engineers of the Italian Renaissance. All of his principal works are in Florence, Italy. As explained by Antonio Manetti, who knew Brunelleschi and who wrote his biography, Brunelleschi "was granted such honors as to be buried in Santa Maria del Fiore, and with a marble bust, which they say was carved from life, and placed there in perpetual memory with such a splendid epitaph." In 1401,Brunelleschi entered a competition to design a new set of bronze doors for the baptistery in Florence. Along with another young goldsmith, Lorenzo Ghiberti, he produced a gilded bronze panel, depicting the Sacrifice of Isaac. His entry made reference to a classical statue, known as the 'thorn puller', whilst Ghiberti used a naked torso for his figure of Isaac. In 1403, Ghiberti was announced the victor, largely because of his superior technical skill: his panel showed a more sophisticated knowledge of bronze-casting; it was completed in one single piece. Brunelleschi's piece, by contrast, was comprised of numerous pieces bolted to the back plate. Ghiberti went on to complete a second set of bronze doors for the baptistery, whose beauty Michelangelo extolled a hundred years later, saying "surely these must be the "Gates of Paradise."
Frederick Edwin Church
1826-1900 Frederick Edwin Church Galleries Frederic Edwin Church (May 4, 1826 ?C April 7, 1900) was an American landscape painter born in Hartford, Connecticut. He was a central figure in the Hudson River School of American landscape painters. While committed to the natural sciences, he was "always concerned with including a spiritual dimension in his works". The family wealth came from Church's father, Joseph Church, a silversmith and watchmaker in Hartford, Connecticut.(Joseph subsequently also became an official and a director of The Aetna Life Insurance Company) Joseph, in turn, was the son of Samuel Church, who founded the first paper mill in Lee, Massachusetts in the Berkshires, and this allowed him(Frederic) to pursue his interest in art from a very early age. At eighteen years of age, Church became the pupil of Thomas Cole in Catskill, New York after Daniel Wadsworth, a family neighbor and founder of the Wadsworth Atheneum, introduced the two. In May 1848, Church was elected as the youngest Associate of the National Academy of Design and was promoted to Academician the following year. Soon after, he sold his first major work to Hartford's Wadsworth Atheneum. Church settled in New York where he taught his first pupil, William James Stillman. From the spring to autumn each year Church would travel, often by foot, sketching. He returned each winter to paint and to sell his work. Between 1853 and 1857, Church traveled in South America, financed by businessman Cyrus West Field, who wished to use Church's paintings to lure investors to his South American ventures. Church was inspired by the Prussian explorer Alexander von Humboldt's Cosmos and his exploration of the continent; Humboldt had challenged artists to portray the "physiognomy" of the Andes.
VICTORS, Jan
1619-1676 . Dutch painter. He was half-brother to the bird painter Jacobus Victors (1640-1705) and the noted Delft potter Victor Victors (b 1638). About 150 oil paintings by Jan Victors, comprising portraits, genre scenes and historical subjects on both canvas and panel, have been catalogued. No signed or securely attributable drawing by him is known. Although his training is undocumented, Victors has long been considered a member of the school of Rembrandt in Amsterdam. His paintings of 1640-70 show many formal and thematic interrelationships with Rembrandt and his documented pupils of the 1630s