1657-1747 Italian Francesco Solimena Gallery Francesco Solimena was born in Canale di Serino, near Avellino. He received early training from his father, Angelo Solimena, with whom he executed a Paradise for the cathedral of Nocera (place where he spend a big part of his life) and a Vision of St. Cyril of Alexandria for the church of San Domenico at Solofra. He settled in Naples in 1674, there he worked in the studio of Francesco di Maria and later Giacomo del Po[1]. He apparently had taken the clerical orders, but was patronized early on, and encouraged to become an artist by Cardinal Vincenzo Orsini (later Pope Benedict XIII)[2]. By the 1680s, he had independent fresco commissions, and his active studio came to dominate Neapolitan painting from the 1690s through the first four decades of the 18th century. He modeled his art??for he was a highly conventional painter??after the Roman Baroque masters, Luca Giordano and Giovanni Lanfranco, and Mattia Preti, whose technique of warm brownish shadowing Solimena emulated. Solimena painted many frescoes in Naples, altarpieces, celebrations of weddings and courtly occasions, mythological subjects, characteristically chosen for their theatrical drama, and portraits. His settings are suggested with a few details??steps, archways, balustrades, columns??concentrating attention on figures and their draperies, caught in pools and shafts of light. Art historians take pleasure in identifying the models he imitated or adapted in his compositions. His numerous preparatory drawings often mix media, combining pen-and-ink, chalk and watercolor washes. Francesco Solimena 'A study for the fresco cycle in the Sacristy of San Paolo Maggiore in Naples', Whitfield Fine Art.A typical example of the elaborately constructed allegorical "machines" of his early mature style, fully employing his mastery of chiaroscuro, is the Allegory of Rule (1690) from the Stroganoff collection, which has come to the State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg. He apparently hoped to see his son Orazio follow a career in the law, for which he received a doctorate (de Domenici), but also became a painter. His large, efficiently structured atelier became a virtual academy, at the heart of cultural life in Naples. Among his many pupils were Francesco de Mura (1696-1784) , Giuseppe Bonito (1707-89), Pietro Capelli, Gaspare Traversi, and most notably Corrado Giaquinto and Sebastiano Conca. The Scottish portraitist Allan Ramsay spent three years in Solimena's studio. Solimena amassed a fortune, was made a baron and lived in sumptuous style founded on his success. Francesco Solimena died at Barra, near Naples, in 1747.  Related Paintings of Francesco Solimena :. | The Trinity, the Madonna and St Dominic | Dido Receiving Aeneas and Cupid Disguised as Ascanius | Rebecca and Eleazer | Self portrait | judit med holofernes huvud |
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RIGAUD, Hyacinthe
French Baroque Era Painter, 1659-1743 .was a French baroque painter of Catalan origin whose career was based in Paris. He is renowned for his portrait paintings of Louis XIV, the royalty and nobility of Europe, and members of their courts. Rigaud was born Jacint Rigau i Ros -- though in many encyclopaedias is "re-christened" with the name of H??acint Francesc Honrat Mathias Pere Martyr Andreu Joan Rigau -- in Perpignan, which became part of France by the Treaty of the Pyrenees (7 November 1659) shortly after his birth. In 1682, he was awarded the Prix de Rome. He was the most important portrait painter during the reign of King Louis XIV. His instinct for impressive poses and grand presentations precisely suited the tastes of the royal personages, ambassadors, clerics, courtiers, and financiers who sat for him. Because Rigaud's paintings captured very exact likenesses along with the subject's costumes and background details, his paintings are considered precise records of contemporary fashions. Rigaud was a master of the Baroque style of art. Rigaud's best-known work is his 1701 painting of Louis XIV which today hangs in the Louvre in Paris, as well as the second copy also requested by Louis XIV that now hangs at the Palace of Versailles. In 1709, he was made a noble by his hometown of Perpignan. In 1727 he was made a knight of the Order of Saint Michael. Rigaud died in Paris in 1743 at the age of 84.
Johannes Jelgerhuis
Netherlands (1770 -1836 ) - Watercolours
Francois Bocion
1828-1890 was a Swiss artist and teacher. Born in Lausanne, Bocion studied art there before going to Paris, France in 1845 to study further. Following a bout with typhoid fever, he returned home in 1849. During the early part of his career, Bocion's interest was in the field of illustration as well as in painting historical subjects. However, influenced by the landscapes of Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot, he began painting scenes from around Lake Geneva for which he is best remembered. Bocion eventually secured a professorship at the Lausanne École Industrielle, a position he held for more than forty years.