1598-1664 Spanish Francisco de Zurbaran Galleries Spanish baroque painter, active mainly at Llerena, Madrid, and Seville. He worked mostly for ecclesiastical patrons. His early paintings, including Crucifixion (1627; Art Inst., Chicago), St. Michael (Metropolitan Mus.), and St. Francis (City Art Museum, St. Louis), often suggest the austere simplicity of wooden sculpture. The figures, placed close to the picture surface, are strongly modeled in dramatic light against dark backgrounds, indicating the influence of Caravaggio. They were clearly painted as altarpieces or devotional objects. In the 1630s the realistic style seen in his famous Apotheosis of St. Thomas Aquinas (1631; Seville) yields to a more mystical expression in works such as the Adoration of the Shepherds (1638; Grenoble); in this decade he was influenced by Ribera figural types and rapid brushwork. While in Seville, Zurbur??n was clearly influenced by Velazquez. After c.1640 the simple power of Zurbaran work lessened as Murillo influence on his painting increased (e.g., Virgin and Child with St. John, Fine Arts Gall., San Diego, Calif.). There are works by Zurbar??n in the Hispanic Society of America, New York City; the National Gallery, Washington, D.C.; and the Philadelphia Museum of Art..  Related Paintings of Francisco de Zurbaran :. | hercules fighting the hydra of lerna | The Death of St. Bonaventure | Sao Judas Tadeu | la porciuncula | Retrato del doctor Juan Martinez Serrano |
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MALOUEL, Jean
Netherlandish Gothic Era Painter, ca.1365-1415 North Netherlandish painter, active in Burgundy. He was the son of the heraldic artist Willem Maelwael and uncle of the Limbourg brothers. First recorded as a painter in 1382, he is then documented on 20 September 1396 for a commission to provide designs for textiles with decorative armorial bearings for Queen Isabeau of Bavaria, wife of Charles VI, for which he received payment on 27 March 1397. By 5 August 1397 he was in Dijon, where he succeeded Jean de Beaumetz as court painter and Valet de Chambre to Philip the Bold, Duke of Burgundy. Malouel was highly paid, and his annual pension was considerably more than that of Beaumetz or of the sculptor Claus Sluter. One of the first works Malouel produced for the Duke was a painting of the Apostles with St Anthony (untraced), paid for on 11 November 1398, which the Duke is known to have kept in his private oratory. On 18 March 1398 wooden supports were purchased for Malouel to paint five large altarpieces for the Charterhouse of Champmol, outside Dijon. The subject-matter of the paintings is not specified in the document, although the dimensions of the panels are given. The Martyrdom of St Denis (Paris, Louvre; for illustration see BELLECHOSE, HENRI) has been identified as one of these five panels, on the basis of its possible provenance and its dimensions, which correspond approximately to those given in the document. In May 1416, however, Henri Bellechose received pigments to 'perfect' a painting of the Life of St Denis, and this document, in conjunction with the earlier one, has been interpreted to suggest that Bellechose completed a work left unfinished by Malouel.
Jakob Smits
Jakob Smits or Jacob Smits (Rotterdam, 9 July 1855 - Achterbos (Mol), 15 February 1928) was a Dutch-Flemish painter. He was born as son of a decorator. Jakob studied in Rotterdam at the academy and helped its father in the decoration business. From 1873 up to 1876 het studied at the Academy in Brussels, and afterwards also in Munich (1878-1880), Vienna (1880) and Rome (1880). In 1882, Jakob married his cousin Antje Doetje Kramer. They settled in Amsterdam, where Smits worked as a painter. He carried out, among other things, tasks for the museum Boijmans-Van Beuningen in Rotterdam. Out of the marriage of Jakob and Antje two children, Theodora and Annie, were born. In 1884, the couple divorced. Jakob Smits moved to Blaricum and in Haarlem becomes director of the Nijverheids- en Decoratieschool (E: Industry and Decoration school). He gets to know Albert Neuhuys, a painter of the The Hague School, and together they make excursions to Drenthe and the Campine in Belgium. Jakob Smits becomes impressed by the Campine landscape and he establishes himself in 1888, definitively in Achterbos (Mol). He pays 2,000 Belgian francs for a small farm which he develops to his Malvinahof. In the same year he marries Malvina Dedeyn, the daughter of a Brussels lawyer, who is disinherited because of this marriage. Smits lives in poverty while he works tirelessly for what he will call my simple work, symbolic, poetic and real. In 1897, he received a gold medal for his exhibitions of large water-colour paintings on a gold background in Munich and Dresden. He also paints a lot of portraits, especially of Malvina and of their children Boby, Marguerite and Kobe. In 1899 destiny strikes: in a few days time he loses his daughter Alice and his wife. In 1901, Smits marries with Josine Van Cauteren. In the same year he holds his first individual exposition in Antwerp. There he obtains much praise of colleagues and critics but finds no buyer for his work. The exhibited work De vader van de veroordeelde (E: the father of the convict) was acquired later that year by the Museum of Brussels. Smits financial situation improved somewhat, but his family was put heavily on the test. In 1903 both his parents were ruined by a robbery and as a resulthe now had nine family members to maintain. At the request of the municipal authorities of Mol, Smits in 1907, arranged an international exhibition of artists who came to paint landscapes in Mol and its surroundings. The artist Paula Van Rompa-Zenke belonged to the arranging committee. There were no less than 68 painters participating, with Germans, Dutch, and Americans coming to Mol. The term Molse School was born. In 1910, Smits published an album with 25 engravings, which was dedicated to Queen Elisabeth. In 1912, the young Dirk Baksteen became a student of Smits. In 1914, Smits stopped with the production of art work. He became President of the Comite voor hulpverlening en voedselvoorziening van het canton Mol (E: Committee for assistance and food supplies of the canton Mol). After World War I he continued his work with a totally new vision and style as engrave and painter.
Jan Brueghel the Younger
(September 13, 1601 C September 1, 1678) was a Flemish Baroque painter, and the son of Jan Brueghel the Elder. He was trained by his father and spent his career producing works in a similar style. Along with his brother Ambrosius, he produced landscapes, allegorical scenes and other works of meticulous detail. Brueghel also copied works by his father and sold them with his father's signature. His work is distinguishable from that of his parent by being less well executed and lighter. Jan the Younger was traveling in Italy when his father died of cholera and swiftly returned to take control of the Antwerp studio. He soon established himself and was made dean of the Guild of Saint Luke in 1630. That same year he was commissioned by the French court to paint Adam Cycle. In the following years, he also produced paintings for the Austrian court, and worked independently in Paris, before returning to Antwerp in 1657. He collaborated with a number of prominent artists including Rubens, Hendrick van Balen (1575-1632), Adriaen Stalbemt (1580-1682), Lucas Van Uden (1596-1672), David Teniers the Younger and his father-in-law Janssen. Jan the Younger's best works are his extensive landscapes, either under his own name or made for other artists such as Hendrick van Balen as backgrounds.