Italian Rococo Era Painter, 1712-ca.1793 The records of his parish in Venice show that Francesco Guardi was baptized on Oct. 5, 1712. His father, Domenico, who died when Francesco was 4, had a workshop. Francesco and his elder brother, Gian Antonio, worked in a small studio, carrying out such orders as they could get for almost anything the client wanted:mythological pictures, genre, flower pieces, battle scenes, altarpieces, and even, on rare occasions, frescoes. They did not hesitate to copy compositions by other artists, but what they borrowed they always transformed into something more capricious, less stable, more fragmentary in the refraction of light. Francesco did not emerge as an independent personality until 1760, when his brother died. Then, 48 years old, he married, established his own studio, and devoted himself chiefly to painting views of Venice. For the most part he worked in obscurity, ignored by his contemporaries. He was not even admitted to the Venetian Academy until he was 72 years old. Guardi and Canaletto have always been compared to one another because the buildings they chose to paint were often the same. But the way each artist painted them is very different. Canaletto's world is constructed out of line. It provides solid, carefully drawn, three-dimensional objects that exist within logically constructed three-dimensional space. Guardi's world is constructed out of color and light. The objects in it become weightless in the light's shimmer and dissolve in a welter of brushstrokes; the space, like the forms in space, is suggested rather than described. Canaletto belonged essentially to the Renaissance tradition that began with Giotto and, as it grew progressively tighter and more controlled, pointed the way to neoclassicism. Guardi belonged to the new baroque tradition that grew out of the late style of Titian and, as it became progressively looser and freer, pointed the way toward impressionism. Such differences appear even in Guardi's early view paintings, where he was obviously trying to copy Canaletto, such as the Basin of San Marco. The famous buildings are there, but they are far in the background, insubstantial, seeming to float. In front is a fleet of fishing boats, their curving spars seeming to dance across the surface of the canvas. What is important for Guardi is not perspective but the changing clouds and the way the light falls on the lagoon. Guardi became increasingly fascinated by the water that surrounds Venice. In late works, such as the famous Lagoon with Gondola, buildings and people have been stripped away until there is nothing but the suggestion of a thin line of distant wharfs, a few strokes to indicate one man on a gondola, a long unbroken stretch of still water, and a cloudless sky. Guardi also painted the festivals that so delighted visitors to the city, such as the Marriage of Venice to the Sea. This was a symbolic ceremony in which the doge, in the great gilded galley of the head of state, surrounded by a thousand gondolas, appeared before all Venice, in Goethe's image, "raised up like the Host in a monstrance." Of all Guardi's paintings the most evocative are his caprices, the landscapes born out of his imagination though suggested by the ruined buildings on the lonely islands of the Venetian lagoon. A gentle melancholy clings to such scenes.   Related Paintings of GUARDI, Francesco :. | Gondola | The Grand Canal with San Simeone Piccolo and Santa Lucia sdg | Piazza di San Marco dfh | The Lagoon with Boats, Gondolas, and Rafts kug | The Doge on the Bucentaur at San Niccol del Lido dfh |
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Alfred Stieglitz
American Photographer, 1864-1946..S. photographer and exhibitor of modern art. He was taken to Europe by his wealthy family to further his education in 1881. In 1883 he abandoned engineering studies in Berlin for a photographic career. Returning to the U.S. in 1890, he made the first successful photographs in snow, in rain, and at night. In 1902 he founded the Photo-Secession group to establish photography as an art. His own best photographs are perhaps two series (1917 C 27), one of portraits of his wife, Georgia O'Keeffe, and the other of cloud shapes corresponding to emotional experiences. His photographs were the first to be exhibited in major U.S. museums.
Laurits Andersen Ring
Danish, 1854-1933 Laurits Andersen Ring (1854-1933) was one of the foremost painters of Danish symbolism. He was born as Laurits Andersen in the village Ring in southern Zealand. In 1881 he the took the name of his birth place, and was since known as L.A. Ring. For a while, he lived at Baldersbronde near Hedehusene in the old school building, which was later to be the home of another painter, Ludvig Find. Ring has produced several paintings from these towns. As a painter, he never distanced himself from his humble origin, but rather made it his dominant theme. Most of his paintings depict the village life and landscapes of southern Zealand from Præsto to Nestved. There are several examples of his work at practically every Danish art museum including the Hirschsprung Collection in Copenhagen. He was married on July 25, 1896 to fellow painter Sigrid Kahler, who was the daughter of ceramic artist Herman Kahler.
Hugh Douglas Hamilton
(c. 1740 - 10 February 1808) was an Irish portrait-painter. Biography Hamilton was born in Crow Street, in Dublin, Ireland, in 1740, the son of a peruke maker. Unfortunately there is very little concrete evidence for his earlylife, apart from his own drawings. He studied art under Robert West at the Dublin Society House - and won some early success with crayon and pastel portraits there. He was very adept at building relationships with patrons from the early days, taking up with the famous La Touche banking family of Dublin, who had close ties with the Bank of Ireland. Very little is known of Hamilton's career between 1756 and 1764, when he moved to London. Hamilton found great success in London through his pastel oval portraits, portraying royalty, politicians and celebrities of the day through this medium. Hamilton was often overwhelmed with orders, including commissions from the British royal family - such as Queen Charlotte (1764) and others now in the British Royal Collection. He showed with the Society of Artists and the Free Society of Artists from the mid-1760s to the mid-1770s. From the mid-1770s on, Hamilton became very interested in a softer, more textural form of pastel "fresco", in which he blended crayons and chalk to further the pastel's ability to imitate flesh. In 1779 he travelled to Italy, where he remained for the next twelve years, occasionally visiting Florence but mainly based in Rome, where he knew Antonio Canova. On the advice of artist John Flaxman Hamilton turned to oil painting, and achieved great success with small oval portraits of Irish and British visitors. His portraits of this period include those of Dean Kirwan (displayed at the Royal Dublin Society), George John, 2nd Earl Spencer, Countess Cowper (1787), and the exiled Charles Edward Stuart ( Lord Edward, 1785). In 1791 Hamilton returned to Dublin, where he died. In 1796 he painted Lord Edward Fitzgerald, the Irish revolutionary.