Italian Baroque Era Painter, 1591-1666 best known as Guercino or Il Guercino, was an Italian Baroque painter from the region of Emilia, and active in Rome and Bologna. Guercino is Italian for squinter, a nickname that was given to him because he was cross-eyed. He is especially noted for his many superb drawings. Guercino was born at Cento, a village between Bologna and Ferrara. By the age of 17 he was associated with Benedetto Gennari, a painter of the Bolognese School. By 1615 he moved to Bologna, where his work earned the praise of an elder Ludovico Carracci. He painted two large canvases, Elijah Fed by Ravens and Samson Seized by Philistines, in what appears to be a stark naturalist Caravaggesque style (although it is unlikely he had been able to see any of the Roman Caravaggios first-hand). They were painted for Cardinal Serra, Papal Legate to Ferrara. The Arcadian Shepherds (Et in Arcadia ego) was painted in 1618 contemporary with The Flaying of Marsyas by Apollo in Palazzo Pitti. His first style, he often claimed, was influenced by a canvas of Carracci in Cento. Some of his later pieces approach rather to the manner of his great contemporary Guido Reni, and are painted with more lightness and clearness. Guercino was esteemed very highly in his lifetime. He was then recommended by Marchese Enzo Bentivoglio to the Bolognese Ludovisi Pope, Pope Gregory XV. His two years (1621-23) spent in Rome were very productive. From this stay date his frescoes of Aurora at the casino of the Villa Ludovisi and the ceiling in San Crisogono (1622) of San Chrysogonus in Glory; his portrait of Pope Gregory (now in the Getty Museum, and, what is considered his masterpiece, The Burial of Saint Petronilla or St. Petronilla Altarpiece, for the Vatican (now in the Museo Capitolini). The Franciscan order of Reggio in 1655 paid him 300 ducats for the altarpiece of Saint Luke Displaying a Painting of the Madonna and Child (now in Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City). The Corsini also paid him 300 ducats for the Flagellation of Christ painted in 1657.   Related Paintings of GUERCINO :. | St Luke Displaying a Painting of the Virgin | Raising of Lazarus hjf | Concert Champetre | Recreation by our Gallery | Saint Gregory the Great with Saints Ignatius Loyola and Francis Xavier |
Related Artists:
Markis Marie Joseph La Fayette

Thomas Jones
Thomas Jones (26 September 1742 - 29 April 1803) was a British landscape painter. He was a pupil of Richard Wilson and was best known in his lifetime as a painter of Welsh and Italian landscapes in the style of his master. However, Jones's reputation grew in the 20th century when more unconventional works by him, ones not been intended for public consumption, came to light. Most notable among these is a series of views of Naples which he painted from 1782 to 1783. By breaking with the conventions of classical landscape painting in favour of direct observation, they look forward to the work of Camille Corot and the Barbizon School in the 19th century. His autobiography, Memoirs of Thomas Jones of Penkerrig, went unpublished until 1951 but is now recognised as a major work of commentary on the 18th-century art world.
Charles Bird King
American Painter, 1785-1862,is a United States artist who is best known for his portraiture. In particular, the artist is notable for the portraits he painted of Native American delegates coming to Washington D.C., which were commissioned by government's Bureau of Indian Affairs. Charles Bird King was born in Newport, Rhode Island as the only child of Deborah Bird and American Revolutionary veteran Captain Zebulon King. The family traveled west, but when King was four years old, his father was killed and scalped by Native Americans near Marietta, Ohio. King and his mother moved back to Newport to live with Bird's mother. When King was fifteen, he went to New York to study under the portrait painter Edward Savage. At age twenty he moved to London to study under the famous painter Benjamin West at the esteemed Royal Academy. King returned to the U.S. due to the War of 1812 after a seven-year stay in London, and spent time working in Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Richmond. He eventually settled in Washington, due to the economic appeal that the burgeoning city offered. In the nation's new capital, the artist earned a solid reputation as a portraitist among politicians, and earned enough to maintain his own studio and gallery. King's economic success in the art world, particularly in the field of portraiture, had more to do with his ability to socialize with the wealthy celebrities, and relate to the well educated politicians of the time: His industry and simple habits enabled him to acquire a handsome competence, and his amiable and exemplary character won him many friendse . These patrons included John Quincy Adams, John Calhoun, Henry Clay, James Monroe, and Daniel Webster .