Italian Rococo Era Painter, 1696-1770 Giovanni Battista Tiepolo was born in Venice on March 5, 1696. His father, who was part owner of a ship, died when Tiepolo was scarcely a year old, but the family was left in comfortable circumstances. As a youth, he was apprenticed to Gregorio Lazzarini, a mediocre but fashionable painter known for his elaborately theatrical, rather grandiose compositions. Tiepolo soon evolved a more spirited style of his own. By the time he was 20, he had exhibited his work independently, and won plaudits, at an exhibition held at the church of S. Rocco. The next year he became a member of the Fraglia, or painters guild. In 1719 he married Cecilia Guardi, whose brother Francesco was to become famous as a painter of the Venetian scene. They had nine children, among them Giovanni Domenico and Lorenzo Baldassare, who were also painters. In the 1720s Tiepolo carried out many large-scale commissions on the northern Italian mainland. Of these the most important is the cycle of Old Testament scenes done for the patriarch of Aquileia, Daniele Dolfin, in the new Archbishop Palace at Udine. Here Tiepolo abandoned the dark hues that had characterized his early style and turned instead to the bright, sparkling colors that were to make him famous.  Related Paintings of Giovanni Battista Tiepolo :. | Das Bankett der Cleopatra | Rinaldo Sees Himself in Ubaldo's Shield | Christ Carrying the Cross | The Capture of Carchage | Samson |
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Hugh Henry Breckenridge
1870-1937 Hugh Henry Breckenridge Galleries
Callisto Piazza
(1500-1561) was an Italian painter. Callisto, a member of the Piazza family of painters, was born in Lodi, Lombardy. In 1523 he was working in Brescia. His first dated and signed work is from the following year, and shows a typical Brescian style. This style was then emerging, and included artists such as Romanino and Moretto. Piazza shows influences from contemporaries such as Dosso Dossi and Ludovico Mazzolino of the Ferrarese school, as well as Giovanni Agostino da Lodi. In 1526-1529 Piazza worked in Val Camonica, at Erbanno, Borno, Breno, Esine and Cividate Camuno. In 1529 he returned to his native Lodi where he formed a workshop with his brothers Cesare and Scipione (died 1552). In 1538, while in Crema, he married the noblewoman Francesca Confalonieri. Later Callisto moved to Milan, where he received numerous commissions, such as the decoration of the San Girolamo chapel in Santa Maria Presso San Celso (1542); the decoration of the refectory of the convent of Sant'Ambrogio (1545); the frescoes for the Saletta Negra in the Castello Sforzesco; and the decoration of the Simonetta chapel in San Maurizio al Monastero Maggiore (1555), largely executed with the assistance of his son Fulvio. He also worked in Lodi at the Incoronata (1454), Novara, at the Abbey of Chiaravalle and other areas of Lombardy.
Kiprensky, Orest
Russian Painter, 1782-1836 Russian painter and draughtsman. The leading Russian portrait painter of the Romantic period, he was the illegitimate son of the landowner A. D'yakonov and was adopted by his serf, Adam Shval'b and granted his freedom at birth. His surname is unconnected with that of either his real or his adoptive father, and its origin is uncertain. In 1798 he was sent to the St Petersburg Academy of Arts, eventually studying history painting under Gabriel-Francois Doyen and Grigory Ugryumov. In 1805 he received an important gold medal for his painting Dmitry Donskoy on the Field of Kulikovo (St Petersburg, Rus. Mus.) and won the right to travel to Italy on a scholarship. He did not, however, do so immediately, because of the tense political situation in Europe. Kiprensky's history painting was in keeping with the patriotic mood of Russian society during the years of the war against Napoleon.