German 1497-1543 Hans Holbein Galleries Holbein always made highly detailed pencil drawings of his portrait subjects, often supplemented with ink and colored chalk. The drawings emphasize facial detail and usually did not include the hands; clothing was only indicated schematically. The outlines of these drawings were then transferred onto the support for the final painting using tiny holes in the paper through which powdered charcoal was transmitted; in later years Holbein used a kind of carbon paper. The final paintings thus had the same scale as the original drawings. Although the drawings were made as studies for paintings, they stand on their own as independent, finely wrought works of art. How many portraits have been lost can be seen from Holbein's book (nearly all pages in the Royal Collection) containing preparatory drawings for portraits - of eighty-five drawings, only a handful have surviving Holbein paintings, though often copies have survived. David Hockney has speculated in the Hockney-Falco thesis that Holbein used a concave mirror to project an image of the subject onto the drawing surface. The image was then traced. However this thesis has not met with general acceptance from art historians. A subtle ability to render character may be noted in Holbein's work, as can be seen in his portraits of Thomas Cromwell, Desiderius Erasmus, and Henry VIII. The end results are convincing as definitive images of the subjects' appearance and personality.  Related Paintings of Hans Holbein :. | Portrait of Erasmus of Rotterdam writing | Ms. Gaierfude | Christina of Denmark Duchess of Milan | Konstnarens with wife Katherine and Philipp | Anne of Cleves (mk05) |
Related Artists:
Jackson Pollock
l912--1956,U.S. painter. He grew up in California and Arizona. In the early 1930s he studied in New York City under Thomas Hart Benton, and later he was employed on the WPA Federal Art Project. In 1945 he married the artist Lee Krasner. Two years later, after several years of semiabstract work stimulated by psychotherapy, Pollock began to lay his canvas on the floor and pour or drip paint onto it in stages. This process permitted him to record the force and scope of his gestures in trajectories of enamel or aluminum paint that veiled the figurative elements found in his earlier work. The results were huge areas covered with complex and dynamic linear patterns that fuse image and form and engulf the vision of the spectator in their scale and intricacy. Pollock believed that art derived from the unconscious and judged his work and that of others on its inherent authenticity of personal expression. He became known as a leading practitioner of Abstract Expressionism, particularly the form known as action painting. Championed by critic Clement Greenberg and others, he became a celebrity. When he died in a car crash at 44, he was one of the few American painters to be recognized during his lifetime and afterward as the peer of 20th-century European masters of modern art.
Heinrich Friedrich Fuger
painted Prometheus brings Fire to Mankind in 1817
Martinus Rorbye
(17 May 1803 - 29 August 1848) was a Danish painter, known both for genre works and landscapes. He was a central figure of the Golden Age of Danish painting during the first half of the 19th century. The most traveled of the Danish Golden Age painters, he traveled both north to Norway and Sweden and south to Italy, Greece and Constantinople. He was also the first Danish painter to take to painting in Skagen at the northern top of Jutland, almost half a century before the thriving community of Skagen Painters formed and came to fame. Martinus Rørbye was born in Drammen in Norway to Danish parents Ferdinand Henrik Rørbye and his wife Frederikke Eleonore Catherine de Stockfleth. His father was a warehouse manager and later Superintendent of War, and had moved the family to Norway shortly before Martinus' birth. The family returned to Denmark when Martinus was 12 years old, shortly after the cession of Norway from Denmark in 1814. Martinus was not inclined to schooling, but in 1820 started his studies at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts at 17 years of age. He studied under Christian August Lorentzen and Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg, a strong influence on a generation of artists during the Danish Golden Age. Rørbye was a favorite student of Eckersberg, and they formed a close association. He took to Eckersberges careful attention to nature and his strivings to capture details realistically. He was also greatly influenced by Lorentzenes use of color. He won the Academyes small silver medal in 1824, and the large silver medal in 1828. He competed for the gold medal and won a cash prize. In 1829 he won the small gold medal for his painting Christ healing the blind, which remains in the ownership of the Royal Danish Academy. He never won the large gold medal in spite of repeated attempts.