Russian Rococo Era Painter , 1727/1729-1802 Russian painter and teacher. He came from a family of serfs, belonging to the Counts Sheremetev, that produced several painters and architects. In about 1746-7 he was a pupil of Georg Christoph Grooth (1716-49), who painted portraits of the Sheremetev family. With Grooth, Argunov worked on the decoration of the court church at Tsarskoye Selo (now Pushkin). A full-length icon of St John of Damascus (1749; Pushkin, Pal.-Mus.), in Rococo style, is distinguished by its secular, decorative character. The Dying Cleopatra (1750; Moscow, Tret'yakov Gal.) is typical of Rococo decorative painting of the mid-18th century, with its striking combination of light, soft tones. Argunov subsequently painted in a quite different style, mainly producing portraits, of which about 60 are known. Among the first of these are pendant portraits of Ivan Lobanov-Rostovsky and his wife (1750 and 1754; St Petersburg, Rus. Mus.), in which the sitters are idealized, as in ceremonial court portraits.   Related Paintings of Ivan Argunov :. | Portrait of Peasant Woman in Russian Costume | Portrait of Grand Duchess Catherine Alexeyevna | Portrait of Princess Ekaterina Alexandrovna Lobanova-Rostovskaya, 1754 | Portrait of P.B. Sheremetev | Portrait of Alexander Dmitriev |
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ZIMMERMANN Johann Baptist
German painter, Bavarian school (b. 1680, Wessobrun, d. 1758, Menchen). Painter and stuccoist. Much of his early stuccowork and frescoes, such as that in the choir of Gosseltshausen parish church (1701) and the refectories of the abbeys at Tegernsee, Weyarn and Beyharting (before 1710), has been destroyed. His earliest surviving stuccowork (1707-9) is in the pilgrimage church of Maria Schnee, near Markt Rettenbach, and reveals the influences of Johann Schmuzer from Wessobrunn and an Italian stucco workshop that practised in Tegernsee.
Pierre-Paul Prud hon
French 1758-1823 Pierre Paul Prud'hon Gallery
ANDREA DA MURANO
Italian painter, Venetian school (known 1462-1502) Italian painter. He is first recorded working as a gilder at S Zaccaria, Venice, in 1463-5. He was one of a number of artists from the island of Murano. Among these he is closest to Bartolomeo Vivarini, whose pupil he may have been. The two collaborated in 1468 on a narrative canvas (destr.) for the Scuola di S Marco, Venice, which probably depicted scenes from the Life of Abraham. The rather harsh sculptural quality of his forms owes much to the influence of Mantegna and Donatello in Padua, and his work has often been associated (and sometimes confused) with that of Andrea del Castagno. He did not, however, ignore the more recent developments of Giovanni Bellini. His triptych depicting SS Vincent Ferrer, Roch, Sebastian and Peter Martyr, with a lunette of the Madonna of Mercy and Four Saints (Venice, Accad.), probably painted in the late 1470s, shows a real concern with light and colour. By the mid-1480s Andrea had settled in Castelfranco on the mainland, chiefly painting altarpieces in the (by then well established) Venetian sacra conversazione form. The altarpiece (1484-1502) in the parish church at Trebaseleghe, nr Padua, is a variation on the form, with Christ embracing the plague saints Sebastian and Roch above and other saints and musicians below, all showing the high degree of expression characteristic of his works. It is one of his finest paintings and also perhaps the most expensive Venetian altarpiece of its day. The altarpiece depicting the Virgin Enthroned with SS Peter, Nicholas of Bari, John the Baptist and Paul (1502; Mussolente, Santuario della Madonna dell' Acqua) is typical of Andrea's work and shows both the strengths and limitations of his art: firm draughtsmanship and expressive qualities combined with a rather conservative composition and somewhat ungainly figures.