Spanish Painter and Print engraver , 1591-1652 Information concerning the life and personality of Jusepe de Ribera is sparse. He was born the son of a shoemaker in Jetiva, Valencia Province. He appears to have gone to the city of Valencia while still a boy, but nothing is known of his possible artistic training there. As an adolescent, he traveled to Italy and spent time in Lombardy. Next he was in Parma, from which, it is said, he was driven by the contentious jealousy of local artists. He located himself in Rome until an accumulation of debts forced him to flee. Finally he settled in Naples, where in 1616 he married Caterina Azzolino, the daughter of a painter, by whom he had seven children between the years 1627 and 1636. The Academy of St. Luke in Rome elected Ribera to membership in 1625, and 6 years later the Pope conferred upon him the Order of Christ. It is understandably speculated that Ribera revisited Rome for these events. Being sought after in Naples by the Church and the various Spanish viceroys who ruled there in the name of the Spanish monarchy, he dismissed the idea of returning to his homeland. He was quoted as saying that he was honored and well paid in Naples and that Spain was a cruel stepmother to its own children and a compassionate mother to foreigners. Nevertheless, he generally added his nationality when he signed his works. This practice inspired the Italians to nickname him "the Little Spaniard" (Lo Spagnoletto). The last decade of Ribera's life was one of personal struggle. He suffered from failing health, the taunts of other artists that his fame was "extinct," and difficulty in collecting payments due him. Nevertheless, he kept it from being a tragic defeat by continuing to paint until the very year of his death in Naples. Actually, he was the victim of the local politics and finances. Naples was in the throes of a severe economic depression for which the foreign rulers, the patrons of Ribera, were naturally blamed, and the desperate citizenry was rioting in the streets. It is significant that Ribera continued to receive commissions in such a time, even if there was a dearth of payments. Ribera was inventive in subject matter, ranging through visionary spectacles, biblical themes, genre, portraits, mythological subjects, and portraits of ascetics and penitents.   Related Paintings of Jose de Ribera :. | Der Tastsinn | Landscape with Shepherds | Der blinde Isaak segnet Jacob | St John the Baptist in the Desert | Mystische Hochzeit der Hl |
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James Carroll Beckwith
(September 23, 1852 - October 24, 1917) was an American landscape, portrait and genre painter whose Impressionist style led to his recognition in the late nineteenth century as a prominent figure in American art. Carroll Beckwith, as he preferred to be known, was born in Hannibal, Missouri on 23 September 1852, the son of N. M. Beckwith, who was United States Commissioner-General at the Paris Exposition of 1867. However, he grew up in Chicago where his father started a wholesale grocery business. In 1868 aged 16 he studied art at the Chicago Academy of Design under Walter Shirlaw until the great fire of 1871 destroyed eveything (including much of the heart of the city). He then went to New York and studied at the National Academy of Design (of which he afterwards became a member) in New York City under Lemuel Wilmarth and later traveled on to Paris, staying there from November 1873 until 1878.
Andrea Lilio
Andrea Lilio (1555/1570 - after 1639) was an Italian painter born in Fano, not far from Ancona, hence he also is known as L'Anconitano. Die Geschichte des Hl. NikolausHe painted mainly in his native city, as well as in Rome, where he was active from the beginning of the 17th century until around 1640. He was employed by Pope Sixtus V in the decoration of the library of the Vatican and in the decoration of the Scala Santa in San Giovanni Laterano. In the latter, he painted, Moses striking the Rock and Moses with the Brazen Serpent. Said to have been a pupil of Federico Barocci, he painted in a Mannerist style, already outdated in Baroque Rome at the time. Nevertheless, Lilio created a popular niche for himself by painting allegories for aristocratic audiences. In fact, it is altogether possible that Lilio collaborated for the illustrations of Cesare Ripa's Iconologia, which was a popular source for such motifs for a very long time. He died at Ascoli Piceno. In a chapel of the Chiesa Nuova, he painted The Archangel Michael driving fallen angels from Heaven. He continued to ornament churches and convents of Rome during the reign of Pope Clement VIII. One of his masterpieces, the Martyrdom of Saint Lawrence, was painted for Santa Caterina in Ancona. He painted the Christ Washing the Feet of His Disciples for the nave of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome. He also was part of the team active in the painting of the Sistine chapel (chapel of Nativity) in Santa Maria Maggiore. For the cathedral of Fano, he painted a picture of All Saints.
Georg Pencz
Georg Pencz (c. 1500 probably in Westheim near Bad Windsheim/Franconia - 1550 in Liepzig) was a German engraver, painter and printmaker. Pencz travelled to Nuremberg in 1523 and joined Albrecht Dereres atelier. Like Derer, he visited Italy and was profoundly influenced by Venetian art and it is believed he worked with Marcantonio Raimondi. In 1525, he was imprisoned with the brothers Barthel Beham and Hans Sebald Beham, the so-called "godless painters", for spreading the radical views of Thomas Mentzer by asserting disbelief in baptism, Christ and transubstantiation. The three were pardoned shortly afterwards and became part of the group known as the "Little Masters" because of their tiny, intricate and influential prints. In Nuremberg, influenced by works he had seen in Italy, Pencz painted a number of trompe l'oeil ceilings in the houses of patrician families; one, for which a drawing survives, showed workmen raising building materials on a hoist, against an open sky, to create the illusion that the room was still under construction. Around 1539, Pencz briefly returned to Italy, visiting Rome for the first time, returning to Nuremberg in 1540, where he became the city painter and earned his greatest success as a portraitist. As an engraver, he ranks among the best of the German eLittle Masterse. Notable prints include Six Triumphs of Petrarch and Life of Christ (26 plates). The best of his paintings are portraits, such as Portrait of a Young Man , Portrait of Marshal Schirmer and Portrait of Erhard Schwetzer and his wife.