Crtona 1441-1523 .Italian painter of the Umbrian school, who probably studied with Piero della Francesca. He worked in Cortona, where some of his paintings have remained. Subsequently he worked in the Cathedral of Perugia, in Volterra, and at Monte Oliveto before undertaking (1499) the decoration of the Cappella Nuova in the Orvieto Cathedral. There he represented the apocalyptic series of the Story of the Anti-Christ, the End of the World, the Resurrection of the Bodies, Paradise, and the Inferno, as well as figurations from antique poems and the Divine Comedy. The infernal scenes are remarkable for their imaginative evocation of fiends and tortures of Hell. Michelangelo was influenced by his powerful treatment of anatomy and the vivid realism he used for dramatic ends. Signorelli's paintings in the Vatican, where he went in 1508, were later sacrificed to make way for some of Raphael's work.  Related Paintings of Luca Signorelli :. | The Dmned Sent to Hell | Crucifixion | The Flagellation of Christ (nn03) | The Holy Family | The Virgin and Child among Angels and Saints |
Related Artists:
Marie Spartali Stillman
English Pre-Raphaelite Painter, 1844-1927 was a British Pre-Raphaelite painter of Greek descent, arguably the greatest female artist of that movement. During a sixty-year career she produced over one hundred works, contributing regularly to galleries in Great Britain and the United States. Maria Spartali was the youngest daughter of Michael Spartali, a wealthy merchant and Greek consul-general based in London, and his wife Euphrosyne. She and her cousins Maria Zambaco and Aglaia Coronio were known collectively among friends as "the Three Graces", after the Charites of Greek mythology (Aglaia, Euphrosyne and Thalia), as all three were noted beauties of Greek heritage. Swinburne said of Spartali: "She is so beautiful that I want to sit down and cry". Spartali studied under Ford Madox Brown for several years from 1864, with his children Lucy, Catherine and Oliver. She modelled for: Brown; Burne-Jones (The Mill); Julia Margaret Cameron; Rossetti (A Vision of Fiammetta, Dante's Dream, The Bower Meadow); Spencer Stanhope; and Whistler (La Princesse du Pays de la Porcelaine). In 1871, against her parents' wishes, she married American journalist and painter William J. Stillman. She was his second wife, his first having committed suicide two years before. His job as a foreign correspondent resulted in the couple dividing their time between London and Florence from 1878 to 1883, and then Rome from 1889 to 1896.
John Pettie
British Painter, 1839-1893 He was brought up in Edinburgh and East Lothian, and in 1855 he entered the schools of the Trustees' Academy, Edinburgh, sponsored by the history painter James Drummond (1816-77). He studied under Robert Scott Lauder, and among his fellow students were WILLIAM QUILLER ORCHARDSON, Thomas Graham (1840-1906), George Paul Chalmers (1833-78), John Burr (1831-93) and John MacWhirter, several of whom later became part of Pettie's circle of Scottish artist friends in London. Pettie first exhibited at the Royal Scottish Academy in 1858 with In Trabois House (untraced), a scene from Sir Walter Scott's The Fortunes of Nigel, and he began sending work to the Royal Academy in 1860. From 1858 he provided illustrations for the periodical Good Words, and, encouraged by the reviews received for his early Royal Academy exhibits, such as The Armourers (exh. RA 1860) and What D'Ye Lack' (exh. RA 1861), when Good Words transferred its headquarters, Pettie moved to London in 1862. He shared a studio in Fitzroy Square with Orchardson and Graham from 1863 until his marriage to Elizabeth Ann Bossom on 25 August 1865. He subsequently lived at various addresses, gravitating towards the wealthy artistic colony in St John's Wood, where in 1882, at 2 Fitzjohn's Avenue, he built a neo-Georgian house and studio, The Lothians (destr.). This reflected not only the professional circle in which Pettie moved but also the rapid financial success that he achieved in London. From the mid-1860s his most important patron was John Newton Mappin, founder of the Mappin Art Gallery,
Guillaume Descamps
Guillaume-Desire-Joseph Descamps, a painter and engraver, was born at Lille in 1779. He was a pupil of Vincent, but, obtaining the "prix de Rome," he improved himself by travelling in Italy, and became court-painter of Murat in Naples. He died in Paris in 1858. The following paintings were executed by him: The Women of Sparta (in the Lille Museum). 1808. The Martyrdom of St. Andrew (in St. Andre, Lille). Murat on board the Ceres distributing Rewards (engraved hy himself). The Conversion of St. Augustine (in St. Eustache, Paris). The Apotheosis of Cardinal Tommasi (in San Martino di Monti, Rome). The Neapolitan Troops marching out against Capri.