b. 1472, Kronach, d. 1553, Weimar. German painter and printmaker. He took his name from the town of his birth. Little is known about his early life or training. In Vienna (c. 1501 ?C 04) he painted some notable portraits and landscapes characteristic of the Danube school. From 1505 to 1550 he was court painter in Wittenberg, where he achieved great success and wealth painting portraits, mythological subjects, and altarpieces for Protestant and Catholic churches. He attracted so many young artists to Wittenberg that the town became an art centre. A friend of Martin Luther, Cranach became known as the chief pictorial propagandist of the Protestant cause in Germany. He produced numerous engravings and more than 100 woodcuts, notably for the first German edition of the New Testament (1522). After his death, his style was perpetuated by his son, Lucas the Younger (1515 C 86).  Related Paintings of Lucas Cranach the Elder :. | The Judgment of Paris | Emilia and Sidonia | Rest on the fligt inth the Egypt | Der Sterbende | Detaills of Ann Putsch,First wife of Dr.johannes (mk45) |
Related Artists:
Josabeth Sjoberg
1812-1882
Giacinto Gigante
(1806-1876) was an Italian painter. Gigante was introduced to painting by his father Gaetano Gigante. His brothers Achille Gigante and Ercole Gigante also became landscape artists. He trained in the style of Hackert and was influenced by the technical drawing carried out at the Naples Royal Institute of Fine Arts. Along with Achille Vianellihe was to be strongly influenced by a large colony of foreign painters then present in Naples including Huber and Pitloo. From Wolfgang Huber Gigante learnt watercolour technique and the use of the panoramic ?-amera lucidae method. Via Huber he met the Dutch artist Anton Sminck van Pitloo, who became his teacher for a few years. In 1823 Gigante won the Naples Royal Institute of Fine Arts drawing competition. In 1826 he displayed four works at the first Esposizione di Belle Arti. Reportedly though Gigante did not fit in well with the life of the Naples Royal Institute of Fine Arts and left. Around 1826 he was living in Naples in Vicoletto del Vasto 15, with Van Pitloo, Carl Götzloff and Teodoro Duclere. He is considered the foremost exponent of the 19th-century Neapolitan "Posillipo School" of painting.
Francis Cotes
(20 May 1726 - 16 July 1770) was an English painter, one of the pioneers of English pastel painting, and a founder member of the Royal Academy in 1768. He was born in London, the eldest son of Robert Cotes, an apothecary (Francis's younger brother Samuel Cotes (1734 - 1818) also became an artist, specialising in miniatures). Cotes trained with portrait painter George Knapton (1698 - 1778) before setting up his own business in his father's business premises in London's Cork Streetelearning, incidentally, much about chemistry to inform his making of pastels. An admirer of the pastel drawings of Rosalba Carriera, Cotes concentrated on works in pastel and crayon (some of which became well-known as engravings). After pushing crayon to its limit as a mediumealthough he was never to abandon it entirelye - otes turned to oil painting as a means of developing his style in larger-scale works. In his most successful paintings, particularly those of the early 1760s, the oil paint is thinly applied, in imitation of his pastel technique, and imbued with charm, inviting comparisons with Allan Ramsay (1713 - 1784) and Sir Joshua Reynolds. They have clarity and warmth and possess a remarkable attention to costume. In 1763, he bought a large house (later occupied by George Romney) in Cavendish Square. One of the most fashionable portrait painters of his day, Cotes helped found the Society of Artists and became its director in 1765. At the peak of his powers, Cotes was invited to become one of the first members of the Royal Academy, but died just two years later, aged 44, in Richmond. He also taught pastel skills to John Russell, and his skills were described in book The Elements of Painting with Crayon.