Flemish Baroque Era Painter, 1577-1640 Peter Paul Rubens (June 28, 1577 ?C May 30, 1640) was a prolific seventeenth-century Flemish Baroque painter, and a proponent of an exuberant Baroque style that emphasized movement, color, and sensuality. He is well-known for his Counter-Reformation altarpieces, portraits, landscapes, and history paintings of mythological and allegorical subjects. In addition to running a large studio in Antwerp which produced paintings popular with nobility and art collectors throughout Europe, Rubens was a classically-educated humanist scholar, art collector, and diplomat who was knighted by both Philip IV, king of Spain, and Charles I, king of England. Rubens was a prolific artist. His commissioned works were mostly religious subjects, "history" paintings, which included mythological subjects, and hunt scenes. He painted portraits, especially of friends, and self-portraits, and in later life painted several landscapes. Rubens designed tapestries and prints, as well as his own house. He also oversaw the ephemeral decorations of the Joyous Entry into Antwerp by the Cardinal-Infante Ferdinand in 1635. His drawings are mostly extremely forceful but not detailed; he also made great use of oil sketches as preparatory studies. He was one of the last major artists to make consistent use of wooden panels as a support medium, even for very large works, but he used canvas as well, especially when the work needed to be sent a long distance. For altarpieces he sometimes painted on slate to reduce reflection problems. His fondness of painting full-figured women gave rise to the terms 'Rubensian' or 'Rubenesque' for plus-sized women. The term 'Rubensiaans' is also commonly used in Dutch to denote such women.  Related Paintings of Peter Paul Rubens :. | Portret van Alfons, koning van Aragon en Napels | Triumph of Curch over Fury,Discord,and Hate | Bathsheba at the Fountain | The Tbree Graces (mk01) | Rubes'funerary chapel in St Jacob's Church Antwerp,with the artist's (mk01) |
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Dieric Bouts
1420-1475 Flemish Dieric Bouts Locations Dirk Bouts whose real name was Theodorik Romboutszoon, was probably born in Haarlem, where he may have studied under the painter Albert van Ouwater. Sometime before 1450 Bouts took up residence in the Flemish city of Louvain. His name appeared in the records of Louvain in 1457 and again in 1468, when he was appointed "city painter." It is likely that Bouts spent some time in Bruges, as his earliest work, the Infancy Altarpiece shows the distinct and strong influence of Petrus Christus, the leading master of that city after the death of Jan van Eyck. The slightly later Deposition Altarpiece (ca. 1450) displays strong connections with the style of Rogier van der Weyden in both the figure types and the composition. About 1460, the period of the Entombment in London, the early, formative influence of Petrus Christus had been almost totally displaced by that of Rogier, though Bouts personal vision began to emerge in the fluid and continuous landscape background. The great Last Supper Altarpiece (1464-1467) marks the high point of Bouts career. In this solemn and dignified masterpiece the painter achieved spiritual grandeur in the context of convincing physical reality. The central panel of the altarpiece is the most emphatically significant treatment of the theme of the Last Supper in Northern European art. The wings, which contain Old Testament prefigurations of the central theme, are freer and more loosely organized. Eschewing the symmetry and rigid axial construction of the main panel, Bouts produced rhythmic foreground compositions in combination with fluid and dramatic spatial recessions. In 1468 Bouts was commissioned to paint four panels on the subject of justice for the Town Hall of Louvain. At the painter death in 1475 only two of the paintings had been completed; they are among the most remarkable productions of his career. The unusual subjects, taken from the chronicles of a 12th-century historian, concern the wrongful execution by Emperor Otto III of one of his counts and the subsequent vindication of the nobleman by his wife. The finer of the panels represents the dramatic trial by fire which the wife was obliged to undergo to prove her husband innocence. Rich draperies and sumptuous colors are applied to tall angular forms to create a work of rare formal elegance and high decorative appeal. In order to dignify the event, however, the artist has employed restrained gestures and expressions as well as a completely rationalized spatial setting. As in the Last Supper Altarpiece, a sense of solemn and hieratic importance is expressed by means of an austere and rigid geometry in the construction of both persons and places. The late productions of Bouts workshop, such as the well-known Pearl of Brabant Altarpiece, are characterized by the close collaboration of the painter two sons, Dirk the Younger (1448-1491) and Aelbrecht (1455/1460-1549). In the paintings of his less gifted sons, the master distinctive figure style was appreciably altered, though Dirk the Younger appears to have retained much of his father sensitivity to the landscape. In addition to his innovations in the depiction of landscape, Bouts made a substantial contribution to the development of the portrait. His Portrait of a Man (1462) localizes the sitter in an enlarged architectural setting while permitting the interior space to merge with the exterior through an open window. For the first time in Northern painting a common bond was forged between a particularized individual and the universal world of nature.
GRIMMER, Abel
Flemish Baroque Era Painter, ca.1570-C.1619 Son of Jacob Grimmer. He married Catharina Lescornet on 29 September 1591 and in 1592 became a master in the Antwerp Guild of St Luke. He is principally known for his numerous small paintings of country scenes, sometimes with a biblical theme, which often form part of a series of the Four Seasons or the Months of the Year. Some of these paintings were inspired by or even copied from prints by Pieter Bruegel I and Hans Bol, both of whose work strongly influenced Abel, even more so than did the example of his father's work, which was also an important source of inspiration. Abel's series of the Twelve Months (1592; Montfaucon-en-Velay, Haute-Loire, Chapelle Notre-Dame) are exact copies of Adriaen Collaert's prints after Hans Bol (Hollstein: Dut. & Flem., iv, nos 523-34), published by Hans van Luyck ( fl c. 1580-85) in 1585. Spring and Summer (Antwerp, Kon. Mus. S. Kst.) are almost exact copies of two prints by Pieter van der Heyden
John Frederick Lewis
1805-1876 British John Frederick Lewis Gallery John Frederick Lewis (July 14, 1805 ?C August 15, 1876) was an Orientalist English painter. He specialized in Oriental and Mediterranean scenes and often worked in exquisitely detailed watercolour. He was the son of Frederick Christian Lewis (1779-1856), engraver and landscape-painter. Lewis lived in Spain between 1832 and 1834. He lived in Cairo between 1841 and 1850, where he made numerous sketches that he turned into paintings even after his return to England in 1851. He lived in Walton-on-Thames until his death. Lewis became an Associate of the Royal Academy (ARA) in 1859 and a member (an RA) in 1865. After being largely forgotten for decades, he became extremely fashionable, and expensive, from the 1970s and good works now fetch prices into the millions of dollars or pounds at auction.