Italian Early Renaissance Painter, ca.1422-1492 Italian painter and theorist. His work is the embodiment of rational, calm, monumental painting in the Italian Early Renaissance, an age in which art and science were indissolubly linked through the writings of Leon Battista Alberti. Born two generations before Leonardo da Vinci, Piero was similarly interested in the scientific application of the recently discovered rules of perspective to narrative or devotional painting, especially in fresco, of which he was an imaginative master; and although he was less universally creative than Leonardo and worked in an earlier idiom, he was equally keen to experiment with painting technique. Piero was as adept at resolving problems in Euclid, whose modern rediscovery is largely due to him, as he was at creating serene, memorable figures, whose gestures are as telling and spare as those in the frescoes of Giotto or Masaccio. His tactile, gravely convincing figures are also indebted to the sculpture of Donatello, an equally attentive observer of Classical antiquity. In his best works, such as the frescoes in the Bacci Chapel in S Francesco, Arezzo, there is an ideal balance between his serene, classical compositions and the figures that inhabit them, the whole depicted in a distinctive and economical language. In his autograph works Piero was a perfectionist, creating precise, logical and light-filled images (although analysis of their perspective schemes shows that these were always subordinated to narrative effect). However, he often delegated important passages of works (e.g. the Arezzo frescoes) to an ordinary, even incompetent, assistant.   Related Paintings of Piero della Francesca :. | Portrait of Sigismondo Malatesta (mk05) | details from the baptism of chist | Polyptych of the Misericordia: Sts Sebastian and John the Baptist | Details of St.Simon the apostle | the legend of the true cross, detail |
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Elihu Vedder
American Symbolist Painter, 1836-1923 American painter, illustrator, sculptor and writer. He studied under Tompkins Harrison Matteson in Shelbourne, NY, and went to Paris in March 1856. After eight months in the studio of Fran?ois-Edouard Picot, he settled in Florence until the end of 1860. There he learnt drawing from Raffaello Bonaiuti, became interested in the Florentine Renaissance and attended the free Accademia Galli. A more significant artistic inspiration came from the Italian artists at the Caff? Michelangiolo: Telemaco Signorini, Vincenzo Cabianca (1827-1902) and especially Nino Costa (1827-1902). This group sought new and untraditional pictorial solutions for their compositions and plein-air landscapes and were particularly interested in the experiences of Gustave Courbet and the Barbizon painters. They became known as Macchiaioli for their use of splashes (macchia) of light and shadows and for their revolutionary (maquis) attitude to prevailing styles. Among Vedder's most notable Florentine landscapes are Mugnone Torrent near Fiesole (Detroit, MI, Inst. A.) and Le Balze, Volterra (Washington, DC, N. Mus. Amer. A.)
Cornelis de Heem
Dutch Baroque Era Painter, 1631-1695 Son of Jan Davidsz. de Heem. He spent a great deal of his life in Antwerp, where he was taught by his father. Cornelis also worked in Utrecht in 1667, in nearby IJsselstein in 1676 and in The Hague from 1676 for more than ten years. His best works approach the quality of his father, particularly in works executed during the decade starting in 1655. Cornelis still-lifes can be distinguished by daring colour harmonies, sometimes with a strong blue. His compositions are often simpler: fruit-pieces, floral bouquets, festoons and garlands and sumptuous still-lifes, only occasionally in large formats. His technique changed from a more painterly to a more graphic style.
Giandomenico Tiepolo
Italian Rococo Era Painter , Venice 1727 - 1804 was a painter and printmaker in etching, son of artist Giovanni Battista Tiepolo and elder brother of Lorenzo Baldissera Tiepolo. Domenico was born in Venice, studied under his father, and by the age of 13 was the chief assistant to him. He was one of the many assistants, including Lorenzo, that transferred the designs of his father (executed in the 'oil sketch' invented by the same). By the age of 20, he was producing his own work for commissioners. He assisted his father in Werzburg 1751-3, decorating the famous stairwell fresco, in Vicenza at the Villa Valmarana in 1757,