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 :. | polyptych of saint augustine | Saint Jerome and a Donor | the legend of the true cross, detail | Polyptych of the Misericordia | Portrait of Duke Frederico da Montefello and Battista Sfozza |
Related Artists:
Pignoni, Simone
Italian, 1611-98 Italian painter and draughtsman. He is best known for his many pictures of voluptuous female nudes, which developed the morbidly sensual style of Francesco Furini. His Self-portrait (c. 1650; Florence, Uffizi), in which he depicts himself building up a rounded female form from a skeleton, conveys his fascination with the subject. He had an early education in Latin, followed by an apprenticeship in the workshop of the bookbinder Zanobi Pignoni, a close relative. Domenico Passignano, who frequented the workshop, suggested that Pignoni be apprenticed to Fabrizio Boschi (1570-1642), one of his own former pupils. Pignoni began to study under Boschi
Jacques Le Moyne de Morgues
French painter, illustrator and explorer. c.1533 -1588 French painter, illustrator and explorer, also active in Florida and London. In April 1564 he sailed with Ren? de Laudonni?re as artist of the Huguenot expedition to Florida. In September 1565 the Spaniards overran the colony, but he escaped and returned to France. By c. 1580 he had settled in Blackfriars, London, 'for religion' and received letters of denization on 12 May 1581. He later came into contact with Sir Walter Ralegh and his colonizing circle and with John White, the artist of the first English colony of Virginia, with whom he exchanged ideas and perhaps collaborated. Ralegh commissioned him to illustrate the Florida enterprise, and Le Moyne produced an account Brevis narratio eorum quae in Florida
Aelst, Willem van
Dutch Baroque Era Painter, 1627-ca.1683 Studied under Otto Marseus van Schrieck. Students included Rachel Ruysch. Specializes in Still Life. was a Dutch artist who specialized in still-life painting with flowers or game. Van Aelst was born to a family of prominent city magistrates. He learned to paint from his uncle, the still-life painter Evert van Aelst. On 9 November 1643 he enrolled as a master of the Guild of Saint Luke at Delft. Between 1645 and 1649 he lived in France. In 1649 Van Aelst travelled to Florence, where he served as court painter to Ferdinand II de Medici, grand duke of Tuscany. At this time, the grand duke also employed two fellow Dutchmen Matthias Withoos and Otto Marseus van Schrieck, the latter also a still-life painter who probably influenced Van Aelst's style. In 1656 he returned to the Netherlands to settle permanently in Amsterdam. He became one of the most prominent still-life painters of his generation,