1597-1665 Dutch Pieter Jansz Saenredam Gallery Saenredam was the son of the print maker and draughtsman Jan Pietersz Saenredam (1565-1607), who was born in Zaandam or, in those days, Saenredam. In 1612 he moved to Haarlem, where he became a pupil of Frans de Grebber and lived the rest of his life. A contemporary of Rembrandt, he is noted chiefly for his surprisingly modern paintings of churches. Saenredam achieved this modern look by meticulously measuring and making sketches of the churches he wanted to paint. He would make these sketches in pencil, pen, and chalk, then and add in water colors to help give the sketch texture and color. The sketches are very architectural in detail, they convey the interior atmosphere through the clever use of light and graduated shadows. Saenredam often deliberately left people out of his work, thus also focusing more attention on buildings and their architectural forms. Only after having made precise measurements, and precise sketches and drawings of the churches, he would take them to his studio where he started to create his paintings. The Reformation led to a rise in Protestant art, of which Saenredam??s Interior of the St. Martin's Dom in Utrecht is an example. As a Catholic church the Dom had been built with adornments. Then, in the epoch of the Eighty Years War and with the church getting in Protestant hands, it was ??cleaned?? of Catholic influences. The altarpieces and statuary were removed, and the walls and ceiling were white washed. The painting shows the church not long after its make-over. The sparse interior with illuminated corridors reflect Protestant ideals, new for Saenredam's time. Alternatively, the paintings of church interiors by Saenredam and other 17th century Dutch painters have been interpreted as having less to do with religion and more with the new-found interest in perspective and with the Dutch interpretation (known as Dutch Classicism) of Palladio??s theories of proportion, balance and symmetry. In any case, Saenredam wanted to memorialize his country during this time of change by documenting many of the country??s buildings. Many artists before him had specialized in imaginary and fanciful architecture, but Saenredam was the first to focus on existing buildings. According to the J. Paul Getty Trust ??Saenredam??s church paintings??owe their poetry to his remarkable blend of fact and fiction. He began by making site drawings of buildings that record measurements and detail with archaeological thoroughness.?? This meticulous preparation helped him to create such accurate and enchanting paintings. The measurements aided him in using scientific linear perspective, just like Andrea Pozzo. He was able to use his measurements to create a realistic image with depth. The Utrecht Archives houses a large number of Saenredam's drawings. In the season 2000-2001 the Centraal Museum at Utrecht held a major exhibition of his drawings and paintings. Perhaps his best known works are a pair of oil paintings both titled Interior of the Buurkerk, Utrecht. One hangs in London's National Gallery, the other in the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, Texas. In their simplicity and semi-abstract formalism, they foreshadow more modern works such as those of Mondrian and Feininger.  Related Paintings of Pieter Jansz Saenredam :. | The Buurkerk at Utrecht | The Old Town Hall in Amsterdam | Interior of the Choir of Saint Bavo's Church at Haarlem. | interior of the st.bavo church,haarlem | Church Interior in Utrecht |
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Maksymilian Gierymski
Gierymski (Warsaw 1846 - Reichenhall, Bavaria 1874) was a Polish painter, specializing mainly in watercolours. He was the older brother of painter Aleksander Gierymski. As a seventeen-years-old boy, he participated in the January Uprising. He was educated at the Warsaw Drawing School initially, but then received a government scholarship in 1867 and went to study at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich. He became one of the leading painters of the Munich realistic school. Initially best known for this battle paintings, he also created many landscape paintings, especially of southern Poland, which he visited several times. Successful western Europe completely, he did not gain approval nor popularity in Poland of the 19th century, although he sent paintings to exhibitions in Warsaw regularly from 1968 on. He did however win awards at exhibitions in Munich (1869) and in Berlin (1872).
Sebastiano Conca
Italian Baroque Era Painter , 1680-1764 was an Italian painter. He was born at Gaeta, then part of the Kingdom of Naples, and apprenticed in Naples under Francesco Solimena. In 1706, along with his brother Giovanni, who acted as his assistant, he settled at Rome, where for several years he worked in chalk only, to improve his drawing. He was patronized by the Cardinal Ottoboni, who introduced him to Clement XI, who commissioned a well-received Jeremiah painted for the church of St. John Lateran. Conca was knighted by the pope. He collaborated with Carlo Maratta in the Coronation of Santa Cecilia in the namesake's church of Santa Cecilia in Trastevere (1721-24). He was elected in 1718 to the Accademia di San Luca and its director in 1729-1731 and 1739-1741. His painting was strongly influenced by the Baroque painter Luca Giordano. Among Conca's pupils were Pompeo Battoni, Andrea Casali, Placido Campoli, Corrado Giaquinto, Gaetano Lapis, Salvatore Monosilio, Literio Paladini, Drancesco Preziao, Rosalba Maria Salvioni, Gasparo Serenari, and Agostino Masucci, He received widespread official acclaim and patronage. He worked for a time for the Savoy family in Turin on the Oratory of San Filippo and Santa Teresa, in the Venaria (1721-1725), for Basilica di Superga (1726), and Royal Palace (1733). He painted frescoes of Probatica, or Pool of Siloam, in the Ospedale di Santa Maria della Scala (hospital) of Siena. In Genoa, he painted large allegorical canvases of the Palazzo Lomellini-Doria (1738-1740). In 1739, he published a guide to painting: Ammonimenti (or Admonishments), which blended moralistic advice with technique. He returned to Naples in 1752, and enjoyed the royal patronage of Charles III.
Friedrich August von Kaulbach
(2 June 1850, Hannover - 26 July 1920, Munich, Germany) was a German portraitist and historical painter. He was the son of Theodor Friedrich Wilhelm Christian Kaulbach (1822 - 1903), the court painter at Hannover, and the great nephew of Wilhelm Kaulbach, another prominent member of the Kaulbach family of artists. He learned to paint from his father, and later was a student of August von Kreling at Nuremberg. He sought to emulate the artist Hans Holbein.