Italian 1494-1557 Jacopo Pontormo Galleries Italian painter and draughtsman. He was the leading painter in mid-16th-century Florence and one of the most original and extraordinary of Mannerist artists. His eccentric personality, solitary and slow working habits and capricious attitude towards his patrons are described by Vasari; his own diary, which covers the years 1554-6, further reveals a character with neurotic and secretive aspects. Pontormo enjoyed the protection of the Medici family throughout his career but, unlike Agnolo Bronzino and Giorgio Vasari, did not become court painter. His subjective portrait style did not lend itself to the state portrait. He produced few mythological works and after 1540 devoted himself almost exclusively to religious subjects. His drawings, mainly figure studies in red and black chalk, are among the highest expressions of the great Florentine tradition of draughtsmanship; close to 400 survive, forming arguably the most important body of drawings by a Mannerist painter. His highly personal style was much influenced by Michelangelo, though he also drew on northern art, primarily the prints of Albrecht Derer.  Related Paintings of Jacopo Pontormo :. | Cosimo de Medici the Elder | St Quentin | Portrat einer Dame mit Spindelkorbchen | The Expulsion from Earthly Paradise | Saint Matthew |
Related Artists:
NEER, Eglon van der
Dutch Baroque Era Painter, ca.1634-1703 Son of Aert van der Neer. His birth date is based on Houbraken's statement that the artist was 70 years old when he died. He apparently studied first with his father and then with the genre and history painter Jacob van Loo. According to Houbraken, van der Neer was in France c. 1654, where he served as painter to the Counts of Dona, Dutch governors of the principality of Orange. He returned to Holland by 1659 and is recorded as a resident of Amsterdam at the time of his marriage to Maria van Wagensvelt in Rotterdam on 20 February 1659.
Anton Graff
1736-1813 Swiss painter, active in Germany. He was a pupil of Johann Ulrich Schellenburg (1709-95) in Winterthur and continued his training with Johann Jakob Haid in Augsburg between 1756 and 1765. He worked for the court painter Leonhard Schneider (1716-62) in Ansbach from 1757 to 1759, producing large numbers of copies of a portrait of Frederick the Great (probably by Antoine Pesne). This was an important step in furthering his career, as were the months he spent in Regensburg (1764-5) painting miniatures of clerics and town councillors. He was court painter to the Elector Frederick-Christian of Saxe-Weimar in Dresden from 1766 and taught at the Hochschule der Bildende K?nste there. In 1771 he travelled to Berlin, where he painted portraits of Jakob Mendelssohn, Gotthold Ephraim Lessing and J. G. Sulzer. Sulzer introduced him at court, which resulted in many commissions. He was invited several times to teach at the Akademie der K?nste in Berlin, but he remained in Dresden. He often travelled to Leipzig, and in summer he frequently went to Teplitz (now Teplice, Czech Republic) and Karlsbad
Bon Boullogne
(bapt. February 22, 1649 - May 17, 1717) was a French painter. Boullogne was born in Paris, a son of the painter Louis Boullogne;[1] he was regarded as the most gifted of his children. He took his first lessons from his father, whom he is thought to have assisted in the Grande Galerie of the Louvre. Through his father, who presented a half-length figure of St John by Bon to Jean-Baptiste Colbert, Contrôleur General des Finances, he was sent to the Academie de France in Rome as a Pensionnaire du Roi. In this capacity, he made copies of famous works, in particular some frescoes by Raphael in the Vatican Loggie, intended for reproduction as Gobelins tapestries. The period he then spent in Lombardy helped to complete his training. He studied the work of Antonio da Correggio and the Annibale Carracci, as well as Guido Reni, Domenichino and Francesco Albani. Bones painting, especially the mythological work, shows great affinities with the work of the Bolognese school, which was also to be found in the royal collections. Also of influence to Bon was Nordic art, as demonstrated in his female portraits framed by plant like motifs, a device taken up by his pupil Robert Tournieres. He died in Paris.