Italian Early Renaissance Painter, 1445-1510
Italian painter and draughtsman. In his lifetime he was one of the most esteemed painters in Italy, enjoying the patronage of the leading families of Florence, in particular the Medici and their banking clients. He was summoned to take part in the decoration of the Sistine Chapel in Rome, was highly commended by diplomatic agents to Ludovico Sforza in Milan and Isabella d Este in Mantua and also received enthusiastic praise from the famous mathematician Luca Pacioli and the humanist poet Ugolino Verino. By the time of his death, however, Botticelli s reputation was already waning. He was overshadowed first by the advent of what Vasari called the maniera devota, a new style by Perugino, Francesco Francia and the young Raphael, whose new and humanly affective sentiment, infused atmospheric effects and sweet colourism took Italy by storm; he was then eclipsed with the establishment immediately afterwards of the High Renaissance style, which Vasari called the modern manner, in the paintings of Michelangelo and the mature works of Raphael in the Vatican. From that time his name virtually disappeared until the reassessment of his reputation that gathered momentum in the 1890s Related Paintings of Sandro Botticelli :. | Man in a short black tunic,standing on the right | Bardi Altarpiece (mk36) | Trials of Christ | St.Augustine in His Study | Miracles of Saint Zenobius | Related Artists:
John sell cotmanEnglish Romantic Painter, 1782-1842
English painter and etcher. Cotman was born in the parish of St Mary Coslany, Norwich, the son of Edmund Cotman, a hairdresser, later a haberdasher, and Ann Sell. In 1793 he entered Norwich Grammar School as a 'freeplacer'. In 1798 he moved to London, where he worked as an assistant to the publisher Rudolph Ackermann. Following in the footsteps of Turner and Thomas Girtin he joined Dr Monro's 'Academy' in 1799 and became a member of the sketching society that had developed around the personality and talent of Girtin.
HOLBEIN, AmbrosiusGerman Northern Renaissance Painter, 1494-ca.1519
Painter, draughtsman and designer of woodcuts, son of Hans Holbein. In the drawing of Ambrosius and Hans Holbein the Younger (1511; Berlin, Kupferstichkab.) by their father, Hans's age is given as 14, and although that of Ambrosius cannot be read clearly, he appears to have been the elder brother. In 1514 he was probably working near the Bodensee, and a Virgin and Child (Basle, Kstmus.), with the coat of arms of Johann von Botzheim, Canon of Konstanz Cathedral (c. 1480-1535), appears to be his work. In 1515 he was working as a journeyman to the painter Thomas Schmid (c. 1480-c. 1550-60) on the decoration of the abbot's Festsaal in the Benedictine St Georgkloster at Stein-am-Rhein, which included allegorical figures of women, one of which, Death with a Female Lute-player (in situ), is signed AH. Also in 1515 he joined his brother Hans in Basle, where together they decorated with marginal drawings (1515-16) the copy of Erasmus's Praise of Folly (Basle, Kstmus.) belonging to the schoolmaster Myconius (Oswald Geissh?sler; d 1552); the distinction between the hands of the two brothers can be made only on stylistic grounds. They also painted a school sign for Myconius, each apparently working on a different side. On 25 July 1516 Ambrosius was recorded staying in the house of the painter Hans Herbst, in whose workshop he may have been employed. On 14 February 1517 he was enrolled in the Basle painters' guild, and on 5 June 1518 he became a citizen of the city. Numerous woodcut designs executed for Basle printers from 1517 onwards and signed with Ambrosius Holbein's initials survive, most of which are set in architectural frameworks inspired by the Italian Renaissance,
Reinhold Begas1831-1911 Berlin,was a German sculptor. Begas was born in Berlin to the painter Karl Begas. He received his early education (1846-1851) studying under Christian Daniel Rauch and Ludwig Wilhelm Wichmann. During a period of study in Italy, from 1856 to 1858, he was influenced by Arnold Bocklin and Franz Lenbach in the direction of a naturalistic style in sculpture. This tendency was marked in the group Borussia, executed for the facade of the exchange in Berlin, which first brought him into general notice. In 1861 Begas was appointed professor at the art school at Weimar, but retained the appointment only a few months. That he was chosen, after competition, to execute the statue of Schiller for the Gendarmenmarkt in Berlin, was a high tribute to the fame he had already acquired; and the result, one of the finest statues in the German metropolis, entirely justified his selection. Since the year 1870, Begas dominated the plastic art in the Kingdom of Prussia, but especially in Berlin. Among his chief works during this period are the colossal statue of Borussia for the Hall of Glory; the Neptune fountain in bronze on the Schlossplatz; the statue of Alexander von Humboldt, all in Berlin; the sarcophagus of Emperor Frederick III in the mausoleum of the Church of Peace at Potsdam