British 1723-1792 Sir Joshua Reynolds Locations Reynolds was born in Plympton, Devon, on 16 July 1723. As one of eleven children, and the son of the village school-master, Reynolds was restricted to a formal education provided by his father. He exhibited a natural curiosity and, as a boy, came under the influence of Zachariah Mudge, whose Platonistic philosophy stayed with him all his life. Showing an early interest in art, Reynolds was apprenticed in 1740 to the fashionable portrait painter Thomas Hudson, with whom he remained until 1743. From 1749 to 1752, he spent over two years in Italy, where he studied the Old Masters and acquired a taste for the "Grand Style". Unfortunately, whilst in Rome, Reynolds suffered a severe cold which left him partially deaf and, as a result, he began to carry a small ear trumpet with which he is often pictured. From 1753 until the end of his life he lived in London, his talents gaining recognition soon after his arrival in France. Reynolds worked long hours in his studio, rarely taking a holiday. He was both gregarious and keenly intellectual, with a great number of friends from London's intelligentsia, numbered amongst whom were Dr Samuel Johnson, Oliver Goldsmith, Edmund Burke, Giuseppe Baretti, Henry Thrale, David Garrick and fellow artist Angelica Kauffmann. Because of his popularity as a portrait painter, Reynolds enjoyed constant interaction with the wealthy and famous men and women of the day, and it was he who first brought together the famous figures of "The" Club. With his rival Thomas Gainsborough, Reynolds was the dominant English portraitist of 'the Age of Johnson'. It is said that in his long life he painted as many as three thousand portraits. In 1789 he lost the sight of his left eye, which finally forced him into retirement. In 1791 James Boswell dedicated his Life of Samuel Johnson to Reynolds. Reynolds died on 23 February 1792 in his house in Leicester Fields, London. He is buried in St. Paul's Cathedral.  Related Paintings of Sir Joshua Reynolds :. | British actress | commodore augustus keppel | Portrait of George Anson | lord rockingham and his secretary, edmund burke | Captain the Honourable Augustus Keppel |
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Peder Balke
Peter Andersen was born on the island of Helgøya, in Hedmark county, Norway. He grew up Ringsaker, but stayed in the 1820s on the Balke farm in Toten in Oppland county. Farmers in Toten paid his education, and as thanks he decorated several of the farms in Toten on his return. They actively encouraged his painting activities and later supported him in higher education. In the autumn of 1827, Balke served as an apprentice to Heinrich August Grosch. he was also a student at the Tegneskole under Grosch and Jacob Munch. Balke signed a two year contract as an apprentice at the Danish decoration and artist Jens Funch. From autumn 1829 to spring 1833, he was a pupil of Carl Johan Fahlcrantz at the art academy in Stockholm. Balke was also a pupil of Johan Christian Dahl from 1843 to 1844. During the summer of 1830 he walked through Telemark, Rjukan, Vestfjorddalen over Røldal and Kinsarvik to Bergen, and then back over Vossevangen to Gudvangen, further over Fillefjell to Valdres and thence across the mountains to Hallingdal. All the way he painted and drew small sketches that were later developed into paintings. He also traveled to Germany, and Russia. He visited Paris and London. In Stockholm, he completed several of the paintings he had outlined of his Finnmark tour. Some of these were sold to the royal family. In 1846 he sold thirty of his paintings to Louis-Philippe of France for Versailles. Besides the 17 paintings in the National Gallery in Oslo, Peder Balke also is represented at several major art collections in Norway and Sweden.
Pieter Jansz Saenredam
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.
BAILLY, David
Dutch Baroque Era Painter, 1584-1657 Dutch painter and draughtsman. The son of a Flemish immigrant who was a calligrapher and fencing-master, Bailly was apprenticed to a local surgeon-painter and then to Cornelius van der Voort (1576-1624), a portrait painter in Amsterdam. In the winter of 1608 he started out as a journeyman, spending a year in Hamburg and then travelling through several German cities to Venice and Rome. On the return voyage he visited several courts in Germany, working for local princes, including the Duke of Brunswick-Wolfenb?ttel. While no works survive from the immediate period following his return to the Netherlands in 1613, descriptions in old sale catalogues suggest that he may have produced history paintings in the manner of his contemporaries Pieter Lastman and the Pynas brothers.