1599-1660,Spanish painter. He was apprenticed to Francisco Herrera the Elder before being trained by Francisco Pacheco. His early works were mostly religious or genre scenes. After arriving in Madrid in 1623, he painted a portrait of Philip IV that won him immediate success and an appointment as court painter. His position gave him access to the royal collections, including works by Titian, who exerted the greatest influence on his style. In his portraits from this period, only the faces and hands of the figures are accentuated, and the dark figures stand out against a light background. A visit to Italy (1629 ?C 31) further developed his style, and on his return to Madrid he entered his most productive period. Velazquez created a new type of informal royal portrait for Philip hunting lodge, and his portraits of court dwarfs display the same discerning eye as those of his royal subjects. On a second visit to Rome (1649 ?C 51) he painted a portrait of Pope Innocent X. The powerful head, brilliant combinations of crimson of the curtain, chair, and cope are painted with fluent technique and almost imperceptible brushstrokes that go far beyond the late manner of Titian and announce the last stage in Velazquez development. This portrait was copied innumerable times and won him immediate and lasting renown in Italy. In his last years he created his masterpiece, Las Meninas (The Maids of Honour, 1656). In this casual scene, the artist is shown painting the king and queen in the presence of the infanta Margarita and her attendants; the nearly life size figures are painted in more or less detail according to their relation to the central figure of the infanta and to the source of light, creating a remarkable illusion of reality never surpassed by Velazquez or any other artist of his age. He is universally acknowledged as one of the giants of Western art.   Related Paintings of Velasquez :. | Jesus and Maria Mada at home | Our Lady of Dai Guanzhong map | Carlos Prince Buster | In Austria Duke Varser | The Warter-seller of Seville |
Related Artists:
Barocci, Federico
Italian, 1535-1612 .Italian painter. The leading altar painter in Italy in the second half of the 16th century, he enjoyed a greater popularity and exerted a more profound influence on the art of his time than any of his contemporaries. His patrons included the Pope, Emperor, King of Spain and Grand Duke of Tuscany, and among his admirers were Lodovico Cigoli, Annibale Carracci, Rubens and Guido Reni. However, his work did not begin to receive the acclaim accorded that of Tintoretto or El Greco until the mid-20th century. Several factors have obscured his importance, notably the relative inaccessibility and scarcity of his painted works, most of which were done on commission for specific locations in remote parts of Italy (where they have remained), and the type of painting he produced, which was almost exclusively devoted to religious subjects. He executed very few easel paintings. No autograph example of his painted work has ever left Europe, the portrait of Quintilia Fischieri (c. 1600; Washington, DC, N.G.A.) and pair of portraits of Federigo Ubaldo, Prince of Urbino
Edwaert Collier
Dutch 1640-1706 Evert Collier was born about 1640 in Breda, Noord-Brabant, and died in 1708. He is believed to have trained in Haarlem, as his earliest paintings show the influence of Pieter Claesz and Vincent Laurensz van der Vinne. By 1667, he had moved to Leiden, where he became a member of the Guild of St. Luke in 1673. He moved to Amsterdam by 1686 and to London in 1693. He was buried September 8, 1708 at St. James, Piccadilly. The Denver Art Museum, the Honolulu Academy of Arts, the National Portrait Gallery (United Kingdom), the Rijksmuseum (Amsterdam) and the Tate (London) are among the public collections having paintings by Evert Collier.
Frans van Mieris
Dutch Baroque Era Painter, 1635-1681