(September 19, 1772, Valencia, Spain CJuly 22, 1850, Madrid, Spain) was a Spanish painter, considered the best portrait painter of his time. Vicente Lepez y Portaña was born in Valencia on September 19, 1772. His parents were Cristebal Lepez Sanchordi and Manuela Portaña Meer. Vicente Lepez began formally studying painting in Valencia at the age of thirteen, he was a disciple of father Antonio de Villanueva, a Franciscan monk, and he studied at the Academy of San Carlos in his native city. He was seventeen when he won first prize in drawing and coloring receiving a scholarship to study in the prestigious Academia Real de Bellas Artes de San Fernando in Madrid. For the following three years in Madrid, he apprenticed with the Valencian painter, Mariano Salvador Maella. Vicente Lepez returned to Valencia in 1794 and subsequently became vice-director of painting at the Academy where he had studied as a boy. In 1795 he married Maria Piquer, they had two sons: Bernardo Lepez Piquer and Luis (1802-1865), who were also painters, following their father's style but with little accomplishments. In 1801 Lepez was named President of the Academy of San Carlos.  Related Paintings of Vicente Lopez y Portana :. | Portrait of Charles IV of Spain | King Charles IV of Spain and his family pay a visit to the University of Valencia in 1802 | Ramon Maria Narvaez | La infanta Luisa Carlota de Borbon | Portrat des Francisco de Goya |
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WTEWAEL, Joachim
Dutch painter (b. 1566, Utrecht, d. 1638, Utrecht). Dutch painter and draughtsman. He was one of the last exponents of MANNERISM. From c. 1590 until 1628, the year of his latest known dated paintings, he employed such typical Mannerist formal devices as brilliant decorative colour, contrived spatial design and contorted poses. He sometimes combined such artifice with naturalism, and this amalgam represents the two approaches Dutch 16th- and 17th-century theorists discussed as uyt den geest ('from the imagination') and naer 't leven ('after life'). Wtewael's activity reflects the transition from Mannerism to a more naturalistic style in Dutch art. Slightly over 100 of his paintings and about 80 drawings are known. Subjects from the Bible and mythology predominate;
Arkady Rylov
(Russian: 29 January 1870 - June 22, 1939) was a Russian and Soviet Symbolist painter. Rylov was born in the village Istobenskoye, Vyatka gubernia. He was brought in the family of his stepfather, a notary (Rylov's father had a psychiatric illness). He moved to Saint Petersburg and studied at the Technical Design School of Baron Schtiglitz (1888-1891), then at the Imperial Academy of Arts under Arkhip Kuindzhi (1894-1897). Rylov was a member of the Mir iskusstva movement and its spin-off Union of Russian Artists also a member of the Association of Artists of the Revolutionary Russia. He was a chairman of the Kuindzhi Society. He started as a historical painter (his graduation work in the Imperial Academy of Arts was Assault of Pechenegs on a Slav village but became a predominately landscape painter. Still many of his paintings have some allusions with Russian history. Many of his landscapes painted after the October Revolution were seen as symbols of the revolutionary Freedom. At that time he also painted some typical Socialist Realism compositions like Lenin in Razliv. He taught in the Academy of Arts. In his studio he created almost a small nature reserve. There lived squirrels, rabbits, monkey Manka and many wild birds (without cages) and two anthills. According to Mikhail Nesterov wild animals and birds loved Rylov and often came to his studio.
Lear, Edward
English Painter and Illustrator, 1818-1888 English painter, draughtsman, illustrator and writer. In the 1860s Lear described himself as 'Greek Topographical Painter par excellence', aspiring to the title of 'Painter-Laureate and Boshproducing-Luminary forthwith' (quoted in 1983 exh. cat., p. 14). This whimsical summary of his versatile activities as topographical draughtsman, oil painter, traveller, writer and illustrator of nonsense rhymes and stories is typical of Lear's idiosyncratic literary style. It reflected his eccentric personality. He was epileptic and prone to fits of deep depression. In addition, owing to family misfortunes,