Featured Artist at the e.Gallery: Rogier van der Weyden


Portrait

Featured Artist at the e.Gallery this week is a 15th Century artist, Rogier van der Weyden [Flemish, 1399?-1464] Link: https://fineart.elib.com/fineart.php?dir=Alphabetical/Weyden_Rogier_van_der

Rogier van der Weyden (1399/1400–1464), was a South-Netherlandish painter, chronologically halfway up the list of mediaeval West-European innovators, ranking between Jan van Eyck and Hugo van der Goes, known as the Flemish primitives.

Rogier van der Weyden was born Rogier de la Pasture in Doornik (Tournai). As far as we know, he entered late into the services of master painter Robert Campin, in 1427, a year after marrying Elizabeth Goffaert.

His career took off quickly after that. In 1432 he established himself as a master in Doornik, rising to the position of Brussels City Painter in 1435. From that day on he only worked under his Flemish name. There are clues that he stayed in Bruges between 1432 and 1435; whatever the case, the influence of Van Eyck on his work is clearly felt. Brussels at the time was a good place to work in as it was quickly developing into a regional center.

In the Holy Year of 1450 Van der Weyden traveled to Rome. Along the way he composed several works for the Medici family in Florence.

Van der Weyden painted mostly religious themes – with the exception of several portraits his worldly work has been lost. He never signed his work, so art historians to this day are trying to discover which works are his. Most likely he ran a workshop with a large number of assistants and students.

Characteristic of his work are the clear composition and the lively use of colors, in which he incorporated much symbolism. His altarpieces are considered his highlights, including the Descent from the Cross and the multitych with the Last Judgment in Beaune, where he tried to rival Van Eyck’s Lamb of God. Van der Weyden strongly influenced later painters, among whom his student Hans Memling.

Rogier van der Weyden died in Brussels in 1464, where he was buried in the St. Gudula Church, now known as the St. Michael’s Cathedral. He was reasonably prosperous and renowned during his life. For at least half a century his style was much imitated.


thumbnail of HA06-020.jpg
Saint Luke Drawing the Virgin

thumbnail of HA06-019.jpg
The Descent from the Cross

thumbnail of HA06-021.jpg
St. Columba Altarpiece, center panel Adoration by the Three Wise Men

thumbnail of magdalen.jpg
Braque Family Triptych Right Panel

Continue reading

Featured Artist at the e.Gallery: Rogier van der Weyden


Portrait

Featured Artist at the e.Gallery this week is a 15th Century artist, Rogier van der Weyden [Flemish, 1399?-1464] Link: http://fineart.elib.com/fineart.php?dir=Alphabetical/Weyden_Rogier_van_der

Rogier van der Weyden (1399/1400–1464), was a South-Netherlandish painter, chronologically halfway up the list of mediaeval West-European innovators, ranking between Jan van Eyck and Hugo van der Goes, known as the Flemish primitives.


thumbnail of Annunc.jpg
The Annunciation

thumbnail of d_este.jpg
Francesco d’Este

thumbnail of magdalen.jpg
Braque Family Triptych Right Panel

thumbnail of lady.jpg
Portrait of a Lady

Continue reading

Featured Artist at the e.Gallery: Gentile Massi


Portrait

Featured Artist at the e.Gallery this week is a 15th Century artist, Gentile Massi [Italian, 1370?-?1427] Link: http://fineart.elib.com/fineart.php?dir=Alphabetical/Massi_Gentile

Italian painter in the International Gothic style. Originally named Gentile di Niccolò di Giovanni di Massio, he was named after his birthplace, Fabriano in the Marches. He carried out important commissions in several major Italian art centres and was recognized as one of the foremost artists of his day, but most of the work on which his great contemporary reputation was based has been destroyed. It included frescos in the Doges’ Palace in Venice (1408) and for St John Lateran in Rome (1427). In between he worked in Florence, Siena, and Orvieto.


thumbnail of presenta.jpg
Presentation of Christ in the Temple

thumbnail of saints.jpg
Four Saints of the Poliptych Quaratesi

thumbnail of altarpiece.jpg
Pilgrims at the Tomb of St Nicholas of Bari

thumbnail of adoratio.jpg
The Adoration of the Magi

Continue reading

Featured Artist at the e.Gallery: Fra Filippo Lippi


Portrait

Featured Artist at the e.Gallery this week is a 15th Century artist of the Early Renaissance movement, Fra Filippo Lippi [Florentine, 1406-1469] Link: http://fineart.elib.com/fineart.php?dir=Alphabetical/Lippi_Fra_Filippo

The Italian painter Fra Filippo Lippi (ca. 1406–1469) was an important link between the early and late 15th-century Florentine painters. He was born in Florence and took his vows in 1421 in the monastery S. Maria del Carmine, where Masaccio frescoed the Brancacci Chapel in the church (1426–1427). By 1430 Lippi is mentioned in church documents as “painter.” Masaccio’s influence, as well as Donatello’s, can be seen in Lippi’s early works, such as the Tarquinia Madonna of 1437 (National Gallery, Rome) and the Annunciation (S. Lorenzo, Florence) and Barbadori Altar (Louvre, Paris), both begun in 1437–1438. However, the severity of Masaccio and Donatello was mitigated by Lippi, who was instrumental in salvaging from the Gothic past the lyrical expressiveness of a linear mode which Masaccio had all but given up for modeling in chiaroscuro.


thumbnail of madonna_lippi.jpg
Madonna and Child with Two Angels

thumbnail of annunci2.jpg
The Annunciation

thumbnail of annuncia.jpg
Annunciation with two Kneeling Donors

thumbnail of madlouvr.jpg
Virgin and Child Surrounded by Angels, St. Frediano and St. Augustine

Continue reading

Featured Artist at the e.Gallery: Fra Angelico


Portrait

Featured Artist at the e.Gallery this week is a 15th Century artist, Fra Angelico [Italian, 1387-1455] Link: http://fineart.elib.com/fineart.php?dir=Alphabetical/Fra_Angelico

Fra Angelico (Fra Giovanni da Fiesole) (Guido di Pietro) (c. 1400-55). Florentine painter, a Dominican friar. Although in popular tradition he has been seen as ‘not an artist properly so-called but an inspired saint’ (Ruskin), Angelico was in fact a highly professional artist, who was in touch with the most advanced developments in contemporary Florentine art and in later life travelled extensively for prestigious commissions. He probably began his career as a manuscript illuminator, and his early paintings are strongly influenced by International Gothic. But even in the most lavishly decorative of them all — the Annunciation in the Diocesan Museum in Cortona — Masaccio’s incluence is evident in the insistent perspective of the architecture. For most of his career Angelico was based in S. Domenico in Fiesole (he became Prior there in 1450), but his most famous works were painted at S. Marco in Florence (now an Angelico museum), a Sylvestrine monastry which was taken over by his Order in 1436. He and his assistants painted about fifty frescos in the friary (c.1438-45) that are at once the expression of and a guide to the spiritual life of the community. Many of the frescos are in the friars’ cells and were intended as aids to devotion; with their immaculate coloring, their economy in drawing and composition, and their freedom from the accidents of time and place, they attain a sense of blissful serenity.


thumbnail of cosmas_damien.jpg

thumbnail of mocking.jpg

thumbnail of Present1.jpg

thumbnail of lamentation.jpg

Continue reading