Featured Artist at the e.Gallery: Il Tedesco


Portrait

Featured Artist at the e.Gallery this week is a 17th Century artist of the Baroque movement, Il Tedesco [German, 1578-1610] Link: https://fineart.elib.com/fineart.php?dir=Alphabetical/Elsheimer_Adam

Adam Elsheimer (1578–1610), was a German painter, etcher, and draughtsman, active mainly in Italy. Although he died young and his output was small he played a key role in the development of 17th-century landscape painting.

He was born in Frankfurt, where he absorbed the Coninxloo tradition, and moved to Italy in 1598. In Venice he worked with his countryman Rottenhammer, then settled in Rome in 1600. His early Mannerist style gave way to a more direct manner in which he showed great sensitivity to effects of light; his nocturnal scenes are particularly original, bringing out the best in his lyrical temperament, and he is credited with being the first artist to represent the constellations of the night sky accurately (The Flight into Egypt, Alte Pinakothek, Munich, 1609). He painted a few pictures in which figures predominate, but generally they are fused into a harmonious unity with their landscape settings. They are invariably on a small scale and on copper (the only exception is a self-portrait in the Uffizi, Florence, of doubtful attribution), but although exquisitely executed they have a grandeur out of all proportion to their size.

Elsheimer achieved fame during his lifetime and there are numerous contemporary copies of his works. His paintings were engraved by his pupil and patron, the Dutch amateur artist Count Hendrick Goudt (1573–1648), and Elsheimer himself made a number of etchings. In spite of his popularity he was personally unsuccessful and died in poverty. Sandrart says he suffered from melancholia and was often unable to work; apparently he was imprisoned for debt. Rubens was a friend of Elsheimer and after his death lamented his ‘sin of sloth, by which he has deprived the world of the most beautiful things;’ he also wrote ‘I have never seen his equal in the realm of small figures, of landscapes, and of so many other subjects.;’

Both Rubens (Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Kassel) and Rembrandt (National Gallery, Dublin) made paintings of The Flight into Egypt inspired by Elsheimer’s masterpiece, and his influence is apparent in the work of many other 17th-century artists.


thumbnail of stchristopher.jpg
St. Christopher

thumbnail of flight.jpg
The Flight into Egypt

thumbnail of

thumbnail of

Continue reading

Featured Artist at the e.Gallery: Artemisia Gentileschi


Portrait

Featured Artist at the e.Gallery this week is a 17th Century artist of the Baroque movement, Artemisia Gentileschi [Italian, 1590-?1642] Link: https://fineart.elib.com/fineart.php?dir=Alphabetical/Gentileschi_Artemisia

Artemisia Gentileschi (July 8, 1593–c.1654) was an Italian Baroque painter, today considered one of the most accomplished painters in the generation after Caravaggio. In an era when women painters were not easily accepted by the artistic community or patrons, she was the first female painter to become a member of the Accademia di Arte del Disegno in Florence.

She painted many pictures of strong and suffering women from myth and the Bible – victims, suicides, warriors — and made a specialty of the Judith story. Her best-known image, Judith Beheading Holofernes shows the decapitation of Holofernes, a scene of “horrific struggle and blood-letting.” That she was a woman painting in the 17th century and that she was raped herself and participated in prosecuting the rapist long overshadowed her achievements as an artist. For many years she was regarded as a curiosity. Today she is regarded as one of the most progressive and expressionist painters of her generation, a major artist in her own right.


thumbnail of selfportraitasamartyr.jpg
Self-Portrait as a Martyr Saint

thumbnail of Susanna-and-the-Elders.jpg
Susanna and the Elders

thumbnail of Woman-Playing-the-Lute.jpg
St Cecilia Playing a Lute

thumbnail of judith.jpg
Judith Beheading Holofernes

Continue reading

Featured Artist at the e.Gallery: Nicolas Poussin


Portrait

Featured Artist at the e.Gallery this week is a 17th Century artist of the Baroque movement, Nicolas Poussin [French, 1594-1665] Link: https://fineart.elib.com/fineart.php?dir=Alphabetical/Poussin_Nicolas

Nicolas Poussin  (born 1594 Les Andelys, France, died 1665 Rome), was a French painter.

“Something celestial shone in his eyes; his pointed nose and wide brow ennobled his modest face.”

So wrote a biographer about Nicolas Poussin, a philosopher who expressed himself in paint. Pointing to his forehead, Gian Lorenzo Bernini called Poussin “a painter who works up here.” Born to Norman peasants, Poussin went to Paris in 1612, working with Mannerist artists and collaborating with Philippe de Champaigne. In Rome by 1624, he worked in Domenichino’s studio, absorbing his composition and cool colors. Poussin’s art developed slowly. His first major commission, an altarpiece for Saint Peter’s Basilica, was unsuccessful; in fact, he never painted again for a public building in Rome but concentrated on small pictures for collectors. In 1640 Louis XIII persuaded him to supervise a large decorative project in Paris, but Poussin soon returned to Rome, suited neither for large projects nor for court intrigue and competition. He usually painted what he chose, on speculation rather than commission, a practice that led to reputation, not riches. Despite weak, shaky hands — which plagued him as early as 1643 and were probably a symptom of syphilis — Poussin painted by himself, lacking the resources required to run a large workshop with assistants and apprentices. His pictures, rather than pupils, shaped European art for generations. Poussin was the chief formulator of the French classical tradition in painting. By the mid-1630s, he began exploring a serene, classical style inspired by Raphael and antiquity, emphasizing form and moral content. His late works are essays in solid geometry, with movement minimized and every element given a symbolic meaning and pictorial function.


thumbnail of poussin_rinaldo_armida.jpg
Rinaldo and Armida

thumbnail of poussin5.jpg
Apollo and Daphne

thumbnail of mars_ven.jpg
Mars and Venus

thumbnail of sabined.jpg
The Rape of the Sabine Women (detail)

Continue reading

Featured Artist at the e.Gallery: Mattia Preti


Portrait

Featured Artist at the e.Gallery this week is a 17th Century artist of the Baroque movement, Mattia Preti [Italian, 1613-1699] Link: http://fineart.elib.com/fineart.php?dir=Alphabetical/Il_Calabrese

Mattia Preti, known as “Il Cavaliere Calabrese”, left his home town of Taverna in 1630, at the age of 17, destined for Rome. Poussin had recently settled there; the young Velazquez was then paying his first visit. The influence of Caravaggio, though he had died 20 years earlier, was still strongly felt. Preti would leave many works behind in the capital. Among them are the stunning frescoes of “The Martyrdom of Saint Andrew” in the church of Sant’Andrea della Valle — the setting for the first act of Puccini’s “Tosca”.


thumbnail of pilate.jpg
Pilate Washing his Hands

thumbnail of evangelista.jpg
San Giovanni Evangelista

thumbnail of concert.jpg
Concert

thumbnail of lazarus.jpg
The Raising of Lazarus

Continue reading

Featured Artist at the e.Gallery: Il Tedesco


Portrait

Featured Artist at the e.Gallery this week is a 17th Century artist of the Baroque movement, Il Tedesco [German, 1578-1610] Link: http://fineart.elib.com/fineart.php?dir=Alphabetical/Elsheimer_Adam

Adam Elsheimer (1578–1610), was a German painter, etcher, and draughtsman, active mainly in Italy. Although he died young and his output was small he played a key role in the development of 17th-century landscape painting.


thumbnail of flight.jpg
The Flight into Egypt

thumbnail of glorific.jpg
The Glorification of the Cross

thumbnail of

thumbnail of

Continue reading