Category Archives: Fine Art

Featured Artist at the e.Gallery this week is a 18th Century artist of the Rococo movement, Giovanni_Batista Piazetta [Italian, 1682-1754] Link: http://fineart.elib.com/fineart.php?dir=Alphabetical/Piazetta_Giovanni_Batista

Giovanni Batista Piazzetta was an artist who sought little gain in his creations, and as a result he was impoverished for much of his life. Albeit, his paintings and drawings were renowned for their Rocco style, with subtle coloring and curvaceous forms in religious and genre subjects. Born in Venice to a sculptor, Piazzetta studied woodcarving with his father and went on to train as a painter with Antonio Molinari (1655–1704). Molinari was a Venetian Baroque painter, whose influence merged in Piazzetta with that of the Bolognese painter, Giuseppe Crespi (1665–1747), who certainly influenced Piazzetta and may have trained him some.

Featured Artist at the e.Gallery this week is a 15th Century artist, Konrad Witz [German-Swiss, c.1400-1446] Link: http://fineart.elib.com/fineart.php?dir=Alphabetical/Witz_Konrad

Konrad Witz, (born ca. 1400, Rottweil, died ca. 1446, Basel), was a German-born painter from Rottweil in Swabia, active in Switzerland and generally considered a member of the Swiss school. He entered the painters’ guild in Basle in 1434 and apparently spent the rest of his career there and in Geneva. Little else is known of him and few paintings by him survive. These few, however, show that he was remarkably advanced in his naturalism, suggesting a knowledge of the work of his contemporaries Jan van Eyck and the Master of Flémalle. In place of the soft lines and lyrical qualities of International Gothic we find in Witz’s work heavy, almost stumpy, figures, whose ample draperies emphasize their solidity.

Featured Artist at the e.Gallery this week is a 15th Century artist of the Early Renaissance movement, Filippino Lippi [Florentine, 1457-1504] Link: http://fineart.elib.com/fineart.php?dir=Alphabetical/Lippi_Filippino

Florentine painter, the son and pupil of Fra Filippo Lippi. who died when the boy was about 12. The boy completed his father’s work (or at least cleared up his estate) in Spoleto (the final receipts for Filippo’s frescoes in the Spoleto Cathedral was signed by Filippino) and he set off alone for Florence on 1 January 1470. He also studied with Botticelli and learned much from his expressive use of line, but Filippino’s style, although sensitive and poetic, is more robust than his master’s. The first certainly datable work by Filippino is the Annunciation on two tondi (1483–84, San Gimignano).

Featured Artist at the e.Gallery this week is a 18th Century artist of the Rococo movement, Francesco Guardi [Venetian, 1712-1793] Link: http://fineart.elib.com/fineart.php?dir=Alphabetical/Guardi_Francesco

Francesco Guardi (1712–93), was a Venetian painter, the best-known member of a family of artists. He is now famous for his views of Venice, indeed next to Canaletto he is the most celebrated view-painter of the 18th century, but he produced work on a great variety of subjects and seems to have concentrated on views only after the death of his brother Gianantonio (1699–1760).

Featured Artist at the e.Gallery this week is a 17th Century artist of the Baroque movement, Jan Steen [Dutch, 1626-1679] Link: http://fineart.elib.com/fineart.php?dir=Alphabetical/Steen_Jan

Jan Steen (born about 1626 Leyden, The Netherlands, died about 1679 Leyden, The Netherlands), was a Dutch Painter. Remarkably, given the meager living he made from art, Jan Steen was the humorist among Dutch painters. He persevered, creating nearly eight hundred pictures, most with a moral beneath the wit. A prosperous brewer’s son, Steen enrolled in Leyden University in 1646, but by 1648 he was helping to found the Leyden Guild of Saint Luke. His teachers may have included Nikolaus Knüpfer. Steen was not one to stay put; he lived in The Hague; Haarlem; Leyden, where he ran a tavern; and Delft, where he leased a brewery. He married Jan van Goyen’s daughter.

Featured Artist at the e.Gallery this week is a 20th Century artist of the Expressionist movement, Oskar Kokoschka [Austrian, 1886-1980] Link: http://fineart.elib.com/fineart.php?dir=Alphabetical/Kokoschka_Oskar

Oskar Kokoschka (born 1886, Pöchlarn, Austria; died 1980, Montreux, Switzerland), was born March 1, 1886, in the Austrian town of Pöchlarn. He spent most of his youth in Vienna, where he entered the Kunstgewerbeschule in 1904 or 1905. While still a student, he painted fans and postcards for the Wiener Werkstätte, which published his first book of poetry in 1908. That same year, Kokoschka was fiercely criticized for the works he exhibited in the Vienna Kunstschau and consequently was dismissed from the Kunstgewerbeschule. At this time, he attracted the attention of the architect Adolf Loos, who became his most vigorous supporter. In this early period, Kokoschka wrote plays that are considered among the first examples of expressionist drama.