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 :. | The spirit of Christ and supervision | Christ on the Cross | Three Oriental doctor's blessing | Jacob give Joseph a coat of blood | Pope Innocent X |
Related Artists:
John Evan Hodgson
painted The french naturalist in Algiers 1879
Hermon Atkins Macneil
American Sculptor, 1866-1947,American sculptor, b. Chelsea, Mass., studied in Paris and in Rome. His first work of importance was for the World's Columbian Exposition, Chicago, 1893, but he is perhaps best known for his Native Americans and Western pioneers. Among his monuments are The Coming of the White Man (Portland, Oreg.); the McKinley Memorial (Columbus, Ohio); the Soldiers and Sailors Monument (Albany, N.Y.); and the Marquette Memorial (Chicago). Among smaller sculptures is The Sun Vow (Metropolitan Mus.).
Gaspare Diziani
(1689 - 17 August 1767) was an Italian painter of the late-Baroque or Roccoco period, active mainly in the Veneto but also in Dresden and Munich. His earliest training was in his native town of Belluno with Antonio Lazzarini, then moved to Venice, to the studio of Gregorio Lazzarini and later that of Sebastiano Ricci. He was seven years older, but otherwise his career was contemporary with the Lazzarini and Ricci fellow-pupil, Giovanni Battista Tiepolo. Between 1710-1720, he painted a group of eight pictures that included the Mary Magdalene for the church of San Stefano in Belluno, and Entry into Jerusalem for San Teodoro in Venice. He also painted three frescoes on the Life of Saint Helena in the Scuola del Vin next to the church of San Silvestro. Dizianies celerity and technical assurance are evident preparatory oil sketches, with color applied in rapid and spirited strokes. He was also working as a scenery painter for the theater and opera in Venice, Munich (1717), and later in Dresden, working with Alessandro Mauro. Diziani was invited to Rome by Cardinal Ottoboni in 1726, to paint a emagnificent decoration for the church of San Lorenzo in Damaso. The decoration is now known only through an engraving by Claude Vasconi. The Sala dei Pastelli in Ca' Rezzonico has an sotto in su allegorical ceiling fresco presenting Triumph of Poetry (Poetry surrounded by Painting, Architecture, Music and Sculpture).