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Belgian Painter, b. at Tournai, 1399 or 1400; d. at Brussels, 1464. His original name was De la Pasture, which was transformed in Flemish into Van der Weyden. His family, settled in Tournai since 1260, were people of means. He is believed to have commenced his artistic life as a goldsmith, and his figures show that he understood some kind of sculpture. He was apprenticed to Robert Campin in 1427, became a master painter, was admitted into the Guild of St. Luke in 1432, and three years later was painter in ordinary to the municipality of Brussels. He only had the appointment, however, for a year, when the office of town painter was abolished. He was said to have been a pupil of van Eyck, e.g. by Vasari and other writers, but the researches of Weale in Flemish documents proved this incorrect, and showed that Campin was Rogier's master. His work is far more religious than that of van Eyck, and the figures in his pictures much more dramatic, animated, and at times almost tragic. He was full of employment and obtained high prices. He lived at Brussels, and had four children, Cornelius, who became a Carthusian, Peter, who was a painter, John, who was a goldsmith, and one daughter, Margaret. He was a generous benefactor, especially to Carthusian houses. One of his important altar-pieces, now in Berlin, was painted for the Cartuja of Miraflores in Spain, another, now in the Escorial, for the Carthusian house at Scheut, a third, at Antwerp, for the Bishop of Tournai, who desired to give it to a Carthusian house, and a fourth for the Carthusian monastery of Herinnes, where Cornelius resided. The Joys and Sorrows of our Lady of Pity, now at Berlin, the Seven Sacraments, at Antwerp, the Adoration of the Magi, at Berlin, and the marvellous triptych in the Prado, are his greatest works. There are also paintings by him at Frankfort and Munich, and others attributed to him elsewhere. - Malaspina BiographyBooks from Alibris: Rogier van der Weyden
Netherlandish painter, part of whose career was spent in Italy, where he was known as Giusto da Guanto (Justus of Ghent). He became a member of the Antwerp Guild in 1460, but by 1464 had moved to Ghent, where he was a friend of Hugo van der Goes . At some time after 1468 he went to Rome, and by 1472 had settled in Urbino, where he worked for Duke Federico da Montefeltro. Joos's only documented work is The Communion of the Apostles (also known as The Institution of the Eucharist, 1472-74), which is still at Urbino, in the Galleria Nazionale. Like Hugo's Portinari Altarpiece, it was an important work in spreading knowledge of the Netherlandish oil technique in Italy. Of the other works attributed to Joos, the most important are a series of twenty-eight Famous Men (Galleria Nazionale, Urbino, and Louvre, Paris), commissioned for the Ducal Palace. Their authorship is controversial, and they may have been a work of collaboration between Joos and the Spanish painter Pedro Berruguete. [Adapted from WebMuseum]Books from Alibris: Joos van Gent
Italian painter, Sienese school (b. 1406, Siena, d. 1481, Siena). Siena is situated on three gently swelling hills. The Public Library was donated by Archdeacon Bandini (1663). The Academy of Fine Arts, the Museum of the Cathedral, and the different churches of the city, illustrate almost completely the history of art in Siena; in no other city had art, especially painting, a more local character, and nowhere else did it remain so conservative. Gothic architecture produced here its most excellent monuments, both ecclesiastical and in civic buildings; and the Sienese architects laboured beyond the confines of their state (e.g. the cathedral of Orvieto). Sculpture received its first impulse from Nicolo and Giovanni Pisani, whose Sienese disciples carved the decorations of the facade of Orvieto cathedral. The most renowned sculptors of the fifteenth century were Jacopo della Quercia (1374-1438), one of the pioneers of the Renaissance; Lorenzo di Pietro; Antonio Federighi; Francesco di Giorgio (also an architect); Giacomo Cozzarelli; and Lorenzo Mariano. Sculpture in wood is represented by the brothers Antonio and Giovanni Barili, Bartolomeo Neroni, and others. In painting Siena possessed in Duccio an artist who greatly surpassed his contemporary Cimabue of Florence, both for grace and in accuracy of design. Nevertheless, art developed and was perfected in Florence more rapidly than in Siena. Simone Martini (1285-1344), immortalized by Petrarca, and a citizen of Siena, bears comparison with Giotto. Lippo Memmi (also a miniaturist), Pietro and Ambrogio Lorenzetti, imitated with facility the grandiose composition of the school of Giotto. But Bertolo di Fredi (1330-1410); Taddeo de Bartolo (1360-1422); and the fifteenth century painters, Domenico di Bartolo, Sano di Pietro, Vecchietta, Matteo, and Benvenuto di Giovanni, compared with the Florentines, seem almost medieval. Siena therefore turned anew to Florentine, Lombard, or Venetian painters, under whom the ancient fame of the city revived, especially in the works of Bernardino Fungai, Girolamo della Pacchia, and others. The most renowned representatives of the Renaissance in Siena are Baldassare Peruzzi, better known as the architect of the Basilica of San Pietro, Giovanni Antonio Bazzi, and Il Sodoma (1477-1549), a rival of Raphael. With Domenico Beccafumi (1486-1551) begins the decadence. In the nineteenth century Paolo Franchi founded a school of painters closely related to the "Nazarenes" (a group of German painters of the early nineteenth century, who imitated the Italians of the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries); the chapel of the Istituto di Santa Teresa gives a good idea of their art.
The cathedral of Siena is said to occupy the site of a temple of Minerva. The present building was begun in the early thirteenth century; the cupola was finished in 1464. But in 1339 it was decided to so enlarge the cathedral that the area then occupied by the nave should form the transepts of the new building. In fact the construction of the longitudinal nave, now in part incorporated in the Opera del Duomo, was actually commenced. Though the pestilence of 1348 compelled the citizens to desist from this plan, they determined to complete in a worthy manner the original design. As it stands the building is about 292 ft. long and 80 ft. wide - 168 ft. in the transepts. The facade is decorated with bands of red, white, and black marble, tricuspidal, and richly adorned with sculptures (restored in 1869) and with mosaics (renewed in 1878). In the interior the pavement is of admirable marble mosaic - the work of masters of the fifteenth century, which has been for the most part renewed. The pulpit, entirely in relief, is the work of Nicolo Pisano and his pupils; the high altar is by Petruzzi, the bronze tabernacle by Vecchietta, and the carvings of the choir by the brothers Barili. The chapel of San Giovanni contains a statue of the saint by Donatello, besides statues by other sculptors, and frescoes by Pinturicchio. Scattered through the interior of the cathedral are statues of Sienese popes and the tombs of the bishops of Siena. The library of the cathedral possesses ancient choir-books and other manuscripts, and is adorned throughout with frescoes by Pinturicchio representing scenes from the life of Pius II - the gift of Pius III. In the centre of the library is the celebrated group of the Three Graces, presented by Pius II. In the Opera dei Duomo are preserved the remains of the exterior sculptures and of the pavement of the cathedral, as well as paintings and sacred tapestries. In the Hospital of Sta Maria della Scala (thirteenth century) the church and the pellegrinaro (a large sick room) with frescoes by Domenico di Bartolo are noteworthy; San Agostino possesses pictures and frescoes by Perugino, Sodoma, Matteo di Giovanni, and others. Beneath the choir of the cathedral is the ancient baptistery, now the parish Church of San Giovanni, with its remarkable font, ornamented with sculptures by Quercia, Donatello, and Ghiberti. In Santa Maria del Carmine the cloisters and the Chapel of the Sacrament are particularly interesting. The Oratory of San Bernardino contains works of the principal Sienese artists, especially of Sodoma and Beccafumi. The house of St. Catherine of Siena (Benineasa) has been transformed into a number of chapels, which centuries have vied in adorning. San Domenico (1293) possesses pictures by Sodoma, Fungai, Vanni, and others, and a tabernacle by Benedetto da Maiano. The little church of Fonteguista has frescoes by Fungai, Petruzzi, and Lorenzo di Mariano. Scattered throughout the other churches are works of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Outside of the city is the Convento dell' Osservanza, with majolicas by Andrea della Robbia and paintings by Sodoma, Sano di Pietro, Taddeo Bartolo, and others; here also are shown the cell of St Bernardino of Siena, and the tomb of Pandolfo Petrucci. More distant from Siena are the Certosa di Pontignano, the Abbey of Sant' Eugenio (730), and the monastery of San Galgano (1201). - Malaspina BiographyBooks from Alibris: Sienese School
(Also known as SIMONE DI MARTINO, and as SIMONE MEMMI). Sienese painter, born in Siena, 1283; died either in the same place or at Avignon in 1344 or 1349. This artist is now declared to have been a direct pupil of Duccio, whom he surpassed in the decorative quality of his work Vasari states that he was a pupil of Giotto, but this statement is refuted by an examination of Simone's works, and also by all the evidence that has been gathered regarding the Sienese school. The earliest of Simone's authentic works is his great fresco in Siena of the enthroned Virgin and Child, painted originally in 1315, and restored by the master himself in 1321, after it had suffered damage from damp. In 1320 he painted an altar-piece for the church of St. Catherine at Pisa, which has now been taken to pieces, and although the greater part is in the Academy at Pisa, two other portions are in other buildings in the same city. In the following year he was at Orvieto, painting an altar-piece for the church of San Dominico which is now preserved in a museum of that city, and then he returned to Siena, where he was busily engaged in 1328 on his splendid portrait of Fogliano, painted in honour of that general's capture of Montemassi. A little later on we hear of him at Assisi, where he painted a wonderful series of works relating to the life of St. Martin, adorning the chapel of St. Martin in the church of San Francesco. The latter part of his life was passed at Avignon in the service of the papal court then resident in that place, and there he decorated various portions of the cathedral and several chapels and rooms in the papal palace. It was in Avignon that he met Petrarch, and there painted the portrait, so famous in later years, of Madonna Laura.
He is said to have painted a portrait at Avignon of Petrarch himself, commissioned by Pandolfo Malatesta, but if he did this, it was during an earlier visit to Avignon, and respecting it we have not much information. We are only certain concerning his second visit to the place after having been called by Pope Clement VI. The exact date of his funeral is proved by certain Sienese records as 4 August, 1344, but the record is not sufficiently clear as to whether his body was transported from Avignon to Siena for burial, or whether he actually died in Siena. There are several of his works in the city of his birth, one at the Louvre, one in Berlin, an exceedingly fine one at Antwerp, and a remarkable signed and dated picture at Liverpool. In the museum at Altenburg there is one of his works, and there are at least three in private collections in America. The portrait of Petrarch attributed to him was sold in 1867 at the Poniatowski sale, and at the same sale there was sold a portrait of Laura, which was undoubtedly his work.Books from Alibris: Simone Martini
Sienese painters. The time of their birth and death is not known. Their dated works extend over a period of thirty years, from 1316 to 1348. Pietro was the elder. He was the pupil of Simone di Martino, some of whose formulae he has preserved faithfully; but he was profoundly influenced by Giotto. He introduced the dramatic into the Sienese school. Unfortunately he could not control his wonderful feeling for the lifelike and in the end he sometimes failed to distinguish history from the passing events of everyday life. His first known work is the History of St. Humilitas, a religious of Vallombrosa (d. 1310). The picture dated 1316 at the Academy of Florence bears the impress of the liveliest sense of reality. It abounds in small, but often delightful genre scenes. In his Assisi frescoes, where he continued Giotto's Life of Jesus, this realism strangely loses tone. In the Cenacle, for example, Pietro devotes an entire piece to a kitchen interior where lads wash the dishes while a dog licks the plates. This lack of dignity is perhaps mere familiarity coupled with good humour. Fondness for this sort of picture is in part the cause of our liking for the creations of the Dutch school; it cannot even be said that details of this kind may not be impressive as is seen in Veronese's Marriage at Cana. But Pietro, like most of the artists of the Middle Ages, is too lacking in style and in art. Or rather he has only an intermittent sense of them. Some of his pieces at least show of what he was capable; such as the admirable painting at Assisi, which represents the Blessed Virgin in half-life size between St. John and St. Louis, and in which the fresco work attains the beauty of enamelling and of the goldsmith's art, while the countenance of the Virgin, tearfully regarding the Divine Child, expresses most beautifully maternal anguish, reminding us of the darkouoen gelasasa of Homer. In presence of such a canvas it is impossible not to deplore the frivolity of a master who sacrificed his lofty plastic faculties and gift of moral expression to the painting of so many trivial realities and insignificant emotions.
Though still more gifted than his brother, Ambrogio also wasted his talents, but owing to a different error, viz., a craze for the allegoric and didactic. He was however one of the most delicately poetic minds of his generation, and no one at Florence could rival the serious and dreamy beauty of his female faces, as in the St. Dorothy of the Academy of Siena (1326), in which seems to be revived the soul of the adorable saints of Simone di Martino. There is not in the art of the fourteenth century a more impressive canvas than that of the Academy of Florence in which St. Nicholas of Bari, on the shore of a cliff-bordered sea, contemplates the sunset (1332). He excelled in lyric subjects but he attempted painting in a grand philosophical manner. His most important work is that at the Palazzo della Signoria of Siena, the allegory of Good and Evil Government (1338-40). The taste of the Middle Ages for these moralities and psychomachies is well-known. There is hardly a French cathedral in which we do not find sculptured representations of the contest between vice and virtue, allegories of the virtues, the parable of the wise and foolish virgins, the figures of the Church and the Synagogue. Already Giotto had painted at Assisi the allegories of the Franciscan virtues, and Petrarch was soon to compose his Triumphs of Love, Glory, Time, and Eternity.
For the past sixty years the Republic of Siena had been at the summit of its fortunes. It was desirous of immortalizing the memory of its greatness. From this point of view the frescoes of Ambrogio are of great interest; this is perhaps the first example of lay painting and of art used to represent ideas and life, without any religious conception. It was a course in Aristotelean philosophy and at the same time a hymn to the city. The composition is developed on three walls, forming a sort of triptych. The middle fresco displays under a dogmatic form the ideal of democracy. The Virtues which direct the State are seated on a platform; this is the tribunal or the legislative assembly. The most famous of these figures is that of Peace, which, reclining on her throne in magnificent drapery and resting on her arms, is certainly imitated from an antique medal or statue (such imitations are not rare in the thirteenth century: cf. the sculptures of Capua, the work of Giovanni Pisano, and some statues at Reims). But the other figures are little more than abstractions and can be identified only with the adventitious aid of a multitude of inscriptions, devices, and phylacteries.
On the other two walls are similarly developed the effects of good or evil social hygiene. After the theory follows the application. The left wall (Evil Government) is unfortunately almost ruined. But the opposite one, which is more intelligible, suffices to convey an idea of the painter's method. The length of the painting is divided into two halves, one of which shows the city and the other the country. And in each of these parts is a host of episodes, a great collection of little pictures of manners, which analyse in a thousand ways the condition of a happy society. The general idea is resolved into a multitude of anecdotes. We see dances, banquets, children at school, weddings, some peasants leading their asses to market while others are tilling the ground; in the distance is a port whence vessels are sailing away. All these various scenes are most entertaining and furnish much information about Sienese life and customs in the Middle Ages. But one is lost in the complexity of this chronicle and the confusion of this journal. The result is an extremely curious work, though one almost devoid of artistic value.
To sum up, Ambrogio remains one of the most interesting minds of his time by the very variety of his contradictory talents and the turn of mind at once idealistic and realistic which he displayed, without, unfortunately, succeeding in bringing them into unity. As a whole the work of the Lorenzetti (starting from very different points of view) consists in an attempt to reconcile art with observation and familiar reality. Pietro's aim is to move, Ambrogio's rather to instruct. The former is a dramatist, the latter a moralist. Both tend equally to genre painting. Unfortunately fresco, especially in their day, was the mode of expression least suited to this. They required the miniature, or German engraving, or the small familiar picture of the Flemish or the Dutch. Their talent remained isolated and their premature attempt was doomed to failure. In spite of everything they remain the most lifelike painters of their generation; and some fifteenth-century painters, such as Sassetta or Sano di Pietro, owe them much in this respect. Besides, Ambrogio, was the first who attempted in Italy philosophic painting and the picturesque expression of general ideas. His Sermons in pictures have not been lost. He created a tradition to which we owe two of the most important works of the fourteenth century, the anonymous frescoes of the Anchorites and of the Triumph of Death. at the Campo Santo of Pisa and those of the Militant and the Teaching Church in the Spanish chapel. In fact it is from these that the finest conceptions of the Renaissance are derived, and the honour of having indirectly inspired Raphael with the Camera della Segnatura cannot be disputed with Ambrogio Loienzetti. It is a glory which the greatest artists may well envy him. - Malaspina BiographyBooks from Alibris: Lorenzetti
Painter, b. at Borgo San-Sepolcro, about 1420; d. there, 1492. The most usual form of his name is the traditional one, PIERO DELLA FRANCESCA, which is better authenticated in contemporary documents than what in late research had been supposed to be the more correct form, PIERO DEI FRANCESCHI (Gronau, Repertorium fur Kunstwissenschaft, xxiii, 392-4). He was the son of a notary, Ser Benedetto, a member of an influential family long identified with the government of the town - the Franceschi. His earliest artistic training is unknown, but he was active at Perugia in 1438, probably as an assistant to Domenico Veneziano, and he was certainly employed in the same capacity in the Church of Sant' Egidio, Florence, in 1439-40. To Domenico and probably also to Paolo Uccello, Florentine Realists who did much for the technical side of painting, we may ascribe the formative influence in his art. Piero first appears as an independent master in 1445, when he painted a still surviving altar-piece of many panels for the Brotherhood of the Misericordia in his native town. He is said to have laboured with Domenico at Loreto, and he was certainly at Rimini in 1451, when he painted a remarkable fresco in the chapel of San Francesco, representing Sigismondo Malatesta, Lord of Rimini, venerating his patron saint, Sigismund. After this he was active at Ferrara and Bologna, and, according to Vasari, he also decorated a room of the Vatican for Pope Nicholas V. In 1454 he was again at Borgo San-Sepolcro, where in 1460 he painted a fresco of St. Louis of Toulouse, now preserved in the town hall. It was probably between this date and 1466 that he painted his masterpiece, the frescoes in the choir of San Francesco at Arezzo, which may, however, have been begun earlier. The subject is the Story of the True Cross, involving incidents beginning with Adam and including the story of Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, Constantine and St. Helena, Heraclius and Chosroes. These frescoes rank with those by Masaccio in the Brancacci Chapel as epoch-making in the decorative art of the fifteenth century. - Malaspina BiographyBooks from Alibris: Piero della Francesca
French painter and miniaturist, b. at Tours, c. 1415; d. about 1480. He was perhaps the son of Huguet Fouquet, who about 1400 worked for the Dukes of Orleans at Paris. At the end of the fourteenth century French painting had reached a period of incomparable brilliancy. Everything heralded the Renaissance, and little was wanting to make it a distinctively French movement, which, however, the disasters of the monarchy prevented. Paris ceased to be the centre of the new intellectual life. Art, driven from its centre, retreated to the outlying provinces in the North, the East, and the South-East, to the Duchy of Burgundy. The principal centre was Bruges, while secondary centres were established at Dijon in Provence. Each of these had its masters and its school. The only remnant of truly French life found refuge in the valley of the Loire, in the neighborhood of Tours, since the time of St. Martin the true heart of the nation in every crisis of French history. Here grew up the first of our painters who possesses not only a definite personality but a French physiognomy. Fouquet was the contemporary of Joan of Arc, and his character is as national as that of the heroine herself. For the basis of his style we must look to the School of Burgundy, itself simply a variant of that of Bruges. Tours is not far from Bruges and Dijon, and in Fouquet's work there is always something reminiscent of Claux Sluter and of the Van Eycks. To this must be added some Italian mannerisms. It is not known on what occasion Fouquet went to Italy, but it was certainly about 1445, for while there he painted the portrait of Pope Eugene IV between two secretaries. This famous work, long preserved at the Minerva gallery, is now known only from a sixteenth century engraving. Filarete and Vasari speak admiringly of it, while Raphael paid it the honour of recalling it in his Leo X of the Pitti Palace. - Malaspina BiographyBooks from Alibris: Jean Fouquet
Netherlandish painter named after three paintings in the Stadelsches Kunstinstitut in Frankfurt that were wrongly supposed to have come from Flemalle, near Liege. There is a strong consensus of scholarly opinion that he is to be identified with Robert Campin (active 1406-44), who was the leading painter of his day in Tournai but none of whose documented pictures survive. The identification depends on the similarity between the Master of Flemalle's paintings and those of Jacques Daret and Rogier van der Weyden, for Daret was Campin's pupil and Rogier almost certainly was. The hypothesis that the Master of Flemalle's paintings are early works by Rogier now has few adherents.
While there is still doubt about the Master of Flemalle's identity, there is no argument about his achievement, for he made a radical break with the elegant International Gothic style and ranks with van Eyck as one of the founders of the Netherlandish school of painting. None of the paintings given to him is dated -- with the exception of the wings of the Werl altarpiece of 1438 in the Prado, a doubtful attribution -- but it seems likely that his earliest works antedate any surviving picture by van Eyck. The earliest of all is generally thought to be The Entombment (Courtauld Institute, London) of about 1410/20. This still has the decorative gold background of medieval tradition, but the influence of Claus Sluter is clear in the sculptural solidity and dramatic force of the figures. The most famous work associated with the Master of Flemalle is the Merode Altarpiece (Metropolitan Museum, New York), and he is indeed sometimes referred to as the Master of Merode. However, the attribution of this painting has also been questioned. Among the other works generally accepted as his are The Marriage of the Virgin (Prado, Madrid), The Nativity (Musee des Beaux-Arts, Dijon), and The Virgin and Child before a Firescreen (National Gallery, London), which shows the homely detail and down-to-earth naturalism associated with the artist (the firescreen behind the Virgin's head forms a substitute for a halo). The National Gallery also has three portraits associated with the Master of Flemalle. In spite of the many problems that still surround him, he emerges as a very powerful and important artistic personality. - Malaspina BiographyBooks from Alibris: Master of Flemalle
Italian painter; b. probably about 1378 in the District of the Marches; d. probably 1427. The history of this artist has for a long time been involved in mystery, and even Vasari's statements concerning him have to be accepted with caution. Of his early life we still know nothing, but thanks to the investigations of Milanesi, Amico Ricci, and later on of Venturi and Corrado Ricci, we have a few definite facts concerning him. The earliest mention of him is concerned with the decoration of the large council hall in the doges' palace at Venice, which, it seems clear, must have been carried out between 1411 and 1414, probably in the former year, as the theory set up by Wickhoff, placing the work at a much later date, has now been proved to be untenable. In 1408, however, Gentile is known to have painted a large altar-piece in Venice for Francesco Amadi, and this date implies that he must have been resident in the city for some years previously, because it was not possible for an artist, who had not been born in Venice, to be accepted as a member of its school or guild, unless resident in the city for some considerable time before he made his application. Between April, 1414, and September, 1419, we know that he was painting in Brescia, decorating a chapel for Pandolfo Malatesta, and it was on the occasion of the visit which Pope Martin V made to Malatesta, when he was received at Chiari, that the pope invited Gentile to pay him a visit in Rome. We have evidence of the date on which he set out, because on the 18 September, 1419, he applied for a safe-conduct. There were serious difficulties, however, connected with the early days of the pontificate of Martin V, and Gentile only got as far as Florence, and could not proceed to Rome. - Malaspina BiographyBooks from Alibris: Gentile da Fabriano
Italian painter, born in Rome, was an artist of the earliest epoch of the modern Roman school, and was taught painting and mosaic by Giotto while, employed at Rome; it is believed that he assisted his master in the mosaic of the Navicella or ship of St Peter, in the porch of the church of that saint. He also studied under the Cosmati. Lanzi describes him as an adept in both arts, and mentions with approbation his grand fresco of a Crucifixion at Assisi, still in tolerable preservation; he was, moreover, versed in architecture and in sculpture.
According to George Vertue, it is highly probable that Cavallini executed, in 1279, the mosaics and other ornaments of the tomb of Edward the Confessor in Westminster Abbey. He would thus be the Petrus Civis Romanus whose name is inscribed on the shrine; but a comparison of dates invalidates this surmise. He died in 1344, at the age of eighty-five, in the odour of sanctity, having in his later years been a man of eminent piety. He is said to have carved for the Basilica of San Paolo, close to Rome, a crucifix which spoke in 1370 to a female saint. Some highly important works by Cavallini in the church of Santa Cecilia in Trastevere, Rome, have been recently discovered. - Malaspina BiographyBooks from Alibris: Pietro Cavallini
