Tondo Art

Woman with wax tablets and stylus, so called Sappho | Fresco | Pompeii, Naples, National Archaeological Museum

A tondo (plural "tondi" or "tondos") is a Renaissance🎨 term for a circular work of art, either a painting or a sculpture.

The word derives from the Italian rotondo, "round".

The term is usually not used in English for small round paintings, but only those over about 60 cm (two feet) in diameter, thus excluding many round portrait miniatures - for sculpture the threshold is rather lower.

Antonio Sicurezza (1905-1979) | Figurative painter

Antonio Sicurezza was an Italian painter🎨 representative for the contemporary figurative art of the Lazio region, Italy.

He studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Naples, winning a scholarship as a worthy competitor among the four faculties. He obtained the diploma in painting under the guidance of the masters Carlo Siviero, Vincenzo Volpe, Vincenzo Migliaro and Paolo Vetri.

The first contact with the territory of Formia was in 1933–1934, when he was called to paint the chapel of St. Anthony in the church of Maranola. Here he met Virginia Mastrogiovanni whom he married in 1934.

Leonardo da Vinci | Nativity paintings

Giorgio Vasari🎨, in the enlarged edition of Lives of the Artists (1568) introduced his chapter on Leonardo with the following words:

"In the normal course of events many men and women are born with remarkable talents; but occasionally, in a way that transcends nature, a single person is marvellously endowed by Heaven with beauty, grace and talent in such abundance that he leaves other men far behind, all his actio ns seem inspired and indeed everything he does clearly comes from God rather than from human skill".

Michelangelo Buonarroti | Tondo Doni, 1505-1506

Michelangelo painted this Holy Family for a Florentine merchant, Agnolo Doni, whose prestigious marriage to Maddalena Strozzi in 1504 took place in a period that was crucial for early 16th-century Florentine art.

The presence in the city of Leonardo🎨, Michelangelo🎨 and Raphael🎨 together, boosted the already lively Florentine art scene, which in the first decade of the century experienced a period of great cultural fervour.

Elisabeth Vigée Le Brun (1755-1842) | Neoclassical painter

Elisabeth Louise Vigée-Le Brun was one of the most successful portraitists of 18th century France, gaining renowned in particular for her self-portraits and depictions of courtly women, Queen Marie Antoinette most famously.

Born in Paris as the eldest child of the portraitist Louis Vigée (1715-1767) and Jeanne Maissin, Vigée Le Brun was trained by her father from an early age.

She succeeded in gaining entrance to the Académie de Saint-Luc at the age of just nineteen, a remarkable accomplishment for a woman at the time.

Istvan Sàndorfi (1948-2007) | Hyper-Surrealist painter

István Sándorfi🎨 [1948-2007] also known as Étienne Sandorfi, was a naturalised French painter of Hungarian origin.

He received his formal art education at École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts and at École nationale supérieure des arts décoratifs in Paris.

He mastered what art critics now term hyperrealism. But he did so with his very own blend of Surreal🎨 elements. Having been introduced to oil painting at the age of 12, Sandorfi🎨 dedicated much of his life to perfecting his painting techniques in order to achieve the photoreal and at the same time pull the carpet away under the viewer by letting part of a person dissappear in thin air.

Simone Cantarini (1612-1648) | Baroque painter

Simone Cantarini was born in Pesaro, in the Marches, a region which was a crossroads for artists from many parts of Italy.

Cantarini began his artistic training quite young, probably 1623-1625, in the studio of Giovanni Giacomo Pandolfi (?1570-1640?), a painter of religious works who combined the local naturalism with the mannerist style of the late sixteenth century.

After a brief trip to Venice, Cantarini moved to the shop of Claudio Ridolfi (?1570-1644), a student of Paolo Veronese🎨 (1528-1588).