Marcantonio Franceschini | Baroque painter

Marcantonio Franceschini, (born April 5, 1648, Bologna, Papal States [Italy] - died Dec. 24, 1729, Bologna), Italian painter🎨, a leading artist of the Bolognese school of the Baroque period🎨.

Franceschini worked in Genoa, Modena, and Rome as well as in Bologna and worked extensively for patrons in Austria and Germany.

He was made director of the Clementina Academy in Bologna in 1721.

Franceschini was the last important representative of the tradition of the Carracci🎨; the works of Lodovico Carracci🎨 and Francesco Albani are the main sources of his style.

Lorenzo Pasinelli | Baroque painter

Lorenzo Pasinelli (September 4, 1629 - March 4, 1700) was an Italian painter🎨 active mainly in Bologna during the late Baroque period.

He was born in Bologna, and initially trained in the studio of Simone Cantarini. He then pursued studies in Rome. Despite that training, his works have an air of Mannerism🎨.

In an overview of two major Bolognese painters circa 1700, one author describes that Pasinelli:

• "Lorenzo liked the design of Raphael🎨 joined with the charm of Paolo Veronese🎨; while Carlo (Cignani) liked the grace of Correggio🎨 united to the erudition of Annibale (Carracci)🎨 ... while Pisanelli did not attain a fullness of correct design, which (Veronese) had advanced ... no one will fail to recognize in Pisanelli large picturesque fire and great new ideas, but sometimes is a tad forced in his movements, and using new and bizarre clothes".

17th century Artists | Sitemap

The 17th century was the century that lasted from January 1, 1601, to December 31, 1700, in the Gregorian calendar.

It falls into the Early Modern period of Europe and in that continent (whose impact on the world was increasing) was characterized by the Baroque🎨 cultural movement, the latter part of the Spanish Golden Age, the Dutch Golden Age, the French Grand Siècle [fr] dominated by Louis XIV, the Scientific Revolution, and according to some historians, the General Crisis.

The greatest military conflicts were the Thirty Years' War, the Great Turkish War, and the Dutch-Portuguese War.

It was during this period also that European colonization of the Americas began in earnest, including the exploitation of the silver deposits, which resulted in bouts of inflation as wealth was drawn into Europe.

La Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi /The fountain of the four rivers, 1651

Donato Creti | Astronomical Observations, 1711

Donato Creti (24 February 1671 - 31 January 1749) was an Italian painter🎨 of the Rococo period, active mostly in Bologna.

The series of Astronomical observations was commissioned in 1711 by the Bolognese count Luigi Marsili.

He had the artist Donato Creti paint all the planets in as many small pictures and made a gift of these to the Pope to convince him of the importance for the Holy Church of an astronomical observatory.

The gift made it possible to achieve his goal, because with the support of Clement XI (pontiff from 1700-1721) the first public astronomical observatory was opened in Bologna a short time later.

Donato Creti | Osservazioni Astronomiche - Marte

Mattia Preti | Baroque Era painter

Mattia Preti (24 February 1613 - 3 January 1699) was an Italian Baroque artist🎨 who worked in Italy and Malta. He was appointed a Member of the Order of Saint John.

Born in the small town of Taverna in Calabria, Preti was called Il Cavalier Calabrese (the Calabrian Knight) after appointment as a Knight of the Order of St. John (Knights of Malta) in 1660.

His early apprenticeship is said to have been with the "Caravaggist" Giovanni Battista Caracciolo, which may account for his lifelong interest in the style of Caravaggio🎨.

Johannes Vermeer | Baroque Era painter

The life and art of Johannes Vermeer (1632-1675) are closely associated with the city of Delft.

He was born in Delft in 1632 and lived there until his death in 1675. His father, Reynier Vermeer, was a silk weaver who produced caffa, a fine satin fabric, but in 1631 he also registered in the Saint Luke’s Guild in Delft as a master art dealer.

By 1641 he was sufficiently prosperous to purchase a large house, the “Mechelen”, which contained an inn on the market square in Delft and from which he probably also sold paintings.

When Reynier died in 1652 Johannes apparently inherited his business.

By that time he must have already decided on a career as a painter. It is assumed that he trained in Delft, perhaps with Leonard Bramer (Dutch, 1596-1674), who seems to have had close associations with Vermeer’s family, or with Carel Fabritius (Dutch, c. 1622-1654).

Johannes Vermeer | The Girl with a Pearl Earring, 1665

Girl with a Pearl Earring / Meisje met de parel is Vermeer’s most famous painting.

It is not a portrait, but a ‘tronie’ - a painting of an imaginary figure. Tronies depict a certain type or character; in this case a girl in exotic dress, wearing an oriental turban and an improbably large pearl in her ear.

Johannes Vermeer was the master of light. This is shown here in the softness of the girl’s face and the glimmers of light on her moist lips. And of course, the shining pearl. | © Mauritshuis Museum in Hague

Adam de Coster | Baroque / Genre painter

Little is known of the biography of Adam de Coster (1586 in Mechelen - 4 May 1643 in Antwerp).

Born in 1586 in the Flemish city of Mechelen, a province of Antwerp, he appears to have spent much of his career in Antwerp and became a Master of the Guild of Saint Luke around 1607.

His portrait was reproduced as an engraving in Anthony van Dyck's🎨 Iconography, where he was described as "pictor noctium", signaling that his reputation as a painter of night scenes had firmly been established in Northern Europe by the 1630s.

Although documentary evidence only ever records de Coster outside of Antwerp in 1635 when he visited Hamburg, Nicolson has noted that correspondences between his paintings and the works of the Lombard artist Antonio Campi suggest a possible sojourn to Italy.

Gerard van Honthorst (1590-1656) | Baroque Era painter

Gerard van Honthorst (1590-1656) became one of the main Dutch🎨 followers of Caravaggio, whose style he popularised in Holland on his return from a stay in Rome, 1610-20.

With paintings such as 'Christ before the High Priest🎨' he became one of the few Dutch painters to achieve international fame.

Honthorst was born in Utrecht, probably the son of Herman Gerritsz. van Honthorst, a painter of tapestry cartoons.

He trained with Bloemaert, the leading local painter, before travelling to Rome. After his return to Utrecht in 1620, he turned from mainly religious to Arcadian and domestic subjects and portraits. He popularised candle-light scenes.

Baroque art | History and Sitemap

Baroque was the principal European style in the visual arts of the 17th century.

The term covers various national styles that range from the complex and dramatic Italian art of the 17th century to the restrained genre scenes, still-lifes and portraits characteristic of the Dutch Baroque.

In Italy, Caravaggio painted altarpieces and introduced innovations such as dramatic lighting effects that influenced painters like Artemisia Gentileschi. Other artists, such as the Giovanni Battista Gaulli and Pietro da Cortona, executed illusionistic ceiling paintings.

Gianlorenzo Bernini, the most celebrated Baroque artist in Rome, produced the famous baldacchino (central altar) of St Peter’s and groundbreaking sculptural works such as Apollo and Daphne.

In Spain, Francisco de Zurbarán executed pious religious paintings, and Diego Velázquez became the great painter of the Spanish Baroque.

In northern Europe, the Netherlands was divided into two parts, the Northern Netherlands (present day Netherlands) and the Southern Netherlands (present day Belgium and part of France), each usually referred to as Holland (North) and Flanders (South).

Johannes Vermeer | Girl with a Pearl Earring, 1665

Sir Peter Paul Rubens | Baroque Era painter

Peter Paul Rubens, (born June 28, 1577, Siegen, Nassau, Westphalia [Germany] - died May 30, 1640, Antwerp, Spanish Netherlands [now in Belgium]), Flemish painter who was the greatest exponent of Baroque painting's🎨, dynamism, vitality, and sensuous exuberance. Though his masterpieces include portraits and landscapes, Rubens is perhaps best known for his religious and mythological compositions.

As the impresario of vast decorative programs, he presided over the most famous painter’s studio in Europe. His powers of invention were matched by extraordinary energy and versatility.

The art of Peter Paul Rubens is a fusion of the traditions of Flemish realism with the Classicizing tendencies of the Italian Renaissance🎨. Rubens was able to infuse his own astounding vitality into a powerful and exuberant style that came to epitomize the Baroque art of the 17th century.

The ample, robust, and opulent figures in his paintings generate a pervasive sense of movement in vivid, dynamic compositions. Rubens was one of the most assimilative, versatile, and productive of all Western artists, and his almost limitless resources of invention enabled him to become the master of the greatest studio organization in Europe since that of Raphael🎨 in Rome a century before. The larger the scale of the undertaking, the more congenial it was to his spirit.

Giacomo Ceruti | Baroque / Genre / Portrait painter

Giacomo Antonio Melchiorre Ceruti (October 13, 1698 - August 28, 1767) was an Italian🎨 late Baroque painter🎨, active in Northern Italy in Milan, Brescia, and Venice. He acquired the nickname Pitocchetto (the little beggar) for his many paintings of peasants dressed in rags.

He was born in Milan, but worked primarily in Brescia. He may have been influenced early by Antonio Cifrondi and/or Giacomo Todesco (Todeschini), and received training from Carlo Ceresa. While he also painted still-life paintings and religious scenes, Ceruti is best known for his genre paintings, especially of beggars and the poor, whom he painted realistically and endowed with unusual dignity and individuality.

Ceruti gave particular attention to this subject matter during the period 1725-1740, and about 50 of his genre paintings from these years survive.

Guercino (1591-1666) Baroque Era painter

Giovanni Francesco Barbieri was called Guercino in reference to his pronounced squint.

He was the leading Bolognese painter after the death of Guido Reni🎨. His earlier pictures typically combine the chiaroscuro effects of Caravaggio🎨 with a charm and softness not usually found in followers of this artist.

Guercino was born at Cento, near Bologna. He was largely self-taught but influenced by the Carracci🎨 and particularly by Ludovico Carracci.

An early commission in Bologna was the altarpiece of the 'Investiture of Saint William' (1620, Bologna, Pinacoteca).

In 1621 Guercino was invited to Rome to work for Pope Gregory XV.

His ceiling fresco, Aurora, was painted for the Pope's nephew (Rome, Villa Ludovisi).

Saint Cecilia: Patroness of Musicians

In the fourth century a Greek religious romance on the Loves of Cecilia and Valerian was written in glorification of virginal life with the purpose of taking the place of then-popular sensual romances.

Consequently, until better evidence is produced, we must conclude that St. Cecilia was not known or venerated in Rome until about the time when Pope Gelasius (496) introduced her name into his Sacramentary.

It is said that there was a church dedicated to St. Cecilia in Rome in the fifth century, in which Pope Symmachus held a council in 500.

The story of St. Cecilia is not without beauty or merit. She is said to have been quite close to God and prayed often:

"In the city of Rome there was a virgin named Cecilia, who came from an extremely rich family and was given in marriage to a youth named Valerian. She wore sackcloth next to her skin, fasted, and invoked the saints, angels, and virgins, beseeching them to guard her virginity".

During her wedding ceremony she was said to have sung in her heart to God and before the consummation of her nuptials, she told her husband she had taken a vow of virginity and had an angel protecting her. Valerian asked to see the angel as proof, and Cecilia told him he would have eyes to see once he traveled to the third milestone on the Via Appia (Appian Way) and was baptized by Pope Urbanus.

Orazio Gentileschi🎨 | Saint Cecilia with an Angel

Hendrick Goltzius | Mannerist painter

Hendrik Goltzius, (born 1558, Mulebrecht, Neth. - died Jan. 1, 1617, Haarlem), printmaker and painter, the leading figure of the Mannerist school🎨 of Dutch🎨 engravers.

Through his engravings, he helped to introduce the style of such artists as Bartholomaeus Spranger🎨 and Annibale Carracci🎨 to the northern Netherlands.

Goltzius’s great-grandfather and grandfather were both painters, and his father was a stained-glass painter. He was taught the art by his father as a child and was then instructed in copperplate engraving by Dirck Volckertszoon Coornhert in Haarlem.

Goltzius’s marriage in 1579 to Margaretha Jansdr., a rich widow, enabled him to set up an independent business in Haarlem, where he spent the rest of his life except for a tour of Germany and Italy in 1590. Owing to his technical facility, he developed into one of the great masters of engraving in Holland.

Bartholomaeus Spranger | Mannerist painter

Bartholomaeus Spranger, also spelled Bartholomeus Sprangers, orSprangerson, (born March 21, 1546, Antwerp, Hapsburg Netherlands - died August 1611, Prague), Antwerp painter noted for his paintings of nudes executed in the late Mannerist style🎨. In his efforts to develop a Northern artistic canon of the human figure, Spranger employed mannered poses, slender, elongated bodies, and a gleaming, brittle texture in his work. The figures smile invitingly, and the influence of Parmigianino🎨 and Correggio🎨 is evident in their voluptuous contours.

Spranger went to Italy in 1567 and during a 10-year period spent in Rome and Parma, he assisted in completing an interrupted fresco project. Later, while working in Paris (c. 1565), he was influenced by the work of Francesco Primaticcio and Niccolò dell’ Abbate.

He returned to Rome in 1567 and became an assistant to Taddeo Zuccari, later working in Vienna for the emperor Maximilian II.

In 1581 he was appointed court painter in Prague by the emperor Rudolf II, and he remained in that city thereafter. The engraver Hendrik Goltzius made popular copies of Spranger’s work, resulting in their becoming widely known. | © Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.

Artemisia Gentileschi | Baroque Era painter

Artemisia Gentileschi, (born July 8, 1593, Rome, Papal States [Italy] - died 1652/53, Naples, Kingdom of Naples), Italian painter🎨, daughter of Orazio Gentileschi🎨, who was a major follower of the revolutionary Baroque painter, Caravaggio.

She was an important second-generation proponent of Caravaggio’s dramatic realism.

A pupil of her father and of his friend the landscape painter Agostino Tassi, she painted at first in a style indistinguishable from her father’s somewhat lyrical interpretation of Caravaggio’s example.

Her first known work is Susanna and the Elders (1610)🎨, an accomplished work long attributed to her father.

She also painted two versions of a scene already essayed by Caravaggio🎨 (but never attempted by her father), Judith Beheading Holofernes (c. 1612-13; c. 1620).

Giovanni Battista Piazzetta | Rococo Era painter

Giovanni Battista Piazzetta, also called Giambattista Piazetta, (born Feb. 13, 1682, Venice [Italy] - died April 28, 1754, Venice), painter, illustrator and designer who was one of the outstanding Venetian artists🎨 of the 18th century. His art evolved from Italian Baroque🎨 traditions of the 17th century to a Rococo manner in his mature style.

Piazzetta began his career in the studio of his father, Giacomo, a woodcarver. Soon after assisting the latter to carve the still-surviving bookcases of the library of the Church of Santi Giovanni e Paolo at Venice, he abandoned the family profession and began to study painting under Antonio Molinari.

In about 1703 he went to Bologna, where he worked in the studio of Giuseppi Maria Crespi. He was back in Venice by 1711 and continued to work there until his death.

William Shakespeare / Maria Amaral | Il mio occhio si è fatto pittore / Mine eye hath played the painter

Il mio occhio si è fatto pittore e ha fissato
i tratti della tua bellezza nel quadro del mio cuore.
Il mio corpo è la cornice in cui essa è racchiusa,
e, in prospettiva, è la migliore arte del pittore:
poiché attraverso il pittore devi vedere la sua abilità,
per scoprire dove giace la tua vera immagine dipinta,
che sempre è appesa nella fucina del mio petto,
le cui finestre sono i tuoi occhi.

Maria Amaral🎨 - Spanish Figurative painter

Mine eye hath played the painter and hath steeled,
Thy beauty's form in table of my heart;
My body is the frame wherein 'tis held,
And perspective that is best painter's art.
For through the painter must you see his skill,
To find where your true image pictured lies,
Which in my bosom's shop is hanging still,
That hath his windows glazed with thine eyes.

Orazio Gentileschi | Portrait of a Young Woman as a Sibyl, 1620-1626

The young woman in this painting by Orazio Gentileschi🎨 has been identified by scholars as the artist's daughter, Artemisia Gentileschi🎨. A renowned painter herself, she trained in her father's workshop and established a European reputation that allowed her a life of independence rare for a woman of her day.

One of the most important followers of Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1571/72-1610)🎨, Orazio Gentileschi combined a refined and elegant personal manner with Caravaggio's powerful sense of realism.

In this painting, the identification of Artemisia as a Sibyl - defined in ancient Greek literature and legend as a woman with the gift of prophecy - may be based on what happened during the trial of Roman artist Agostino Tassi, whom she accused of rape.