Italian 1494-1557 Jacopo Pontormo Galleries Italian painter and draughtsman. He was the leading painter in mid-16th-century Florence and one of the most original and extraordinary of Mannerist artists. His eccentric personality, solitary and slow working habits and capricious attitude towards his patrons are described by Vasari; his own diary, which covers the years 1554-6, further reveals a character with neurotic and secretive aspects. Pontormo enjoyed the protection of the Medici family throughout his career but, unlike Agnolo Bronzino and Giorgio Vasari, did not become court painter. His subjective portrait style did not lend itself to the state portrait. He produced few mythological works and after 1540 devoted himself almost exclusively to religious subjects. His drawings, mainly figure studies in red and black chalk, are among the highest expressions of the great Florentine tradition of draughtsmanship; close to 400 survive, forming arguably the most important body of drawings by a Mannerist painter. His highly personal style was much influenced by Michelangelo, though he also drew on northern art, primarily the prints of Albrecht Derer.  Related Paintings of Jacopo Pontormo :. | Madonna and Child with Saints | St John the Evangelist | Visitation | Martyrdom of St Maurice and the Theban Legion | Cosimo de Medici the Elder |
Related Artists:
Conrad Martens
England/Australia Painter , 1801-1878 Australian painter, lithographer and librarian of English birth. Son of a London merchant, he studied c. 1816 under Copley Fielding. His training was as a watercolourist and his most important works are watercolours, although he also produced paintings in oils. His early work displays the taste then current for the Picturesque. Francis Danby, David Cox and Turner were artists he admired. Martens left for India in 1832 or 1833 but at Montevideo joined Charles Darwin's expedition, replacing Augustus Earle as topographical draughtsman aboard the Beagle. The work strengthened his observation of detail and skill as a draughtsman. He left the expedition in October 1834 and, travelling via Tahiti and New Zealand, arrived in Sydney in April 1835. There he worked as a professional artist, in the 1840s and 1850s producing lithographic views of the Sydney area to augment his income. In 1863 he was appointed Parliamentary Librarian, which secured his finances. The skills he had acquired aboard the Beagle helped to gain him commissions to depict the estates around Sydney. However, his admiration for Turner, and with this the desire to elevate landscape as a subject, prompted him to subordinate line to mood in a Romantic treatment of the landscape. His thoughts were clearly stated in a lecture on landscape painting given in 1856 at the Australian Library, Sydney (see Smith, 1975).
Walt Louderback
American, 1887-1941
Floris van Dyck
, also called Floris van Dijck or Floris Claesz. van Dyck (Delft or Haarlem, c. 1575 - Haarlem, before 26 April 1651), was a Dutch Golden Age still life painter. He lived in Haarlem for most of his life, but he was born in Delft. He was a cousin of Pieter Cornelisz van Dijck. In 1600 he is documented as being in Rome, indicating he made a journey to Italy. In 1606 he returned to the Netherlands, where he joined the Haarlem Guild of St. Luke in 1610 and became dean in 1637. He was influenced by Osias Beert and Clara Peeters. He is considered the inventor of the banketje (banquet still life genre similar to breakfasts, or ontbijtjes), together with Nicolaes Gillis.