Italian Early Renaissance Painter, 1445-1510 Italian painter and draughtsman. In his lifetime he was one of the most esteemed painters in Italy, enjoying the patronage of the leading families of Florence, in particular the Medici and their banking clients. He was summoned to take part in the decoration of the Sistine Chapel in Rome, was highly commended by diplomatic agents to Ludovico Sforza in Milan and Isabella d Este in Mantua and also received enthusiastic praise from the famous mathematician Luca Pacioli and the humanist poet Ugolino Verino. By the time of his death, however, Botticelli s reputation was already waning. He was overshadowed first by the advent of what Vasari called the maniera devota, a new style by Perugino, Francesco Francia and the young Raphael, whose new and humanly affective sentiment, infused atmospheric effects and sweet colourism took Italy by storm; he was then eclipsed with the establishment immediately afterwards of the High Renaissance style, which Vasari called the modern manner, in the paintings of Michelangelo and the mature works of Raphael in the Vatican. From that time his name virtually disappeared until the reassessment of his reputation that gathered momentum in the 1890s   Related Paintings of Sandro Botticelli :. | The temptation of Christ | Piero del Pollaiolo,Prudence | Primavera | St Sixtus II | Lorenzo Tornabuoni before the assembly of the Liberal Arts (mk36) |
Related Artists:
Jean Ranc
French portraits painter, 1674-1735 French painter, active also in Spain. His father was the painter Antoine Ranc (1634-1716), under whom he must have trained. From 1697 he lived in Paris, where he continued his apprenticeship in Hyacinthe Rigaud's studio. After working for some years as Rigaud's assistant, he joined the Academie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture in Paris in 1703 and reached the rank of academician as a portrait painter in 1707. As Rigaud's protege he worked for the French court, painting portraits of Louis XV (1718; Versailles, Cheteau) and almost certainly other members of the royal family as well as of the aristocracy. He also painted some allegorical and mythological works, such as Vertumnus and Pomona
ZUCCHI, Jacopo
Italian Painter, ca.1540-1596. Jacopo Zucchi was an Italian painter of the Florentine school. Italian painter and draughtsman. He was trained in the studio of Vasari, whom he assisted in the decoration of the Palazzo Vecchio, Florence, as early as 1557. He accompanied Vasari to Pisa in 1561, from when dates his earliest known drawing, Aesculapius (London, BM). Between 1563 and 1565 he was again in Florence and is documented working with Vasari, Joannes Stradanus and Giovan Battista Naldini on the ceiling of the Sala Grande (Salone dei Cinquecento) in the Palazzo Vecchio; a drawing of an Allegory of Pistoia (Florence, Uffizi) is related to the ceiling allegories of Tuscan cities. In 1564 Zucchi entered the Accademia del Disegno and contributed to the decorations erected for the funeral of Michelangelo. He travelled to Rome with Vasari and was his chief assistant on decorations in the Vatican in 1567 and 1572,
Giovanni Battista Pittoni
Giambattista Pittoni (June 6, 1687-November 6, 1767) was an Italian painter of the late-Baroque or Rococo period, active mainly in his native Venice. Pittoni was born in Venice, and studied painting under his uncle Francesco Pittoni and Antonio Balestra. Little is known of his early career. He entered the Venetian painters' guild in 1716. In 1722-1723, he was commissioned to paint eThe Torture of St Thomase for San Stae in Venice, which also contains one if his later works in its sacristy. He also completed the transit of Santa Maria in Organo in Verona in 1725. In 1727, he was appointed honorary Academician of the Accademia Clementina in Bologna. In subsequent years, Pittoni never left his native Venice, but completed a number of important and lucrative commissions from German, Polish, Russian, Italian and Austrian patrons, including eThe Sacrifice of Jephthah's daughtere for the Royal Palace of Turin, a number of works for the Marshal von Schulenburg, and a eMartyrdom of St Batholomewe for the Basilica of Saint Anthony of Padua. Pittoni came to be known for his "grand-manner" canvases depicting religious, historical, and mythological subjects (such as Sophonisba and Polyxena). By 1740, he established a studio and residence in the San Giacomo district of Venice, and took on numerous apprentices. Pittoni died at age 80 on November 6, 1767. His tomb is at the church of San Giacomo dall'Orio in Venice. Pittoni was a co-founder of the official painter's academy in Venice (in competition to the old fraglia or painter's guild), the Accademia di Belle Arti di Venezia, and he succeeded as President (1758-1761) his contemporary Giovanni Battista Tiepolo. His mature palette was noted, as was Tiepolo's, for his lightness of tone. Besides Tiepolo, Pittoni's influences were Giovanni Battista Piazzetta, Sebastiano Ricci, and Antonio Balestra. His paintings were of a Rococo style, but later became more sedate in their approach towards Neoclassicism.