beside the easel

The Rest on the Flight into Egypt, ca.1726 Born June 6, 1687 in Venice, Giovanni Battista Pittoni was a late Baroque/early Rococo painter. Pittoni enjoyed a popular career throughout Europe both as an artist and restorer, and at the age of 71 he became the second president of the famous Accademia di Belle Arti di Venezia whose alumni include not only Tiepolo but Giovanni Battista Piazzetta, Francesco Hayez, and Antonio Rotta among others. Pittoni's work is characterized by grand gesture, strong, dramatic figures and of course, being Venetian, a bold palette of beautiful colors. Look at The Rest on the Flight into Egypt above and we immediately see two interesting things: a low viewpoint, where our eye level is right about at baby Christ's yet intersects the waistline of Joseph and just below the neckline of Mary, and second, dynamic figure placement that focuses on Mary and Joseph more than baby Jesus. I love how Joseph is portrayed in true Humanist style, sculptural a...

Allegory of Peace and Justice, 1754 Born on February 8, 1703 on the eastern coast of Italy, Corrado Giaquinto was a Rococo painter. His early training was under Neapolitan Master Francesco Solimena , then Giaquinto worked mainly in Rome, under another Neapolitan great, Sebastiano Conca . During this time he moved between Turin and Madrid where he received important commissions including Church frescos, alterpieces and a ceiling in Turin. Giaquinto marks a period in Italian Art where the elegance and sophistication of the Baroque leaned toward a more sensual liberty that would ultimately never quite return again. His work reflects the influence of his Neapolitan Masters yet also reveals a certain French sensibility in terms of colour, as he was sometimes referred to as an Italian François Boucher . Giaquinto however, has a drama that is particular in that his Baroque roots remain intact despite the grace he conveyed. In Allegory of Peace and Justice above, he uses an i...

Apollo and two Muses, 1719 Giant of the Rococo and early Neoclassicism, Pompeo Batoni was born on January 25, 1708 in Lucca, Italy. Immensely popular in his time, his name sadly is not commonly recognized today because like many Old Masters, his work is not defined by one or two singular masterpieces but by an oeuvre that is overall, incredible. Batoni is something of an anomaly in that he had the midas touch in every genre he worked in, whether portraiture, mythological, and biblical. He trained under a few painters, notably Sebastiano Conca yet he quickly fused his own style together by reinterpreting Classicism with his own vigor for dynamic posing, color and anatomy that he felt was lacking in many artists of the Rococo. His reputation as a portraitist in Rome was highly successful, particularly for many British patrons of the Grand Tour who had heard of Batoni by word of mouth and sought his genius. In Apollo and two Muses above Batoni seems to conjure mythology and Classi...

Vulcan Presenting Venus with Arms for Aeneas,1757 Born September 29th in 1703, the Master of the Rococo, François Boucher is the painter associated with warm skin tones, vivid cool backgrounds and clothing, and probably for the first time in art history, painting nude women for the sake of beauty and nothing else. In direct contrast to the dark realism of Caravaggio and the Baroque, Boucher is about art for art's sake , which irritated many of his critics, but his style is not as easy to categorize as we might think. Boucher's landscapes are idyllic and lush, providing a backdrop for his subjects, and yet he is among the first to really introduce a natural, erotic element to his women that seems innocent at the same time. Technically, Boucher was an incredible draftsman and he fully embraced every medium of his day, his influence carrying into the decorative arts also, such as porcelain and tapestry all throughout Europe. While he may have had less of an impact on art than ...

Portrait of Giovanni Paolo Pannini by Louis Gabriel Blanchet One of my favourite vedutisti , Pannini was born on this day in 1691. During the Rococo of the late 1600's two major ideas evolved in landscape painting: the capriccio and the veduta , which eventually sort of merged into a kind of scenic cappriccio. The Capriccio, meaning caprice or fancy, evolved from the idea of imagination triumphing on the base of Classical architecture, often depicting it with deep shadows and bold colours, whereas the veduta. or view, arose from the British who frequently visited Spain, France and Italy (the Grand Tour) where they became so inspired by the glorious vistas they wanted to take a souvenir back home with them, a veduta. This of course launched the careers of some artists, especially Canaletto. Pannini, although he didn't invent the style, was the one who inspired all of them and as we can see by his portrait above by Blanchet, Pannini was held in high regard in his lifetime. ...

Taverne Olympia advertisement, ca.1896-1900 Jules Chéret, lithographer and painter who created posters for cabarets, theatres, music halls and various other advertisements of the day, was born on May 31, 1836. Why I include him here in this blog is because of his very colorful and well-designed approach to his posters, which are both works of art and effective advertisements. Capturing the spirit of the late 1800's, known as the Belle Époque , Chéret took his influences of the Rococo and made it into something fun and eye-catching without being tacky or melodramatic. In fact, Chéret displays an uncanny ability to utilize colour harmony with effortless charm, and his drawing style is based on a Classical sensibility but slightly exaggerated for the sake of entertainment. In the above example despite its simplicity we see design elements at work, from the way her dress points downward to the restaurant info to the way the two figure's glasses are raised unevenly to heighten...

Autoritratto, 1717 Born on this day in 1675, Giovanni Antonio Pellegrini was a Rococo painter from Venice who helped to merge the perfect figures of Veronese with the drama of Pietro Da Cortona, with Luca Giordano as an important influence also. One of his greatest teachers was Sebastiano Ricci, another giant of the Venetian Baroque who was a master of composition and dramatic scenes. Pellegrini was also known for having married the sister of pastel artist Rosalba Carriera, herself another talented Venetian who was born in the same year as Pellegrini. What really makes Pellegrini particularly unique among his contemporaries was his loose brushwork and glowing colours, often experimenting with warm beside cool, dark beside light, and soft beside hard textures. While he often sacrificed accurate anatomy for expressive emotion, his knowledge of colour and chiaroscuro would have an influence on another Venetian who would master both anatomy and colour: Giambattista Tiepolo. In the ab...