beside the easel

Self-Portrait of the Artist holding a Palette, ca.1635 Giovanni Francesco Barbieri , known as Guercino was born on February 8, 1591 in Cento, a small city near Ferrara. He is one of the great masters of the Italian Baroque and poet of painters. Noted for his speed and efficiency, Guercino also worked in a number of mediums with equal passion whether ink, chalk, charcoal, or oils. His nickname, which means 'little cross-eyes' in Italian, derives in part from an apocryphal childhood accident where he supposedly awoke from a deep sleep as a child from a loud scream that caused his eyes to cross. Another story says something was thrown into his eyes. At any rate, he was self-taught as an artist from as early as nine years old and by his early teens was discovered by the eldest of the Carracci where he would spend some time at the Accademia Degli Incamminati before venturing out on his own. Despite his apparent 'handicap', his vision and talent would make him a giant t...

Here's an informative video by Carmen Bambach , curator for the Met in New York on the thought process behind Michelangelo's most famous drawing: http://82nd-and-fifth.metmuseum.org/thinking-aloud

View of the Grand Canal and the Dogana, ca.1743 Born in Venice on January 30, 1721 Bernardo Bellotto was the nephew and student of his famous uncle Giovanni Antonio Canal , or Canaletto. Bellotto's style has a stronger use of chiaroscuro and tighter integration of the landscape whereas his uncle focused more on Venetian architecture as a distinctive splendor within the landscape. Bellotto was equally fascinated with old alleyways and crumbling Roman ruins as his Venetian roots. The other important distinction is that Canaletto remained in Venice for most of his career, venturing out only to London while Bellotto travelled to other parts of Italy and also to Germany, Austria, and Poland. Bellotto also returned on occasion to the vedute tradition of capriccio from Pannini , or painting from imagination rather than life, something Canaletto only depicted in his etchings. Above in View of the Grand Canal and the Dogana we can see Bellotto's informal and approachable eye...

Coronation of the Virgin with St Augustine and St William of Aquitaine, ca.1616 Born on January 26, 1582, Giovanni Lanfranco was a Baroque painter and alumni from the Accademia degli Incamminati in Bologna. A contemporary of such greats as Guido Reni and Domenichino , Lanfranco would take what he learned from the Carracci and make it uniquely his own, fusing tenebrism, color, Mannerism, Renaissance and Baroque into a very eclectic combination that at times seems to defy description. At times he can be quite Classical, other times Venetian, and yet sometimes he can be eerie enough to veer into the fringes of the surreal. Lanfranco could take the most overdone and tired theme or story and make it unreal...dreamlike and even bizarre. His subconscious seems to have been at the heart of his work, rather than merely keeping up with his colleagues or earning a paycheque. Lanfranco is, in many ways, a visionary who foresaw Surrealism by three hundred years. Note how the composition ...

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...

Death of Cleopatra, ca.1659 Born on January 19, 1601 near Rimini, Italy, Guido Cagnacci was a Baroque painter from the Forlì school and also the Bolognese School , whose contemporaries include Guido Reni , Domenichino , Guercino, and Lionello Spada among others. Considered odd and unreliable, it is unfortunate because his work represents a rare vision on the sensuality of women at a time when the Inquisition did not have an open mind about it. Cagnacci's work is unique from most of his contemporaries for this reason, and his women are unaffected and life-like in a way that is ahead of his time. In Death of Cleopatra we clearly see the Baroque influence from Caravaggio but here Cagnacci heightens the soft flesh with transparent shadows and bright colored drapery. The asp coils loosely around her wrist and bites the forearm of Cleopatra yet her expression is one of surrender, if not pleasure. Cagnacci groups her closest servants on a horizontal plane yet creates a confined sp...