text
stringlengths
0
3.13k
Biography
Matteo di Giovanni di Bartolo was born in Borgo Sansepolcro around 1430. His family relocated to Siena and he is firmly associated with the art of that city. Matteo was twice married—first in 1463 to a wealthy noble woman and, after her death, to a rich widow, who made it possible for Matteo to buy real estate and by ...
Documentation concerning the early phases of Matteo's life and career as an artist is scanty and nothing is recorded about his apprenticeship. Left to conjecture, we might imagine him as having been trained in the workshop of sculptor/painter Lorenzo di Pietro, better known as Vecchietta but he clearly was influenced b...
That Matteo had succeeded in establishing an artistic reputation is demonstrated by his selection as one of four Sienese painters who were to furnish altarpieces for the chapels of the Pienza Cathedral erected as part of the urban renewal of the town. For this prestigious commission Matteo painted three altarpieces. D...
The three paintings in Pienza also help to explain the next phase in his style. The first of these altarpieces, a large Madonna and Saints signed "Opus Matthei Johannis De Senis" depicts the enthroned Madonna surrounded by Sts. Catherine, Matthew, Bartholomew, and Lucy. The composition and figure types are reminiscent...
Work from Matteo's middle period includes an altarpiece dated to 1477 for the oratory of Santa Maria delle Nevi in Siena; the altarpiece of Santa Barbara, dated to 1478–79 commissioned by the baker's guild for their chapel in the Church of San Domenico, Siena; and what is considered Matteo di Giovanni's masterpiece, th...
During his mature period, Matteo began to paint idyllic and naturalistic landscape scenes employing delicate, lyrical colors derived from the Umbrian school of painting. Matteo's brand of eclecticism tended to evolve from local taste and tradition. For this reason it is not surprising to find him producing delicate, sw...
Matteo di Giovanni died in Siena in 1495. He is credited with teaching Guidoccio Cozzarelli (1450–1516/17) of Siena, an altarpiece painter and miniaturist.
References
Further reading
"Matteo di Giovanni's lost altarpiece for Sant'Agostino, Asciano". National Gallery.
Pope-Hennessy, John & Kanter, Laurence B. (1987). The Robert Lehman Collection I, Italian Paintings. New York, Princeton: The Metropolitan Museum of Art in association with Princeton University Press. ISBN 0870994794.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) (see index; plate 68)
Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "Matteo da Siena" . Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.
Matthias Grünewald (c. 1470 – 31 August 1528; also known as Mathis Gothart Nithart) was a German Renaissance painter of religious works who ignored Renaissance classicism to continue the style of late medieval Central European art into the 16th century.
Only ten paintings—including several polyptychs—and thirty-five drawings survive, all religious, although many others were lost at sea on their way to Sweden as war booty. He was obscure until the late nineteenth century, when many of his paintings were attributed to Albrecht Dürer, who is now seen as his stylistic ant...
Life
He was recognised in his own lifetime, as shown by his commissions, yet the details of his life are unusually unclear for a painter of his significance at this date. The first source to sketch his biography comes from the German art historian Joachim von Sandrart, who describes him around 1505 working on the exterior d...
More recent investigations have provided further information on Grünewald's life. In 1511 he became court artist of Uriel von Gemmingen, Archbishop of Mainz, and he also worked for the next archbishop, Albert of Brandenburg. About 1510 he received a commission from the Frankfurt merchant Jacob Heller and settled in nea...
From 1512 to 1514 or 1515 he worked on the Isenheim altarpiece, apparently in partnership with another Mathis, variously surnamed Nithart, Neithart, von Würzburg (after his place of birth), or Gothardt. Grünewald seems to have left Isenheim in a hurry, returning to Frankfurt, and his subsequent poverty suggests he was ...
There has been considerable uncertainty about the details of his life. In 1938 Walter Karl Zülch published the theory that Grünewald and his partner Nithart/Gothardt were the same person; this Nithart/Gothardt was a painter, engineer, and "water artist" born in Würzburg in the 1460s or maybe 1470s and probably dying in...
Works
Only religious works are included in his small surviving corpus, the most famous being the Isenheim Altarpiece, completed 1515, now in the Musée d'Unterlinden, Colmar. Its nine images on twelve panels are arranged on double wings to present three views (rather than just the open and closed states of triptych altarpiece...
His other works are in Germany, except for a small Crucifixion in Washington and another in Basel, Switzerland. Around 1510 he was asked to paint four saints in grisaille for the outside of the wings of Albrecht Dürer's Heller Altarpiece in Frankfurt. Dürer's work was destroyed by fire and survives only in copies, but ...
Reputation
The Lutheran theologian Philipp Melanchthon is one of the few contemporary writers to refer to Grünewald, who is rather puzzlingly described as "moderate" in style, when compared with Dürer and Cranach; what paintings this judgement is based on is uncertain. By the end of the century, when the Holy Roman Emperor, Rudol...
In the late 19th century he was rediscovered, and became something of a cult figure, with the angst-laden expressionism—and absence of any direct classicism—of the Isenheim Altarpiece appealing to both German Nationalists and Modernists. Joris-Karl Huysmans promoted his art enthusiastically in both novels and journalis...
The composer Paul Hindemith based his 1938 opera Mathis der Maler on the life of Grünewald during the German Peasants' War; scene Six includes a partial re-enactment of some scenes from the Isenheim Altarpiece.
Elias Canetti wrote his novel Auto-da-Fé surrounded by reproductions of the Isenheim altarpiece stuck to the wall.
German author W. G. Sebald traces the life story of Grünewald in his first literary work, After Nature. This book-length prose-poem uses the preoccupations of Grünewald and especially his creation of the Isenheim Altarpiece to communicate an intensely apocalyptic vision of a world that has abandoned nature. The Isenhei...
Veneration
He is commemorated as an artist and saint by the Lutheran Church on April 6, along with Dürer and Cranach.
Gallery
Notes
References
Grünewald, Matthias. In: Meyers Konversations-Lexikon. 4th edition. Volume 7, Verlag des Bibliographischen Instituts, Leipzig/Vienna 1885–1892, p. 875.
Andersson, Christiane. "Grünewald, Matthias." In Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online, (accessed January 30, 2012; subscription required).
Bautz, Friedrich Wilhelm (1990). "Matthias Grünewald". In Bautz, Friedrich Wilhelm (ed.). Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL) (in German). Vol. 2. Hamm: Bautz. cols. 367–369. ISBN 3-88309-032-8.
Bryda, Gregory. (2023) The Trees of the Cross: Wood as Subject and Medium in Late Medieval Germany. New Haven: Yale University Press, pp. 78–129.
Cuttler, Charles D. (1968) Northern Painting from Pucelle to Bruegel. Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc. ISBN 0-03-072500-3
Ladendorf, Heinz (1966), "Grünewald, Matthias", Neue Deutsche Biographie (in German), vol. 7, Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, pp. 191–197
Woltmann, Alfred (1879), "Matthias Grünewald", Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (in German), vol. 10, Leipzig: Duncker & Humblot, pp. 52–53
External links
"Mathias Grunewald" . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. XI (9th ed.). 1880. p. 225.
Media related to Paintings by Matthias Grünewald at Wikimedia Commons
Grünewald Gallery at MuseumSyndicate
Grünewald paintings at CGFA
wgsebald.de W. G. Sebald about Grünewald
Matthias Grünewald. paintings
https://isenheimer.antrovista.com Web app Isenheimer Altar
Matthias Withoos (1627–1703), also known as Calzetta Bianca and Calzetti, was a Dutch painter of still lifes and city scenes, best known for the details of insects, reptiles and undergrowth in the foreground of his pictures.
Life
Withoos was born in Amersfoort. He studied under Jacob van Campen, at his painters' school just outside the city at his country house, and then with Otto Marseus van Schrieck. When he was 21, Withoos made a trip to Rome with van Schrieck, and Willem van Aelst. In Rome they joined the group of northern artists known as...
In 1653, the artist returned to Amersfoort. When French troops occupied Amersfoort in the "Disastrous Year" of 1672, Withoos fled from Amersfoort to Hoorn, where he would remain until his death in 1703. Many of Withoos' seven children also followed in his footsteps, including the botanical artist Alida Withoos.
Following the artist's career as a painter of cityscapes, his student Caspar van Wittel was instrumental in developing the genre of architecture vedute in Rome. Jacob van Staverden was possibly also one of his pupils.
Works
Still life paintings by Withoos, like those of his teacher Van Schrieck, are notable for their close-ups of dark and mysterious wild plants and undergrowth inhabited by insects, reptiles and other creatures from the natural world. These paintings, many of which have a vanitas motif, were popular with collectors of cabi...
Additionally, he painted numerous large cityscapes, such as the View of the city of Amersfoort acquired in 2001 by the Museum Flehite in Amersfoort. This work of a size of 2.5 x 4 m was the largest city view in the Netherlands. Two versions of "De Grashaven" were in the collection of the Westfries Museum in Hoorn unti...
References
External links
Media related to Matthias Withoos at Wikimedia Commons
Matthys or Matthijs Naiveu (16 April 1647 in Leiden – 4 June 1726 in Amsterdam) was a Dutch Golden Age painter.
Biography
According to Houbraken he was trained in drawing by Abraham Toorenvliet (1620–1692), a glass painter and drawing instructor (and father of Jacob Toorenvliet), and he learned the art of painting from Gerrit Dou. At the time Houbraken was writing he was still alive and painting in Amsterdam, where he worked as the "Hop i...
Paintings
His paintings from his earlier years such as the children blowing soap bubbles (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston) are strongly influenced by Gerrit Dou, with architectural elements framing the scene. Later he adopted a more general genre-works style.
References
External links
Kremer collection - Man smoking a pipe
The Met - Visit to the newborn
MFA Boston - Boy and girl blowing bubbles
Rijksmuseum - The Holy Heronymous
Mattia Bortoloni (31 March 1696 – 9 June 1750) was a painter of the early Italian Rococo period. He began his career as a student of Antonio Balestra of Verona and was active throughout northern Italy.
Biography
For many years the growth of Bortoloni's reputation was constrained by two factors. First, his work was heavily centered on frescos (that is, wall paintings created in wet plaster), which generally must be viewed on-site and are often located in places of restricted accessibility. Second, some of his most important w...
The first major breakthrough came in 1950 with publication of Nicola Ivanoff's provocative discovery that the mysterious and anonymous 104-panel fresco cycle at Villa Cornaro-Gable, the acclaimed villa in Piombino Dese designed by the Renaissance architect Andrea Palladio in 1551, was in fact the precocious work of Bor...
The early 20th century brought the further discovery that Bortoloni had flexibly based his imagery at Villa Cornaro-Gable in large part upon an illustrated Bible published in Amsterdam in 1700, apparently in response to the requirement of the patron, Proc. Cornaro.
Another event prompting reevaluation of Bortoloni's work was the ambitious program launched in 1982 to restore Bortoloni's most spectacular work, the cupola of the Sanctuario Basilica "Regina Montis Regalis" in Vicoforte, south of Turin. Bortoloni's immense fresco ceiling spans one of the world's largest free-standing...
Other notable Bortoloni works can be found in: (Venice) the Church of S. Nicolò da Tolentino and Ca' Vendramin-Calergi: (Veneto) the parish churches of Castelguglielmo and Rovigo; (Lombardy) Palazzo Clerici in Milan and the Cathedral in Monza; (Piedmont) the parish church of San Lorenzo and Palazzo Falletti di Barolo i...
References
Sources