Jusepe de Ribera

Jusepe de Ribera (also known as Jose de Ribera) was born in Spain in 1591. His parents wanted him to go to school so he could work an intellectual job but Ribera wanted to paint. He worked as an apprentice for awhile and learned his art. By 1611 he had moved to Italy.

Ribera lived in Rome until about 1616. There, he studied the work of great painters of the time. This was the end of the Renaissance and there were great painters everywhere.

Finally, Ribera moved to the Kingdom of Naples. Today, Naples is a port city on the south-western coast of Italy. In Ribera’s time, Naples and the towns around it made up the Kingdom of Naples and was ruled by Spain. Ribera made an impression on the Spanish Viceroy, or ruler, of the Kingdom of Naples, and the man bought some of Ribera’s paintings.

In 1647 and 1648, when Ribera was sick and the people of Naples were rebelling against Spanish rule, the Viceroy even let Ribera stay at the palace. Ribera died in 1652.


Ribera’s paintings were extremely realistic. He wanted to paint the world the way it really was and that included the bad things. He especially liked to paint people in pain. Ribera was very good at showing pain of the faces of his subjects. Look at the painting above, The Deliverance of St. Peter.
In his early paintings, Ribera used a strong contrast between light and dark to create murky looking paintings. The painting above, Jerome Hears the Trumpet, is one example. Around 1630, Ribera moved away from this. He began to create paintings that seemed to glow with dim light. An example of this is Saint Francis of Assisi, shown below.
Check back tomorrow for another Spanish painter.

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Pieter Bruegel the Elder

Today will be the last post on the Renaissance, at least for awhile. There are still plenty of artists I haven’t told you about, though, so you can feel certain that there will be more about the Renaissance in the future.

Like Jan van Eyck, Pieter Bruegel the Elder was from the Netherlands and painted during the Renaissance. You’ll notice that he was very different from the other Renaissance painters you’ve learned about, though. Firstly, Bruegel didn’t paint portraits. You won’t find any close-ups of royalty among Bruegel’s works. Secondly, he didn’t focus on details. Bruegel preferred to paint people in motion so the shape of their bodies was more important than the way the fabric of their clothes draped around them. And thirdly, Bruegel loved to paint landscapes. Other Renaissance painters created landscapes too, but they usually did so as backdrops for religious paintings.
Bruegel was born sometime in the late 1520s. His name was originally spelled with an “h” (Brueghel) but he dropped it in 1559. There were many artists in his family and this made it easy to tell him apart. Bruegel served as apprentice to Pieter Coeck van Aelst until 1551 when he became a master painter.

For the next three years, Bruegel traveled through Italy and met many important artists of the time.
As you can see in the paintings shown here, Bruegel liked to paint peasants. He often dressed up as a peasant and wandered through towns looking for inspiration. This earned him the nickname “Peasant Bruegel”

Bruegel had two sons, Pieter Brueghel the Younger and Jan Brueghel the Elder. They both became painters.
Bruegel died in 1569.

The paintings shown above, in order, are Peasant Wedding, Netherlandish Proverbs, and Tower of Babel. In Netherlandish Proverbs, Bruegel illustrates more than 100 wise sayings. For example, there is a man swimming against the current. Many of the sayings don’t exist in English but there are some you’ll recognize. See if you can find any.

Have a great weekend!

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Jan van Eyck

Jan van Eyck (sounds like: Yahn vahn Ike) was born in the Netherlands. He was a Renaissance painter but lived earlier than the Italian painters we have already looked at. No one is sure exactly when he was born but it was probably in the late 1380s or early 1390s.

Van Eyck’s older brother, Hubert van Eyck, was also a painter. He probably taught his little brother how to draw and paint. The brothers were both court painters and are believed to have worked together on some paintings.

In 1421, Jan van Eyck became a master painter and went to work for John of Bavaria. At the time he was the Count of Holland. When John of Bavaria died, van Eyck became court painter for the Duke. He was a loved and respected painter even during his lifetime.

The Duke treated van Eyck well and paid him a lot. He feared that van Eyck would seek work elsewhere and the Duke would never find a painter as talented. Most painters of the time worked for anyone who would hire them and had to worry about how they would be able to pay for things. Until van Eyck died, he worked for the Duke. He never had to worry about money.

Van Eyck painted many portraits, including the Arnolfini Portrait, shown above. This painting is very famous. You may have seen it before. It is the oldest oil painting on wood panel that was admired and became well known. It is also extremely detailed. Look at the close up of the mirror (shown below). You can see the Arnolfinis reflected in the mirror and two other people standing in the doorway. It is believed that one of the people is van Eyck. Above the mirror it says “Johannes de eyck fuit hic 1434” which means “Johannes van Eyck was here 1434.” What a strange thing to write in the center of a painting! Especially by someone who usually signed only the frames of his paintings.
Van Eyck also painted religious scenes. Shown below is the Annunciation. I love that everyone he painted had skin like porcelain dolls.
Finally, look at Portrait of a Man. This is believed to be a self-portrait but there isn’t really any evidence that this man is van Eyck. One thing to notice, though, is that the head is a bit too large for the body. This is something van Eyck often did. You may have noticed it in the Annunciation, also.

Notice how bright all the colors are, too. Van Eyck was a master with oil paints which are much brighter than the tempera paints used by many painters who came before him. He was one of the first to use oil paints to their full potential.

Van Eyck died in 1441. The Duke continued to support van Eyck’s wife after his death and, later, gave his daughter the money she needed to become a nun.

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Titian

No one is sure when Titian was born but it was sometime between 1477 and 1490. He painted during the Renaissance and became the leading artist of Venice.

Even as a young boy Titian was a good artist. His drawings caught his father’s attention and Titian became an apprentice. His teachers were well-known master painters and included Gentile Bellini and Giovanni Bellini. The painter who influenced young Titian the most, though, was Giorgione.
Titian and Giorgione were friends but also rivals. They often worked on the same projects and each learned from the other as they grew as painters. The painting shown above was created as a team Titian and Giorgione. It is Portrait of a Venetian Gentleman. Even art historians sometimes have difficulty telling which paintings were painted by which of these artists. Titian eventually developed his own style.
When Giovanni Bellini died, Titian was hired to complete the paintings Bellini had left unfinished. He did a good job and he was asked to paint frescos in the Doges Palace and other government buildings. Because of this commission, Titian painted portraits of several Dukes.
Titian painted many portraits and he created altar pieces for churches throughout Venice.
Much of Titian’s work has been lost or destroyed. There was a fire in the Doges Palace in 1577 which destroyed many pieces. Late in his life he began finishing copies of his paintings that his students began. Because so many copies were made during his life and after, it is hard to tell how many paintings he really worked on.
Titian died of the plague in 1576.

The paintings above, in order, are Portrait of a Venetian Gentleman, Assunta, Allegory of Age Governed by Prudence, and La Bella.

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Raphael

Raphael Sanzio, known as Raphael, was a master painter during the Renaissance. Like Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael had many interests other than painting. He studied archaeology, poetry, history, and architecture. This post will focus mostly on his art.

Raphael was born in Urbino, Italy in 1483. His mother died when he was only 8 years old. His father was talented and taught Raphael a great deal about art. Saddly, he died only three years after Raphael’s mother.

Raphael lived with his uncle for awhile and then with his stepmother. Soon he became the apprentice to Pietro Perugino. Raphael was a fully trained master in 1501.

When he was 21 years old, Raphael moved to Florence. In Florence, he met Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci. He studied the work of many masters and improved his own art. At the age of 26, Raphael was considered one of the most important painters in Italy. At the time, Florence was the center of the art world.
Raphael painted portraits of many famous and wealthy people. The one shown above is Portrait of Bindo Altoviti.
When Raphael was not painting portraits, he painted group scenes like the one shown above, School of Athens. He created many of these paintings for the Vatican in Rome. (This painting was completed on a wall in the Vatican City.) In group scenes, Raphael often used people he knew as models. Another example of a group scene is The Miraculous Draught of Fishes, shown below.
He died in 1520, leaving a large number of paintings, many of which were at the Vatican.

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Renaissance

I’m back! Tennessee was fantastic. The weather was pretty good for most of the long weekend. I saw lots of great bands, met some nice people, and got to spend time with one of my closest friends who lives in Florida.

But you’ve been missing your daily dose of art, I know. . .

Most of you have heard of the Renaissance but some of you are not sure what the word means. You have probably even heard of a lot of famous artists from the time, like Michelangelo, Botticelli, and Leonardo da Vinci. You don’t have to wonder anymore. Today, I’ll tell you about the Renaissance.

The word Renaissance means rebirth. Beginning in the 1400s, artists wanted to create realistic paintings and sculpture like the ancient Greeks and Romans did. The Renaissance was the rebirth of the artistic style of the ancient Greeks and Romans. Artists continued to paint in this style until the 1600s.

The Renaissance began in Italy in the 1400s but spread to England, Germany, France, Spain, Poland, and the Netherlands. I have highlighted these countries in red in the map below.
During the Renaissance, artists were able to create art that was even more realistic than the art of the ancient Greeks and Romans. Renaissance artists were the first to study perspective and use it in their art. (I’ve already posted about perspective. Refresh your memory if you need to.) They also studied the human body and how it worked. Leonardo da Vinci is famous for his studies. He wanted to know exactly how muscles flexed and how bodies bent and moved. It was important that the people in his paintings looked natural. Other Renaissance artists agreed.

The Renaissance was about more than just art. During the Renaissance many scientific discoveries were made. Scientists developed a new way of learning. They looked at the things around them and used what they saw as evidence. Also during the Renaissance, people studied books from ancient Greece and Rome. They used what they read to shape their world.

Tomorrow I’ll post about Leonardo da Vinci.

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