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Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino (April 6 or March 28, 1483 – April 6, 1520), known as Raphael , was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. His work is admired for its clarity of form, ease of composition, and visual achievement of the Neoplatonic ideal of human grandeur. Together with Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci, he forms the traditional trinity of great masters of that period.
Raphael was enormously productive, running an unusually large workshop and, despite his death at 37, leaving a large body of work. Many of his works are found in the Vatican Palace, where the frescoed Raphael Rooms were the central, and the largest, work of his career. The best known work is The School of Athens in the Vatican Stanza della Segnatura. After his early years in Rome much of his work was executed by his workshop from his drawings, with considerable loss of quality. He was extremely influential in his lifetime, though outside Rome his work was mostly known from his collaborative printmaking.
After his death, the influence of his great rival Michelangelo was more widespread until the 18th and 19th centuries, when Raphael`s more serene and harmonious qualities were again regarded as the highest models. His career falls naturally into three phases and three styles, first described by Giorgio Vasari: his early years in Umbria, then a period of about four years (1504–1508) absorbing the artistic traditions of Florence, followed by his last hectic and triumphant twelve years in Rome, working for two Popes and their close associates. | Dmytro Levytsky (Dmitry Grigoryevich Levitsky) (Ukrainian: Дмитро Григорович Левицький; Russian: Дмитрий Григорьевич Левицкий; May 1735 – 17 April 1822) was a Russian-Ukrainian portrait painter.Dmytro Levytsky was born in Kyiv, in a family of clergyman and engraver Hryhoriy Levytsky. His father was his first art teacher. Later he became a pupil of Aleksey Antropov who came to Kyiv to paint the Cathedral of St. Andrew.In 1770, Levitzky became famous as a portrait painter after the exhibition of six of his portraits in the Imperial Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg. For the portrait of Alexander Kokorinov, Director and First Rector of the Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg (1769) he was elected an academician and appointed the Professor of the portrait painting class at the Academy of Arts. He remained on this position until 1788.In 1772–1776 Levitzky worked on a series of portraits of the pupils of the privileged women establishment Smolny Institute for Young Ladies in St. Petersburg commissioned by Catherine II. The girls are depicted performing dances, music, plays.Though Levitzky had many commissions, they were, in most cases, poorly paid, and the painter died in poverty in 1822. |
Arkhip Ivanovich Kuindzhi was a Russian landscape painter of Greek origin.
He studied painting mainly independently and in St.Petersburg Academy of arts (from 1868; the full member since 1893). He was co-partner of mobile art exhibitions (Peredvizhniki, a group of Russian realist artists who in protest to academic restrictions formed an artists` cooperative, which evolved into the Society for Traveling Art Exhibitions (Peredvizhniki in 1870. During this early period Kuinczhy felt Ivan Aivazovsky`s influence.
In his mature period Kuindzhy aspired to transfer the most expressive on illumination of a condition of the nature. He applied composite receptions (high horizon, etc.), creating panoramic views. Using light effects and intense colors shown in main tones, he depicted the illusion of illumination (Evening in the Ukraine, 1876; Birch Grove, 1879; After a thunderstorm, 1879; all three are in Tretyakov Gallery; Night on Dnepr, 1880 in Russian museum, St.Petersburg). His later works are remarkable by decorative effects of color building.
Kuindzhi lectured at the St.Petersburg Academy of arts (Professor since 1892; professor-head of landscape workshop since 1894; but he was fired in 1897 for support of student`s protests). Among his students were artists such as Arkady Rylov, Nicholas Roerich, Konstantin Bogaevsky, and others. Kuindzhi initiated creation of the Society of artists (1909; later – the Society named after A.I. Kuindzhi). |
Boris Mikhaylovich Kustodiev was a Russian painter and stage designer.
Boris studied in theological seminary and took private art lessons in Astrakhan from Pavel Vlasov, a pupil of Vasily Perov. Subsequently, from 1896 to 1903, he attended Ilya Repin’s studio at the Imperial Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg.Concurrently, he took classes in sculpture under Dmitry Stelletsky and in etching under Vasiliy Mate. He first exhibited in 1896
When Repin was commissioned to paint a large-scale canvas to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the State Council, he invited Kustodiev to be his assistant. The painting was extremely complex and involved a great deal of hard work. Together with his teacher, the young artist made portrait studies for the painting, and then executed the right-hand side of the final work.
He visited France and Spain on a grant from the Imperial Academy of Arts in 1904. Also in 1904, he attended the private studio of René Ménard in Paris. After that he traveled to Spain, then, in 1907, to Italy, and in 1909 he visited Austria and Germany, and again France and Italy. During these years he painted many portraits and genre pieces. However, no matter where Kustodiev happened to be – in sunny Seville or in the park at Versailles – he felt the irresistible pull of his motherland. After five months in France he returned to Russia, writing with evident joy to his friend Mate that he was back once more in our blessed Russian land.
In 1905, Kustodiev first turned to book illustrating, a genre in which he worked throughout his entire life. He illustrated many works of classical Russian literature, including Nikolai Gogol`s Dead Souls, The Carriage, and The Overcoat; Mikhail Lermontov`s The Lay of Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich, His Young Oprichnik and the Stouthearted Merchant Kalashnikov; and Leo Tolstoy`s How the Devil Stole the Peasants Hunk of Bread and The Candle.
His Pancake Tuesday/Maslenitsa (1916) and Fontanka (1916) are all painted from his memories. He meticulously restores his own childhood in the busy city on the Volga banks. |
