Michelangelo Buonarroti | Vita ed Opere

Michelàngelo (o Michelàngiolo; propr. Michelàgnolo) Buonarroti - Architetto, scultore, pittore, poeta (Caprese, od. Caprese Michelangelo, Arezzo, 1475 - Roma 1564). Culmine della civiltà rinascimentale, celebrato come il massimo genio del suo tempo, ne rappresentò anche la drammatica conclusione. Apprendista dal 1487 nella bottega di D. Ghirlandaio, intorno al 1489 venne in contatto presso il giardino di S. Marco, domicilio della collezione di antichità della famiglia Medici, con la statuaria classica e la filosofia neoplatonica, componenti essenziali per lo sviluppo della sua produzione artistica.

Nel 1498 il cardinale J. Bilhères gli commissionò per la sua tomba in S. Petronilla a Roma la Pietà : per il carattere di perfetta armonia, grazia e bellezza, l'opera suscitò universale ammirazione. Tornato a Firenze, Michelàngelo realizzò la statua di David🎨(1501-04), quindi nel 1505 fu di nuovo a Roma per eseguire la tomba di Giulio II in S. Pietro, i cui tormentati lavori si sarebbero protratti per oltre quarant'anni.

Antonio Sicurezza (1905-1979) | Figurative painter

Antonio Sicurezza was an Italian painter🎨 representative for the contemporary figurative art of the Lazio region, Italy.

He studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Naples, winning a scholarship as a worthy competitor among the four faculties. He obtained the diploma in painting under the guidance of the masters Carlo Siviero, Vincenzo Volpe, Vincenzo Migliaro and Paolo Vetri.

The first contact with the territory of Formia was in 1933–1934, when he was called to paint the chapel of St. Anthony in the church of Maranola. Here he met Virginia Mastrogiovanni whom he married in 1934.

Italian Art History and Sitemap

Italian art has influenced several major movements throughout the centuries and has produced several great artists, including painters, architects and sculptors.

Today, Italy has an important place in the international art scene, with several major art galleries, museums and exhibitions; major artistic centres in the country include Rome, Florence, Venice, Milan, Turin, Genoa, Naples, Palermo, Lecce and other cities.

Italy is home to 53 World Heritage Sites, the largest number of any country in the world.

Leonardo da Vinci | La Gioconda (1503-1505) Musée-du-Louvre

Albrecht Dürer | High Renaissance painter

A supremely gifted and versatile German artist of the Renaissance period, Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528) was born in the Franconian city of Nuremberg, one of the strongest artistic and commercial centers in Europe during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.

He was a brilliant painter, draftsman, and writer, though his first and probably greatest artistic impact was in the medium of printmaking. Dürer apprenticed with his father, who was a goldsmith, and with the local painter Michael Wolgemut, whose workshop produced woodcut illustrations for major books and publications.

An admirer of his compatriot Martin Schongauer, Dürer revolutionized printmaking, elevating it to the level of an independent art form.

Award winning Artists | Sitemap

List of Award winning Artists

William Whitaker (1943-2018) | Academic / Figurative art | Drawing

William Whitaker (1943-2018) | Academic / Figurative art | Painting

Alejandro Rosemberg, 1981 | Realist painter

Mathis Miles Williams, 1964 | Figurative painter

Roberto Ferri, 1978 | Portrait of Pope Francis

Konstantin Kacev, 1967 | Figurative painter

Felix Ziem | The Barbizon school of painters

Andrius Kovelinas, 1958 | Surrealist painter

Léon Comerre | Orientalist Academic painter

Jeremy Lipking, 1975 | Figurative painter

Ron Barsano, 1945 | Figurative / Abstract painter

Jack Vettriano, 1951 | Realist / Figurative / Genre painter🎨

Masaccio | Early Renaissance painter

Masaccio, byname of Tommaso di Giovanni di Simone Cassai, (born December 21, 1401, Castel San Giovanni [now San Giovanni Valdarno, near Florence, Italy] - died autumn 1428, Rome), important Florentine painter of the early Renaissance🎨 whose frescoes in the Brancacci Chapel of the Church of Santa Maria del Carmine in Florence (c. 1427) remained influential throughout the Renaissance.

In the span of only six years, Masaccio radically transformed Florentine painting.

His art eventually helped create many of the major conceptual and stylistic foundations of Western painting. Seldom has such a brief life been so important to the history of art.

Early Life And Works

Tommaso di Giovanni di Simone Guidi was born in what is now the town of San Giovanni Valdarno, in the Tuscan province of Arezzo, some 40 miles (65 km) southeast of Florence.

His father was Ser Giovanni di Mone Cassai, a notary, while his mother, Monna Iacopa, was the daughter of an innkeeper. Masaccio’s brother Giovanni was also an artist; called lo Scheggia (“the Splinter”), he is known only for several inept paintings.

Caravaggio | Life and works

Arrogant, rebellious and a murderer, Caravàggio's short and tempestuous life matched the drama of his works. Characterised by their dramatic, almost theatrical lighting, Caravàggio's paintings were controversial, popular, and hugely influential on succeeding generations of painters all over Europe.

Born Michelangelo Merisi (1571-1610), Caravàggio is the name of the artist's home town in Lombardy in northern Italy.

In 1592, at the age of 21 he moved to Rome, Italy's artistic centre and an irresistible magnet for young artists keen to study its classical buildings and famous works of art. The first few years were a struggle. He specialised in still lifes of fruits and flowers, and later, half length figures (as in 'The Boy bitten by a Lizard') which he sold on the street.

Botticelli | Venus and Mars, c. 1483

From: The National Gallery, London

Mars, God of War, was one of the lovers of Venus, Goddess of Love. Here Mars is asleep and unarmed, while Venus is awake and alert. The meaning of the picture is that love conquers war, or love conquers all.

This work was probably a piece of bedroom furniture, perhaps a bedhead or piece of wainscoting, most probably the 'spalliera' or backboard from a chest or day bed. The wasps ('vespe' in Italian) at the top right suggest a link with the Vespucci family, though they may be no more than a symbol of the stings of love.

Antonio Fontanesi | Barbizon School painter

Antonio Fontanesi (23 February 1818 - 17 April 1882) was an Italian painter who lived in Meiji period Japan between 1876-1878. He introduced European oil painting techniques to Japan, and exerted a significant role in the development of modern Japanese yōga (Western style) painting. He is known for his works in the Romantic style of the French Barbizon school.

Arthur Schopenhauer / Antonio Nunziante | Quotes / Aforismi

Talent hits a target no one else can hit; Genius hits a target no one else can see.

• All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.
• Great men are like eagles, and build their nest on some lofty solitude.
• If you want to know your true opinion of someone, watch the effect produced in you by the first sight of a letter from him.
• The discovery of truth is prevented more effectively, not by the false appearance things present and which mislead into error, not directly by weakness of the reasoning powers, but by preconceived opinion, by prejudice.
• To live alone is the fate of all great souls.

Ancient Rome / La Civiltà romana

Ancient Rome, the state centred on the city of Rome. This article discusses the period from the founding of the city and the regal period, which began in 753 bc, through the events leading to the founding of the republic in 509 bc, the establishment of the empire in 27 bc, and the final eclipse of the Empire of the West in the 5th century ad. For later events of the Empire of the East, see Byzantine Empire.