Nicolas Poussin was the leading painter of the classical French Baroque style, although he spent most of his working life in Rome. Most of his works were on religious and mythological subjects painted for a small group of Italian and French collectors. He returned to Paris for a brief period to serve as First Painter to the King under Louis XIII and Cardinal Richelieu, but soon returned to Rome and resumed his more traditional themes. In his later years he gave growing prominence to the landscape in his paintings. His work is characterized by clarity, logic, and order, and favors line over color. Until the 20th century he remained a major inspiration for such classically-oriented artists as Jacques-Louis David, Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres and Paul Cézanne.
Edward St. John Gorey was an American writer, Tony Award-winning costume designer, and artist, noted for his own illustrated books as well as cover art and illustration for books by other writers. His characteristic pen-and-ink drawings often depict vaguely unsettling narrative scenes in Victorian and Edwardian settings.
Giorgio Vasari was an Italian Renaissance Master, who worked as a painter, architect, engineer, writer, and historian, who is best known for his work The Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, considered the ideological foundation of all art-historical writing, and the basis for biographies of several Renaissance artists, including Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo. Vasari designed the Tomb of Michelangelo in the Basilica of Santa Croce, Florence that was completed in 1578. Based on Vasari's text in print about Giotto's new manner of painting as a rinascita (rebirth), author Jules Michelet in his Histoire de France (1835) suggested adoption of Vasari's concept, using the term Renaissance to distinguish the cultural change. The term was adopted thereafter in historiography and still is in use today.
Robert Laurence Binyon, CH was an English poet, dramatist and art scholar. Born in Lancaster, England, his parents were Frederick Binyon, a clergyman, and Mary Dockray. He studied at St Paul's School, London and at Trinity College, Oxford, where he won the Newdigate Prize for poetry in 1891. He worked for the British Museum from 1893 until his retirement in 1933. In 1904 he married the historian Cicely Margaret Powell, with whom he had three daughters, including the artist Nicolete Gray.
Pompeo Girolamo Batoni was an Italian painter who displayed a solid technical knowledge in his portrait work and in his numerous allegorical and mythological pictures. The high number of foreign visitors travelling throughout Italy and reaching Rome during their "Grand Tour" led the artist to specialize in portraits.
Benjamin West, was a British-American artist who painted famous historical scenes such as The Death of Nelson, The Death of General Wolfe, the Treaty of Paris, and Benjamin Franklin Drawing Electricity from the Sky.
Guido Reni was an Italian painter of the Baroque period, although his works showed a classical manner, similar to Simon Vouet, Nicolas Poussin, and Philippe de Champaigne. He painted primarily religious works, but also mythological and allegorical subjects. Active in Rome, Naples, and his native Bologna, he became the dominant figure in the Bolognese School that emerged under the influence of the Carracci.
Salvator Rosa is best known today as an Italian Baroque painter, whose romanticized landscapes and history paintings, often set in dark and untamed nature, exerted considerable influence from the 17th century into the early 19th century. In his lifetime he was among the most famous painters, known for his flamboyant personality, and regarded as an accomplished poet, satirist, actor, musician, and printmaker, as well. He was active in Naples, Rome, and Florence, where on occasion he was compelled to move between cities, as his caustic satire earned him enemies in the artistic and intellectual circles of the day.
Domenico di Pace Beccafumi was an Italian Renaissance-Mannerist painter active predominantly in Siena. He is considered one of the last undiluted representatives of the Sienese school of painting.
Edward Joseph Ruscha IV is an American artist associated with the pop art movement. He has worked in the media of painting, printmaking, drawing, photography and film. He is also noted for creating several artist's books. Ruscha lives and works in Culver City, California.
Pellegrino Tibaldi, also known as Pellegrino di Tibaldo de Pellegrini, was an Italian mannerist architect, sculptor, and mural painter.
Ventura di Archangelo Salimbeni was an Italian Counter-Maniera painter and printmaker highly influenced by the vaghezza and sensual reform of Federico Barocci.
Domenico Piola was a Genoese painter of the Baroque period. He was the leading artist in Genoa in the second half of the 17th century, working on ceiling frescoes for many Genoese churches and palaces and canvas paintings for private collectors. His family studio was highly prolific and frequently collaborated with other artists.
Professor Maurice Cockrill, was a British painter and poet.
Domenico Gnoli was an Italian author, librarian and art historian.
Adolf Hirémy-Hirschl (1860–1933) was a Hungarian, Jewish artist known for historical and mythological painting, particularly of subjects pertaining to ancient Rome. Some of his major history paintings have been lost, and many of his smaller works were retained by his heirs until the early 1980s. Although he was one of the most successful artists of fin-de-siècle Vienna, these circumstances, along with the rise of Gustav Klimt and the Vienna Secessionists, put his reputation in eclipse.
Adolfo Venturi was an Italian art historian. His son, Lionello Venturi, was also an art historian.
Charles Léon Bonvin was a French watercolor artist known for genre painting, realist still life and delicate and melancholic landscapes.
The Archery Contest of Diana and Her Nymphs is a 1616 painting by Domenichino.The painting was stolen by Cardinal Scipione Borghese from its original owner, Cardinal Pietro Aldobrandini. This painting is also known as Diana and her Nymphs after the Hunt,Diana Hunting, and even The Hunt of Diana. This painting is now in the Galleria Borghese in Rome, Italy.
Edward Irvine Halliday CBE (1902–1984) was a British painter, known for his portraits and his murals in the 1920s. He also worked in television and radio as a host.
