The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists (306 page)

(1838–88).
Dutch painter, one of the leading artists of the
Hague School
. Influenced by the French painters
Millet
and
Corot
, he concentrated on small pictures of unpretentious subjects—dunes, meadows, and beaches—painted in light, silvery tones. His sincere and modest spirit made a deep impression upon van
Gogh
, who was his wife's cousin and spent some time working with him. Mauve was a prolific and popular artist and is represented in many museums in the Netherlands and elsewhere.

 
Back
  -  
 
New Search

(1578–1641).
Spanish painter. There is a tradition that he was a pupil of El
Greco
in Toledo, but there is no suggestion of this in Mayno's clear and firm style, which was formed in Italy
c.
1600–10. In about 1620 he moved from Toledo to Madrid, where he worked for Philip III and Philip IV (whose drawing master he had been) and was a friend of
Velázquez
. Mayno was a Dominican priest as well as an artist, but although he painted religious works, he is most highly regarded for his portraits, outstanding among which is the formidably characterized
Dominican Monk
(Ashmolean, Oxford,
c.
1635).

 
Back
  -  
 
New Search

(
c.
1612/15–67).
Spanish painter. He was a pupil of
Velázquez
, married his daughter in 1633, and succeeded him as court painter in 1661. Among his very few signed works is a portrait of Queen Mariana (NG, London, 1666), and many of the works attributed to him were formerly given to Velázquez, whose mature style he imitated with great assurance.

 
Back
  -  
 
New Search

(
c.
1611–78).
Italian painter, poet, and architect, born in Florence and active mainly in Venice, where he settled in 1648. He was one of the most individualistic of Italian
Baroque
painters, often choosing unusual subjects and expressing a vivid sense of movement with his brilliantly free brushwork. His work looks forward to 18th-cent. Venetian painting and he may have been Sebastiano
Ricci's
first teacher.

 
Back
  -  
 
New Search

(
c.
1450–1503).
German engraver, the son of an engraver of the same name, active
c.
1450–65. He was trained by his father and probably by
Master E. S.
, whose work he copied. His
œuvre
is bigger than that of any other 15th-cent. engraver; he is known to have made more than 600 plates, and in some instances over a hundred prints have been preserved from each plate. Like many early engravers, he also worked as a goldsmith. Although he was a minor figure as a creative artist (much of his work consisted of copies), he is important in showing the growing popularity of engraving. He was the first artist to engrave his own features (in a double portrait together with his wife) and looks a very shrewd individual.

 
Back
  -  
 
New Search

Medici
.

Italian family of bankers and merchants which was the ruling house of Florence and later Tuscany for most of the period from 1434 to 1737 and was famous for its patronage of learning and the arts throughout the
Renaissance
. The name appears in Florentine records as early as the 12th cent., but the founder of the family fortune was
Giovanni di Bicci de' Medici
(1360–1429), who commissioned
Brunelleschi
to build the Old Sacristy of San Lorenzo. His son
Cosimo
(1389–1464) spent lavishly on religious foundations and he had the family palace designed by
Michelozzo
(begun 1444; now known as the Palazzo Medici-Riccardi). He also commissioned important works from
Donatello
. His son
Piero
(1416–69) commissioned the sumptuous tabernacles of SS. Annunziata and San Miniato and also Benozzo
Gozzoli's
frescos in the family palace. He was in contact with many of the leading painters of the day, including
Domenico Veneziano
and Filippo
Lippi
. His son and successor,
Lorenzo the Magnificent
(1449–92), was a humanist poet and the most famous member of the family, but his interest in art lay mainly in the collecting of classical gems and coins. We have no record of any major painting he commissioned, but he was the first patron of
Michelangelo
, whom he set to copy
antique
sculpture in his garden near San Marco. His second cousin,
Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco
(1463–1503), seems to have been the principal patron of
Botticelli
. Lorenzo the Magnificent's son
Giovanni
(1475–1521) and his nephew
Giulio
(1479–1534) became pope as Leo X and Clement VII respectively, the artists they patronized including Michelangelo,
Raphael
,
Giulio Romano
, and
Sebastiano del Piombo
. A member of another line of the family,
Cosimo I
(1519–74), became the first Grand Duke of Tuscany in 1569. He gathered around him the leading artists of the late Renaissance period in Florence, notably
Pontormo
,
Bronzino
,
Ammanati
,
Cellini
,
Giambologna
, and
Vasari
, and he laid the basis for the
Uffizi
collection. Of later members of the dynasty,
Leopoldo
(1617–75) made perhaps the most distinctive contribution to the arts, founding the great collection of artists' self-portraits in the Uffizi.
Maria de' Medici
(1573–1642, known in France as Marie de Médicis) was daughter of Francesco, Grand Duke of Tuscany, and queen of France (1600–10) by marriage to Henry IV.
Rubens
painted a great cycle of paintings on her life (Louvre, Paris).