Francis Barlow (c. 1626 – 1704) was an English painter, etcher, and draughtsman, mainly of animal subjects, known as ‘the father of British sporting painting’. He painted numerous large canvases for decorative schemes and was also a prolific book illustrator, his etchings for an edition of Aesop's Fables published in 1666 being particularly well known. His work is vividly observed, with an almost naive charm.He was born in the county of Lincoln, and received his first instructions i...

Francesco Lazzaro Guardi (1712 – 1793) was a Venetian painter of veduta (a highly detailed, usually large-scale painting or, actually more often print, of a cityscape or some other vista), a member of the Venetian School. His early vedutas show influence both from Canaletto and Luca Carlevarijs. Francesco Guardi's most important later works include the Doge's Feasts, a series of twelve canvases celebrating the ceremonies held in 1763 for the election of Doge Alvise IV Mocenigo. In his late...

Sir Anthony van Dyck is most famous for his portraits of Charles I of England and his family and court, painted with a relaxed elegance that was to be the dominant influence on English portrait-painting for the next 150 years. He also painted biblical and mythological subjects, displayed outstanding facility as a draughtsman, and was an important innovator in watercolor and etching.A list of history paintings produced by van Dyck in England survives, compiled by Van Dyck's biograph...

John Singleton Copley (1738 – 1815) was an American painter, active in both colonial America and England. He was probably born in Boston, Massachusetts, to Richard and Mary Singleton Copley, both Anglo-Irish. He is famous for his portrait paintings of important figures in colonial New England, depicting in particular middle-class subjects. His paintings were innovative in their tendency to depict artifacts relating to these individuals' lives.John Singleton Copley’s portraits of co...

Francesco Allegrini da Gubbio (1587–1663) was an Italian painter of the Baroque period. His children, Flaminio and Angelica Allegrini were also painters. Francesco Allegrini was admired as a battle painter. He was active in Rome, Genoa, Savona, and Naples. In Rome, he painted in the Vatican Loggias. He also painted in the church of San Marco, Rome, and the chapel of San Antonio in the church of Santi Cosimo e Damiano. Allegrini painted for the Casa Durazzo in Genoa. In Savona he painted fo...

Joseph Mallord William Turner was English artist, one of the greatest and most original of all landscape painters. Turner was considered a controversial figure in his day, but is now regarded as the artist who elevated landscape painting to an eminence rivaling history painting. Although renowned for his oil paintings, Turner is also one of the greatest masters of British watercolor landscape painting. In 1856 the Court of Chancery awarded all the works remaining in his possession at his d...

Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720-1778), Italian engraver and architect, is best known for his etchings of ancient and baroque Rome and grandiose architectural constructions of his own imagination. Throughout most of his adult life Piranesi made etchings of views of the city; not only its antiquities, such as the Pantheon, but also its contemporary masterpieces such as the Capitoline and Piazza Navona. The scenes are animated with tiny, frail, fluttering figures. Long before he died his pri...

Giovanni Francesco Barbieri (1591 – 1666), best known as Guercino, or Il Guercino, was an Italian Baroque painter and draftsman from the region of Emilia, and active in Rome and Bologna. The vigorous naturalism of his early manner is in contrast to the classical equilibrium of his later works. His many drawings are noted for their luminosity and lively style.Guercino was remarkable for the extreme rapidity of his executions: he completed no fewer than 106 large altarpieces for churc...

Pieter Bruegel the Elder was a Dutch Renaissance painter and printmaker from Brabant, known for his landscapes and peasant scenes (so called genre painting). He received the nickname "Peasant Bruegel" or "Bruegel the Peasant" for his practice of dressing up like a peasant in order to socialize at weddings and other celebrations, thereby gaining inspiration and authentic details for his genre paintings. His drawings and prints made after his designs, while based on traditional sources, are ...

Antonio Allegri da Correggio (1489 – 1534), usually known as Correggio, was the foremost painter of the Parma school of the Italian Renaissance, who was responsible for some of the most vigorous and sensuous works of the 16th century. He was remembered by his contemporaries as a shadowy, melancholic and introverted character. An enigmatic and eclectic artist, he appears to have emerged from no major apprenticeship. In addition to the influence of Costa, there are echoes of Mantegna's style...

James Abbott McNeill Whistler was The American painter, etcher, and lithographer who created a new set of principles for the fine arts, favored "art for art's sake", and introduced a delicate style of painting in which atmosphere and mood were the main focus. Establishing himself as a painter in Paris and London, Whistler developed his distinctive style, utilizing muted colors and simple forms. His masterpiece is largely credited as "Whistler's Mother" ("Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 1...

Jacques-Louis David (1748 – 1825) was an influential French painter in the Neoclassical style, considered to be the pre-eminent painter of the era. In the 1780s his cerebral brand of history painting marked a change in taste away from Rococo frivolity toward a classical austerity and severity, heightened feeling chiming with the moral climate of the final years of the Ancien Régime. He later became an active supporter of the French Revolution and friend of Maximilien Robespierre, and was e...