1685-86 Stucco Ludovisi Chapel, Sant'Ignazio, Rome Rusconi represented Fortitude as female - most abstract qualities are of the feminine gender in Latin. His Fortitude is a rather conventional Minerva-like figure in armour. Artist: RUSCONI, Camillo Painting Title: Fortitude , 1701-1750 Painting Style: Italian , sculpture Type: mythological
Painting ID:: 63036
1710-17 White stucco and gilding, height 200 cm Oratorio del Rosario di San Domenico, Palermo Serpotta decorated several oratories with stuccoes in which may be seen all the elements of Rococo style that was to flourish in Germany. He emerged from generations of artisans to become the greatest Sicilian sculptor of his day. He only knew the Baroque indirectly, from prints and contacts with artists who had trained on the mainland, but he achieved a distinctive synthesis of Sicilian and mainland influences, coupled with an extraordinary combination of verve and dexterity. Serpotta represented Fortitude as female - most abstract qualities are of the feminine gender in Latin. His Fortitude was given a column as her attribute. The emphasis is contemporary, from her plumed hat to her high-heeled shoes. Artist: SERPOTTA, Giacomo Painting Title: Fortitude , 1651-1700 Painting Style: Italian , sculpture Type: mythological
Painting ID:: 63037
Sir Joshua Reynolds British
1723-1792
Sir Joshua Reynolds Locations
Reynolds was born in Plympton, Devon, on 16 July 1723. As one of eleven children, and the son of the village school-master, Reynolds was restricted to a formal education provided by his father. He exhibited a natural curiosity and, as a boy, came under the influence of Zachariah Mudge, whose Platonistic philosophy stayed with him all his life.
Showing an early interest in art, Reynolds was apprenticed in 1740 to the fashionable portrait painter Thomas Hudson, with whom he remained until 1743. From 1749 to 1752, he spent over two years in Italy, where he studied the Old Masters and acquired a taste for the "Grand Style". Unfortunately, whilst in Rome, Reynolds suffered a severe cold which left him partially deaf and, as a result, he began to carry a small ear trumpet with which he is often pictured. From 1753 until the end of his life he lived in London, his talents gaining recognition soon after his arrival in France.
Reynolds worked long hours in his studio, rarely taking a holiday. He was both gregarious and keenly intellectual, with a great number of friends from London's intelligentsia, numbered amongst whom were Dr Samuel Johnson, Oliver Goldsmith, Edmund Burke, Giuseppe Baretti, Henry Thrale, David Garrick and fellow artist Angelica Kauffmann. Because of his popularity as a portrait painter, Reynolds enjoyed constant interaction with the wealthy and famous men and women of the day, and it was he who first brought together the famous figures of "The" Club.
With his rival Thomas Gainsborough, Reynolds was the dominant English portraitist of 'the Age of Johnson'. It is said that in his long life he painted as many as three thousand portraits. In 1789 he lost the sight of his left eye, which finally forced him into retirement. In 1791 James Boswell dedicated his Life of Samuel Johnson to Reynolds.
Reynolds died on 23 February 1792 in his house in Leicester Fields, London. He is buried in St. Paul's Cathedral. fortitude se
