Caravaggio's Life

Caravaggio is an extremely well known Italian painter who painted in the Realistic Baroque style of art. His dramatic use of light and dark is revolutionary. Many other painters have tried to paint like him and failed.

Caravaggio's real name is Michelangelo Merisi. He was born in 1571 in the town of Caravaggio; this is where he got his professional name. His father was Fermo Merisi, a steward and architect. At the age of eleven, Caravaggio was orphaned and apprenticed to the painter Simone Peterzano for four years.

Some time between 1588 and 1592 Caravaggio moved to Rome and became an assistant to Giuseppe Cesari, a pupil of Titian. He painted flower and fruit pieces for him which are now lost. After that, he moved from job to job working for other painters. This was a very unstable period in his life. After a while, Caravaggio decided to set out on his own and sell his paintings.

Caravaggio found a dealer that began to sell his paintings, Maestro Valentino. Valentino eventually showed Caravaggio's paintings to Cardinal Francesco Del Monte, who had great influence in the court. Del Monte invited Caravaggio to come and live at the house of the cardinal and receive a pension. He painted about 40 paintings for Del Monte, which mostly included paintings about adolescent boys.

In 1597, Caravaggio was commissioned to paint the decoration of the Contarelli Chapel in the San Luigi dei Francesi church in Rome. This caused him to become very well known. For the church, he painted three very large paintings, St. Matthew and the Angel, The Calling of St. Matthew and The Martyrdom of St. Matthew. In these paintings, he painted them in a very contemporary, realistic way. This was not how saints were usually painted and this caused shock among the public. They even made Caravaggio redo one of the paintings!

After he finished the church, Caravaggio had a swarm of people that wanted his paintings. Some of the paintings he did during this time are The Conversion of St. Paul, The Crucifixion of St. Peter, The Deposition of Christ and the Death of the Virgin. Many of the paintings he did during this time caused violent outrages. He painted the Madonna with Pilgrims for the San Agostino Church which ended up being a scandal because the old people kneeling down had dirty feet and a filthy, torn cap. Other paintings were rejected entirely.

Even though Caravaggio was constantly criticized, he was still very successful. He became more and more popular as a painter. During this time, however, he had many run-ins with the law. He was arrested many times for various reasons. Other painters accused him of several things; he wounded a soldier, threw stones at a Roman guard and wounded another man defending his mistress. Then he had a serious brawl over the score of a tennis game and killed Ranuccio Tomassoni.

Because of what he did, Caravaggio fled Rome and hid with a relative of the Marquis of Caravaggio. He then hid in several other places and eventually ended up in Naples. In Naples, he painted Madonna of the Rosary and The Seven Works of Mercy. During this time his painting style shifted, probably because of his desperate state of mind.

After this, Caravaggio moved from place to place a lot. He went to Malta, where he painted The Beheading of St. John the Baptist for a cathedral. Word of his crime reached Malta and Caravaggio was imprisoned, but soon escaped. He then went to Sicily and painted The Resurrection of Lazarus and The Adoration of the Shepherds. Then he moved to Palermo and painted the Adoration with St. Francis and St. Lawrence.

Caravaggio was eventually arrested when he went by boat from Naples to Rome. His boat stopped in Palo where he was arrested. However, he was released. When he was released, he found that the boat had already left along with everything he owned. He set out to overtake the vessel and arrived at Port Ercole where he died a few days later. He probably died of either pneumonia or a fever.

Even though Caravaggio spent much of his life running from the law, he is still considered to be one of the best painters of all time. His style is unmatched and is still admired today.

Michael Russell Your Independent guide to Arts

Rembrandt's Life

Rembrandt is an extraordinary Dutch painter, etcher and draftsman of the 1600s. He is most well known for his chiaroscuro, his brush work and the way in which he connected with the human soul. His life, however, was not a happy one.

Rembrandt's full name is Rembrandt Harmenszoon Van Rijn. He was born on July 15, 1606 in Leiden, the Netherlands and was the son of a miller. His dad wanted him to have a real, learned profession but Rembrandt left the University of Leiden after becoming bored to study art. He began studying under a local teacher but soon left and studied in Amsterdam where he mastered all his lessons in only six months! Rembrandt was greatly influenced by Caravaggio.

At the age of only 22, Rembrandt moved back to Leiden and began to get his own students. One of his pupils was the famous artist Gerrit Dou. In 1631 he returned to Amsterdam where he became the most popular portrait painter in Holland. He received numerous commissions for portraits and paintings of religious matters. Rembrandt met Saskia van Uylenburgh and married her in 1634. She was a cousin of a very successful art dealer and she helped him to meet wealthy patrons who commissioned many paintings from him. He used her as a model in many of his paintings. Some of his works during this time were the Portrait of Nicolaes Ruts and The Blinding Samson.

During this time, Rembrandt's paintings are mostly focused on strong lighting effects. He also became famous for his landscapes and etchings. Rembrandt painted between fifty and sixty self portraits during his lifetime!

Rembrandt's private life, however, was very unfortunate. He had four children with Saskia but only one, Titus, survived infancy. Saskia died in 1642 at the age of only 30. In 1649, Hendrickje Stoffels, his housekeeper, became his common-law wife and was also a model for many of his paintings. Even though Rembrandt was very successful as an artist, art dealer and teacher, he enjoyed living very lavishly and had to declare bankruptcy in 1656. He even had to auction off his whole art collection and his house to pay for his debts.

His unfortunate life, however, didn't affect his art. He painted many great paintings during this time, such as The Jewish Bride, Bathsheba, The Syndics of the Cloth Guild, Jacob Blessing the Sons of Joseph and a self portrait. His new love, Hendrickje, died in 1663 and his son Titus died in 1668. Titus was only 27 years old. Eleven months after Titus died, on October 4, 1669, Rembrandt himself died in Amsterdam.

Rembrandt is a master of art. He did more than 600 paintings and over 2,000 etchings and drawings! The works contain numerous different kinds of subject matters such as landscapes, portraits, nudes, genre scenes, animals and birds, religious subjects, mythological figures and self portraits. Most artists specialize in only certain types of subject matters. Rembrandt has a special talent of showing the true character of people in his works. He also uses a very mysterious, beautiful light and very thick brushwork. He is one of the most well known artists of all time!

Michael Russell Your Independent guide to Arts

Edouard Manet's Life

Edouard Manet was a revolutionary painter. His work changed art forever and inspired the impressionistic style of painting. His art is so inspirational that it even influences today's art!

Manet is a French painter that was born in Paris on January 23, 1832. He was the son of a government official. His uncle gave him his first drawing lessons. Manet studied at the Rollin College and met his lifelong best friend Antonin there. Manet's father wanted him to study law but he didn't want to so he went to sea instead. He was trained as a sea cadet but failed his naval examinations and switched to painting.

He first studied art in Paris under Thomas Couture, the French painter and soon after visited Italy, Germany and the Netherlands to study the art in these places. While traveling around, several artists greatly influenced him. These artists were the Dutch painter Frans Hals, the Spanish artist Francisco de Goya, the French painter Courbet and the Spanish artist Diego Velazquez.

Manet started paining genre paintings, which are paintings that depict everyday life, such as street urchins and old beggars. He developed a very bold brush technique in which he painted realistic subject matter. All of his paintings are very realistic.

In 1861 he submitted The Spanish Singer to the Salon and won an honorable mention for it. However, in 1863 he submitted The Picnic to the Salon and it was rejected. This became a scandal and was an outrage to the public. The Salon wouldn't accept it because of the subject matter. In the painting, there was a woman at a picnic naked with two men.

Manet's painting, Olympia, created even more of an outrage. The public was furious with the style and subject matter of the painting. The painting depicted a naked prostitute waiting for her customer. Today, this is one of Manet's most famous paintings and is admired.

On October 28, 1863, Manet married Suzanne Leenhoff. She was a musician that had been hired by Manet's father to give Edouard and his brother piano lessons. Edouard and Suzanne had a ten year relationship before they were finally married in 1863. During their ten year relationship, Suzanne gave birth to a son, Leon Koella. The father is most certainly Manet, but Leon was presented to other people as Suzanne's younger brother. Manet painted Leon in several of his paintings, including Luncheon in the Studio.

Manet frequently was seen in the company of the Impressionist group and was considered by them to be their leader. However, he did not want to join the group and his work is not known as impressionistic. Impressionists use lighter colors and focus on the effects of light. They are mostly interested in showing their impressions of different scenes.

Manet was the first painter to abandon traditional lighting and treatment of space in his works. He wanted people to see the true reality of a painting which is that a painting is just a painting, a flat, two dimensional surface. It shouldn't be an illusion of something else.

Manet did not get recognition until much later in his life. After that, everyone wanted his paintings. In 1882 he submitted one of his best pictures to the Salon, The Bar at the Folies-Bergere. This painting allowed him to be accepted into the Legion of Honor. Manet died on April 30, 1883 in Paris after a long illness. He painted 420 oil paintings and many other pastels and watercolors.

Michael Russell Your Independent guide to Arts

The Art of Faking Art

It would seem that all art is not truth. Three fake Mona Lisas have been made and sold. The Tate Gallery in London discovered that their archives were tampered with and false documents inserted to "prove" fake works. Just recently, Italian police uncovered more than ten million dollar's worth of fake art sales. Even more disturbing was a former director of the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art declaring that almost half of the paintings sold on the market are forgeries or semi-forgeries. It seems that fake art has made its own supply and demand and art experts are raking handsome fees for "fakebusting" services.

Vermeer once remarked that as long as there is art, there would be forgeries. The ugly truth that collectors and museums must face is that copying and forging art are inseparable. Even Greeks and Romans produced reproductions so well that today, it is difficult to separate original Greco-Roman work from their copies. Although many people forge art for money and profit, some people also view art forgery as a twisted complement to the original artist.

There have been many famous forgers throughout history, but none as famous as Henricus Antonius van Meegeren, whose reproduction of Vermeer's Disciples at Emmaus fooled even senior art experts. He proceeded to reproduce and profit from his Vermeer copies to he tune of more than $5 million dollar and only went bankrupt because he confessed to making the forgeries later in his life.

Forging art nowadays has become a relatively easy endeavor, in part due to the evolving techniques of the forgers and in part due to the new technology they use to artificially "age" a painting. Forgers learn the original artist's style and match the color pigments he used on his canvasses. Then they create the work using the original artist's brush stroke patterns. Art forgery has even gone as far as inventing new artists with corresponding fake biographies to sell a whole line of artwork. Some art forgery circles have even adopted sophisticated fraud modus operandi that involved inserting professional-looking catalogues and documents into museum archives like the Tate, where ironically, experts go to authenticate art.

Fakebusters, on the other hand, rely on forensic science and police investigators to determine the authenticity of an art piece. They analyze fractions of fingerprints or palm prints that forgers leave on the painting surface, then scan the work with x-rays and UV light (black light) to determine the use of modern fluorescent paint. They analyze the composition of the paint used by the artist by using chromatography, after which a color "fingerprint" of the artist can clearly come through. The process is usually long and slow.

Despite the abundance of fakes on the art market, most buyers do not show any signs of slowing down. This persistent demand has even opened a niche for painters selling "legal" fakes. Customers who patronize these honestly forged paintings are the type who would want to spend a thousand dollars for a painting that looks like the original rather than spend millions on a piece that might turn out fake in future. Forging painters claim that there are many big-name collectors and celebrities who knowingly buy fakes now. What seems to be the most interesting is how well the whole system of fake art survived the crackdowns and how the art business has tolerated the massive amount of frauds that has infiltrated museums and private collections all over the world. A Christie's art specialist calls it "a very, very clever, even artful scheme".

Michael Russell Your Independent guide to Fraud

Leonardo Da Vinci's Life

Leonardo Da Vinci is one of the most well known artists today. He was not only an artist though; he was also a scientist and an inventor. His Mona Lisa is probably the most recognized painting ever! Leonardo had a very interesting, busy life.

Leonardo was born on April 15, 1452 in Vinci, Italy which is just outside of Florence. He was an illegitimate son of Ser Piero, a 25 year old notary and Caterina, a peasant girl. Shortly after Leonardo's birth, his father took custody of him. Caterina moved to a nearby town and married another man. Both Leonardo's mother and father continued having children, just not with each other. He ended up having seventeen half brothers and sisters.

While Leonardo was growing up, he was able to read many scholarly texts that his family and friends owned. The city of Vinci also had a very long painting tradition that he was exposed to. At the age of fifteen, Leonardo was apprenticed to Andrea del Verrochio in Florence. He painted many works of art during this period. One of his most popular works during this time was when he painted an angel in Verrochio's "Baptism of Christ". Leonardo's angel was so much better than Verrochio's works that Verrochio resolved to never paint again.

In 1477, Leonardo left the Verrochio workshop and got a place for himself. In 1482, he went into the service of the Duke of Milan. He even abandoned his first commission in Florence, "The Adoration of the Magi", to do this. Leonardo stayed in Milan for seventeen years. During this time he made many artistic and scientific achievements. The Duke had Leonardo paint and sculpt a lot but he also had him design buildings, weapons and machinery. In addition, Leonardo produced many studies on lots of topics, such as flying machines, nature, geometry, municipal construction, mechanics and architecture.

Leonardo was interested in so many different things that he often failed to finish what he started. Many of his paintings are left unfinished. During the seventeen years that he worked for the Duke, he actually only completed six works. Two of the most famous ones are "The Last Supper" and "The Virgin on the Rocks".

Starting in 1490, Leonardo began to write down his studies in illustrated notebooks. His work all falls into the category of four different themes: architecture, painting, human anatomy and the elements of mechanics. Today, these notebooks are very valuable. Bill Gates actually paid thirty million dollars for the Codex Leicester!

After 1499, the Duke fell from power and Leonardo no longer worked for him. Over the next sixteen years, he worked for many different people and traveled all throughout Italy. During this time, he painted the "Battle of Anghiari" and even designed a bridge in Constantinople.

In 1503, Leonardo started working on the very popular "Mona Lisa". From 1513 to 1516, he worked in Rome and did many projects for the Pope. In 1516, he was even offered the title of Premier Painter and Engineer and Architect of the King.

Even though Leonardo suffered from paralysis of his right hand, he could still draw and teach. He also still produced many studies of various topics. Leonardo died on May 2, 1519 in France. There is a legend that the king was at his side when he died and cradled his head in his arms.

Leonardo was an extraordinary Renaissance artist. He was a brilliant man who deserves the recognition he gets. It is amazing that he knew so much about so many different topics!

Michael Russell Your Independent guide to Arts

Frans Hals' Life

Frans Hals was an extraordinary Dutch portrait painter of the 17th century. During his career, his art went through several changes as things in his life changed. He is most known for the freedom and looseness in which he painted.

Frans Hals was the son of a clothworker and a local girl, both from Mechelen. He was born in 1580. When Hals was young, they moved to Haarlem in the Netherlands where he spent the rest of his life. Hals only left Haarlem once, for a visit to Antwerp.

It is not known what happened in the first 25 to 30 years of Hals' life. In 1610, he joined the Guild of St. Luke of Haarlem, which registered artists as masters. Shortly after this, he married Annetje Harmensdochter Abeel. They had two children together but she died in 1615. Two years after that, he married Lysbeth Reyniers and had eight children with her. Out of Hals' eight sons, five of them became painters!

Hals was a student of Carel Van Mander, a painter and poet. Together, they started a painting academy in Haarlem. The best of Hals' early works is a painting called "Banquet of Officers of the Civic Guard of St. George at Haarlem". It was painted with a very free brushstroke that is unlike anything of its time. Looking at this painting can also give you a sense of the relationships between the figures. This is incredible because nobody else painted like this then. All of Hals' early works have a jovial spirit to them. Some of his most popular paintings during this time include "The Merry Company", "Peeckelhaering", "The Merry Drinker", "Malle Babbe" and "Gypsy Girl". In his paintings, he seems to have captured a moment in time.

As Hals grew older, the joviality of his paintings began to disappear. After he reached the age of forty, all of his subjects seemed to have sadness in their faces. Some of his paintings during this time are "Man with Arms Crossed", "The Laughing Cavalier", "Portrait of Isaac Abrahamszoon Massa", "Pieter van den Broecke", "Willem van Heythuyzen" and "Nicolaes Hasselaer". During the period between 1630 and 1650, Hals became very popular and painted more than 100 single portraits and six group portraits. In 1644, Hals became an officer of the Guild of St. Luke.

Frans Hals lived to be very old and as he got into his older age, his paintings really showed how he could portray the human character. After 1650, he didn't get as many commissions and was often harassed by family problems. The commissions he did get were not enough to support him financially and because of this, he had to auction off his possessions. In 1662, his right to assistance was seen and he started getting a yearly pension.

During Hals' old age, his work seemed to show that simply being a living person is enough. His themes became less vivid and less intense and much simpler. He even started painting in mostly blacks and whites. One of his most popular paintings during this time is "Governors of the Old Men's Home at Haarlem". This painting is actually two portraits, one of a group of men and another of a group of women. In these portraits he shows that life does not go on forever. Eventually everyone will die. Hals actually lived at this Old Men's Home of the painting.

Frans Hals was a one of a kind artist. He was different than anyone of his time. Because he was so unique, he did not leave behind many followers, unlike most artists. He did influence Adriaen Brouwer and Edouard Manet though. Hals died in 1666.

Michael Russell Your Independent guide to Magic

A Short History of Printed Art

The oldest and most well-known graphic art prints were first produced by woodcut printing. The Chinese were the first to make religious woodcut prints though they never became prominent print designers. The Japanese learned wood cutting and woodcarving techniques from the Chinese and Koreans and went on to produce some of the most prized prints today. The first of these prints were created in black and white and decades later, the Japanese began printing in three colors. At around 1700, they began to use eight to 11 blocks of colors to produce more sophisticated works. One of the big differences between Western and Oriental woodcut art is the way that changes of shade are achieved. For example, in the East, the watercolor is brushed on the surface of the wood block like in a painting, while in the West, shading is achieved by the increasing the degree of engraving and the depth of the designs carved in the wood block.

In Europe during the Middle Ages, woodcuts were primarily used to make fabric designs. Playing cards and religious pictures were also the first products of European printers. After the invention of movable type, history books and Bibles began to be filled with woodcut illustrations.

There are three main methods of making prints. The oldest one is the relief method where the print is carved on a raised surface. Woodcuts are the most popular form of relief painting. It could be tedious because the artist would first get a block of wood and cut away the background from this design. The design was then slowly inked and printed.

The second printing method is called "intaglio" and is the opposite of relief printing. In "intaglio", the print is made from the lines of areas which have been cut or burned away. After the drawing has been carved on a metal plate, the plate is covered with ink. Damp paper is placed on the top of the plate and when the paper and plates are run through the press, the paper he lifts the ink from the lines.

A third method is known as the planographic process. Lithography is the most common type of planographic printing. Slabs of limestone are the most commonly used materials, although lithographs can be made from metal sheets. Lithography was invented in 1796 and was primarily used as a cheap method to produce music sheets. The lithograph first won popularity in France because it was less complicated and cheaper to use than woodcuts and was better suited to mass production. Europeans started to use it as a means to print political propaganda, wall decorations and book illustrations.

The invention of photography ended the use of prints to produce paintings and reproductions. Silk screen also became one of the more popular ways to produce mass prints. Most 20th-century artists have attempted to make prints. Prints are so seldom used today because they are no longer are created for mass-produced publications. So today, a print, whether carved, etched, designed, or printed by the artist himself, is now acknowledged as a precious work of art. But unlike a painting of which there is only one "original", a print can yield up to 50 originals. For this reason, an artist's print can usually cost less than one of his original paintings. However, many great art collections and galleries have been started with the purchase of a single print.

Michael Russell Your Independent guide to Arts

The Life and Art of Paul Gauguin

French painter Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin was born in Paris in 1848 and then moved to Peru with his family when he was only three years old. Growing up in Peru provided much excitement and had a great impact on him as little boy. When he turned 17, he joined the Navy and went to sea for about six years. He returned to France after his voyages, more mature and filled with impressions of strange and beautiful lands.

He did not immediately become an artist. He chose to settle in Paris and learn to become a stockbroker. At 35, much to his family surprise, Paul gave up his career to devote his life to painting in order to show the simple beauty he saw in the lives of primitive peoples. He was quite accustomed to success and believed that he would succeed in painting. Unfortunately, his wife saw it as an unnecessary indulgence and never forgave him for a "selfish" decision. Years later, the couple separated.

Paul had always enjoyed the art of the French artists known as the impressionists. He took up painting right away and in 1818 he exhibited his works with other impressionists. However, the reality of living an artist's life shocked Gauguin. He enjoyed his former comforts so much that he had difficulty adjusting to his new life in poverty. By 1886, the expense and pressure of city life had become so demanding that Gauguin decided to leave Paris and live in an artist's colony in Brittany. After a year, he decided to travel to Panama where he worked as a laborer. Then he went to the tropics, to Martinique, where he lived and painted in freedom. However, after a year of living in Martinique, Gauguin was forced to return to Brittany, penniless and quite ill.

In October, 1888 he visited another famous artist, Vincent van Gogh, in the latter's home in Arles, France. Gauguin's stay with Van Gogh proved to be a powerful collaboration of sorts; it was said that they frequently disagreed and were distressing to live with. On good days, however, they managed to learn from each other and produced some of their best work during these times. It is said that Gauguin returned to Paris after Van Gogh's "incident". Gauguin slowly broke away form the impressionist movement and painted "Vision after the Sermon", where he attempted to externalize the feelings of his subjects. This painting is important in his career because it ushered in a new style that is now called "Symbolism".

However, it was a combination of the beautiful surroundings of Brittany and his exotic voyages that led them to develop his own unique style. Gauguin devoted his time painting portraits, landscapes and still lifes as simple forms in pure and intense colors surrounded by black outlines. Many critics remark that the graceful mess and simplicity of the painting is communicating the artist's strongest feelings towards the exotic and the natural.

In 1891, Gauguin saved enough money to go to the primitive South Sea island of Tahiti. At first, the artist was extremely happy in the midst of the forests, the strange flora and fauna and the island's beautiful people. He decided to stay and share the simple life of the natives from there on. However, throughout his stay, Gauguin was tormented by severe depression and tried to battle drug addiction.

Most of Gauguin's paintings capture the beauty of Tahitian culture and its women, but seemed to show that the artist was really not completely happy nor understood in this primitive society. After many years of poverty and sickness, Gauguin died from heart failure, alone and unaware of the mark his art would later make on the 20th century.

Michael Russell Your Independent guide to Arts