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Dictionary of


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Baburen-Bassano Bastien-Benton Berchem-Bocklin Bodegon-Braque Brassai-Byzantine

 

 


Baburen, Dirck van (c. 1590—1624). Dutch painter, one of the principal members of the *Utrecht school. For a short period he worked in Rome, where he was affected by the work of Caravaggio; he was one of the first to introduce Caravaggio's chiaroscuro technique into the Netherlands. *Tenebrist.

Bacchiacca Francesco Ubertini (1494— 1557). Florentine painter, probably a pupil of Perugino but with an eclectic style most heavily influenced by Andrea del Sarto. B. painted religious subjects and decorative panels for walls or furniture, and designed tapestries.

Bachelier Anne (born 1949). For more than twenty-five years, contemporary French Surrealist artist Anne Bachelier has captured dreams on canvas. She has been dubbed ‘art’s enchanting Scheherazade’ (Gallery & Studio), a reputation established through international exhibitions of an ever-growing gallery of sorceresses, chimeras and other mythical creatures.
Born on February 20, 1949 in Louvigne du Desert, France, Bachelier studied art formally from 1966 to 1969 at the École des Beaux-Arts, La Seyne-sur-Mer, before serving an apprenticeship at an engraving shop in Valence from 1974 to 1975. Since 1989, she has been exhibited frequently throughout France and on both coasts of the United States. Painter, printmaker, ballet designer and illustrator, Bachelier is also a wife, mother of three and has three grandchildren. She lives and works near Grenoble, France.
Although Bachelier’s work has been admirably compared to that of Goya, Moreau, Magritte, and Fini, she has undeniably produced an artistic cosmos both enchanted and completely her own.

Metamorphosis, transition, and evolution provide the common threads of the art of Anne Bachelier. The artist captivates her audience with compelling, highly imaginative images that are distinct, unique, inventive and immediately recognizable. Her metaphysical, dream-like fantasies evoke feelings simultaneously powerful, peaceful, and protective. This unique "other" world, untouched by time or place, reminds the viewer of the eternal dance of transformation and regeneration.

Baciccia (Baciccio). Nickname of Giovanni Battista Gaulli (1639-1709), one of the finest Italian Baroque portrait painters and decorators. His style was influenced by Rubens and Van Dyck. Working in Rome, where he was a friend of Bernini, he produced masterpieces of illusionist decorative work, notably the ceiling of the church of II Gesu (1668-83).

Backer Jacob Adriaensz (1608-51). Dutch portrait painter and pupil of Rembrandt whose influence on him was strong. He was also influenced by the work of Hals.


Backof(f)en Hans (d. 1519). German late Gothic sculptor, from 1505 active in Mainz. His work includes the tomb of Archbishop Uriel von Gcimmngen (Mainz cathedral) and Crucifixion groups in the churchyards of St Peter's and the cathedral, Frankfurt.

Bacon Francis  (1909—92). Born in Dublin of British parents, he moved to London in 1925, and soon after left Britain to live in Berlin and Paris. He settled permanently in London c. 1928—9. After working first as an interior designer, he began to paint c. 1930 without formal training, and without much success at first. But ever since 1944 with his Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion, he has held the central position in British painting and world figurative art. His paintings are usually of a male or female figure set in an enclosed interior space. The scenes depicted with distorted figures in action often seem disturbing and are frequently presented in three panels, as triptychs — a format B. has virtually invented m modern painting — relating in formal rather than narrative manner. Often ideas for pictures originate in an existing visual source: X-ray photographs, Eadweard Muybridge's sequential studies of figures in motion, photographs and film stills. B.'s response to the art of the past which he admires deeply is for the paintings of Rembrandt, Velazquez and Goya (e.g. the series of screaming popes which he began in the mid-1950s based on Velazquez's portrait of Pope Innocent X, which are also related to the "still' of the screaming nurse in Eiscnstein's film The Battleship Potemkin, and the detail of the woman screaming in Nicolas Poussm's The Massacre of the Holy Innocents). B.'s paintings are not, however, solely about subject matter; he is a perfectionist concerning technique, seeking a balance between chance and order in the way images are built up 'accidentally' from the application of paint on canvas.


Bad art. *Neo-Expressiomsm

Baddeley Jake. Dream art.

Badger Joseph (1708-65). American colonial painter. His style combines *primitive elements with the academic post-Kneller tradition of *Smibert and *Feke. His works include The Rev. Jonathan Eduards and Mrs Cassius Hunt.

Baegert Derick (b c. 1440; d Wesel, after 1502). He worked in Wesel in the lower Rhine region, but similarities in style between Derick’s works and panel paintings and book illustrations made in Utrecht indicate that he may have trained in that city. He was in Wesel by 1476 and painted a flag, probably for the town hall. From that year he is frequently mentioned in contracts, accounts and tax lists. In 1490 Derick’s son Jan was already a master, which suggests he was at least 25 and consequently Derick must then have been about 50. His home in the Mathena quarter of Wesel is last mentioned in 1502.

Baglione Giovanni (c. 1573-1644). Italian late Mannerist painter and the author of a history of art in Rome during his lifetime, Le vite de' pit-tori, scultori ed
architetti ... (1642). In spite of the hostility lie expressed towards Caravaggio, his own painting c. 1600 acquired a superficial likeness to Oaravaggio's. He was one of the artists commissioned by Pope Paul V to paint frescoes in the church of S. Maria Maggiore, Rome.

Bailey William (American, 1930)

Bailly David (b Leiden, 1584; d Leiden, Oct 1657). Dutch painter and draughtsman. The son of a Flemish immigrant who was a calligrapher and fencing-master, Bailly was apprenticed to a local surgeon-painter and then to Cornelius van der Voort (1576–1624), a portrait painter in Amsterdam. In the winter of 1608 he started out as a journeyman, spending a year in Hamburg and then travelling through several German cities to Venice and Rome. On the return voyage he visited several courts in Germany, working for local princes, including the Duke of Brunswick-Wolfenbuttel. While no works survive from the immediate period following his return to the Netherlands in 1613, descriptions in old sale catalogues suggest that he may have produced history paintings in the manner of his contemporaries Pieter Lastman and the Pynas brothers.

Baily Edward Hodges (1788-1867). British sculptor. He studied under *Flaxman. Carved reliefs on Marble Arch, London, and Nelson's statue at Trafalgar Square, as well as numerous busts.

Baj Enrico (1924- ). Italian painter and maker of *assemblages incorporating *found objects, and combining humour and grotesque imagery.

Bakst Leon (1866-1924). Russian artist and stage designer. After studying in Paris (1891) he returned to St Petersburg, where with *Benois and S. Diaghilev he collaborated on the magazine Mir lskusstva (The *World of Art). In 1909 he went to Paris and joined Diaghilev's Ballets Russes. Here his sets for the ballets Cleopatre (1909) and above all Scheherazade (1910) caused a sensation. B.'s designs, characterized by throbbing colours and exotic line, were the first to integrate costumes and sets into a visual unity. Other designs were for Nijmsky's ballet Le Spectre de la rose (1911), G. D'Annunzio's play La I'isanella and the ballet The Sleeping Princess (1921).

Bakuba also called Bushongo. African tribal people of the Congo-Kinshasa, noted for one of the finest of African sculptural traditions. Outstanding are a series of royal portrait wood-carvings of which the most famous is that of the 16th-c. king Shamba Bolongongo.

Baldessari John (1931- ). U.S. artist who makes expansive use of media imagery from photographs, videos and film, sometimes associated with *Conceptual and *Postmodern art. B. has said that he wants 'to produce images that startle one into recollection'.

Baldovinetti Alesso (r. 1425-99). Florentine painter; studied under Domenico Veneziano. His surviving masterpiece, the fresco of the Annunciation, S. Annunzrata, Florence, shows his interest in landscape, the serenity of his figures and the sensitivity of his colour. B. executed work in stained glass and mosaic. He influenced Ghirlandaio.

Balduccio, Giovanni di (fl. 1315-49). Italian sculptor from Pisa.

Baldung Hans Grien  (c 1480-1545). German painter and graphic artist. He was influenced by Durer, under whom he probably studied, and indeed in his portraits he showed a psychological insight and mastery of drawing comparable to his master's. Besides portraits he painted allegorical subjects and, like Cranach, a series of female nudes; but his tame rested on his religious paintings, and the altarpiece 1'lie Coronation of the Virgin (1512-16), in the cathedral at Friehurg im Breisgau, is still considered his masterpiece. His paintings are characterized by their unusual colour combinations and his woodcuts by their inventiveness, fantasy and grotesque humour. He also designed for stained glass.

Balen Hendrik van (1575-1632). Antwerp painter of small and charming landscapes, allegorical, biblical and mythological scenes. He collaborated with J. Bruegel the Younger, Momper and Vranckz. Van Dyck and Snyders were his pupils.

Balestra Antonio (1666-1740). Italian late-Baroque painter, pupil of *Maratta. He worked chiefly in Venice and Verona and was influential as a teacher.

Balla Giacomo (1871-1958). Italian painter, a founder of *Futurism; one of the signatories of the Futurist Manifesto (1910). On a visit to Paris (1900) he was strongly affected by the Impressionist and Divisionist painters. B.'s Dog on a Leash (1912), as an attempt to present motion by superimposing several images, is a logical exposition of Futurism; but his pictures developed towards abstract art, increasingly resolving into abstract lines of movement and force.

Balthus full name Balthasar Klossowski de Rola (1908-2001 ). French painter of Polish descent. His early work owed much to *Bonnard and the *Nabis. Later, under the influence of Courbet and Derain, he developed a style which is naturalistic and yet modern, with occasional Surrealist overtones. Using muted colours, B. has produced remarkable landscapes, portraits and interiors with erotic-scenes of adolescent girls.
 

Baluba. Complex of African tribal peoples of Congo-Kinshasa. They arc noted for their carvings of which the wooden ancestor figures by the sculptors of the central Hemba tribe are outstanding. Also important are stools supported by carved kneeling female figures; seated female figures holding bowls, notably examples from the N.H. village of Buli; and hemispherical kijwebe masks.

Bambara. W. African people, settled on the Upper Niger in the modern state of Mali, noted for their carving. The tijiwara ritual headdresses, used in the antelope dance, are especially prized.

Bambocciata (It. jest). A genre of painting which deals with peasant life and bawdy scenes. I7th-c. Dutch and Flemish artists were particularly given to it.

Bamboo painting. *Chinese art

Banco, Maso di ( fl 1335–50). Italian painter. He was first identified (as Maso) by Ghiberti, who claimed he was a pupil of Giotto and a great master of painting, but the issue was complicated for many centuries by Vasari, who confused Maso with an artist he called Tommaso di Stefano, nicknamed GIOTTINO. Maso di Banco is mentioned in several Florentine documents: in 1341 some of his paintings and equipment were seized against an uncompleted commission; in 1346 he joined the Arte de’ Medici e Speziali. Although none of the output attributed to him is signed or dated, a major fresco cycle, other more fragmentary frescoes and some panels of the 1330s and 1340s can be firmly attributed to him on stylistic grounds.

Bandinelli Baccio (sometimes called 'Bartolommeo') (1403-1560). Florentine sculptor, painter and goldsmith. The muchhated rival of B. Cellini and in his own opinion the equal of Michelangelo. He executed a series of reliefs in Florence cathedral and founded 2 of the earliest *academies.

Barbari Jacopo de' (c. 1450-1515/16). Venetian painter and draughtsman, perhaps of German origin, chiefly remembered as an engraver of mythological and sacred subjects. He worked for some time in Germany and the Netherlands where he was known as 'Jacob Walch'. His work was a link between the Italian and northern schools. He is credited with instructing Durer in the mathematical proportions of the human figure.

Barbier Georges (1882 - 1932) was one of the great French illustrators of the early 20th century.

Barbieri Giovanni. Il *Guercino

Barbizon school. Group of mid-19th-c. romantic landscape painters who, led by T. Rousseau and J.-F. Millet, settled in the village of Barbizon in the forest of Fontainebleau. In opposition to academic conventions they painted the 'paysage intime', undramatic details of the countryside or peasant life. They were influenced by 17th-C. Dutch landscapists and Constable, and were forerunners of the Impressionists. Other members of the school included N.-V. Diaz, J. Dupre and G. Daubigny.

Barelli Agostino (1627-1699)

Bark painting. Technique of Oceanic and particularly *Australian Aboriginal art. Traditional styles, both naturalistic and schematized, matched those used in rock painting, except for the polychrome lozenge hatching of the so-called spirit pictures'. B. p. is now made on a commercial basis.

Barlach Ernst (Hemnch) (1870-1938). N. German sculptor, wood-carver, draughtsman and writer associated with Expressionism. He was at the Dresden Academy
(1891—5), and Paris (1805—6); in 1906 he visited Russia, in 1909 Florence. Russia shaped him: it was, for him, a land where symbol met reality. The Russian beggar symbolized and presented the truth about man; B.'s statements on human suffering, humiliation, callousness, are in terms of peasant life. The medieval associations of his work gained him a commission for sculptures at St Catherine's church, Lubeck, but the Nazi government, which destroyed many of B.'s public statues, stopped the work. Between 1898 and 1902, he ill. Die Jugend magazine. B.'s writings include the plays Der tote Tag; (1912), Die Sundflut (1924) and his autobiography (1928).

Barnaba da Modena (fl. 1362-83). Italian painter of the Byzantine tradition whose work was influenced, but only slightly, by Giotto.

Barocci Federico (1526—1612). Italian Mannerist painter who worked mostly in his native town of Urbino but also in Rome and elsewhere. His style went beyond *Mannensni and influenced 18th-c. French painters.

Baroque (perhaps from Portuguese barroco: a misshapen pearl). A term, at first of abuse, applied to European architecture and painting of the period approximately 1600 to 1750. B. architecture was at its height in Rome under Bernini and Borrommi (c. 1630—80) and in S. Germany (c. 1700—50) under Balthazar Neumann and Fischer von Erlach. The building was planned round a series of geometrically controlled spaces — circles, squares and ellipses, within, imposed upon, adjoining one another, rhythms of convex against concave curves, exterior lines contrasted or harmonized. The actual structure forced to conform to these patterns was heavily decorated with relief and stucco-work and free-standing sculpture, which burst in upon and receded from the interior space. All the arts were enlisted and impinged on each other, painting was highly illusionistic, sculptors such as Bernini made full use of the play of light on surface and contour. The ensemble made a theatrical and emotional assault on the spectator, enmeshing him in a spatial geometry whose lines are never still, leading him from one enclave to the next, involving him in the drama depicted in the picture or relief, confusing the spatial domains of art and reality. B. became more and more heavily ornate and gradually gave way to the lighter and more restful style of Rococo; in Spain it lapsed into the extravagances of churrigueresque, called after the architect Jose de Churnguera. B. art was intimately bound up with the Counter-Reformation and in particular the Jesuit order. The involvement of the spectator in the church fabric itself and the religious narratives portrayed on its walls had an intentionally evangelistic aim. Jesuit missionaries carried the style wherever they went and established it in S. America, particularly, as the dominant style in European architecture: a position it held there until the late 19th c. In music the term is used loosely of the period between Monteverdi (d. 1643) and J. S. Bach (d. 1750).

Barr Alfred Hamilton (1902-81). U.S. art historian and author who as director of M.O.M.A., 1929-43, and director of collections. 1947—67, exerted a prominent influence on the cause of international modern art. Publications include Cubism and Abstract Art, 1936; What is Modem Painting?, 1943; Picasso; Fifty years of His Art, 1946, and Matisse: His Art and His Public, 1951.

Barry James  (1741-1806). Irish history and portrait painter. Patronized by Burke, he studied in Italy and in 1 782 became a professor at the R.A. He was expelled in 1799 for attacks on other members and on the memory of Reynolds, and died destitute.

Bartlett Bo (b. December 29, 1955 in Columbus, Georgia) is an American realist painter currently residing on Vashon Island in Washington State.
Bo Bartlett was born on December 29, 1955 in Columbus, Georgia. At the age of 19 he traveled to Florence, Italy where he studied under Ben Long. In 1975 he returned to the United states, where he studied at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, and then the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. He also studied anatomy at the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine. During his time in Pennsylvania, Bartlett apprenticed under Nelson Shanks. Bartlett then went on to study liberal arts at the University of Pennsylvania from 1980 to 1981. In 1986, Bartlett received a Certificate in Filmmaking from New York University. This led him to embark upon the 5 year process of creating a film in collaboration with Betsy Wyeth on the life and works of her husband, Andrew Wyeth. The film, entitled Snow Hill, began Bartlett's relationship with Wyeth as an artistic mentor and life-long friend. Bo Bartlett currently lives and paints on an island off the coast of Maine in summer, and on an island in the Puget Sound in Washington through the winter. He is married to artist Betsy Eby.
Bo Bartlett is an American realist with a modernist vision. His paintings are within the tradition of American realism as defined by artists such as Thomas Eakins and Andrew Wyeth. Like these artists, Bartlett looks at America's land and people to describe the beauty he finds in everyday life. His paintings celebrate the underlying epic nature of the commonplace and the personal significance of the extraordinary. Bartlett was educated at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, where realist principles must be grasped before modernist ventures are encouraged. He pushes the boundaries of the realist tradition with his multilayered imagery. Life, death, passage, memory, and confrontation coexist easily in his world. Family and friends are the cast of characters that appear in his dreamlike narrative works. Although the scenes are set around his childhood home in Georgia, his island summer home in Maine, his home in Pennsylvania or the surroundings of his studio and residence in Washington State, they represent a deeper, mythical concept of the archetypal, universal home. His work can be found in private collections, public collections, and galleries throughout the United States.

Bartlett Jennifer (1941- ). U.S. artist who in her most prominent work from the late 1960S used the serial structure as her main theme (e.g. Rhapsody, 1975-6, which consisted of 988 enamel-011-steel plates assembled and mounted on a wall, combining abstraction with decoration, each panel painted in a different style and with different imagery). B.'s later works show the utilization of drawing, often on a large scale, with charcoal, crayon, pencil, pen and brush, watercolour, pastel and gouache, e.g. In the Garden (1981). She painted the murals Atlantic Ocean and Pacific Ocean (1984) for the staff dining room of Philip Johnson's AT & T headquarters in N.Y. and was given other large-scale commissions, e.g. Volvo headquarters in Sweden. B.'s most recent work has been constructions which relate to and echo paintings, placed on the floor beneath them, e.g. 'Luxembourg Gardens' series (1988).

Bartolo, Taddeo di. *Taddeo di Bartolo

Bartolo di Fredi (c. 1330-1410). Sienese painter, pupil of A. Lorenzetti. His best 2 fresco cycles are at S. Gnnignano, one dealing with Old Testament subjects in the Collegiata (1356) and one in the church of S. Agostino on the birth and death of the Virgin (1366).

Bartolommeo Fra (1472—1517). Florentine painter and draughtsman. As student under Oosimo Rosselh he met M. Albertmelli with whom he later often collaborated. B. early inclined to mysticism and, impelled by the preaching of Savonarola, publicly burnt many of his paintings. In 1 500 he entered the monastery of S. Marco. He resumed painting in 1504, becoming a close friend of Raphael. He worked in Venice (1507), then with Albertinelh in Florence (r. 1509-12); he then went to Rome. Here he was so overwhelmed by Michelangelo's and Raphael's work in the Vatican that he refused all entreaties to collaborate. B.'s work is distinguished by complex yet controlled composition and by his refined and delicate draughtsmanship and use of colour. One of his finest works is 'The Virgin Adoring the Child with St Joseph. Late in life he lost something of his delicacy of treatment.

Bartolommeo di Giovanni.
Bartolomeo di Giovanni, also known as Bartolommeo di Giovanni and as Alunno di Domenico, was an early renaissance Italian painter of the Florentine School who was active from about 1480 until his death in 1501. He studied with and assisted Domenico Ghirlandaio, painting the predella of Ghirlandaio's Adoration of the Magi in the Ospedale degli Innocenti (Foundling Hospital) in Florence, in 1488. Bartolomeo di Giovanni also worked under the guidance of Sandro Botticelli. This painter should not be confused with either the Italian sculptor and architect, Bartolomeo di Giovanni d'Astore Sinibaldi (1469-1535), or with the Italian painter and architect, Bartolommeo di Giovanni Corradini (active mid-15th century).

Bartolozzi Francesco (1728-1815). Italian mezzotint engraver, miniaturist and draughtsman who settled in Britain (1764) and was a founder-member of the R.A. In 1802 he became head of a school for engravers in Lisbon. Through mastery of stipple and crayon and allied techniques B. achieved great softness and luminosity of effect; this together with his elegant tenderness assured him great popularity.

Baschenis Evaristo. (b Bergamo, 7 Dec 1617; d Bergamo, 16 March 1677). Italian painter. He came from a family of painters originally from Averara, Lombardy, but with different branches active in the provinces of Bergamo and Trentino, mostly specializing in fresco decoration of churches. He probably started working within the same regional tradition but soon came to specialize in still-lifes and moved beyond his family’s limited and provincial style to create a richer and more complex art.

Baselitz  Georg (1938— ). German artist, one of the leading painters of the *Neo-Expressionist movement who were intent on reviving figurative painting on a monumental scale. Since 1967 B.'s characteristic style relies on painting his images upside down.

Basket Maker. N. American, one of the Indian Anasazi group. Besides the woven containers from which the name is derived, it produced small stone sculptures of wild life. Strikingly compact m form, they are probably the first stone carvings done in the south-west.

Baskin Leonard (1922—2000). U.S. figurative sculptor, print maker and teacher. He saw the artist's role as a moral one and his principal theme was the 'landscape of death' that modern man has created. Works include massive figures m stone, wood or bronze such as The Great Dead Man (1956). Fie has collaborated in an illustrative capacity with the poet led Hughes.

Basquiat Jean-Michel (1960-88). U.S. painter of Haitian and Puerto Rican parentage who first started making *graffiti with magic-markers on walls of buildings together with a friend, which they signed SAMO. B. also made drawings on paper, painted on T-shirts, sheet metal and other found surfaces and made *assemblages out of junk. His work quickly became sought-after by influential critics, collectors and artists. By the early 1980s B.'s crayon-and-paint drawings on unprimed canvas, with grimacing African mask-like faces and graffiti messages and texts, led to his enormous success. He collaborated with *Warhol. who had befriended him, in paintings and exhibitions. He died from a heroin overdose,

Ba(s)s-relief (It. bassorilicvo). A carved *relief projecting only slightly from its background.

Bassa Ferrer (c 1290-after 1348). Painter of the Catalan school and 1st major painter of Spam. Until the early 20th c. the only records of him were in the criminal records of the kingdom of Aragon (for rape and other offences). The fresco series in the Franciscan convent at Predalbes (painted 1345/6) is now known to be by him. It shows that B. knew the work of the Sienese school, particularly that of *Martini.

Bassano. Family of Venetian painters working in Bassano. Jacopo (or Giaconio) da Ponte (1510-1592) first worked under his father, the painter Francesco the Elder (1475-1539). then studied m Venice. About 1530 he returned to Bassano where some of his finest work was done. His portraits and biblical subjects are notable for their realistic landscape settings, which include animals and details of peasant life, and for their colour, in fluenced by Titian. The best known of his 4 sons are Francesco the Younger (1549-92) and Leandro (1557-1622) whose work closely followed that of their father. Many paintings attributed to Jacopo are the work of his sons.

Bassano Jacopo (1510-1592). Son of Francesco Bassano il vecchio. He was apprenticed to his father, with whom he collaborated on the Nativity (1528; Valstagna, Vicenza, parish church). In the first half of the 1530s Jacopo trained in Venice with Bonifazio de’ Pitati, whose influence, with echoes of Titian, is evident in the Flight into Egypt (1534; Bassano del Grappa, Mus. Civ.). He continued to work in the family shop until his father’s death in 1539. His paintings from those years were mainly altarpieces for local churches; many show signs of collaboration. He also worked on public commissions, such as the three canvases on biblical subjects (1535–6; Bassano del Grappa, Mus. Civ.) for the Palazzo Communale, Bassano del Grappa, in which the narrative schemes learnt from Bonifazio are combined with a new naturalism. From 1535 he concentrated on fresco painting, executing, for example, the interior and exterior decoration (1536–7) of S Lucia di Tezze, Vicenza, which demonstrates the maturity of his technique.