Masters

of the
Painting
I
The
Masterpie
ces

A Winter Scene
with Skaters
near a Castle

Venus
and Mars

The Adoration
of the Kings

The Concert

The House
of Cards

The Hay Wain

Miss La La
at the Cirque
Fernando

The Arnolfini
Marriage

The
Sunflowers

The
Ambassadors

Masters
of the
Painting
I
about
The

Hendrick Avercamp
painted:
A Winter Scene
with Skaters
near a Castle
between 1608-1609

Profoundly deaf, and unable to speak, Avercamp was know as the mute Kampen.
He specialized in finely details winter scenes, filled with movement and dotted with lots of tiny figures.
Although he painted old cold, snowy scenes, he usually used a palette of warm colors, such pink and brown in his
pictures.

Sandro Botticelli
painted:
Venus and Mars
in 1485

Botticelli worked many in Florence, painting religious pictures for his patrons, the powerful Medici
family.
He decorated the walls of the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican in Rome (The fanous ceiling of wich was
painting twenty years later by Michelangelo.

Jan Brueghel
painted:
The Adoration of the
Kings
in 1698

Jan Brueghel was the youngest son in a family of famous painters, led by his father Pieter Brueghel.
Jan Brueghel usually painted flower pictures, landscapes and small, finely details painting of people.
He gave the pictures such a polished finish that he earned the nickname of :velvet Brueghel

Hendrick Ter
Brugghen
painted:
The Concert
in 1626

Ter Brugghen lived in Italy for ten years and became an admirer of the work of the master painter,
Caravaggio.
He liked the way in which Caravaggio used dark shadows and bright highlights to create mood in his
paintings.
Ter Brugghen barrowed this technique for his gentle, atmospheric pictures.

Jean Baptiste
Simeon Chardin
painted:
The House of Cards
in 1735

Like the Dutch painter de Hooch, Chardin liked to capture the lives ordinary people in his paintings.
His pictures were bought by royalty and members of the upper classes who enjoyed them for their
simplicity and calmness

John Constable
painted:
The Hay Wain
in 1821

The son of a mill-owner, Constable grew up in Soffolk.

As an adult he lived in London, but frequently returned to his home country to paint the countryside he
had known as a child.

Edgar Degas
painted:
Miss La La at the
Cirque Fernando
in 1879

Degas was born in Paris, the son of a rich banker.

Although he is known as an Impressionist, Degass work was in very ways diferente from the rest of the
group.
Degas particularly loved theatrical and sporting subjects, specially scenes of ballet dancers and
racehorses.

Jan Van Eyck

painted:
The Arnolfini
Marriage
in 1434

Van Eyck was admired in his time for his delicate oil painting technique and his amazing realistic
scenes.
In 1422 he was made court painter to Count John of Holland and went on to finish the great altarpiece
at the Ghent Cathedral, Belgium, which had been started by his brother Hubert

Vincent Van Gogh

painted:
The Sunflowers
in 1888

Van Gogh is now considered to be one of the worlds best painters, despite having very little training as an
artist and only selling one picture during his lifetime.
He suffered several periods of madness and famously, cut off part of his ear during one of them.
He went on develop his own very individual style known as Post-Impressionist.
Van Gogh worked energetically, using paint straight form the tube and laying it on thick brushstrokes.
He painted a number of similar paintings to decorate a room in his house which was often used by Paul
Gauguin

Hans Holbein
painted:
The Ambassadors
in 1533

During the 16th century, Europe became bitterly divided by a religious revolution know as the Reformation.
Like many artist, Holbein was unable to make a living in Germany and so moved to London.
A few years later he became court artist to King Henry VIII

Masters
of the
Painting
I
about
The
Paintings

The buildings in A Winter Scene with Skaters near a Castle are painted from the imagination but the skaters and
toboganners are based on watercolor drawings made form life.
Returning to his studio, Avercamp would use his sketches to create his carefully composed painting, grouping
the figures, holding hands and dancing, to make patterns within the picture.

In Venus and Mars , Venus, the goddess of love, sits watching her sleeping lover, Mars. The god or
war.
Even the sound of trumpet in his ear will not wake him and the satyrs are able to playfully steal his
lance.
This beautifully detailed picture was probably used as a bedroom decoration, either for the wall or as
part of a piece of furniture.

The Adoration of the Kings shows the three kings bringing gifts to the baby Jesus,
To the right stands King Balthazar carrying a golden ship.
Brueghel chose to set the painting in his own time and places the rickety old stable in a busy town,
surrounded by people and animals going their daily business.

The mood of The Concert is a one of warmth, closeness and just a little mystery.
Three musicians face each other in a ring, lit by a low candle. This gives the faces a golden glow but
at the same time cast strange, dancing shadows in the wall behind.
The young boy focuses on his book, beating out the rhythm of the music with his hands, lost in his
own world, The other two musician seem to be aware of us looking at them.
The candlelight catches their eyes as they glance out toward us but they keep their back turned,
shutting us out of the circle.

The House of Cards is a natural scene, in which the boy seems unaware of the painters presence
and gives his full concentration to the game.
In this painting Chardin used think brushstrokes in Layers. Up close, these seem blurred and
careless. From a distance, however, they take shape and give the picture a warm, still quality.

Constables landscapes often take the harmony between humans and nature as their subjects.
The Haywain is a peaceful scene, which shows an empty hay wagon (haywain) in the River Stour,
next to the house known as Willy Lotts Cottage.
Constables great skill lies in the way he captures the tiny movements of nature- the tops of the trees
shimmering in the breeze and the shadows of the clouds dancing across the meadow.

Miss La La at the Cirque Fernando captures the famous Parisian acrobat as she dangles by a rope
clenched between her teeth. Degas catches this breathtaking moment by painting it form the pint
of view of a member of the audience.
The strange diagonals of the arms, legs and rafters, and the strong, yellow lighting all add to the
drama and suspense of the scene.

The Arnolfini Marriage is a full-length portrait, showing a rich Italian merchant and his wife.
Although she looks as if she is pregnant, in fact she is wearing a very long dress-in fashion at the
time- and is holding it up in front of her.
The beads on the wall and the fur on Mr Arnolfinis coat show that van Eyck was particularly
interested in capturing all the textures and details of a scene.
A close look at the concave mirror reveals two other people in the room, One of them is probably the
painter himself, and this ties in with his signature on the back wall which, when translated, reads,
Jan van Eyck was here 1434

In Sunflowers van Gogh used the technique of paint straight from the tube to gives texture to the
seed-heads and to make the petals radiant a vibrant warmth.
Van Gogh loved sunflowers for the simple shape and brilliant colors.

The Ambassadors is a portrait of two French diplomats who visit Henry VIIIs court in 1533.The clothes
and the surrounding objects show that these man are highly educated, powerful and very wealthy.
Each object has been selected to give the painting meaning, The instruments on the upper shelf are
for examination of stars and measuring dates and time. They contrast with the objects on the lower
shelf which relate to human life on earth.
Looking closely at the floor we will see a strange object, it is a skull that has been stretched. This
technique is call anamorphosis.