Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects, and Curiosities of Art (Vol. 2 of 3)

Soon after Buffalmacco left his master, he was employed by the nuns of Faenza to execute a picture for their convent. The subject was the slaughter of the Innocents. While the w...

Fuseli was elected an Associate of the Royal Academy in 1788, and early in 1790 became an Academician--honors won by talent without the slightest coöperation of intrigue. His el...

Morland once received an invitation to Barnet, and was hastening thither with Hassell and another friend, when he was stopped at Whetstone turnpike by a lumber or jockey cart, d...

As Laocoön, a priest of Neptune, (or according to some, of Apollo) was sacrificing a bull to Neptune, on the shore at Troy, after the pretended retreat of the Greeks, two enormo...

According to Tacitus, Nero's famous golden palace was one of the most magnificent edifices ever built, and far surpassed all that was stupendous and beautiful in Italy. It was e...

Failing, as we have said, and perhaps fortunately for him, in the achievement of the great Prize of Rome, he turned to the line of Art for which he felt himself naturally endowe...

The great talents of Domenichino did not develop themselves so early as in many other great painters. He was assiduous, thoughtful and circumspect; which his companions attribut...

"Not far distant from the amphitheatre are two semicircular theatres, one of which is supposed to have been appropriated to tragedy and the other to comedy. The first mentioned...

The following critique from the pen of Allan Cunningham, gives a good idea of Fuseli's abilities as an artist. "His main wish was to startle and astonish. It was his ambition to...

"'I took the opportunity, whilst at Mosul, of visiting the excavations of Nimroud. But before I attempt to give a short account of them, I may as well say a few words as to the...

Giordano may be said to have been born with a pencil in his hand, and by constant practice, added to a natural quickness, he acquired that extraordinary facility of hand which,...

Most writers observe that Titian had four different manners, at as many different periods of his life: first that of Bellini, somewhat stiff and hard, in which he imitated natur...

Count Algarotti relates, that Annibale Caracci was so deceived by a book painted upon a table by Jacopo da Ponte, that he stretched out his hand to take it up. Bassano was highl...

Besides this, the testimony of Knight, Price, and Gilpin, have contributed to remove the prejudices against Vanbrugh. Knight says in his "Principles of Taste," Sir John Vanbrugh...

This old painter was born at Florence in 1349, and was a disciple of Antonio Veneziano. His name was Mazzocchi, but being very celebrated as a painter of animals, and especially...

Some writers assert that the works of Cimabue possessed little merit when compared with those of later times; and that the extraordinary applause which he received flowed from a...

The boldness and rapidity of Salvator Rosa's pencil, aided by the fertility of his highly poetical imagination, enabled him to paint an immense number of pictures while he was a...

On this suggestion Lord Elgin proposed to his majesty's government, that they should send out English artists of known eminence, capable of collecting this information in the mo...

It was with reference to the twenty-five paintings exhibited by Vernet, in 1765, that Diderot penned the foregoing lines, which formed the peroration to an eloquent and lengthy...

Titian--Sketch of his Life, 1 Titian's Manners, 5 Titian's Works, 6 Titian's Imitators, 7 Titian's Venus and Adonis, 8 Titian and the Emperor Charles V., 10 Titian and Philip II...