Sandrine Dionne

Jan Steen was a Dutch painter who created about 800 pieces, 350 or so of them surviving today. He was a busy man. He painted various types of pieces including portraits, religious and historical scenes, but he was most well known for his genre paintings. Genre paintings simply portray everyday life. His paintings are said to portray a realistic image of 17th-century Dutch life.

His genre paintings are known for being chaotic. There is even a dutch expression inspired by him, “a Jan Steen household,” meaning a messy and chaotic house.

The son of a brewer, Jan Steen painting quite a few inns, and in order to make some extra income on the side, he opened a brewery and a tavern himself.

As well as the various other topics he was inspired by and liked to portray, he was heavily influenced by the world of theatre. Many of his pieces are quite theatrical in nature.

I personally really enjoy the chaotic and real nature of his pieces, as well as his sense of humour that is evident in many of his paintings.

Sources

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Steen

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Jan-Havickszoon-Steen

https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/rijksstudio/artists/jan-havicksz-steen

http://www.getty.edu/art/collection/artists/181/jan-steen-dutch-1626-1679/

https://www.holland.com/global/tourism/discover-holland/traditional/dutch-masters/jan-steen-12.htm

https://www.wikiart.org/en/jan-steen/all-works#!#filterName:all-paintings-chronologically,resultType:masonry

There is a lot we don’t know about Bosch. He did not leave any diaries, journals or record of information about himself. We can only estimate when he was born and died. He didn’t date his paintings. There is even some mystery to which paintings can be accredited to him.

What we do know is that his father, grandfather and uncles were all painters, so it is assumed that one of them taught Bosch to paint. We can also determine that he was well educated based on the knowledge he displays in his paintings.

In his time, religion was still a major theme in painting. Artists stuck to painting reality & truth and venturing into the unknown or imaginary was not yet a thing; until Bosch came along.

The theme of religion was still present and heavily influential in Bosch’s paintings, but he took his own interpretation and imagination into it. Filled with symbolism, absurdity, and portrayals of the inner world and subconscious, his paintings were, to say it simply: different. Hieronymus Bosch is considered a revolutionary in his creation of beings and realms unknown to humans.

Bosch was a popular artist throughout Europe and received many commissions. Many people enjoyed and imitated his work. His fame definitely began during or very shortly after his lifetime.

His most famous painting, The Garden of Earthly Delights, has influenced many modern artists, designers and musicians. There have been songs, fashion collections and theatre/dance productions inspired by the piece.

Sources

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hieronymus_Bosch

https://www.theartstory.org/artist/bosch-hieronymus/life-and-legacy/#biography_header

http://mentalfloss.com/article/83945/8-bizarre-facts-about-hieronymous-bosch

Pigments are powdered forms of colour that can be suspended in various mediums and then be applied to a surface in painting. In the beginning, pigments came from nature: minerals, plants, animals. Alchemists were also able to chemically manipulate and combine different elements to create pigments not directly available from nature. Nowadays, we often use artificially manufactured pigments because they are both cheaper and safer. Many natural pigments are very toxic, and generally very expensive.

Some Common Pigments Used In The Renaissance

Red

Vermilion is a vibrant red pigment made by grinding up cinnabar, a mercury sulphide that is very toxic. Mining cinnabar was very expensive and dangerous because of its toxicity. They eventually discovered how to make a synthetic version of vermilion with alchemy.

Carmine came from carminic acid, found in cochineal bugs. They would boil the dried insects in ammonia to extract the carminic acid responsible for the red colour. Carmine is still commonly used today as a dye in many products including some foods.

Blue

Ultramarine was the most expensive blue, so painters would use it sparingly and often reserved it for the clothing of central figures, especially the Virgin Mary. It was made by grinding up the mineral lapis lazuri.

Green

Verdigris, made from copper (ii) acetate was the most commonly used green at the time. It was the most vibrant option all the way until the 19th century.

Yellow

Lead-tin Yellow was a commonly used yellow pigment during the Renaissance until it was completely replaced by Naples Yellow. It was often used alongside green and earth coloured pigments to create foliage.

Sources

http://www.visual-arts-cork.com/artist-paints/renaissance-colour-palette.htm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vermilion

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carmine

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultramarine

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verdigris

http://www.webexhibits.org/pigments/indiv/overview/pbsnyellow.html

Pottery is one of the oldest inventions that is still made and used today in relatively the same way: molded from clay, fired at high temperatures and used as containers for food or water.

Around 10,000 years ago, people began settling down from the nomadic lifestyle and planting crops. Plants need water, so they had to find a way to water their crops since irrigation didn’t come along until much later on. Baskets were common for gathering, but wouldn’t work for transporting water. In order to make something that would work, they needed a material that was easily accessible, moldable, and relatively light in weight: clay. It was abundant and perfect for what they needed. As well as using the pots for transporting water, they also used them for storage of grains, dairy, and other products.

Pottery is one of the easier things to study from the prehistoric era. The longevity of pots means that many pots are still around nowadays. The first pots were very simple. They were made by stacking rings of clay on top of each other, smoothing out the clay, and firing them in a hole underneath a fire—the very first kiln!

The Pottery Wheel

In the beginning, making pots was slow. They had to coil and shape the pots completely by hand, and making a single pot would take quite a while. To increase speed and efficiency, they eventually developed the first pottery wheel around 3,000 BC. The “Slow Wheel,” as can be assumed, was quite slow—although an improvement from the previous method used. A few hundred years later, the “Fast Wheel” was developed. They used heavier stones that could be kicked to make them turn. The use of heavier weight allowed for centrifugal force to be established, allowing the wheels to spin much faster. A major improvement in speed and efficiency!

Sources

https://home.howstuffworks.com/green-living/pottery1.htm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pottery

https://www.britannica.com/art/pottery/Western-pottery

https://www.thoughtco.com/history-of-the-invention-of-pottery-171345

https://www.ancient.eu/pottery/

https://ourpastimes.com/the-history-of-pottery-wheels-12181261.html

https://en.natmus.dk/historical-knowledge/denmark/prehistoric-period-until-1050-ad/the-neolithic-period/the-skarpsalling-pot/what-was-the-pottery-used-for/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potter%27s_wheel

Born in Venice in 1430, Giovanni Bellini was an important Italian renaissance painter. Among his family of Venetian painters, he was the most well known. Son of Jacopo Bellini, brother of Gentile Bellini and brother in law to Andrea Mantegna, he was very much surrounded by painters.

Throughout the first two decades of his career, his work is heavily religious and traditional in focus, painting many madonnas, pietàs, and crucifixions. He later switched his focus over to the setting and scenery of his pieces, eventually becoming one of the most impressive landscape painters.

Bellini was very influential in the instruction of painters of the high renaissance in Venice, taking on many pupils throughout his time as a part of the Venetian School. Notably, he taught Giorgione and Titian, who both surpassed him in fame.

He was also known for his use of oil paints to convey light and colour incredibly well. His use of colour and lighting in his pieces makes it very easy to identify the season and time of day being portrayed.

Bellini was a very inventive and original painter. In his later years, he brought quite a humanistic quality to his paintings, especially showing a lot of human tenderness and softness in the people he painted. He was an important part of the transition into high renaissance painting.

I personally really like his work. His landscapes are pretty incredible.

Sources

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Giovanni-Bellini-Italian-painter

https://www.theartstory.org/artist/bellini-giovanni/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giovanni_Bellini

https://www.wikiart.org/en/giovanni-bellini