In art history, "Old Master" (or "old master")[1][2] refers to any painter of skill who worked in Europe before about 1800, or a painting by such an artist. An "old master print" is an original print (for example an engraving, woodcut, or etching) made by an artist in the same period. The term "old master drawing" is used in the same way.
In theory, "Old Master" applies only to artists who were fully trained, were Masters of their local artists' guild, and worked independently, but in practice, paintings produced by pupils or workshops are often included in the scope of the term. Therefore, beyond a certain level of competence, date rather than quality is the criterion for using the term.
In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the term was often understood as having a starting date of perhaps 1450 or 1470; paintings made before that were "primitives", but this distinction is no longer made. The Oxford English Dictionary defines the term as "A pre-eminent artist of the period before the modern; esp. a pre-eminent western European painter of the 13th to 18th centuries." The first quotation given is from 1696, in the diary of John Evelyn: "My L: Pembroke..shewed me divers rare Pictures of very many of the old & best Masters, especially that of M: Angelo..,& a large booke of the best drawings of the old Masters."[3] The term is also used to refer to a painting or sculpture made by an Old Master, a usage datable to 1824.[3] There are comparable terms in Dutch, French, and German; the Dutch may have been the first to make use of such a term, in the 18th century, when oude meester mostly meant painters of the Dutch Golden Age of the previous century. Les Maitres d'autrefois of 1876 by Eugene Fromentin may have helped to popularize the concept, although "vieux maitres" is also used in French. The famous collection in Dresden at the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister is one of the few museums to include the term in its actual name, although many more use it in the title of departments or sections. The collection in the Dresden museum essentially stops at the Baroque period.
The end date is necessarily vague – for example, Goya (1746–1828) is certainly an Old Master,[2] though he was still painting and printmaking at his death in 1828. The term might also be used for John Constable[2] (1776–1837) or Eugène Delacroix (1798–1863), but usually is not. Edward Lucie-Smith gives an end date of 1800, noting "formerly used of paintings earlier than 1700".[4]
The term tends to be avoided by art historians as too vague, especially when discussing paintings, although the terms "Old Master Prints" and "Old Master drawings" are still used. It remains current in the art trade. Auction houses still usually divide their sales between, for example, "Old Master Paintings", "Nineteenth-century paintings", and "Modern paintings". Christie's defined the term as ranging "from the 14th to the early 19th century".[5]
The relevant part of the large and important collection of the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium in their main building in Brussels was renamed in recent years as the Oldmasters Museum in Dutch and English, and Musée Oldmasters in French. It was previously called the "Royal Museum of Ancient Art" in English (French: Musée royal d'Art ancien; Dutch: Koninklijk Museum voor Oude Kunst).[6]
Anonymous artists
Artists, most often from early periods, whose hand has been identified by art historians, but to whom no identity can be confidently attached, are often given names (a Notname) by art historians such as Master E.S. (from his monogram), Master of Flémalle (from a previous location of a work), Master of Mary of Burgundy (from a patron), Master of Latin 757 (from the shelf mark of a manuscript he illuminated), Master of the Embroidered Foliage (from his characteristic technique), Master of the Brunswick Diptych, or Master of Schloss Lichtenstein.
List of the most important Old Master painters
Rucellai Madonna by Duccio, c. 1285.
Gothic/Proto-Renaissance
Cimabue (Italian, 1240–1302), frescoes in the Basilica of San Francesco d'Assisi
Giotto di Bondone (Italian, 1267–1337), first Renaissance fresco painter
Duccio (Italian, 1255–1318), Sienese painter
Simone Martini (Italian, 1285–1344), Gothic painter of the Sienese School
Ambrogio Lorenzetti (Italian, c. 1290–1348), Gothic painter
Pietro Lorenzetti (Italian, c. 1280–1348), Sienese school
Gentile da Fabriano (Italian, 1370–1427), International gothic painter
Lorenzo Monaco (Italian, 1370–1425), International gothic style
Masolino (Italian, c. 1383–c. 1447), Goldsmith trained painter
Pisanello (Italian, c. 1395–c. 1455), International gothic painter and medallist
Sassetta (Italian, c. 1392–1450), Sienese International Gothic painter
Early Renaissance
Paolo Uccello (Italian, 1397–1475), schematic use of foreshortening
Fra Angelico (Italian, 1400–1455), noted for San Marco convent frescoes
Masaccio (Italian, 1401–1428), first to use linear perspective thereby giving sense of three-dimensionality plus developed new realism
Fra Filippo Lippi (Italian, 1406–1469), father of Filippino
Andrea del Castagno (Italian, 1410–1457)
Piero della Francesca (Italian, 1415–1492), painter who pioneered linear perspective
Benozzo Gozzoli (Italian, 1420–1497)
Alesso Baldovinetti (Italian, 1425–1499)
Vincenzo Foppa (Italian, 1425–1515)
Portrait of a young woman by Sandro Botticelli, 1480
Antonello da Messina (Italian, 1430–1479), painter who pioneered oil painting
Cosimo Tura (Italian, 1430–1495)
Andrea Mantegna (Italian, 1431–1506), master of perspective and detail
Antonio del Pollaiuolo (Italian, 1431–1498)
Francesco Cossa (Italian, 1435–1477)
Melozzo da Forli (Italian, 1438–1494)
Luca Signorelli (Italian, 1441–1523)
Perugino (Italian, c. 1446–1523), Raphael was his pupil
Verrocchio (Italian, c. 1435–1488)
Sandro Botticelli (Italian, c. 1445–1510), great Florentine master
Adam Elsheimer (German, 1578–1610), influential German landscape and history painter who influenced Rubens
Baroque painting
Supper at Emmaus by Caravaggio, 1601Portrait of George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham by Peter Paul Rubens, c. 1625Las Meninas by Diego Velázquez, 1656
Antonio Tempesta (Italian, 1555–1630)
Ludovico Carracci (Italian, 1555–1619)
Bartolomeo Cesi (Italian, 1556–1629)
Agostino Carracci (Italian, 1557–1602)
Lodovico Cigoli (Italian, 1559–1613)
Bartolomeo Carducci (Italian, 1560–1610)
Annibale Carracci (Italian, 1560–1609), leader of the academism
Orazio Gentileschi (Italian, 1563–1639)
Hans Rottenhammer (German, 1564–1625)
Pieter Brueghel the Younger (Flemish, 1564–1636)
Francisco Pacheco (Spanish, 1564–1654)
Francisco Ribalta (Spanish, 1565–1628)
Jan Brueghel the Elder (Flemish, 1568–1625)
Juan Martínez Montañés (Spanish, 1568–1649)
Caravaggio (Italian, 1573–1610), noted for his figurative realism and Tenebrism
Guido Reni (Italian, 1575–1642)
Peter Paul Rubens (Flemish, 1577–1640), foremost Baroque history painter and portraitist
Adam Elsheimer (German, 1578–1610)
Bernardo Strozzi (Italian, 1581–1644)
Juan Bautista Maíno (Spanish, 1581–1649)
Johann Liss (German, 1590–1631)
Jusepe de Ribera (Spanish, 1591–1652), Naples-based religious realist painter and printmaker
Guercino (Italian, 1591–1666)
Artemisia Gentileschi (Italian, 1592–1656)
Georges de La Tour (French, 1593–1652)
Jacob Jordaens (Flemish, 1593–1678)
Louis Le Nain (French, 1593–1648)
Nicolas Poussin (French, 1594–1665), main classical artist of his time
Pietro da Cortona (Italian, 1596–1669), painter and architect
Francisco de Zurbarán (Spanish, 1598–1664), master of chiaroscuro known for his religious paintings and still lifes
Gian Lorenzo Bernini (Italian, 1598–1680), the dominant sculptor and architect of the era
Antoine Le Nain (French, 1599–1648)
Anthony van Dyck (Flemish, 1599–1641), portraitist living in London
Diego Velázquez (Spanish, 1599–1660), regarded as the greatest artist of the Spanish Golden Age
Claude Lorrain (French, 1600–1682), landscape artist
Alonso Cano (Spanish, 1601–1667)
Jan Brueghel the Younger (Flemish, 1601–1678)
Mathieu Le Nain (French, 1607–1677)
Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione (Italian, 1609–1664)
Juan Bautista Martínez del Mazo (Spanish, c. 1612–1667)
Mattia Preti (Italian, 1613–1699)
Salvator Rosa (Italian, 1613–1673)
Juan Carreño de Miranda (Spanish, 1614–1685)
Carlo Dolci (Italian, 1616–1686)
Bartolomé Esteban Murillo (Spanish, 1617–1682), one of the most influential religious painters
Charles Le Brun (French, 1619–1690), leading painter in the court of Louis XIV
Jan Havickszoon Steen (Dutch, 1625–1679), Leiden School, tavern genre scenes
Jan Davidsz de Heem (Dutch, 1609–1683), still-life artist of the Utrecht/Antwerp School
David Teniers the Younger (Flemish, 1610–1690), Dutch Realist known for his peasant/guardroom scenes
Adriaen van Ostade (Dutch, 1610–1685), peasant scene artist of the Haarlem School
Govert Flinck (Dutch, 1615–1660)
Gerrit Dou (Dutch, 1613–1675)
Frans van Mieris the Elder (Dutch, 1635–1681)
Gerard Terborch (Dutch, 1617–1681), Haarlem School genre painter
Willem Kalf (Dutch, 1619–1693), noted for still-life pictures
Aelbert Cuyp (Dutch, 1620–1691), Dordrecht School landscape painter
Samuel van Hoogstraten (Dutch, 1627–1678), genre painter
Jan de Bray (Dutch, 1627–1697)
Jacob van Ruisdael (Dutch, 1628–1682), Haarlem School landscape artist
Gabriel Metsu (Dutch, 1629–1667), intimate small-scale genre scenes
Pieter de Hooch (Dutch, 1629–1683), Delft School of Dutch genre painting
Johannes Vermeer (Dutch, 1632–1675), Delft School Dutch genre painter, little-known in his own lifetime
Meindert Hobbema (Dutch, 1638–1709)
Aert de Gelder (Dutch, 1645–1727)
Adriaen van der Werff (Dutch, 1659–1722)
Rachel Ruysch (Dutch, 1664–1750), important female flower painter from Amsterdam
Jan Roos (Flemish, 1591–1638), painter influencing the genoese school, known for his still life paintings of flowers and vegetables, mythological and religious scenes and portraits
Capitulations of Wedding and Rural Dance by Antoine Watteau, 1711
Giovanni Battista Piazzetta (Italian, 1682–1754), master of the fresco
Jean-Antoine Watteau (French, 1684–1721), author of the first fête galante
Giovan Battista Pittoni (Italian, 1687–1767), known for sacred families and children
Giovanni Battista Tiepolo (Italian, 1691–1770), known for his frescoes, as in Würzburg Residence
Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin (French, 1699–1779), important 18th-century still-life artist
François Boucher (French, 1703–1770), noted for female nudes
Charles-André van Loo (French, 1705– 1765), painter of portraiture, religion, mythology, allegory, and genre scenes.
Pompeo Batoni (Italian, 1708–1787)
Martin Johann Schmidt (Austrian, 1718–1801), important 18th-century Austrian Late Baroque painter
Jean-Baptiste Greuze (French, 1725–1805), important 18th-century painter
François-Hubert Drouais (French, 1727– 1775), French portraitist to the royal family, King Louis XV and Queen Marie Leczinska, and members of the nobility
Jean-Honoré Fragonard (French, 1732–1806)
Louise Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun (French, 1755–1842), later Neoclassical
↑The term is spelled either way in the literature. Major UK and US dictionaries, incl. the Oxford Online Dictionaries, American Heritage Dictionary, Macmillan, Cambridge, and Random House dictionaries use lowercase; Oxford English Dictionary, Collins, and Merriam-Webster dictionaries also mention the uppercase spelling.
Why do we still pay attention to Old Masters paintings? a conversation between Keith Christiansen is the John Pope-Hennessy Chairman of the Department of European Paintings at New York's Metropolitan Museum and The Easel's Morgan Meis, Contributing Editor of The Easel.
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