ART HISTORY by Stephen Stonoha

Women Artists in History
 We're using this space to showcase the work of women artists down through the centuries. Over time we will do our best to make this list comprehensive. If you have a famous artist to recommend, please send us mail.  We would like to create a network of women who are interested in the work of women artist.

Paintings by Women Artists in History
Sofonisba Anguissola (1532-1625) is considered the first important woman artist of the Renaissance, and the first female painter to enjoy international reputation.  Unusual for this period in women's art history, her father was not an artist, but a provincial nobleman in Cremona, who decided to educate his seven children, six daughters and one son, according to the humanist ideals of the Renaissance.  Sofonisba’s sisters Elena and Lucia Anguissola became painters.

Women of the Romantic Period
 This interactive hypertext uses Richard Polwhele's poem "The Unsex'd Females" to introduce students and scholars alike to some of the British Romantic Period's foremost female contributors. In his poem, Polwhele invokes the rigid standard of feminine behavior held by many members of eighteenth-century society as he asserts that a certain breed of women -- the unsex'd females -- transgressed the limits of that which was acceptable. Since Polwhele addresses these women by name in "The Unsex'd Females," the poem provides a means of examining closely some of the many female figures often excluded from the traditional British Romantic Period canon.

WebMuseum: Caravaggio, Michelangelo Merisi da
Caravaggio (1573-1610). Probably the most revolutionary artist of his time, the Italian painter Caravaggio abandoned the rules that had guided a century of artists before him. They had idealized the human and religious experience.

Mark Harden's Artchive - "Edouard Manet"
Edouard Manet was born into the ranks of the Parisian bourgeoisie on January 29, 1832. His Mother, Eugenie-Desiree Fournier, was a woman of refinement and god daughter of Charles Bernadotte, the Crown Prince of Sweden. Edouard's father, Auguste Manet, was a magistrate and judge who hoped that Edouard would someday follow in his footsteps, but Edouard was destined to follow another path.

Mark Harden's Artchive - "Claude Monet"
 This is one of the flattest landscapes ever painted. At around the same time, Cezanne was flattening his still lifes by distorting the tables to a vertical orientation. Monet stops short of distortion through a
judicious choice of subject. A hillside staircase provides the form for a dramatic flattening of the painting.

Giambattista Tiepolo: Presentation
The plan to stage a major exhibition of Giambattista Tiepolo's work on the occasion of the three hundredth anniversary of his birth is the result  of the joint efforts of the main cultural institutions in Venice -

Biography, school, and time period
 The Renaissance period was among the most productive artistic periods in history. French for "rebirth," the Renaissance was a time where science and art mixed. Many artists were doing their own dissections to learn more about the human anatomy ("Dauben"). With this knowledge, they could create more accurate reproductions of the human form in their work, ultimately making it more lifelike.

Art.com: Where You Start For Art

WebMuseum: Ghirlandaio, Domenico
 Ghirlandaio, Domenico (1449-94). Florentine painter. He trained with Baldovinetti and possibly with Verrocchio. His style was solid, prosaic, and rather old-fashioned (especially when compared with that of his great contemporary Botticelli), but he was an excellent craftsman and good businessman and had one of the most prosperous workshops in Florence.

William H. Johnson
"William H. Johnson arrived in Harlem when the Renaissance was in the making. He had come to New York in 1918 from Florence, South Carolina, and became a student at the national Academy of Design. He remained there for five years, absorbing the teachings of George Luks  and Charles Hawthorne, and readying himself for a career in art that would take him to places in North Africa and Europe in search of a permanent residence. It was through the influence of Hawthorne that Johnson traveled first to Paris in 1926, where he settled, painted, and studied the works of modern European masters."