PrintmakingPrintmaking is the process of creating artworks by printing, normally on paper, but also on fabric, wood, metal, and other surfaces. "Traditional printmaking" normally covers only the process of creating prints using a hand processed technique, rather than a photographic reproduction of a visual artwork which would be printed using an electronic machine (a printer); however, there is some cross-over between traditional and digital printmaking, including risograph.
History paintingHistory painting is a genre in painting defined by its subject matter rather than any artistic style or specific period. History paintings depict a moment in a narrative story, most often (but not exclusively) Greek and Roman mythology and Bible stories, opposed to a specific and static subject, as in portrait, still life, and landscape painting. The term is derived from the wider senses of the word historia in Latin and histoire in French, meaning "story" or "narrative", and essentially means "story painting".
FrescoFresco (plural frescos or frescoes) is a technique of mural painting executed upon freshly laid ("wet") lime plaster. Water is used as the vehicle for the dry-powder pigment to merge with the plaster, and with the setting of the plaster, the painting becomes an integral part of the wall. The word fresco (affresco) is derived from the Italian adjective fresco meaning "fresh", and may thus be contrasted with fresco-secco or secco mural painting techniques, which are applied to dried plaster, to supplement painting in fresco.
DrawingDrawing is a visual art that uses an instrument to mark paper or another two-dimensional surface. The instrument might be pencils, crayons, pens with inks, brushes with paints, or combinations of these, and in more modern times, computer styluses with graphics tablets. A drawing instrument releases a small amount of material onto a surface, leaving a visible mark. The most common support for drawing is paper, although other materials, such as cardboard, vellum, wood, plastic, leather, canvas, and board, have been used.
ParmigianinoGirolamo Francesco Maria Mazzola (11 January 1503 24 August 1540), also known as Francesco Mazzola or, more commonly, as Parmigianino (UKˌpɑːrmɪdʒæˈniːnoʊ, US-dʒɑːˈ-, parmidʒaˈniːno; "the little one from Parma"), was an Italian Mannerist painter and printmaker active in Florence, Rome, Bologna, and his native city of Parma. His work is characterized by a "refined sensuality" and often elongation of forms and includes Vision of Saint Jerome (1527) and the iconic if somewhat anomalous Madonna with the Long Neck (1534), and he remains the best known artist of the first generation whose whole careers fall into the Mannerist period.
Andrea del VerrocchioAndrea del Verrocchio (vəˈroʊkioʊ, USalso-ˈrɔːk-, anˈdrɛːa del verˈrɔkkjo; 1435 – 1488), born Andrea di Michele di Francesco de' Cioni, was a sculptor, Italian painter and goldsmith who was a master of an important workshop in Florence. He apparently became known as Verrocchio after the surname of his master, a goldsmith. Few paintings are attributed to him with certainty, but important painters were trained at his workshop. His pupils included Leonardo da Vinci, Pietro Perugino and Lorenzo di Credi.
Duchy of UrbinoThe Duchy of Urbino was an independent duchy in early modern central Italy, corresponding to the northern half of the modern region of Marche. It was directly annexed by the Papal States in 1625. It was bordered by the Adriatic Sea in the east, the Republic of Florence in the west and the Papal States in the south. In 1523 the capital was moved from Urbino to Pesaro. After the short rule by Cesare Borgia in 1502–08, the dukedom went to the della Rovere papal family, who held it until 1625, when Pope Urban VIII annexed it to the Papal States as Legazione del Ducato di Urbino (later Legazione di Urbino).
PinturicchioPinturicchio, or Pintoricchio (USˌpɪntəˈriːkioʊ, pintuˈrikkjo; born Bernardino di Betto; 1454–1513), also known as Benetto di Biagio or Sordicchio, was an Italian painter during the Renaissance. He acquired his nickname (meaning "little painter") because of his small stature and he used it to sign some of his artworks that were created during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Pinturicchio was born the son of Benedetto or Betto di Biagio, in Perugia.
Cabinet (room)A cabinet (also known by other terms) was a private room in the houses and palaces of early modern Europe serving as a study or retreat, usually for a man. The cabinet would be furnished with books and works of art, and sited adjacent to his bedchamber, the equivalent of the Italian Renaissance studiolo. In the Late Medieval period, such newly perceived requirements for privacy had been served by the solar of the English gentry house, and a similar, less secular purpose had been served by a private oratory.
SfumatoSfumato (sfuˈmaːto, sfjuːˈmeɪtoʊ) is a painting technique for softening the transition between colours, mimicking an area beyond what the human eye is focusing on, or the out-of-focus plane. It is one of the canonical painting modes of the Renaissance. Leonardo da Vinci was the most prominent practitioner of sfumato, based on his research in optics and human vision, and his experimentation with the camera obscura. He introduced it and implemented it in many of his works, including the Virgin of the Rocks and in his famous painting of the Mona Lisa.
