Pieter Bruegel (also Brueghel) the Elder was a Netherlandish Renaissance painter and printmaker from Brabant, known for his landscapes and peasant scenes (so called genre painting). He is sometimes referred to as the "Peasant Bruegel". From...

El Greco was a painter, sculptor, and architect of the Spanish Renaissance. "El Greco" (The Greek) was a nickname, a reference to his Greek origin. El Greco was born in Crete, which was at that time part of the Republic of Venice, and the c...

Hendrik Goltzius was a Dutch printmaker, draftsman, and painter. He was the leading Dutch engraver of the early Baroque period, or Northern Mannerism, noted for his sophisticated technique and the "exuberance" of his compositions. According...

Michiel Jansz van Mierevelt, Dutch painter, was born at Delft, the son of a goldsmith, who apprenticed him to the copperplate engraver Hieronymus Wierix. He subsequently became a pupil of Willem Willemz and Augusteyn of Delft, until Anthoni...

Michelangelo Merisi, called later Caravaggio, was born in either Milan, or a town of Caravaggio near Milan, as the son of a ducal architect. His early training started in 1584 under Simone Peterzano, a little known pupil of Titian, and cont...

Sir Peter Paul Rubens was a Flemish Baroque painter, and a proponent of an extravagant Baroque style that emphasized movement, colour, and sensuality. He is well known for his Counter-Reformation altarpieces, portraits, landscapes, and hist...

Frans Hals was the great 17th-century portraitist of the Dutch bourgeoisie of Haarlem, where he spent practically all his life. Hals evolved a technique that was close to impressionism in its looseness, and he painted with increasing freedo...

Johannes (Jan) Symonsz van der Beeck was a Dutch painter also known by his alias Johannes Torrentius. ("Torrentius" is a Latin equivalent of the Beeck surname, meaning "of the brook" or "of the river".) Despite his reputation as a still...

Gerard van Honthorst, also known as Gerrit van Honthorst and in Italy as Gherardo delle Notti for his nighttime candlelit subjects, was a Dutch Golden Age painter from Utrecht. Honthorst's works are numerous, and amply represented in Englis...

Jan Josephszoon van Goyen was a Dutch landscape painter. Van Goyen was an extremely prolific artist; approximately twelve hundred paintings and more than one thousand drawings by him are known. Typically, a Dutch painter of the 17th cent...

Jacob van Campen was a Dutch artist and architect of the Golden Age. Van Campen's first known building was the Coymans house built in 1625 in Amsterdam. In the 1630s Van Campen and Pieter Post designed the Mauritshuis in The Hague, a palace...

Pieter Jansz. Saenredam was a painter of the Dutch Golden Age, known for his distinctive paintings of whitewashed church interiors. Saenredam's paintings show medieval churches, usually Gothic, but sometimes late Romanesque, which had been...

Gianlorenzo Bernini was a sculptor, painter and architect and a formative influence as an outstanding exponent of the Italian Baroque. He was an exceptional portrait artist and owes to his father his accomplished techniques in the handling...

Sir Anthony van Dyck was a Flemish Baroque artist who became the leading court painter in England. He is most famous for his portraits of King Charles I of England and Scotland and his family and court, painted with a relaxed elegance that...

Diego Velázquez was a Spanish painter, the leading artist in the court of King Philip IV, and one of the most important painters of the Spanish Golden Age. He was an individualistic artist of the contemporary Baroque period. In addition to...