18th Century Artists Art Prints & Posters

Featured 18th Century Fine Artists

Canaletto was born as Giovanni Antonio Canal in 1697 in Venice, Italy. He died in 1768 at the age of 70 in Venice. His early training as an artist came from his father, Bernado Canal, who was a painter of theatrical scenes. His name Caneletto ("Little Canal") simply signified he was his father's son. He was influenced early by the Roman painter Giovanni Paolo Pannini and set out to do for Venice what Pannini had done for Rome. Canaletto is best known for his scenes of the Grand Canal, the Doge's Palace, Piazza San Marco, the Church of the Blessed Sacraments, and other Venetian landmarks. Among his students were Bernardo Bellotto, Francesco Guardi, and Michele Marieschi [More...]

Jean-Baptiste Chardin was born in 1699 in Paris, France. He died in Paris in 1779 at the age of 80. The the sereneness of his compositions and the soberness of his style, eschewing the acrobatic brushwork of his Roccocco contemporaries, Antoine Watteau (1684-1721), Francois Boucher (1703-1770) and Jean-Honore Fragonard, (1732-1806), mark him as being the anti-Roccocco painter par excellance. The mundaneness of his subject matter, focusing on the inner circle of the family and its household items, reflects a call for a return to simple virtues and honest truth that was to animate, at least in its earlier phases, the Revolution he barely lived to see. [More...]

Jean-Honore Fragonard was born in 1732 in Grasse, Alpes-Maritimes, France. He died in Paris in 1806 at the age of 74. He studied art first under Jean-Baptiste Chardin (1699-1779) and then under Francois Boucher (1703-1770). While visiting Venice, he was influenced by the works of Giovanni Baptista Tiepolo (1696-1770). He became the favorite painter of the Ancien Regime, selling paintings of sensuous love scenes to and decorating the apartments of the King, royalty, and other aristocrats. Fragonard is considered to be one of the most important figures in the Rococo art movement, along with Boucher and Jean Antoine Watteau (1684-1721). [More...]

Francois Boucher was born in 1703 in Paris, France. He died 1770 at the age of 66, also in Paris. Born the son of a lace designer, Boucher apprenticed as an engraver at the age of 17. By the time he was 20, he had won the Grand Prix de Rome, a scholarship for art students to study art in Italy. By 1765 he had become First Painter of the King. Perhaps no art better captures the licentious character of 17th century society of the French royal court. His primary artistic influences were the works of Peter Paul Rubens and Jean-Antoine Watteau (1684-1721). [More...]

Francisco Goya was born as Francisco Jose de Goya y Lucientes in 1746 in Fuendetodos, Spain. He died in 1828 at the age of 82 in Bourdeaux, France. He studied art under Anton Raphael Mengs and Francisco Bayeu y Subias. He was commissioned to paint King Carlos III's portrait in 1783 and was chosen as the Spanish royal painter in 1799. Goya lived through the time of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic era. He lived the last four years of his life in France. Spanish painters whose work likely influenced Goya include Diego Velasquez and El Greco. More...