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European History Painting: Antwerp is at its peak of interest in the field of art, for it was the learth of Flemish painting and the home city of the refulgent Rubens, whose fleshy but brilliant works are seen in every great gallery in the vorld. What a man he was! Aside from the painting, or, more often, super-rising the painting, of a thousand canvases, he became a skilful and suc-:essful diplomat, an accomplished linguist at ease in six or seven languages and a lionized man of the world in various European capitals. He vas so popular that he could have sunk to the level of a rich hack but he lever did.
In Antwerp's cathedral are his three most famous masterpieces, The Elevation of the Cross, The Descent from the Cross and The Assumption. "he Descent is considered his best, as well as his most famous.
He produced designs which became the foundation of the tradition of European history painting. Their importance lies in a threefold revolution in narrative style. First, and in contrast to the work of Michelangelo, they explore the full richness of the visual world, for their settings provide a credible field of action for the figures. Second, Raphael attempts a detailed historical accuracy, so that a reconstruction of the Temple of Jerusalem is the setting of the Healing at the Beautiful Gate. Third, he rationalizes recent developments in portraying emotion, producing a language of gesture and expression which is instantly comprehensible.
By the beginning of the 8th century landscape, which was to become the noblest form of Chinese painting, had freed itself from its role as . mere background to figure painting. Li Ssti-* sun, who was bom about 651 and died in 716 ' r 720, and his son, Li Chao-tao, are generally ^cognized as the liberators of landscape painting. Known as the Two Li Generals, they founded the Li or northern school of painting. |
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