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 39,561-39,578 of 39,578 Results

Article

Zurbarán, de family  

Claudie Ressort and William B. Jordan

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
2003

Spanish family of painters.

Claudie Ressort

(bapt Fuente de Cantos, Badajoz, Nov 7, 1598; d Madrid, Aug 27, 1664).

He was one of the greatest masters of the school of Seville and is renowned for his powerful and realistic interpretation of monastic life in 17th-century Spain.

Zurbarán was the son of a trader and at 15 left his native village, south of the Estremadura mountains, for Seville. Here he was apprenticed in the studio of Pedro Díaz de Villanueva, by whom no signed work is known, and became familiar with polychrome sculpture, which affected his style as a painter, in particular in his rendering of drapery. During the years in Seville he must also have been in contact with other gifted painters such as Juan de Roelas, Francisco de Herrera the elder, and above all Diego Velázquez and Alonso Cano, who were then young apprentices in the studio of ...

Article

Zurich  

Martin Albers, Sigmund Widmer, and H. Bobbink-de Wilde

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
2003

[Ger. Zürich ]

Swiss city and cantonal capital in the hills on the River Limmat where it flows out of Lake Zurich. It is the largest town in German-speaking Switzerland, with a population (1992) of 363,000.

Martin Albers

The area has been settled at least intermittently since the late 5th millennium bc. The river crossing was a natural intersection for trade routes, protected by the steep hill on the west bank of the Limmat. By 15 bc at the latest a Roman military camp was established as a stronghold near the frontier on top of the hill on the site of the present Lindenhof. Later there was a customs post for the Province of Gaul, and the Limmat was bridged. The small settlement of Turicum grew up around the bridge, centred on a small harbour, which, although filled in during the Middle Ages, survives as the Weinplatz.

In the 5th to 7th centuries ...

Article

Zürn family  

Jeffrey Chipps Smith

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
2003

German family of sculptors. They were among the most important and productive families of sculptors in southern Germany in the 17th century. Hans Zürn the elder (1555/60–after 1631) had six sons, all of whom became sculptors. No documented work of his has survived, but on the basis of his presumed contribution to the high altar in Überlingen Minster (see §1 below), an attractive Crucifix (Wangen, Kapelle am Isnyer Tor) and a bust of St Jacob (Nuremberg, Ger. Nmus.) have been attributed to him. These wooden figures, with their slender, elongated bodies and gaunt, introspective faces, have a precious yet frail quality when compared with the work of his sons, with whom he frequently collaborated. The most prominent of these, all of whom started their careers in the Bodensee region, was (1) Jörg Zürn of Überlingen, whose masterpiece was the five-storey Mannerist high altar in Überlingen Minster. ...

Article

Zvantseva [Zvantsova], Yelizaveta  

Jeremy Howard and Sergey Kuznetsov

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
2003

( Nikolayevna )

(b Nov 30, 1864; d Aug 22, 1921).

Russian art school founder and painter . Her main significance lay in her creation of the most progressive art school in pre-1917 Russia, a forming ground of many of the leading representatives of the Russian avant-garde. Having studied at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture (1885–8), and at Il’ya Repin’s and Pavel Chistyakov’s studios in the St Petersburg Academy of Arts (1889–96), she enrolled (1897) at the private studios of Rodolphe Julian and of Filippo Colarossi in Paris. In 1899 she opened her own art school in Moscow, where the artists Valentin Serov, Konstantin Korovin and Nikolay Ul’yanov taught. This she moved to St Petersburg in 1906, where, with the help of her close friend Konstantin Somov, it was established as the Zvantseva School of Drawing and Painting; it was also known as the Bakst and Dobuzhinsky School (1906–10) and as the Dobuzhinsky and Petrov-Vodkin School (...

Article

Zvart‘nots  

Lucy Der Manuelian and Armen Zarian

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
2003

Ruins of the Armenian patriarch’s palace and cathedral 3 km south-east of Ēdjmiadzin (anc. Vagharshapat), in Armenia. The building was dedicated to the Heavenly Hosts, the ‘vigilant powers’ (zvart’nunk’ner), who appeared in a dream to St Grigor the Illuminator (c. ad 239–c. 325/6). According to a Greek inscription and the Armenian histories of Sebeos (7th century) and Katholikos Hovhannes Draskhanakertc‘i (10th century), the cathedral was built c. 650–59 by the Katholikos Nerses III, known as ‘the Builder’ (reg 641–61), at the site where according to tradition St Grigor the Illuminator was met by the pagan Armenian king Trdat III (reg c. ad 280–c. 330). By the time of the cathedral’s destruction in the 10th century, it was also said to house the relics of St Grigor.

Although the cathedral was excavated in 1901–7, only its foundations, parts of the walls and vaulting, bases and sections of piers and columns, some eagle capitals and other fragments of relief sculpture were found. On the basis of these remains, the load-bearing capability of the massive pillars and comparisons with a later Armenian copy, St Grigor at ...

Article

Zvenigorod  

D. O. Shvidkovsky

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
2003

Russian town 53 km west of Moscow, on the left bank of the River Moskva. It was founded by Prince Yury Dolgoruky (reg 1149–57) and was the centre of the independent Zvenigorod principality in the 13th and 14th centuries; it became part of the Muscovite state in 1432. The 12th-century kremlin (the Gorodok or ‘Little Town’) has tall, earthen ramparts. The cathedral of the Dormition was built on the Gorodok by the ruling Prince Yury (d 1434). It represents a link between the late 12th-century architecture of the Vladimir–Suzdal’ kingdom (e.g. Vladimir, cathedral of St Demetrius) and the new Muscovite style of the late 14th century and the early 15th. It is square in plan with three apses, three entrances on axis and a single, helmet-shaped dome, which may originally have been surrounded by a complex system of zakomary. Other decorative details include a corbel-table over the apse, a frieze at middle height, ogee arches over the portals and west windows, and engaged columns on the façades and doorways. The last two elements indicate some familiarity with Gothic architecture. The interior of the cathedral was painted by ...

Article

Zverev, Anatoly  

M. N. Sokolov

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
2003

( Timofeyevich )

(b Moscow, Nov 3, 1931; d Moscow, Dec 12, 1986).

Russian painter . He was born to a working family. In 1954 he entered the In Memory of 1905 Moscow Regional Art College, from which he was soon expelled owing to his unconventional conduct. He developed as an artist independently and first came into contact with original works of Western abstract art at the 1957 Global Youth and Students’ Festival, Moscow. His acquaintance with George Costakis and the latter’s collection of Russian avant-garde art was also significant in his artistic development. Exhibitions in local salons and abroad (the first at Galerie Motte, Geneva, in 1965) displayed the stark originality of his temperamental, even tempestuous, style, which may be termed ‘figurative Tachism’. His oil, watercolour and gouache portraits, for example of George Costakis (1956; Athens, Costakis priv. col.) and D. Planvinsky (1976; Moscow, Rusanov priv. col.), landscapes, including the Church in Peredelkino (1960; Athens, Costakis, priv. col.), animal paintings and still-lifes always retain an underlying naturalism, which was transformed through impulsive and playful brushwork until it verges on the abstract. The rapture of his painting is shown in the sheer beauty of his colour palette and the graphic rhythm combined with a tragic expression of violent emotion. A confessional sincerity of artistic intonation, a mocking foolishness and the influence of the alcoholism from which he suffered is evident in his work, which can be seen as a link between the classic modern and the colourful, frenzied nature of the trans-avant-garde. His premature death may appear to symbolize the difficulties that faced exponents of unofficial art in the USSR....

Article

Zvíkov Castle  

H. Soukupová

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
2003

[Ger. Klingenberg]

Castle in the southern Czech Republic. It was the private seat of Vaclav I (reg 1230–53) and Přemysl Ottokar II. First mentioned in 1234, it was founded at a strategically important position above the confluence of the Vltava and Otava rivers. To the east and west the headland is protected by abrupt cliffs, with the Otava on the north side. The oldest part of the castle is the great square tower built of rusticated ashlar masonry typical of Hohenstaufen architecture. It faces the south end of the headland and is protected by a moat. On the ground floor it had a single rib-vaulted bay, the ribs descending to pyramidal consoles. The square wall-ribs and the vault webs are of brick with surviving impressions of the original wooden centering. The space was lit by two arrow-slits and was accessible through a passageway with two doorways with pointed arches. The living-room on the first floor had groin vaults supported by corbels on a string course. There were further rooms to the east and west of the tower. The south range retains its early form, with two rib-vaulted rooms on the ground floor and an asymmetrical wooden-roofed entrance hall leading from the courtyard, giving access to the ground floor of the tower and to two rooms of the palace. The resemblance of the tower vault mouldings to those in the Cistercian abbeys at Zwettl and Lilienfeld indicate that the first masons’ workshop in Zvíkov came from the Danube area of what is now Austria....

Article

Zwart, Piet  

Sjarel Ex

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
2003

(b Zaandijk, May 28, 1885; d Wassenaar, Sept 27, 1977).

Dutch designer and typographer . After working in the tradition of the Arts and Crafts Movement, he came into contact in 1917 with De Stijl, which fundamentally changed the course of his work. Through Vilmos Huszár and Jan Wils, he met H. P. Berlage, for whom he worked as a draughtsman, and international artists working in typographic design, such as Kurt Schwitters, El Lissitsky and Jan Tschichold. His international importance is based on typographical works, such as those he made between 1923 and 1930 for NKF, the Dutch cable works, and for PTT, the Dutch postal service. His advertisements, inspired by Dada, often used a wide range of typography and could be read as messages, poems or advertising slogans, while being appreciated simply as designs. Zwart was also active as an interior designer; his most successful work in this field was the kitchen (1938) that he designed for the ...

Article

Zwart, Willem [Wilhelmus Henricus Petrus Johannes] de  

R. W. A. Bionda

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
2003

(b The Hague, May 16, 1862; d The Hague, Dec 11, 1931).

Dutch painter, draughtsman and etcher . From 1877 to 1880 he studied drawing at the Academie van Beeldende Kunsten in The Hague and painting with Jacob Maris. His earliest work consisted mainly of still-lifes and figure studies, animal subjects and landscapes. From 1884 to 1886 he worked as a tile painter for the Rozenburg Delftware Factory in The Hague.

From 1885 to 1894—generally considered the period of his most important work—de Zwart painted and etched landscapes and townscapes (e.g. the Wagenbrug in The Hague, c. 1890; Amsterdam, Stedel. Mus.), figures (e.g. Seated Woman in White, c. 1890; The Hague, Gemeentemus.), portraits and still-lifes reminiscent of works associated with such 19th-century Amsterdam painters as George Hendrik Breitner; however, de Zwart’s palette was darker and his brushwork less broad. In 1891 he spent a brief period in Paris making townscapes, such as Porte Saint-Denis (1892; The Hague, Gemeentemus.). From 1892 until ...

Article

Zweibelmuster  

Gordon Campbell

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
25 July 2013

Article

Zwemmer, Anton  

Nigel Vaux Halliday

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
2003

[ Antonie ]

(b Haarlem, Feb 18, 1892; d Crowborough, E. Sussex, Jan 23, 1979).

Dutch bookseller, dealer and publisher, active in England . He worked in the book trade in Holland and then in London, where in 1916 he became manager of a foreign-language bookshop at 78 Charing Cross Road. After buying the business in 1923 he developed it into a specialist art bookshop, unique in London until the late 1930s. Zwemmer concentrated on European publications and was the sole British distributor of such magazines as Cahiers d’art, XXe siècle, Minotaure, Labyrinthe, Verve and, later, L’Oeil. He also stocked modern English literature. The bookshop, which was soon financially successful, was a focus for the London art world in the 1920s and 1930s, and Zwemmer became a friend and patron of such artists as Henry Moore, Wyndham Lewis, Jacob Epstein and Graham Sutherland. Through his regular visits to Paris he also came into contact with Picasso, Miró, Dalí and Paul Eluard. In 1929 Zwemmer opened the Zwemmer Gallery at 26 Litchfield Street, round the corner from his bookshop; it operated until ...

Article

Zwinck, Franz Seraph  

Susanne Kiefhaber

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
2003

(b c. 1748; d Oberammergau, 1792).

German painter . His father, Johann Joseph Zwinck ( fl 1735–53), painted frescoes and executed decorations for the Oberammergau Passion plays, roles that Franz Seraph also undertook. An apprenticeship with Johann Jakob Zeiller and Martin Knoller has often been assumed: the influence of engravings of the Augsburg Akademie is evident in his earliest known fresco (1768), for the Echtler Haus, Oberammergau, depicting a Temptation of Christ adapted from Rubens.

Zwinck became well known as the ‘Lüftl’ or open-air painter of Oberammergau, frescoing the farmhouses of his homeland. His paintings (1780) on the Gasthaus zur Alpenrose in Mittenwald emphasize the vertical structure of the window axes by combining them with painted cartouches and figures. Beneath the gable, the sky opens and gives a clear view of the Coronation of the Virgin. This imaginary opening of the gable can already be observed in the Hornsteinhaus at Mittenwald, painted in ...

Article

Zwinger  

Jarl Kremeier

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
2003

(Dresden)

Baroque building in Dresden, Germany. The Zwinger is one of Frederick-Augustus I’s grand and ambitious projects. It is a large open square (116×107 m with apses 47.5 m deep added to the shorter sides), framed by galleries and pavilions. The architect was Matthäus Daniel Pöppelmann in close collaboration with the sculptor Balthasar Permoser. It was started as an orangery, soon enlarged to serve for court festivities, and eventually converted to a museum. Its name (Zwinger: ‘outer ward’) is derived from its position in a corner of a bastion, between the inner and outer city walls.

Its modest beginning was as a new garden laid out in 1709 to a sketch plan by the Elector himself: a series of U-shaped terraces with stairs at the apex to connect the different levels on which orange trees were displayed. The terraces were built over with arcaded galleries after 1711, and the addition of lateral pavilions gave its plan the form of an omega. The ground floor of the south pavilion was furnished as a grotto, and a nymphaeum was installed behind the north pavilion with a cascade and stairs from the bastion’s upper level. Niches on two sides held over life-size figures of nymphs by ...

Article

Zwinglianism  

Larry Warkentin

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
2003

Swiss religious movement of the 16th century. Huldrych (or Ulrich) Zwingli (1484–1531) was trained as a humanist scholar and was strongly influenced by Erasmus. In 1518 he became the people’s priest in the Grossmünster, Zurich, from which position he was able to shape that city’s Reformation. He taught that the Bible, particularly the teachings of Jesus, should be the ultimate authority in matters of faith and practice. His reading of scripture led him to believe that the Church’s doctrine of the saints, fostered by images, was wrong. An official disputation between Zwingli and the vicar-general of Constance on this issue was convened in January 1523. In the eyes of the city council Zwingli prevailed, and in June 1524 a decree was published defining an orderly pattern for the removal from the churches of all ‘images and idols’. Zwingli, two other priests, representatives of twelve guilds and the city constable entered every church in Zurich, removing and ceremonially destroying all works of art; the walls were whitewashed. Although Zwingli taught that music and the visual arts should be removed from churches, so that Christians could concentrate on the worship of God without the distraction of intermediate art forms, he continued to respect the creation of non-religious art and accepted religious representations outside the church building as long as they did not invite veneration. As a movement Zwinglianism was short-lived. Its leader was killed while serving as chaplain during a battle between Catholic and Reformed cantons. His ideas were carried forward by his successor, ...

Article

Zwirner, Ernst Friedrich  

Izabel Freifrau von Weitershausen

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
2003

(b Jakobswalde, Upper Silesia, Feb 28, 1802; d Cologne, Sept 22, 1861).

German architect . He trained at the Kunst- und Bauschule in Breslau (1819–21) and at the Bauakademie in Berlin (1824–8), becoming an official in the Prussian building administration in 1828 under Schinkel. From the start of his career he was an eclectic, one of his first buildings (completed 1834) being for the university in Halle, built in a Neo-classical style. In 1829 he directed the rebuilding in the Gothic Revival style of the Rathaus in Kolberg according to plans by Schinkel.

Zwirner was sent to Cologne by Schinkel in 1833 to consolidate the fabric of the unfinished Gothic cathedral. With the help of Sulpiz Boisserée , he was able to enlist the enthusiastic support of the Crown Prince of Prussia (later King Frederick William IV) for a proposal to complete the building. The decision to do so was taken in 1842 and the foundation-stone was laid that September. However, as the medieval plans did not exactly match the existing structure, Zwirner took the opportunity to prove his abilities and the general impression of the cathedral as it stands today is largely his work, particularly the transepts, the iron roof framework, the former ridge turret (destr. ...

Article

Zwitzel family  

Franz Bischoff and Carola Wenzel

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
2003

[Zwietzel ; Zwitzl ; Zwizel]

German family of architects and masons . (1) Jakob Zwitzel may have been related to Hans von Elchingen, who worked as a mason at Ulm Minster in 1471–2 and in 1479. Jakob was mainly active in Augsburg, where he was much influenced by the Late Gothic style of Burkhard Engelberg. Both his son (2) Bernhard Zwitzel and his grandson (3) Simon Zwitzel were also active in the Augsburg area.

N. Lieb: ‘Die Augsburger Familie Zwitzel’, Lebensbilder aus dem bayerischen Schwaben, 8 (1961), pp. 84–107

Franz Bischoff

(b ?Elchingen, nr Ulm, c. 1470; d Augsburg, 1540).

He settled at quite an early age in Augsburg, paying taxes there in 1497 and becoming a citizen in 1505. From 1502 to 1507 he lived in the same house as the sculptor Gregor Erhart, and in 1512 he moved into the house of the painter Hans Holbein the elder, before acquiring his own house in ...

Article

Zygouries  

Susan Langdon

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
2003

[now Ayios Vasilios]

Site of an Early and Late Bronze Age town in the Corinthia of southern Greece, midway between Argos and Corinth. Excavations at the Zygouries Hill in the Kleonai Valley were conducted by Carl Blegen in 1921–2 for the American School of Classical Studies, revealing an important sequence of Bronze Age settlements. The Early Helladic (eh) phase (c. 3600/3000–c. 2050 bc) was the most abundantly represented, with at least ten houses of mud-brick on stone socle construction arranged close together on narrow streets. The rectangular, flat-roofed, two- and three-roomed structures with fixed central hearths provided one of the first definitive examples of Early Bronze Age domestic architecture. Contemporary graves yielded a broad variety of eh pottery, small gold, silver and bronze ornaments, numerous figurines and stone tools. Like its neighbours Tiryns, Asine, Lerna and Ayios Kosmas, Zygouries suffered a severe destruction at the end of ...