Who are the best oil painting artists of all time? The question will undoubtedly cause various differences of opinion among the readers of this article. For the last 500 years, really since the dawn of the Renaissance, the world has been blessed with numerous talented and prolific artists. I have chosen five exceptional personalities who I believe have had the greatest impact on the art world.
Here are my top 5, numbered in order of importance:
Oil Painting Artist #1 Leonardo Da Vinci:
Leonardo was born the illegitimate son of Piero da Vinci, and a peasant named Caterina, in Vinci, near Florence. He was educated primarily by Verrocchio, and much of his earlier working life was spent in the service of Ludovico il Moro in Milan. Later he worked in Rome, Bologna and Venice and spent his last years in France, in the house that Francis I gave him.
Leonardo’s first chance at greatness came through Verroccio, who had him paint an angel in his work “The Baptism of Christ.” As expected, Leonardo did a fantastic job on this first opportunity. In fact, he was so good that Verrocchio himself decided that he would never paint again. Leonardo continued to work with Verrochio for a few years, and then the two parted ways.
As time went on, Leonardo found himself in Rome, where most of the artists of the day would eventually end up. Pope Leo X gave him accommodation in the Vatican in consideration for completing his commissioned pieces for the Church. Leonardo did not create many new paintings during this period, instead concentrating on the drawings of himself. Although he would later become famous for his future studies on scientific subjects and anatomy, he would eventually find the time to do so. As you know, he is probably as famous today for these scientific discoveries as he is for his works of art.
His most famous works are probably the Mona Lisa and the Last Supper. They are certainly the most reproduced. It’s a shame we don’t have more of his work today to enjoy.
Perhaps fifteen of his paintings survive, the small number due to his constant, and frequently disastrous, experimentation with new techniques and his chronic procrastination. However, these few works, together with his notebooks, which contain drawings, scientific diagrams, and his thoughts on the nature of painting, constituted a contribution to later generations of artists comparable only to that of his contemporary, Miguel. Angel.
Oil Painting Artist #2: Michelangelo:
Michelangelo was an Italian Renaissance painter, sculptor, architect, poet, and engineer. Despite his few forays beyond the arts, and his extreme reluctance to do so when forced to, his work is truly outstanding! In fact, it is usually he or DaVinci who is credited as the most important personality of the Renaissance.
Michelangelo Buonarroti was born into the nobility, but was not raised by his parents. His father sent him away at a young age to a stone carver and his wife, because his mother was constantly sick and frail. While living with his foster parents, young Michelangelo learned skills that would serve him throughout his life. Of course, being a nobleman, his father was upset when his son told her about his artistic intentions. It was necessary to convince Michelangelo to continue learning from him.
Michelangelo’s production in all fields during his long life was certainly prodigious. And when the sheer volume of surviving correspondence, sketches, and reminiscences is taken into account, he is the best-documented artist of the 16th century. His two most famous sculptural works are probably the Pietà and the David, which were sculpted before he was 30 years old.
In one of life’s greatest ironies, Michelangelo created the world’s most famous works of art using means he really didn’t like. He not only didn’t like painting frescoes, but he didn’t think he was that good at it. Of course, he went on to create the scenes from Genesis on the ceiling and The Last Judgment on the altar wall of the Sistine Chapel. And though he too had a low opinion of architecture, he achieved fame by pioneering the Mannerist style at the Laurentian Library. Finally, at the ripe old age of 74, he succeeded Antonio da Sangallo the Younger as the architect of St. Peter’s Basilica.
Oil Painting Artist #3: Vincent van Gogh:
Van Gogh was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter whose work had a major influence on 20th-century art due to its vivid colors and emotional impact. He was born in Zundert, a town in Brabant, in the Netherlands in March 1853.
Vincent’s first exposure to the art world was when he was working at a prominent gallery in The Hague, which had been established by his uncle Vincent. His brother Theo later worked for the same company. After working for art dealers, Vincent took a job as an assistant teacher and preacher at a boarding school in England, but this was short-lived and his obsession with evangelical Christianity made him want to become a clergyman like his father, so he tried to enrolled in a theological school, but was denied admission.
After many trials and tribulations, Vincent declared working as a freelance artist in Brussels, while being supported by his brother Theo. His latent and prodigious talents soon emerged, and he soon developed his own unique style.
Van Gogh’s bold use of color and composition that would eventually become his trademark, was first seen in his Hague paintings. Van Gogh clearly had a soft spot at heart for the downtrodden, as evidenced by many of these early works.
He later moved to Montmartre, France, where he discovered the works of Monet and other French Impressionists. It was here that he had the opportunity to meet Gauguin and Henri deToulouse Lautrec. This would be the turning point in van Gogh’s career, as he enrolled in the highly praised workshop of Fernand Cormon, where he learned to use light and color in novel ways.
Throughout his adult life, Van Gogh displayed symptoms of mental illness. Despite a general tendency to romanticize his poor health, modern critics see an artist deeply frustrated by the inactivity and incoherence caused by his bouts of illness. According to art critic Robert Hughes, Van Gogh’s last works show an artist at the height of his ability, completely in control and “longing for conciseness and grace”. him at the age of 37, from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
oil painting artist #4: Pablo Picasso:
Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Clito Ruiz and Picasso Ruiz Picasso, better known as Pablo Ruiz Picasso, was a Spanish painter, draftsman and sculptor. He was born in Malaga, Spain, the son of artist and teacher José Ruiz Blasco and his wife María Picasso. A decade later, the young Pablo Picasso learned to paint from his father, who had been appointed professor at the Da Guarda art school in La Coruña.
The young Pablo would go on to be the co-founder of the Cubist movement. He is also recognized for the great variety of styles embodied in his work. He is perhaps best known for the proto-Cubist Les Demoiselles d’Avignon and Guernica. It is commonly believed that the German bombing of Guernica during the Spanish Civil War inspired some of his best work.
In his early years, Picasso was already displaying an incredible amount of artistic talent. He would continue to paint realistically throughout his childhood and adolescence. However, during the first decade of the 20th century his style would change as he experimented with different techniques, theories and ideas. His world-renowned achievements would make him a household name and bring him great fortune throughout his lifetime. He is truly one of the best-known personalities of twentieth century art.
Oil Painting Artist #5: Rembrandt:
Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn was a Dutch painter and printmaker. He is generally considered the most important artist in Dutch history and one of the greatest painters and engravers who ever left his craft in Europe. His life expectancy falls into a period historians call the Dutch Golden Age.
He was born in July 1606 in Leiden, the Netherlands. As he grew older he had the opportunity to study the lives of masters like DaVinci and Michelangelo. However, he seemed to be more influenced by the work of Michelangelo Merisi Caravaggio, a revolutionary artist known for his unusual use of lighting and the strangely misplaced eroticism of his models, including biblical figures! As in Caravaggio’s works, Rembrandt’s background composition remains dark, while the subject is lit in a way that makes the image appear almost three-dimensional.
Having achieved a great deal of success as a portrait painter, his later years were marked by personal tragedy and financial hardship. However, his prints and paintings remained popular throughout his life, and his artistic reputation never wavered during his lifetime. He was so highly regarded that nearly every major Dutch painter would end up studying under him. Rembrandt’s greatest creative triumphs are exemplified in the portraits of his contemporaries, the illustrations of biblical scenes, and the self-portraits of him. Actually, it is his self-portraits that open a window to his inner soul. They create a unique and intimate biography, in which the artist portrays himself completely without vanity and with the greatest sincerity.
In both painting and printmaking, he exhibited a thorough knowledge of classical iconography, which he molded to fit the requirements of his own experience; thus, the depiction of biblical scenes came from his intimate knowledge of the specific text, his assimilation of classical composition, and his observations of the Jewish population of Amsterdam. Because of his empathy for the human condition, he has been called “one of the great prophets of civilization.”