Renaissance Artist Nicknames
These Painters Are Better Known by What Names
European artists in 14th to 16th centuries have celebrated shortened names more famous than their given names.
By what names are the following Renaissance artists better known:
1. Guido di Pietro (1387-1455)?
A famous painter of the Florentine school whose magnificent frescoes survive in The Chapel of Pope Nicholas at the Vatican and in the convent of San Marco – a Medici-sponsored church – in Florence.
2. Paolo di Dono (1397-1475)?
Uccello
This Italian Early Renaissance painter of the Florentine school prompted historian Giorgio Vasari to write in “Life of Uccello”: Uccello's wife told people that he stayed up all night in his study working out the vanishing points of his perspective, and that when she called him to come to bed he would say: "Oh what a lovely thing this perspective is!"
3. Tommaso di Ser Giovanni di Mone (1401-1428)?
Masaccio
This Italian painter acquired his nickname (Masaccio), loosely translated as "Lubberly Tom," because of his sloppy dress and posture. He is known for his frescoes in the "Brancacci Chapel" which his skill has made famous almost without rival in the history of painting.
4. Andrea di Michele di Francesco Cioni (1435-1488)?
Verrocchio
An Early Renaissance painter whose pupils included Leonardo da Vinci, Perugino, Ghirlandaio and Sandro Botticelli.
5. Mathis Gothart Nithart (1470-1528)?
Matthias Grünewald
This important German Renaissance painter created religious subject matter like stunning madonnas and scenes of the crucifixion.
6. Baccio della Porta (1472-1517)?
Fra Bartolommeo
Italian Renaissance painter of religious subject matter.
7. Tiziano Vecellio (1485-1576)?
A Venetian painter and giant of the 16th-century Italian Renaissance whose work and versatility had a profound effect on future generations of Western art.
8. Jacopo Robusti (1518-1594)?
Tintoretto
This Venetian painter, one of the last great painters of the Renaissance, became known as Tintoretto “the little dyer” because his father was a dyer by trade. It has just recently been learned that when born his name was Jacopo Comin.
9. Paolo Caliari (1528-1588)?
Veronese
An eminent painter who with Titian and Tintoretto dominated the Venetian art scene and whose decorative paintings positively glow with color. Interestingly, his religious paintings make no pretense of depicting the reality of the surroundings in which they should belong and make no attempt to display religious emotions.
10. Domenikos Theotokopoulos (1541-1614)?
El Greco
This 16th-century Spanish Renaissance master was best known for his work featuring startlingly-elongated gaunt figures and strange, somehow chilly and ashen, colors.
11. Michelangelo Merisi (1571-1610)?
Caravaggio
This Italian painter who hit the art scene with the raw power of his incredible depictions of realism and his intense treatment of light.
12. Gian-Francesco Barbieri (1591-1666)?
Guercino
Italian painter who was dubbed the nickname “Guercino” (squinter) because he was cross-eyed. He continued to paint and teach up to the time of his death and amassed quite a fortune.
Sources:
- Bailey, Colin J. The Art Quiz Book: 2000+ Questions on Painters and Paintings. Station Press: Scotland, 1995.
- “Grove Dictionary of Art.” Oxford University Press, 2008.
