Public Figures & Cultural Luminaries

Arts & Music

31

🕯️ 0

Jacob Isaackszoon van Ruisdael

Jacob van Ruisdael

Netherlands

c. 1628 – 1682 (54 years old)

Foremost landscape painter of the Dutch Golden Age whose dramatic cloud-filled skies, churning waterfalls, and 'The Jewish Cemetery' infused nature with heroic poetics.

Haarlem, Netherlands

31 Full Record →

Arts & Music

29

🕯️ 0

Gerard ter Borch

Gerard ter Borch

Netherlands

1617 – 1681 (64 years old)

Dutch Golden Age master of delicate genre scenes and diplomatic history whose rendering of shimmering white satin and subtle psychological interactions was unmatched.

Deventer, Netherlands

29 Full Record →

Arts & Music

35

🕯️ 985

Gian Lorenzo Bernini

Gian Lorenzo Bernini

Italy

7 December 1598 – 28 November 1680 (81 years old)

Titan of Roman Baroque art who transformed cold marble into supple flesh and fluttering silk in Apollo and Daphne and The Ecstasy of Saint Teresa, and designed St. Peter's Square colosseum-colonnade.

Rome, Italy

35 Full Record →

Arts & Music

33

🕯️ 0

Jan Havickszoon Steen

Jan Havickszoon Steen

Netherlands

c. 1626 – 1679 (53 years old)

Dutch Golden Age master painter whose lively, humorous tavern and chaotic domestic scenes became so legendary that 'a Jan Steen household' became an enduring Dutch proverb.

Leiden, Netherlands

33 Full Record →

Arts & Music

29

🕯️ 0

Heinrich Schütz

Heinrich Schütz

Germany

1585 – 1672 (87 years old)

Father of German sacred music who studied with Giovanni Gabrieli in Venice, synthesized Italian polychoral grandeur with German Lutheran piety, and laid the foundations for Bach.

Dresden, Germany

29 Full Record →

Arts & Music

42

🕯️ 998

Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn

Rembrandt van Rijn

Netherlands

15 July 1606 – 4 October 1669 (63 years old)

Titan of the Dutch Golden Age whose monumental civic masterpiece The Night Watch, profound etched biblical narratives, and lifelong series of honest self-portraits explored the deepest chambers of human vulnerability and psychological depth.

Amsterdam, Netherlands

42 Full Record →

Arts & Music

34

🕯️ 0

Francesco Castelli

Francesco Borromini

Switzerland

1599 – 1667 (67 years old)

Genius of Italian High Baroque architecture whose revolutionary curved, undulating geometric designs (San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane, Sant'Ivo alla Sapienza) rivaled Bernini.

Rome, Italy

34 Full Record →

Arts & Music

35

🕯️ 0

Giovanni Francesco Barbieri

Il Guercino

Italy

1591 – 1666 (75 years old)

Master painter of the Bolognese Baroque celebrated for his dramatic naturalism, bold chiaroscuro, and dynamic illusionistic ceiling fresco 'Casino Ludovisi Aurora'.

Bologna, Italy

35 Full Record →

Arts & Music

1,455

🕯️ 92

Frans Hals

Frans Hals

Belgium

1 – 1666 (84 years old)

Dutch Golden Age portrait master celebrated for lively, spontaneous brushwork capturing laughter, warmth, and vitality.

Haarlem, Netherlands

1,455 Full Record →

Arts & Music

2,725

🕯️ 91

Nicolas Poussin

Nicolas Poussin

France

1594 – 1665 (71 years old)

Founder of the French Classical tradition whose rigorous clarity, logic, and order dominated French academic art.

Rome, Italy

2,725 Full Record →

Arts & Music

39

🕯️ 990

Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez

Diego Velázquez

Spain

6 June 1599 (Baptism) – 6 August 1660 (~61 years old)

Supreme giant of the Spanish Golden Age and leading painter at the court of King Philip IV, celebrated for his profound psychological insight, optical atmospheric realism, and his meta-artistic pinnacle Las Meninas.

Madrid, Spain

39 Full Record →

Arts & Music

32

🕯️ 0

Judith Jans Leyster

Judith Leyster

Netherlands

1609 – 1660 (50 years old)

Leading woman master of the Dutch Golden Age and one of the first admitted to the Haarlem Guild of Saint Luke, celebrated for lively genre scenes and her sparkling 'Self-Portrait'.

Heemstede, Netherlands

32 Full Record →

Arts & Music

983

🕯️ 63

Artemisia Gentileschi

Artemisia Lomi Gentileschi

Italy

1593 – 1 (62 years old)

Pioneering Italian Baroque painter who triumphed over adversity to become the first female member of Florence's Accademia delle Arti del Disegno.

Naples, Italy

983 Full Record →

Arts & Music

34

🕯️ 0

Carel Pietersz Fabritius

Carel Fabritius

Netherlands

1622 – 1654 (32 years old)

Rembrandt's most brilliant student and mentor of Vermeer whose exquisite, luminous trompe-l'œil masterpiece 'The Goldfinch' survived the tragic Delft explosion of 1654.

Delft, Netherlands

34 Full Record →

Arts & Music

36

🕯️ 0

Alessandro Algardi

Alessandro Algardi

Italy

1598 – 1654 (55 years old)

Bolognese Baroque sculptor, chief rival of Bernini in Rome, whose colossal marble relief 'The Expulsion of Attila' in Saint Peter's Basilica set the peak of high-relief drama.

Rome, Italy

36 Full Record →

Arts & Music

31

🕯️ 0

Inigo Jones

Inigo Jones

Great Britain

1573 – 1652 (78 years old)

First significant English architect who introduced classical Renaissance and Palladian architecture to Britain, designing the Queen's House at Greenwich and the Banqueting House at Whitehall.

London, United Kingdom

31 Full Record →

Arts & Music

28

🕯️ 0

Georges de La Tour

Georges de La Tour

France

1593 – 1652 (58 years old)

Master of French Baroque chiaroscuro whose serene, meditative nocturnal paintings illuminated by a single candle—such as 'The Penitent Magdalene'—are peaks of silent spirituality.

Lunéville, France

28 Full Record →

Arts & Music

39

🕯️ 965

Claudio Giovanni Antonio Monteverdi

Claudio Monteverdi

Italy

15 May 1567 (Baptism) – 29 November 1643 (~76 years old)

Revolutionary Italian composer who bridged the Renaissance and Baroque eras, pioneered the 'Seconda Pratica' making music servant to emotional text, composed the first operatic masterpiece (L'Orfeo), and transformed sacred music with his 1610 Vespers.

Venice, Italy

39 Full Record →