Johann Liss or Jan Lys ( or 1597 – 1629 or 1630) was a leading German

Baroque The Baroque (, ; ) is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including t ...

painter of the 17th century, active mainly in

Venice Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto Regions of Italy, region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 ...

Biography

Liss was born in Oldenburg (Holstein) in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. After an initial education in his home state, he continued his studies, according to Houbraken, with Hendrick Goltzius in

Haarlem Haarlem (; predecessor of ''Harlem'' in English) is a city and municipality in the Netherlands. It is the capital of the province of North Holland. Haarlem is situated at the northern edge of the Randstad, one of the most populated metropoli ...

and Amsterdam. Around 1620 he travelled through Paris to Venice. He moved to Rome around 1620–1622, and his first works there were influenced by the style of

Caravaggio Michelangelo Merisi (Michele Angelo Merigi or Amerighi) da Caravaggio, known as simply Caravaggio (, , ; 29 September 1571 – 18 July 1610), was an Italian painter active in Rome for most of his artistic life. During the final four years of hi ...

. Although his earlier work was concerned with the contrasts of light and shadow, his final move to Venice in the early 1620s modified his style and gave impetus to brilliant color and a spirited treatment of the painted surface. In 1627, he painted an admired large

altarpiece An altarpiece is an artwork such as a painting, sculpture or relief representing a religious subject made for placing at the back of or behind the altar of a Christian church. Though most commonly used for a single work of art such as a painting o ...

, the ''Inspiration of Saint Jerome'' in

San Nicolò da Tolentino Nicholas of Tolentino ( la, S. Nicolaus de Tolentino, (c. 1246September 10, 1305), known as the ''Patron of Holy Souls'', was an Italian saint and Mysticism, mystic. He is particularly invoked as an advocate for the souls in Purgatory, especial ...

. His loose brushstrokes seem precursor to rococo styles of the Guardi brothers. This final style, along with that of other "foreign" painters residing in Venice, Domenico Fetti and Bernardo Strozzi, represent the first inroads of Baroque style into the republic. Liss fled to Verona to escape the plague spreading in Venice, but succumbed there prematurely in 1629. According to Houbraken, he worked day and night on his paintings, so that Joachim von Sandrart felt that his health was at risk and urged him to join him in Rome. His legacy is as a painter of both sensuous

mythological Myth is a folklore genre consisting of narratives that play a fundamental role in a society, such as foundational tales or origin myths. Since "myth" is widely used to imply that a story is not objectively true, the identification of a narrat ...

and pious biblical subjects, a master of colors and Baroque painting. He was most influential to Venetian 18th-century painters like

Sebastiano Ricci Sebastiano Ricci (1 August 165915 May 1734) was an Italian painter of the late Baroque school of Venice. About the same age as Piazzetta, and an elder contemporary of Tiepolo, he represents a late version of the vigorous and luminous Cortonesqu ...

Giovanni Battista Tiepolo Giovanni Battista Tiepolo ( , ; March 5, 1696 – March 27, 1770), also known as Giambattista (or Gianbattista) Tiepolo, was an Italian painter and printmaker from the Republic of Venice who painted in the Rococo style, considered an impo ...

and

Giovanni Piazzetta Giovanni Battista Piazzetta (also called Giambattista Piazzetta or Giambattista Valentino Piazzetta) (February 13, 1682 or 1683 – April 28, 1754) was an Italian Rococo painter of religious subjects and genre scenes. Biography Piazzetta was ...

. Joachim von Sandrart wrote in 1675 that "because he fared well in Venice, he soon returned there ... he died along with many others during the plague that began in 1629."

Nazi looting and restitution

In 1939, the Liss drawing entitled "Allegory of Christian Faith" was one of 750 Old Master drawings seized from the home of Arthur Feldmann and his wife by the Nazis. The Cleveland Museum of Art, which acquired the drawing from the art dealer Herbert Bier in 1953, reached a settlement with the Feldmann heirs in 2013. The Feldmanns, a Jewish couple, were murdered in the Holocaust.

Examples of work

*''Lute Player'' *''Visitation of St Jerome'' *'' Vision of Saint Jerome'' *''Peasants playing mora'' *
Judith in the Tent of Holofernes
' (c.1622, National Gallery, London) *'' Death of Cleopatra'' *'' Abel mourned by his parents'' *'' Venus in front of mirror'' (1625–26, Uffizi) *'' Death of Phaeton'' *''Cupid'' (Cleveland Art Museum, Cleveland, Ohio)

Biography

Nazi looting and restitution

Examples of work

References

Further reading