Martin Knoller was an Austrian-Italian painter active in Italy who is remembered for his fresco work.
Education
Born in Steinach am Brenner near the Austrian city of Innsbruck, Knoller studied under Paul Troger and Michelangelo Unterberger in Salzburg and Vienna. Specializing in frescoes and altarpiece paintings, his first fresco, the Glory of Street Stephen, was completed in 1754 at the parish church of Anras in East Tyrol.
Career
In 1755, he arrived in Rome where he was influenced by Neoclassicism, after studying under Anton Raphael Mengs and Johann Joachim Winckelmann. His greatest patron was Karl Joseph von Firmian, the Imperial Governor of Lombardy under Maria Theresa who commissioned him to paint the Palazzo Firmian-Vigoni. From 1793, he taught at the Brera Academy of Fine s in Milan where he died in 1804.
Among his pupils was Giuseppe Mazzola.
He uses bright colors, especially for clothing. In Knoller"s work, individuals are dominant.
A master of perspective, he depicts his figures in unusual attitudes.
Views
He has a less rigid approach to classicism, the colours are less powerful while the composition is clear and well-ordered, free of Baroque pathos.