Sung-Hun Kong
(B. 1965 )
 

Sung-Hun Kong is a Korean artist; His work is well-known for "rediscovering the medium of painting and breaking the preconceived notion that painting cannot yield any new achievements in contemporary art trends", and "for demonstrating an extraordinary artistic talent of exceptional innovativeness". Kong was awarded as the winner of 2013 Korea Artist Prize by National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea(MMCA).

https://www.theartling.com/en/artist/kong-sunghun/

A Candle in Rocky Ground
2008
Acrylic on canvas
120 x 60 cm
Korean Art Museum Association, South Korea

 <b>Adolph Menzel</b>
(1815–1905)
 

Adolph Friedrich Erdmann von Menzel was a German Realist artist noted for drawings, etchings, and paintings. Along with Caspar David Friedrich, he is considered one of the two most prominent German painters of the 19th century, and was the most successful artist of his era in Germany. First known as Adolph Menzel, he was knighted in 1898 and changed his name to Adolph von Menzel. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolph_Menzel

Frederick the Great Playing the Flute at Sanssouci
1852
Oil on canvas
142x 205 cm
Alte Nationalgalerie, Berlin
https://recherche.smb.museum/detail/966477/fl%C3%B6tenkonzert-friedrichs-des-gro%C3%9Fen-in-sanssouci

The painting depicts, in a pre-impressionistic, painterly 19th-century style, an 18th-century musical soirée at the palace at which a piece of music is being played with King Frederick himself playing the flute center stage. However, the monarch’s features represented in the painting are highly idealized as Menzel avoids showing Frederick with his aquiline nose, although he must have known the death mask of the Prussian king.
In front of Frederick sits his chamber ensemble and to his rear an audience of dignitaries and noble ladies. The focus of the work is not on the music but rather on Frederick and the ambience created by the interior design, the furniture, the chandelier and candlelight and the ladies' elaborate dresses. 

Hendrick ter Brugghen
 (1588–1629)

Hendrick Jansz ter Brugghen  was a Dutch painter of genre scenes and religious subjects. He was one of the Dutch followers of Caravaggio – the so-called Utrecht Caravaggisti. Along with Gerrit van Hondhorst and Dirck van Baburen, Ter Brugghen was one of the most important Dutch painters to have been influenced by Caravaggio.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hendrick_ter_Brugghen

The Concert
About 1626
Oil on canvas
99 x 116.8 cm
National Gallery, London

https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/hendrick-ter-brugghen-the-concert

We seem to have crept to within touching distance of this small group of musicians who turn towards us with surprise. The highly focused light source creates sharp highlights, intense shadows and a sense both of drama and intimacy. Dramatic lighting effects like this are now common, but in the 1620s it was a revolutionary way to paint. The man responsible for this revolution was Michelangelo Caravaggio, who was working in Rome between about 1597 and 1607.
Ter Brugghen was the first important Dutch painter to bring Caravaggio’s ideas back to Holland and this composition reveals his influence in other ways. The half-length figures crowded together within the composition and filling the pictorial space – right up to the edges of the frame – are typical of the Italian artist, as is the clarity and realism of the depiction of the grapes in the foreground.

Matthias Stom
(c. 1600 - 1652)
 

Matthias Stom or Matthias Stomer was a Dutch, or possibly Flemish, painter who is only known for the works he produced during his residence in Italy. He was influenced by the work of non-Italian followers of Caravaggio in Italy, in particular his Dutch followers often referred to as the Utrecht Caravaggists, as well as by Jusepe de Ribera and Peter Paul Rubens. He did not share the other Northern Caravaggisti's preference for humorous, and sometimes scabrous, genre scenes and elaborate decorative allegories but favored stories from the bible instead. He worked in various locations in Italy where he enjoyed the patronage of religious institutions as well as prominent members of the nobility.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthias_Stom

Woman counting coins by candlelight
Date unknown
Oil on canvas
57.5 x 67.9 cm
The Kremer Collection, Amsterdam
https://thekremercollection.com/paintings/matthias-stom-woman-counting-coins-by-candlelight/#

Gerard van Honthorst
(1592–1656)
 

Gerard "Gerrit" van Honthorst  was a Dutch Golden Age painter who became known for his depiction of artificially lit scenes, eventually receiving the Italian nickname Gherardo delle Notti ("Gerard of the Nights"). Early in his career he visited Rome, where he had great success painting in a style influenced by Caravaggio. Following his return to the Netherlands he became a leading portrait painter. Van Honthorst's contemporaries included Utrecht painters Hendrick ter Brugghen and Dirck van Baburen.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Clouet

Old woman examining a coin by a lantern (Sight or Avarice)
1623
oil on canvas
60 × 75 cm
The Kremer Collection, Amsterdam
https://thekremercollection.com/paintings/gerrit-van-honthorst-old-woman-examining-a-coin-by-a-lantern-sight-or-avarice/

Howard Pyle
(1853–1911)

Howard Pyle was an American illustrator, painter, and author, primarily of books for young people. He was a native of Wilmington, Delaware, and he spent the last year of his life in Florence, Italy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Pyle

Thomas Jefferson Writing the Declaration of Independence
1898
oil on canvas
61 × 92 cm
Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington, United States
https://emuseum.delart.org/objects/3965/thomas-jefferson-writing-the-declaration-of-independence?ctx=408b6dc7d47d6c1839dbf30ca086ad1d4d565144&idx=13

 Peter Paul Rubens
(1577– 1640)
 

Sir Peter Paul Rubens was a Flemish artist and diplomat. He is considered the most influential artist of the Flemish Baroque tradition. Rubens' highly charged compositions reference erudite aspects of classical and Christian history. His unique and immensely popular Baroque style emphasised movement, colour, and sensuality, which followed the immediate, dramatic artistic style promoted in the Counter-Reformation. Rubens was a painter producing altarpieces, portraits, landscapes, and history paintings of mythological and allegorical subjects. He was also a prolific designer of cartoons for the Flemish tapestry workshops and of frontispieces for the publishers in Antwerp. 


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Paul_Rubens

Old Woman and Boy with Candles 
c. 1616-1617 
Oil on panel
77 x 62.5 cm
The Mauritshuis, The Hague
https://www.mauritshuis.nl/en/our-collection/artworks/1150-old-woman-and-boy-with-candles

While he was living in Italy, from 1600 to 1608, Peter Paul Rubens became acquainted with the paintings of Caravaggio. These are characterised by strong light-dark contrasts, figures squeezed narrowly into the pictorial plane, and a large measure of realism. This night piece, which Rubens painted in or around 1616-1617, is one of the earliest works produced in the style of Caravaggio in the Netherlands. It shows an old woman holding a lit candle-stump. A boy leans over her left shoulder, trying to light his candle from hers. The woman protects the flame with her left hand, which dims the bright light to a reddish glow that illuminates only the two figures’ faces and part of their clothing, leaving the rest of the scene in semi-darkness. Rubens has convincingly suggested the reflected candlelight on the old woman’s creased face.