wiki-illiam #109: q2

[dubdobdee]

2. Who:

i: was a red head?
ii: was strabismic?
iii: was a little dyer?
iv: was the little old painter of the hospital?
v: was so-named because his brother was portly?
vi: was so-named because his father was a gardener?
vii: was so-named because he liked to paint birds?
viii: used a trefoil signature?
ix: was Clumsy Tom?
x: was Little Tom?

Nicknames of either Italian painters or of Renaissance painters (or maybe all kinds of painters).

Some questionable still, some with more than one possible. All looked up, except possibly anatol_merklich's :)
i: is Titian, per jauntyalan, or Dürer per alextiefling & friend_of_tofu
ii: is Gian-Francesco Barbieri, aka Guercino, per jauntyalan
iii: is Tintoretto, per dubdobdee
iv: is Lorenzo di Pietro aka Vecchietta, the hospital being Santa Maria della Scala in Siena, per riverchild
v: is most likely Botticelli, per anatol_merklich, tho could possibly be Giovanni di Ser Giovanni , aka Lo Scheggia and brother of xi, per riverchild
vi: could be Domenico Ghirlandaio, which means rather than gardener means "garlander", which is also not what his dad was (tho his forebears probably were), per riverchild
vii: is Paolo di Dono aka Uccello, per jauntyalan
ix: Tommaso di Ser Giovanni di Mone aka Masacchio", per jauntyalan
x: is ix's main collaborator Masolino per anatol_merklich

Comments

[petra jane (from livejournal.com)]

At first I thought there was a royal angle to this bc Edward VI signature had a trefoil-y club thing as a ligature between the d and the w, so I figured the "red head" would be his sister Bess, but there aren't any royal Toms.

(worked out the Unifying Theme & a few of the answers with some casual googling, though, so I'm gonna go sit quietly in the corner now)

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

mainly bcz the diminutive "little" was recurrent, i wondered if it was something to do with nicknames: kings, czars, popes?

but as you say, "tom" is not a very common name for kings or czars or popes

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

aha, i think i've got the theme also (via googling) -- time to sit back and let others flail :D

[friedslice.livejournal.com]

Went down this route as well cos I thought of William II for i. but have since googled.

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

ii. Clarence the cross-eyed lion! (I don't think this is the right answer)

[kerrypolka.livejournal.com]

i. Me!

I will work out how the others relate to me in time (my brother is very tall but not fat).

[marnameow.livejournal.com]

x Tom Thumb. Doubt it. I am baffled by this one....

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

viii. wasn't Baden-Powell by any chance?

[jauntyalan.livejournal.com]

got quite a lot of these via the internets - once we'd hazarded the theme

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

The Little Dyer is Tintoretto (=ital.for "little dyer") so my guess is this that is nicknames for painters and the like. Van Gogh had strabismus, which is a kind of squinty eye. (This is via googl.)

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

More googling:

vii: the great painter of birds is Audubon (actually I knew this w/o google), whose nickname seems to have been "The American Woodsman" -- which doesn't quite work, so maybe it's someone else.

viii: The trefoil signature may be Whistler.

ix/x: Painters called Thomas or Tom include Gainsborough and haha KINKADE, but I can so far find no hint that either was known as clumsy or little.

[jauntyalan.livejournal.com]

Got a lot from this list

http://suite101.com/a/renaissance_artist_nicknames-a53944

Titian obv the ginge
Paolo di Dono "Uccello" - loved birds
Tommaso di Ser Giovanni di Mone "Masacchio" is awkward Tom
Gian-Francesco Barbieri "Guercino" is the squinter
(and dubdobdee got tintoretto)

[anatol-merklich.livejournal.com]

Yep Clumsy Tom is Masaccio, while Little Tom is Masolino. As wiki says (tho I knew it without checking):

"The name Masaccio is a humorous version of Maso (short for Tommaso), meaning "clumsy" or "messy" Tom. The name may have been created to distinguish him from his principal collaborator, also called Maso, who came to be known as Masolino ("little/delicate Tom")."

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

anatol! hullo!!

[anatol-merklich.livejournal.com]

hi ddd!!

This q is into the googlephase now, if I remember correctly?

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

yep :)

[anatol-merklich.livejournal.com]

btw it appears that my post with the answer to v was spam-marked

[anatol-merklich.livejournal.com]

v) Sandro Botticelli (http://www.italian-renaissance-art.com/Sandro-Botticelli.html): The name Botticelli, meaning Little Barrel, was the nickname of his well rounded older brother. The name was so familiar that eventually it was conferred upon every family member.

[alextiefling.livejournal.com]

I think these may all be specifically Renaissance artists, in which case friend_of_tofu suggests that the red-head may well be Albrecht Dürer.

[petra jane (from livejournal.com)]

Michaelangelo's signature is kind of trefoil-y, if you squint a bit (http://www.museumsinflorence.com/musei/David_by_michelangelo.html).

[riverchild.livejournal.com]

Got my Google on to try and work out these--all specifically Italian Renaissance painters, I think. (Habitually excluding 'pemberley' from searches at this point, those guys are way ahead of the game and it's no fun finding all the answers in the first search result.)

iv is Lorenzo di Pietro aka Vecchietta (=Italian 'old'+diminutive), associated with Santa Maria della Scala in Siena viz. "the Hospital".

v may be Botticelli as suggested above, but there is also Clumsy/Fat Tom's brother Giovanni di Ser Giovanni, whose nickname was Lo Scheggia--"The Splinter". (PLEASING.)

Not having much luck with vi and viii, although there is some suggestion vi may be Ghirlandaio--but means 'garland maker' as opposed to 'gardener'.

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

i spotted Ghirlandaio also -- a friend is a huge fan and often uses it as an on-line pseud, so i kind of want it to be -- but it seemed not to be his dad so much as his "ancestors" who "may have been gardeners"

however there is ALWAYS ONE KW answer which is this shakey, so maybe