Pierre-Auguste Renoir | Joie de vivre

"To my mind, a picture should be something pleasant, cheerful, and pretty, yes pretty!

There are too many unpleasant things in life as it is without creating still more of them" - Pierre-Auguste Renoir.

Hugo Salmson | Something in the air

Hugo Fredrik Salmson (1843-1894) was a Swedish painter, known for figures and genre scenes.

Salmson was born in Stockholm, Sweden.

He was the son of Fredrik Ludvig Salmson, a wholesaler, and his wife Maria Perlberg. He initially studied business, but soon decided on an artistic career.

In 1862, he began his studies at the Royal Swedish Academy of Fine Arts where he was trained by Johan Christoffer Boklund.

William Henry Gore | Pittore romantico

William Henry Gore RI (1857–1942) è stato un pittore ed acquerellista inglese vissuto tra la fine dell'epoca vittoriana e l'inizio del XX secolo.

È noto per i suoi paesaggi rurali del Berkshire, sua terra natale, e per i suoi piccoli dipinti di genere, raffiguranti bambini ed animali.

Gore si collocava nella tradizione del tardo Romanticismo e Naturalismo vittoriano, fioriti nel periodo a cavallo tra l'inizio del XX secolo, ma che rapidamente divennero fuori moda all'indomani della Grande Guerra e dei successivi cambiamenti sociali e politici.

Vincent van Gogh | Garden with Courting Couples, 1887

Van Gogh called this sunny park scene 'the painting of the garden with lovers'.

Couples in love are strolling under the young chestnut trees and sitting along the winding paths.

He used a free variation on the technique of the Pointillists.

Essential Facts:

Title: Garden with Courting Couples: Square Saint-Pierre

Date: Paris, May 1887

Artist: Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890)

Medium: oil on canvas

Dimensions: 75.0 cm x 113.0 cm

Current location: Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam (Vincent van Gogh Foundation)

Václav Brožík | Pittore accademico

Václav Brožík (1851-1901) è stato uno storico dell'arte, considerato il più grande pittore accademico Ceco.

Nel 1896 divenne il primo, e finora unico artista Ceco, a diventare membro dell'Académie des Beaux-Arts.

Václav Brožík studiò dal 1868 presso l'Accademia di Belle Arti di Praga sotto Emil Lauffer.

Nel 1871 si trasferì per poter proseguire i suoi studi all'Accademia di Dresda e dal 1873 all'Accademia di Monaco di Baviera, dove fu influenzato in particolare da Carl Theodor von Piloty.

Frederick Morgan ROI | Genre painter

Frederick Morgan ROI (1847-1927) is known mostly for his romantic and sentimental paintings of children in the same style as his contemporary Arthur John Elsley.

His paintings achieved great popularity in his lifetime and were widely published.

He exhibited with the Royal Academy and was a member of the Royal Institute of Oil Painters (ROI).

Morgan's paintings are exhibited at many art galleries and museums including the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool and the Russell-Cotes Museum in Bournemouth.

His Turn Next was used to advertise Pears' Soap and is in the Lady Lever Art Gallery, Port Sunlight.

Anton Dieffenbach | Pittore di genere

Anton Heinrich Dieffenbach (1831-1914) è stato un pittore paesaggista e di genere Tedesco, noto per i suoi ritratti di bambini.

Si trasferì a Strasburgo con i suoi genitori nel 1840 e prese lezioni da un artista locale di nome Charles Duhamel.

Grazie alla raccomandazione di Duhamel, poté recarsi a Parigi e studiare con lo scultore James Pradier.

Fabio Cipolla | Orientalist painter

Fabio Cipolla (1852-1935) was a distinguished Italian painter of genre scenes and "costume paintings".

He trained at the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome and his works were published in various periodicals.

He made his first appearance at the exhibitions in Milan in 1879 and in Turin in 1880, and in the following years he developed the adoption of a mannered narrative realism on genre subjects.

Fabio Cipolla lived and worked in Rome all his life.

Nikolai Belsky | Genre painter

Russian painter Nikolay Bogdanov-Belsky (1868-1945) painted mostly genre paintings, especially of the education of peasant children, portraits, and impressionistic landscapes studies.

Bogdanov was born in the village of Shitiki in Smolensk Governorate in 1868, then he added to his surname "Belsky" in accordance with the name of the Uyezd where he was born.

He studied at the elementary school where his teacher was Sergey Rachinsky, then studied icon-painting at the Troitse-Sergiyeva Lavra in 1883, modern painting at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture in 1884 to 1889, and at the Imperial Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg from 1894 to 1895.

Adolf von Becker | Something for the Cat, 1882

Adolf von Becker (1831-1909) was a Finnish genre painter and art professor of German descent, one of the first Finnish artists to study in Paris, who taught many of the young artists of the Golden Age of Finnish Art.

Becker was born in Helsinki, where he began his artistic studies at the newly founded Finnish Art Society Drawing School; he also studied law.

In 1853, he completed his law degree and became a trainee at the Court of Appeals in Turku.

Adolf von Becker | Something for the Cat, 1882 | Paris Salon, 1882 | Finnish National Gallery

Vincenzo Migliaro | Mercato del pesce a Porta Capuana, 1893

Vincenzo Migliaro (1858-1938) was an Italian painter born in Naples.

After learning the art of wood carving at courses held by the Società Centrale Operaia Napoletana and working in the studio of Stanislao Lista, Migliaro enrolled in 1875 at the Naples Institute of Fine Arts, where his masters included Domenico Morelli.

Hugues Merle | The Forgotten, 1850

Hugues Merle (1822–1881) has long been associated with his friend and possible rival, William Bouguereau (1825-1905).

Merle was just two years older than Bouguereau, and their thematic and artistic concerns and meticulous degree of finish resulted in comparison from critics and collectors alike.

Merle began exhibiting at the Salon des Artistes Français in 1847 and went on to become to teacher of Elizabeth Gardner Bouguereau, Bouguereau's wife and a talented painter in her own right.

Hugues Merle | The Forgotten, 1850 | Sotheby's

Francesco Lojacono | Marina palermitana

Francesco Lojacono (Palermo, 1838-1915) è stato un pittore Italiano, considerato il più importante paesaggista dell'Ottocento siciliano.

Fu tra i primi pittori ad utilizzare la fotografia come riferimento per realizzare le sue opere.

Lojacono fu iniziato alla pittura dal padre Luigi, pittore a sua volta. Fu poi allievo di Salvatore Lo Forte.

Nel 1856, a 18 anni, si trasferì a Napoli, dove affinò le sue doti frequentando diversi pittori viaggiatori e soprattutto entrando nella scuola dei fratelli Giuseppe e Filippo Palizzi.

Antonio Ambrogio Alciati | Convegno, 1918

Nato a Vercelli nel 1878, Antonio Ambrogio Alciati (1878-1929) si trasferisce con la madre e la sorella nel 1879 a Milano per frequentare l’Accademia di Brera, dove riceve gli insegnamenti di Vespasiano Bignami, Giuseppe Mentessi e Cesare Tallone.

Quest’ultimo lo aiuta a perfezionarsi nel ritratto, introducendolo fra la ricca borghesia milanese.

Tra il 1902 e il 1910 esegue una serie di quadri d’ispirazione romantica e familiare, ma si dedica anche alla decorazione di chiese e ville lombarde, mentre nel secondo decennio del secolo il suo stile si evolve abbandonando le tonalità sfumate e la gamma spenta che rasenta il monocromo, per acquistare gradatamente un maggior vigore costruttivo e un vivace cromatismo.

Antonio Ambrogio Alciati | Convegno, 1918 | Museo del Paesaggio, Verbania

Auguste Raynaud | Awaiting his return

Auguste Raynaud (1854-1937) was a popular 19th-century Genre and portrait painter.

Born and raised in Lyon, Auguste Raynaud attended the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, where he studied with Danguin, Henri Lehmann and Félix-Auguste Clément.

In 1876, he moved to Lyon, rue de l'Annonciade, and presented a painting to the Société des Amis des Arts d'Avignon, entitled "Giotto, enfant dans la campagne du Tyrol".

Jules Breton | The painter of peasant life

Jules Adolphe Aimé Louis Breton (1827-1906) was a 19th-century French naturalist painter.

His paintings are heavily influenced by the French countryside and his absorption of traditional methods of painting helped make him one of the primary transmitters of the beauty and idyllic vision of rural existence.

He was one of the best known painters of his period in his native France as well as England and the United States.

Jules-Breton | The Song of the Lark, 1884 | Art Institute of Chicago

Victor Hugo: "Ti Auguro"

Ti auguro in primo luogo di amare e che, amando, tu sia riamato.

E se non è così, che sia breve il ricordo, e finito il ricordo che tu non conservi rancore.

Ti auguro che non sia così,

ma se così fosse, che tu sappia vivere senza disperazione.

Antonio Nunziante

William Bouguereau / Franz Liszt | Liebestraum (Dreams of Love)

Liebesträume (German for Dreams of Love) is a set of three solo piano nocturnes (S.541/R.211) by Franz Liszt published in 1850.

Originally the three Liebesträume were conceived as lieder after poems by Ludwig Uhland and Ferdinand Freiligrath.

In 1850 two versions appeared simultaneously as a set of songs for high voice and piano, and as transcriptions for piano two-hands.

Camille Pissarro | Jardin et poulailler chez Octave Mirbeau, Les Damps, 1892

Camille Pissarro (1830-1903) spent two weeks during September 1892 as the guest of the writer Octave Mirbeau and his wife Alice at their country home in Les Damps, a hamlet in the department of the Eure in northern France.

The artist eagerly anticipated the visit throughout the summer, both for the company, Mirbeau was among the most sensitive interpreters of his work and a fellow advocate of anarchist ideals, and for the splendid motifs to be found at Les Damps.

Camille Pissarro | Jardin et poulailler chez Octave Mirbeau, Les Damps, 1892 | Christie's

James Clarke Hook | Pittore di genere

James Clarke Hook RA (1819-1907) è stato un pittore ed incisore Inglese di scene marine, di genere e storiche e paesaggi.

Nel 1844 e nel 1845 la British Institution espose due dipinti di Hook - soggetti tratti da Shakespeare e Burns - che, insieme ai precedenti, dimostrarono la sua capacità di trattare temi del sentimento romantico e del pittoresco, allora in voga, ma in modo originale e vigoroso.

"The Song of Olden Times" (Royal Academy, 1845) segnò nettamente il futuro percorso dell'artista sotto molti aspetti tecnici.