Auguste Rodin (1840-1917) | Art Quotes

"L'artista deve creare una scintilla prima di poter fare un fuoco e quindi nasce l'arte, l'artista deve essere pronto a consumarsi al fuoco della sua stessa creazione".

Jacques Prévert / Maximilien Luce | Chanson de la Seine, 1945

The River Seine’s song

The Seine is lucky

She has no worries

She takes it easy

By day and by night

And she flows from her spring

Gently, quietly

And without foaming

Without overflowing her banks

She’s leaving for the sea

Passing through Paris.

Peace quotes / Frasi sulla pace

• "Occhio per occhio e il mondo diventa cieco"!
• "An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind"!

Mahatma Gandhi

• "I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality... I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word".

Jacques Prévert | Kiss Me / Embrasse-moi / Baciami, 1946

Twas in a street of the City of Lights

Where ’is always dark, where there’s no air

And winter like summer, there ’is always winter.

She was on the stairs

Him next to her, her next to him

‘Twas night

Diego Velázquez | Legacy

Diego Velázquez (Spanish Baroque Era painter, 1599-1660) is the most influential figure of the Spanish Golden Age.

Velázquez was not prolific; he is estimated to have produced between only 110 and 120 known canvases.

He produced no etchings or engravings, and only a few drawings are attributed to him.

Diego Velázquez | Quotes

"I would rather be the first painter of common things than second in higher art".

"Preferirei essere il primo pittore delle cose comuni piuttosto che il secondo dell'arte più alta".

"Raphael, to be plain with you, for I prefer to be candid and outspoken, does not please me at all....It is Titian that bears the banner".

Wilhelm Tischbein | Goethe in the Roman Campagna, 1787

Title: Goethe in the Roman Campagna;

Author: Johann Heinrich Wilhelm Tischbein (German Neoclassical painter, 1751-1829);

Date: 1787;

Dimensions: 164.0 x 206.0 cm;

Medium: Oil on canvas;

Current location: Städel Museum, Frankfurt;

Acquisition: Acquired in 1887 as a gift by Baroness Adèle von Rothschild;

Status: On display, 1st upper level, Modern Art.

Camille Pissarro | White Frost, Woman Breaking Up Wood, 1890

• Painting, art in general, enchants me. It is my life. What else matters? When you put all your soul into a work, all that is noble in you, you cannot fail to find a kindred soul who understands you, and you do not need a host of such spirits. Is not that all an artist should wish for?
• When you do a thing with your whole soul and everything that is noble within you, you always find your counterpart.
• It is only by drawing often, drawing everything, drawing incessantly, that one fine day you discover to your surprise that you have rendered something in its true character.
• Work at the same time on sky, water, branches, ground, keeping everything going on an equal basis... Don't be afraid of putting on colour... Paint generously and unhesitatingly, for it is best not to lose the first impression.

Michelangelo Buonarroti | Celestial Love | Sonnet 105

No mortal thing enthralled these longing eyes

When perfect peace in thy fair face I found;

But far within, where all is holy ground,

My soul felt Love, her comrade of the skies:

Non vider gli occhi miei cosa mortale

allor che ne’ bei vostri intera pace

trovai, ma dentro, ov’ogni mal dispiace,

chi d’amor l’alma a sé simil m’assale;

Renoir | Landscapes with Figures

"If you paint the leaf on a tree without using a model, your imagination will only supply you with a few leaves; but Nature offers you millions, all on the same tree.

No two leaves are exactly the same.

The artist who paints only what is in his mind must very soon repeat himself"

- Pierre-Auguste Renoir.

Dante Gabriel Rossetti | Luce improvvisa / Sudden Light

Sono già stato qui,

Ma quando o come non saprei dire

Conosco l’erba oltre la porta,

Il dolce odore pungente

Un suono, come un singhiozzo, le luci attorno alla baia.

Pablo Neruda: "Perhaps not to be is to be without your being.."

Perhaps not to be is to be without your being,

without your going, that cuts noon light

like a blue flower, without your passing

later through fog and stones,

without the torch you lift in your hand

that others may not see as golden,

that perhaps no one believed blossomed

Marc Chagall | Cirque, Parigi 1967

Marc Chagall: "Per me un circo è uno spettacolo di magia che appare e scompare come un mondo. Un circo è inquietante. È profondo.

Questi pagliacci, cavalieri senza sella ed acrobati si trovano a loro agio nelle mie visioni.

Come mai?

Perché sono così commosso dal loro trucco e dalle loro smorfie?

Con loro posso muovermi verso nuovi orizzonti.

Attirato dai loro colori e dal loro trucco, posso sognare di dipingere nuove distorsioni psichiche. È una parola magica, circo, un gioco di danza senza tempo dove lacrime e sorrisi, il gioco di braccia e gambe prendono la forma di una grande arte".

Camille Pissarro | Jeanne Pissarro (Minette) holding a Fan, 1873

Jeanne-Rachel, known as Minette, was born in 1865 and died at Pontoise on 6 April 1874.

She was a sickly child and treated by Dr Paul Gachet.

In this portrait, painted when she was eight, the subdued colouring and tentative handling give an added intimacy to the scene.

She holds a Japanese fan, reflecting her father's increasing interest in Japanese art.

Camille Pissarro | Jeanne Holding a fan, 1873 | Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

John Singer Sargent: "Fai uno schizzo su qualsiasi cosa e mantieni attiva la curiosità!"

"You can't do sketches enough. Sketch everything and keep your curiosity fresh".

"Non si fanno mai abbastanza schizzi. Fai uno schizzo su qualsiasi cosa e mantieni attiva la tua curiosità".

"Every time I paint a portrait I lose a friend".

"Ogni volta che dipingo un ritratto perdo un amico".

Paul Signac: "The art of the colorist has in some ways elements of mathematics and music"

• "Art is a creation of a higher order than a copy of nature which is governed by chance..."

• "The art of the colorist has in some ways elements of mathematics and music".

• "Divisionism is a complex system of harmony, an aesthetic rather than a technique".

John Singer Sargent: "Every time I paint a portrait I lose a friend!"

"Ogni volta che dipingo un ritratto perdo un amico".

"It is certain that at certain times talent entirely overcomes thought or poetry".

"È certo che in certi momenti il talento supera del tutto il pensiero o la poesia".

Othello and Desdemona's painting

Desdemona (The Song of the Willow) is based on a print, part of a suite of etchings by Chassériau illustrating Shakespeare’s Othello, which was published in Paris in 1844.

It depicts act 4, scene 3 of the play, a final moment of calm preceding Desdemona’s murder by her husband, Othello.

Desdemona’s maid, Emilia, who was complicit in orchestrating the crime, shrinks away, cringing at the knowledge of what is about to occur.

The lyre Desdemona holds was not described by Shakespeare; Chassériau observed it in an 1836 production in which the role was performed by the celebrated singer Maria Malibran Garcia (1808–1836), called La Malibran. | © The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Théodore Chassériau | Desdemona (The Song of the Willow) 1849 | The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Claude Monet | Figures / Portraits | Page 2

Alda Merini | Autobiografia in versi e frasi

Victor Nizovtsev

▻ "Io vivo sempre al buio, ma nei miei pensieri brilla sempre un sole".

▻ "Domandano tutti come si fa a scrivere un libro: si va vicino a Dio e gli si dice: feconda la mia mente, mettiti nel mio cuore e portami via dagli altri, rapiscimi".