Marie Spartali Stillman | Pre-Raphaelite painter

From Christie's:

Marie Spartali Stillman was both a gifted artist and a major Pre-Raphaelite muse, who features as a model in many of the movement's most memorable works.

Stillman was the youngest daughter of wealthy Greek parents.

Her father, Michael Spartali, had made his money as a cotton merchant and served as Greek consul-general in London between 1866-1882.

The Spartali family were prominent members of the cultured and affluent Anglo-Greek community that came to have an enduring impact on the history of Victorian art; they included Burne-Jones' and Rossetti’s great patron Constantine Ionides and his family, as well as Maria Zambaco, Burne-Jones' model and mistress, and Aglaia Coronio, who sat for Rossetti.

Théodore Ralli | Pittore orientalista

Théodore Jacques Ralli o Theodorus Rallis (nome completo: Theodoros Rallis-Scaramanga; greco: Θεόδωρος Ράλλης; Costantinopoli, 16 febbraio 1852 – 2 ottobre 1909, Losanna) è stato un pittore, acquerellista e disegnatore Greco, che trascorse la maggior parte della sua vita lavorativa in Francia ed Egitto.

Dipinse opere di genere, ritratti, personaggi locali, soggetti architettonici, interni con figure e animali. Ma è meglio conosciuto per i suoi dipinti orientalisti.

Fu inviato a Parigi sotto il patrocinio del re Ottone di Grecia e studiò con Jean-Léon Gérôme, pittore francese e professore all'Ecole des Beaux-Arts, e con Jean-Jules-Antoine Lecomte du Nouy, entrambi noti per i loro dipinti orientalisti.

Ralli viaggiò poi molto in Nord Africa e Medio Oriente, stabilendosi per un po' al Cairo, in Egitto.

Ghiannis Ritsos / Christian Schloe | Un albero

Quell'albero era cresciuto nella parte superiore del giardino,

alto, solitario, slanciato - la sua altezza

tradiva forse un'idea segreta d'intrusione. Non diede mai

fiori né frutti, solo un'ombra lunga che divideva in due il giardino

e una misura inapplicabile agli altri alberi, carichi e curvi.

Yiannis Ritsos / Praxiteles | Omens / Segni, 1968

Praxiteles🎨 (Πραξιτέλης) of Athens (4th century BC) | Apollo Sauroktonos (detail)

The statues were quickly hidden by weeds. We didn’t know

whether the statues had shrunk or whether the grasses had grown. Only

a large copper hand remained visible, like a terrible benediction,

above the tangle of unsightly shapes. Woodcutters

passed by on the road below - they never turned their heads.

El Greco (1541-1614) | 156 artworks | Page 4

Born in 1541 in either the village of Fodele or Candia (the Venetian name of Chandax, present day Heraklion) in Crete, El Greco was descended from a prosperous urban family, which had probably been driven out of Chania to Candia after an uprising against the Venetians between 1526-1528.

For more biographical notes -in english and italian- and other works by El Greco see:

• El Greco (1541-1614) | 156 artworks | Part.¹🎨
• El Greco (1541-1614) | 156 artworks | Part.²🎨
• El Greco (1541-1614) | 156 artworks | Part.³🎨

Yannis Ritsos / Jeremy Mann | Moonlight sonata / La sonata al chiaro di luna, 1956

A spring evening. A large room in an old house. A woman of a certain age, dressed in

black, is speaking to a young man. They have not turned on the lights. Through both

windows the moonlight shines relentlessly. I forgot to mention that the Woman in

Black has published two or three interesting volume of poetry with a religious flavor.

So, the Woman in Black is speaking to the Young Man:

Let me come with you. What a moon there is tonight!

The moon is kind – it won’t show

that my hair turned white. The moon

will turn my hair to gold again. You wouldn’t understand.

Let me come with you.

When there’s a moon the shadows in the house grow larger,

invisible hands draw the curtains,

a ghostly finger writes forgotten words in the dust

on the piano – I don’t want to hear them. Hush.

Pantelis Zografos (Greek, 1949)

Παντελής Ζωγράφος was born in Athens, Greece, into a family with along tradition of producing fine artists. In greek language, the name of Zografos means artist: and following the Greek custom, Pantelis took the name of his paternal grandfather, a renowned iconographer.

Both of his parents were professional artists, and he spent much of his youth in their studio in Athens.

In 1971, after serving the Greek Air Force, Pantelis moved to America.

Giorgos Seferis / Isaac Levitan | A word for Summer / Una parola sull'Estate, 1936

Isaac Levitan (Russian landscape painter, 1860-1900)🎨 | Autumn day, Sokolniki, 1879

We’ve returned to autumn again; summer,

like an exercise book we’re tired of writing in, remains

full of deletions, abstract designs,

question marks in the margin; we’ve returned

to the season of eyes gazing

into the mirror under the electric light

closed lips and people strangers

in rooms in streets under the pepper-trees

while the headlights of cars massacre

thousands of pale masks.

We’ve returned; we always set out to return

to solitude, a fistful of earth, to the empty hands.