Felix Mas (Spanish painter, 1935)

Felix Mas considers himself a traditionalist, obsessed with form and color, creating images that celebrate femininity and luminous beauty of the female form.

Mas uses his paintbrush to convey emotion. It is his gift. Born in Barcelona, he trained at both the Artes y Oficios and the Escuela Superior de San Jorge, then furthered his artistic education with extensive travels throughout Europe and the United States, eventually returning to his native Barcelona to work.

For Mas, painting implies color, emotion and impression. His works, he says, are “infinite”.

Ernest Hébert (1817-1908) | Academic painter

Antoine Auguste Ernest Hébert was a French🎨 academic painter.

Ernest Hébert was born into the era of Romanticism, and began his career just as Realism was emerging.

The young man from Grenoble had been expected to take up his father's profession as a notary. Lessons with his private teacher, Benjamin Rolland, a pupil of David and curator at the Musée de Grenoble, revealed his early talent.

After a classical training at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris, where he won the Grand Prix de Rome🎨 for History Painting, he found fame with "La Mal'aria🎨" at the 1850 Salon🎨.

Vincent van Gogh | Starry Night Over the Rhone, 1888 | Musée d'Orsay, Paris

Vincent van Gogh | Starry Night Over the Rhone, 1888

"The sight of the stars always makes me dream in as simple a way as the black spots on the map, representing towns and villages, make me dream.

Why, I say to myself, should the spots of light in the firmament be less accessible to us than the black spots on the map of France?

Just as we take the train to go to Tarascon or Rouen, we take death to go to a star’, wrote Vincent to his brother Theo in 1888.

Vincent Van Gogh | The Starry Night | Saint Rémy, June 1889 | MoMa

Vincent Van Gogh | The Starry Night | Saint Rémy, June 1889 | MoMa - Museum of Modern Art, New York

"The Starry Night" is probably Vincent van Gogh🎨's most famous painting. Instantly recognizable because of its unique style, this work has been the subject of poetry, fiction, CD-ROMs as well as the well known song "Vincent" or "Starry, Starry Night" by Don McLean.

While there's no denying the popularity of Starry Night, it's also interesting to note that there is very little known about Vincent's own feelings toward his work. This is mainly due to the fact that he only mentions it in his letters🎨 to Theo twice (Letters 595 and 607), and then only in passing.

In his correspondence with his brother, Vincent would often discuss specific works in great detail, but not so in the case of "Starry Night".

Why?

It's difficult to say.

Zahi Issa (Siria, 1962)

Zahi Issa è nato ad Aleppo, Siria Zahi Issa è stato scoperto come pittore a soli 15 anni dal padre Giacobbe, maestro internazionale, Jack Issa (che ha dato permesso ad artisti del calibro di Joseph Anna conosciuto insieme a Barbera come autore di famosi cartoon) di apprendere con la grafica del disegno, i primi rudimenti della tavolozza.

Il surrealismo delle sue opere ha girato il mondo con recensioni di famosi critici e storici dell'arte.

Gustave Jean Jacquet (Parigi, 1846-1909)

Gustave Jacquet è stato un pittore Francese.

Gustave Jean Jacquet è noto come il pittore dei ritratti femminili e, molto meno, di scene storiche. Fu allievo di William Bouguereau, e debuttò al "Salon" del 1865.

Con lo pseudonimo di "Jacquet" illustrò alcune opere umoristiche, in particolare edite da Félix Juven.

Jacquet visse a Parigi cambiando sovente indirizzo.

Infatti, dal 1865-1866, abitò in rue Desbordes-Valmore; dal 1867-1874 fu al 22 di rue Saint Ferdinand, nel 1875 e 1876, si spostò in Avenue Montaigne, dal 1877-1883 in rue de Prony e infine, dal 1884 al 92° di Avenue de Wagram.

Jacques Prévert | Breakfast / Prima colazione...

Anne Christine Roda🎨

Lui ha messo

Il caffè nella tazza

Lui ha messo

Il latte nel caffè

Lui ha messo

Lo zucchero nel caffellatte

Ha girato

Il cucchiaino

Ha bevuto il caffellatte

Ha posato la tazza

Senza parlarmi

Edgar Allan Poe / Remi Labarre | My spells.. / I miei incantesimi.., 1848

To Marie Louise (Shew), 1848

Not long ago, the writer of these lines,

In the mad pride of intellectuality,

Maintained "the power of words"- denied that ever

A thought arose within the human brain

Beyond the utterance of the human tongue:

And now, as if in mockery of that boast,

Two words-two foreign soft dissyllables-

Italian tones, made only to be murmured

By angels dreaming in the moonlit "dew

That hangs like chains of pearl on Hermon hill,"-

Have stirred from out the abysses of his heart,

Unthought-like thoughts that are the souls of thought,

Richer, far wider, far diviner visions

Than even the seraph harper, Israfel,

(Who has "the sweetest voice of all God’s creatures")

Could hope to utter. And I!

Valentine Cameron Prinsep (1838-1904)

Indian-born British painter Valentine Cameron Prinsep, often known as Val Princep,was a British painter of the Pre-Raphaelite school.

Prinsep's major paintings were "Miriam watching the infant Moses" (exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1867), "A Venetian lover" (1868), "Bacchus and Ariadne" (1869), "News from abroad" (1871), "The linen gatherers" (1876), "The gleaners" and "A minuet".

In 1877, Prinsep returned to India and painted a huge picture of the Delhi Durbar. It was a commission from Robert Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Earl of Lytton, the Viceroy of India.

Laimonas Šmergelis (Lithuanian, 1972)

Born in Utena, Lithuania Laimonas Šmergelis is a very talented artist, with many paintings full of vivid colors, surreal elements and great portraits. Laimonas was inspired from Picasso and Gustav Klimt..

1985 - Utena Children Arts School.

1989 - repeatedly graduated from Utena Children Arts School.

1995 - Siauliai Pedagogical University, Bachelor Degree in Arts and Crafts.

1997 - Siauliai Pedagogical University, Master’s Degree in Humanitarian Sciences, Fine Arts Studies.

Worked as arts teacher in a primary school. Since 2003 organizes courses in Utena Region Association for Disabled.Organized about 20 personal exhibitions. Since 1990 participates in group exhibitions (about 40 exhibitions).

Iman Maleki (Iranian, 1976)

Iman Maleki was born in Tehran. He has been fascinated by the art of painting since he was a child. At the age of 15, he started to learn painting under the mastery of his first and only teacher - Morteza Katouzian - who is the greatest realist painter of Iran.

Meanwhile, he began to paint professionally. In 1999 he graduated in Graphic Design from the Art University of Tehran. Since 1998, he has participated in several exhibitions.

In the year 2000, he got married and in the following year he established ARA Painting Studio and started to teach painting, considering classical and traditional values.

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.

Marcos Damascena (Brazilian painter, 1981)

Born in Poções Bahia, Marcos Damascena settled in St. Paul, where he began his artistic career, studying with the great names in figurative art.

Made with the design of the live model and teacher Luis Alberto, the Paulista Association of Fine Arts, then studied with the master Abraham Jorge Esteves: color theory and anatomy of animals, especially horses.

Jeff Barson (American, 1966)

Barson was born in Logan, Utah. At the age of nine, his family moved to England where Barson attended Beechwood Park Preparatory School. Over the next years, Barson traveled extensively throughout Europe and was exposed to its great museums and fine artistic legacy.

He credits his early interests in Art and Literature to this move which provided an excellent education and inspiration for the creative young Barson. Barsons paintings have hung in galleries in New York, Boston and Los Angeles.

His limited edition prints are distributed nationally and have met with great enthusiasm from the press and public. U.S. Art Magazine named him one of six artists that will change the limited edition print market.

Dragan Ilic Di Vogo (Serbian painter, 1962)

"Boundaries of art have no shape, colour and smell; therefore, even if they existed, we would not be able to know that we have stepped on them. If you seek art, you may find it in everything around you. Mainly in style, since man is style. I find the man to be the most perfect work of art, shaped and painted by the Creator himself.

The art is always one and the same, though it may be more or less present at a particular moment and in particular place. The art does not progress or regress, it only goes through transformations. The consciousness about art does not progress either, although we wish it would. The need for art does not grow or decrease.

Thanks to God, art is constant, while we are the ones who change, appear and disappear. Cheers!" - Dragan Ilic Di Vogo.

Z.L. Feng, 1954 | Landscape / Figurative / Watercolor painter

Growing up in Shanghai, Feng began painting at age seven and never stopped, experimenting with different mediums, including pastel, oil, and egg tempera, before choosing his favorite, watercolor.

"With watercolor you cannot cover your mistakes, so you must know what you are doing", he says.

He finds inspiration for his lovely landscapes in the countryside of the New River Valley: "Usually I go around - to the river, the forest, the lake – to try and find interesting compositions".

Those familiar with Feng’s art are also captivated by his portraits of the people of Tibet, Native Americans of New Mexico, Southern farmers, and others.

Chen Yongle (Chinese painter, 1954)

Chen Yongle was born in the Yunan Province of China. He is currently the President of the Yunnan Research Institute of Fine Art, and is a member of various art organisations and committees including the Chinese Artists Association, the Chinese Graphic Artists Association, and the Association of the Artists of Chinese Craft and Art.

He is among the few contemporary Chinese printmakers who can claim a series of international exhibitions.

William Whitaker Jr. | Figurative painter

William Whitaker Jr. (1943-2018) was one of the most respected living classical-realist figure artists in the Western United States.

Whitaker describes his training as being "Most influenced by the academicians of the last century for their craftsmanship, by the impressionists for their color and life, and by the abstract expressionists for their boldness".

He earned a BA from the University of Utah where Alvin Gittins was his mentor and later studied at the Otis Art Institute in Los Angeles.

Stanislav Aristov / Станислав Аристов, 1982 | Flame art

Russian🎨 photographer Stanislav Aristov / Станислав Аристов, better known by his moniker Pol Tergejst is an artist from Ekaterinburk, in Russia, who decided "to play with fire", literally. He uses flame shapes to create some kind of flame-shape paintings, he composes different images of them. All this involves a lot of photographing.

Aristo made a splendid series of images with matches between 2010 and 2013. It's after taking part in a themed "line of life" photo contest from Formula foto that the idea of using lighted matches came to him.

The "stroke of genius" or as Stanislav said himself: "it's not the first idea with one things that shows another things :)" reminds us all the poetry that has fire in the collective unconscious. Thanks to Stanislav for giving us some of his time answering our questions and for sharing with us his work.

Niccolò Paganini by Johann Peter Lyser

Johann Peter Lyser

(German engraver, journalist, critic, miscellaneous writer; caricaturist,1804-1870)

about Paganini from the magazine "Originalien", 1830

Niccolò Paganini | Cartoon Drawing by Johann Peter Lyser

"Paganini is an Italian artist, and an Italian artist will be never sad or misanthrope. If he become that, it is the end of the art. In the character of Paganini there is nothing exalted.

His heart bits with a strong joy of living, it is attached to this land and to all it has to offer. However great the passion for his art is, he does despise nothing, not even things of little importance if they offer enjoyment […].

Paganini is one of the strangest, indeed baroque and certainly greatest phenomena, that cross land for over a century, but there is nothing mysterious about him. He his not like the stormy sea, but he is like the quiet lake.