Judith Leyster | Baroque Era painter

Judith Leyster (1609–1660) is the most famous female painter of the Dutch Golden Age.

Unlike many contemporary female artists, who concentrated on meticulously painting true-to-life flowers and insects, she ventured into more ambitious figure-based projects.

Competing with Frans Hals, Leyster chose remarkably similar themes: portraits, children playing, dancing musicians and a drinking actor.

She is also known for her innovative and evocative night scenes, in which she experimented with the subtle effects of light and dark.

Judith Leyster | Two Children with a Cat, 1629

Ivan Shishkin | Peredvizhniki Art movement

Ivan Ivanovich Shishkin (Ива́н Ива́нович Ши́шкин; 25 January 1832 - 20 March 1898) was a Russian landscape painter closely associated with the Peredvizhniki movement - a group of Russian realist artists who formed an artists' cooperative in protest of academic restrictions; it evolved into the Society for Travelling Art Exhibitions in 1870.

Shishkin (1832-1898) was born in Yelabuga of Vyatka Governorate (today Republic of Tatarstan), and graduated from the Kazan gymnasium.

Then he studied at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture for four years.

After that, he attended the Saint Petersburg Imperial Academy of Arts from 1856-1860, and graduated with the highest honours and a gold medal.

Franco Rispoli (Italian, 1921-1989) | Genre painter

Franco Rispoli was an Italian painter🎨, known for painting in the Genre style🎨, scenes from everyday life, such as markets, domestic settings, interiors, parties, inn scenes and street scenes.

Franco Rispoli was born in Naples in 1921 and died in 1989.

Sandro Botticelli | Vita privata

Sandro Botticelli (1445-1510) non si sposò mai e, a quanto pare, espresse una forte avversione per l'idea del matrimonio.

Un aneddoto racconta che il suo mecenate Tommaso Soderini, morto nel 1485, gli suggerì di sposarsi, al che Botticelli rispose che pochi giorni prima aveva sognato di essersi sposato, si era svegliato "colpito dal dolore" e per il resto della notte aveva camminato per le strade per evitare che il sogno si ripresentasse se si fosse addormentato di nuovo.

Il racconto si conclude in modo criptico dicendo che Soderini capì "di non essere un terreno adatto per piantare viti".

Johan-Laurents Jensen (1800-1856)

Johan Laurentz Jensen, spesso indicato come JL Jensen (8 marzo 1800 - 26 marzo 1856), è stato un artista Danese specializzato in pittura floreale.

Vita e formazione

Parallelamente ai suoi studi all'Accademia danese, divenne allievo di Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg e anche di Cladius Detlev Fritzsch.

Specializzato in pittura floreale, Jensen ha continuato la sua formazione a Parigi sotto i fratelli fiamminghi, Gérard e Cornelis van Spaendonck, e presso la fabbrica di porcellane di Sèvres, dove ha appreso l'arte della pittura floreale in miniatura.

Leopold von Stoll (1808-1889) | Still life of flowers painter

Leopold von Stoll was a flower painter of Dutch origin, who was primarily active in Austria.

Leopold von Stoll was born in 1808 in the Netherlands.

In 1828, he worked in Krakow and Warsaw.

From 1830-1834 lived in Saint Petersburg, where he held a job of a flower painter at the Imperial Botanical Garden.

In 1834, he came to Vienna and consequently gained there much popularity as a still-life (flower, fruits) artist.

From 1834-1869, he regularly participated in various exhibitions in that city (at the Academy of Fine Arts, the "Künstlerhaus", etc.).

Giovanni Carnovali, detto "Il Piccio"

Giovanni Carnovali (Montegrino Valtravaglia, 29 settembre 1804 - Coltaro, 5 luglio 1873) è stato un pittore Italiano.

Giovanni Carnovali, detto il Piccio, nato a Montegrino Valtravaglia (VA) il 29 settembre 1804, da una famiglia dalle umili origini, si trasferì in tenera età ad Albino, in provincia di Bergamo.

Herman Richir | Pittore accademico

Herman Jean Joseph Richir (1866-1942) è stato un pittore accademico Belga di scene allegoriche e mitologiche e ritrattista di grande talento.

Richir iniziò la sua carriera artistica all'Accademia d'Arte di Saint-Josse-ten-Noode/Sint-Joost-ten-Node, dove è stato formato dai rinomati insegnanti Gustave Joseph Biot e Charles Hermans.

Alla ricerca della perfezione artistica, nel 1884 si trasferisce all'Académie royale des Beaux-Arts de Bruxelles, dove affina ulteriormente le sue capacità sotto la tutela di Jean Francois Portaels.

Michele Cascella | Saint Germain en Laye, 1966

Michele Cascella🎨 (7 September 1892 - 31 August 1989) was an Italian artist🎨.

Primarily known for his oil paintings and watercolours, he also worked in ceramics, lithography, and textiles.

He exhibited regularly at the Venice Biennale from 1924 until 1942, and his works are owned by major museums in Italy and Europe, including Victoria and Albert Museum in London, Galerie nationale du Jeu de Paume in Paris and Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna in Rome.

Margaret Sarah Carpenter (1793-1872) | Portrait / Genre painter

Margaret Sarah Carpenter (Salisbury 1793 - 13 November 1872 London), born Margaret Sarah Geddes, was a British painter🎨. Noted in her time, she mostly painted portraits in the manner of Sir Thomas Lawrence. She was a close friend of Richard Parkes Bonington.

• Early life

She was born in Salisbury, the daughter of Captain Alexander Geddes, who was of an Edinburgh family, and Harriet Easton. She was taught art by a local drawing-master. Her first art studies were made from the pictures at Longford Castle, belonging to Lord Radnor.

Umberto Boccioni (1882-1916)

Umberto Boccioni, (born October 19, 1882, Reggio di Calabria, Italy—died August 16, 1916, Verona), Italian painter, sculptor and theorist of the Futurist movement in art.

Boccioni was trained from 1898-1902 in the studio of the painter Giacomo Balla, where he learned to paint in the manner of the pointillists.

In 1907 he settled in Milan, where he gradually came under the influence of the poet Filippo Marinetti, who launched the Futurist movement, which glorified the dynamism of modern technology.

Boccioni adapted Marinetti’s literary theories to the visual arts and became the leading theoretician of Futurist art.

Daniel Del Orfano

Daniel Del Orfano, nato e cresciuto a Long Island, New York, dopo aver insegnato presso la prestigiosa Scuola Knox Boarding, è stato integrato nel sistema scolastico pubblico, dove ha insegnato arte a bambini di tutte le età.

Ma, anche se estremamente gratificante, questa non era la sua vera vocazione.

Nell'estate del 2005, fonda il "Laboratorio Rinascimento", con l'obbiettivo di espandere creativamente i suoi orizzonti.

Poiché la domanda di lavoro commissionato diventava sempre maggiore, Daniel inizia a guardare il suo stile espressivo, attuando le tecniche che enfatizzano il realismo.

Tiziano Vecellio | Ecce Homo, 1570-1576

Dimension: Height: 100.5 cm.; Width: 100.8 cm.

Medium: Oil on Canvas

Provenance: Royal Collection (Real Monasterio de El Escorial, Madrid, Sala Prioral)

Current location: Museo Nacional del Prado

Christ shown to the People: Ecce Homo, 1570-1576 depicts a passage from the Gospel of Saint John (19, 4-5) which recounts how after Christ had been whipped and crowned with thorns:

"Pilate therefore went forth again, and saith unto them, Behold, I bring him forth to you, that ye may know that I find no fault in him.

Then came Jesus forth, wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe.

And Pilate saith unto them: Behold the man"!

Pierre-Auguste Renoir | L'ombrelle, 1878

In this radiant painting, Pierre-Auguste Renoir depicts the quintessential Impressionist subject of the fashionably attired Parisienne within a scene of abundantly flowering nature.

Painted in 1878 at the height of Impressionism, the variegated brushwork consisting of thick and swirling impasto and small dabs of spontaneous and audaciously applied paint, make L'ombrelle one of the artist's most experimental works of the latter part of that decade.

Marie Bashkirtseff | A meeting, 1884

When A Meeting was exhibited at the 1884 Salon of Paris, it was acclaimed by both the public and the press. But this success did not satisfy Marie Bashkirtseff at all, who was outraged that she did not receive a medal.

She wrote in her Journal:

"I am exceedingly indignant [...] because, after all, works that are really rather poor have received prizes"

and also

"There is nothing more to be done. I am a worthless creature, humiliated, finished".

Confident of her own talent, she denounces what seemed to her to be an injustice, but also expresses a fear: the fear of being forgotten. Marie was then only twenty-five years old, and knew already that she was condemned to die from tuberculosis; she died on 31 October that same year.

Edouard Vuillard | Young woman at the wind, 1899

Édouard Vuillard, in full Jean-Édouard Vuillard, (born November 11, 1868, Cuiseaux, France - died June 21, 1940, La Baule), French painter, printmaker, and decorator who was a member of the Nabis group of painters in the 1890s.

He is particularly known for his depictions of intimate interior scenes.

Vuillard studied art from 1886-1888 at the Académie Julian and the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris.

In 1889 he joined a group of art students that included Maurice Denis, Pierre Bonnard, Paul Sérusier, Ker-Xavier Roussel, and Félix Vallotton.

They called themselves the Nabis (Hebrew for “Prophets”), and they drew their inspiration from the Synthetist paintings of Paul Gauguin’s Pont-Aven period.

Aime-Nicolas Morot | Le bon Samaritain, 1880

Author: Aimé-Nicolas Morot (French painter, 1850-1913);

Title: The Good Samaritan;

Medium: oil on canvas;

Dimensions: Height: 268.5 cm - Width: 198 cm;

Current location: Musée du Petit Palais, Paris.

Born into a modest, actively Republican family, Aimé Morot pursued an exemplary career after receiving an academic training in the studio of Alexandre Cabanel.

Winner of the Prix de Rome in 1873, he used his stay at the Medici Villa as an opportunity to explore the Roman countryside on horseback.

Edgar Degas | Conversation, 1882-1885

During the mid-1880s, Degas repeatedly explored the motif of two or three women leaning on a wooden railing - at the racetrack, on a pleasure boat, or before a landscape - absorbed in casual conversation..

"Degas was clearly intrigued by the visual possibilities of this moment of female intimacy", Jill DeVonyar and Richard Kendall have written, "making half a dozen variants of the composition with a range of outfits, headgear, and backgrounds" (op. cit., 2007, p. 66).

Renoir | Port de Marseille, le Fort Saint-Jean, 1906

In the early 1880s Pierre-Auguste Renoir made his first forays abroad; he had previously traveled no further from Paris than Normandy. The years of 1881-1884 however saw Renoir in a variety of disparate locations including Algeria, Italy and the French Riviera.

It was on these journeys that he stepped away from rendering purely figure-based compositions, rather creating an interesting series of landscapes to record his new surroundings.

There is no doubt that these travels deeply affected Renoir and his art, and indeed he would return repeatedly to the South of France, eventually choosing to settle permanently in Cagnes-sur-Mer in the early 1900s.

Caravaggio | The Lute Player / Suonatore di Liuto, 1595-1596

The Lute Player is an early work by Caravaggio, who sought above all to convey the reality and solidity of the surrounding world. We can already see the elements of the artist's style which were to have such a widespread influence on other artists.

The figure of a young boy dressed in a white shirt stands out clearly against the dark background.

The sharp sidelighting and the falling shadows give the objects an almost tangible volume and weight.

Caravaggio was interested in the uniqueness of the surrounding world, and there are markedly individual features not only in the youth's face but also in the objects which make up the still life: the damaged pear, the crack in the lute, the crumpled pages of the music.

The melody written on those pages is that of a then fashionable song by Jacques Arcadelt, "You know that I love you".

Caravaggio | The Lute Player | The Hermitage version, 1595-1596

Guido Reni(?) | Portrait of Beatrice Cenci, 1599

Author: Guido Reni (Italian Baroque painter, 1575-1642)

Medium: Oil canvas

Dimensions: 64,5 x 49 cm

Current location: Palazzo Barberini, Rome

A long historical tradition has identified Beatrice Cenci in this portrait.

The young parricide, who was processed and beheaded in Rome in 1599, is immortalized in prison by Guido Reni a few instants before being killed.

Berthe Morisot (French, 1841-1895)

Berthe Marie Pauline Morisot (January 14, 1841 - March 2, 1895) was a painter and a member of the circle of painters in Paris who became known as the Impressionists.

She was described by Gustave Geffroy in 1894 as one of "les trois grandes dames" of Impressionism alongside Marie Bracquemond and Mary Cassatt.

Peter Paul Rubens | Study of Two Heads, 1609

Artist: Peter Paul Rubens (Flemish Baroque Era painter, 1577-1640)

Title: Study of Two Heads

Date: ca. 1609

Medium: oil on panel

Dimensions: Height: 69.9 cm (27.5 in); Width: 52.1 cm (20.5 in)

Current location: Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Rubens painted studies of heads after live models and artistic sources, creating a cast of characters that served in turn as models for figures in religious and mythological works.

Sergio Cerchi, 1957

Sergio Cerchi è nato a Firenze, città' in cui tuttora vive e lavora. Le figure e le geometrie compongono la sua visione del reale, contrassegnata da una spinta etica che esprime valori non solo artistici, ma filosofici, storici e psicosociali.

Dai primi lavori pittorici con paesaggi e vedute, si è evoluto verso evocazioni "cubiste" e rielaborazioni del proprio vissuto, che hanno radicalmente mutato l' impianto materico e coloristico.

Soggetti e sfondi si moltiplicano nella sua pittura come su di un pentagramma musicale, sfumando orizzonti piani e volumi, in cui figure e particolari emergono leggibili e composti in modo affatto originale.

Cromie di colori ad olio, dalle calde tonalità' di rossi carminio, mescolati a sfumature ocra, a verdi antichi e blu con sapienti ombreggiature di grigi luminosi, danno corpo ad elementi petrosi, scultorei, emblematici delle materie e sostanze dei più grandi maestri dell'arte dai Primitivi al Rinascimento, di cui si nutre appunto la poetica e la pittura di Sergio Cerchi.

Édouard Manet | The Grand Canal, Venice (Blue Venice) 1874

French painter Édouard Manet (1832-1883) visited the Grand Canal Venice in September 1875 with his friend and fellow painter from outside the Impressionist circle James Tissot, who had settled in London after the Franco-Prussian war of 1870-71.

Although the watery splendour of Venice has inspired many great artists, Manet found it hard to settle, but in spite of this he managed to paint one of his most dashingly Impressionist art works.

Edouard Manet | Venice-The Grand Canal (Blue Venice), 1874 | Collections of the Shelburne Museum, Vermont

Claude Monet | Palm trees at Bordighera, 1884 | Metropolitan Museum of Art

Monet first visited Italy’s southern coast with Renoir in December 1883. Shortly thereafter, he returned alone to paint, writing his dealer that working "à deux" was constraining.

This scene and The Valley of the Nervia reflect Monet’s excitement at the new motifs offered by the region’s palm trees and mountains. For this view, he ventured from his hotel in Bordighera and looked across the Bay of Ventimiglia toward the Alps on the French border.

The dazzling colors challenged him to "dare to use all the tones of pink and blue", although what he truly needed was a "palette of diamonds and jewels". | © The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Gustav Klimt | Lady with Fan, 1917

A young lady dressed in a Chinese robe stands before us.

She wears makeup and her hair is pinned up.

We encounter her in intimate circumstances - otherwise she would surely not show so much skin in front of a stranger.

Her robe has slid down from her shoulder and her naked breast is only just concealed by a Chinese fan - the central motif to which the painting owes its title.

The identity of the woman is unknown.

Shortly after its creation, the painting was also exhibited under the title of Dancer (Tänzerin).

Mihály Munkácsy (1844-1900)

Mihály Munkácsy (Mukačevo, 20 febbraio 1844 – Endenich, 1º maggio 1900) è stato un pittore Ungherese.

Mihály Lieb, suo vero nome, fu un pittore accademico, attivo a Parigi e a Budapest negli anni fra il 1870 e il 1890. Studiò nel 1863 a Budapest e nel 1864 a Vienna.

Espose al Salon di Parigi nel 1870 ottenendo un successo inaspettato. In una trentina d'anni riuscì a produrre circa seicento quadri nei generi più disparati: ritratti, nature morte, paesaggi, scene di genere, interni borghesi, composizioni storiche e religiose.

Alcuni di essi sono di dimensioni assai grandi (100 m² per l'Apoteosi del Rinascimento, oggi al Museo di Belle arti di Vienna, più di 60 m² e un centinaio di personaggi per La conquista del Paese, oggi nella sede del Parlamento Ungherese).

Purtroppo la maggior parte delle sue opere si è deteriorata per l'impiego di un fondo di colore al bitume, la cui ossidazione ha cominciato ad annerirle gravemente subito dopo la loro realizzazione.

Renoir | Enfants dans le jardin de Montmartre, 1895

"Towards 1883 there was a kind of rupture in my work. I had come to the end of Impressionism and reached the conclusion that I could neither paint nor draw. In a word, I had reached a dead end…”. (Renoir to Vollard, cit. after H. Grabers, p. 235f.)

In the early 1880s, Renoir fell into a crisis, which led him disengage himself from his Impressionist style. Thereupon he travelled to Italy, where he studied closely the painters of the Renaissance, especially Raphael.

Enthused by their techniques, he began to introduce new pictorial elements into his works. He moved closer to the classical style and again set great store by the human form and most especially a finely detailed painting style - which is easily recognised in “Le Grand Baigneuses” of 1884.

Jacob Collins, 1964

Jacob Collins è un pittore realista Americano che lavora a New York City.

È una figura di spicco nella rinascita della pittura classica contemporanea Americana.

Nato a New York, Collins ha sviluppato una personale visione artistica molto presto.

L'amore per la pittura e la sua istintiva abilità, hanno trovato un ambiente familiare intriso di classicismo, (il famoso storico e critico d'arte Meyer Schapiro, specializzato in pittura medievale ed Europea era un prozio e la nonna Alma Binion Cahn Schapiro, pittrice) lo hanno spronato e guidato nella scelta dei modelli da imitare.

Johanna Harmon, 1968

Nata a Tempe, in Arizona, la pittrice Johanna Harmon ricorda di essere appassionata di disegno fin dall'età di sette anni.

Incerta su come applicare il suo vasto talento naturale nella sua vita adulta, andò a lavorare presso un'azienda di progettazione e fabbricazione.

Poco più che ventenne iniziò a frequentare numerose lezioni alla Scottsdale Artists' School e frequentò anche seminari alla Denver Art Students League ed al Fechin Art Institute di Taos.

Émile Friant (1863-1932)

Émile Friant è stato un pittore Francese.

Studente presso l'École des Beaux-Arts di Nancy, si trasferisce a Parigi dove frequenta l'atelier di Alexandre Cabanel.

Le sue opere ispirate alla vita quotidiana e condotte con attento naturalismo riscuotono grande successo, facendogli conseguire nel 1883 il Grand Prix de Rome e nel 1889 la medaglia d'oro in occasione dell'Esposizione universale di Parigi.

Augustus John | Pittore Post-impressionista

Augustus John (4 gennaio 1878 - 13 ottobre 1961) è stato un pittore ed incisore Britannico.

Augustus John nacque a Tenby, nel Galles.

Studiò all'accademia di Liverpool ed alla scuola d'arte di Londra con Ford Madox Brown; già allora si mise in luce grazie al suo talento, come sua sorella Gwen John, all'epoca artista molto nota.

Le prime opere della sua carriera artistica furono delle incisioni dal disegno vigoroso, ispirate a Rembrandt.

Ricardo Celma (Pittore Argentino, 1975)

L'artista Ricardo Celma è nato a Buenos Aires.

La sua vocazione artistica si sviluppa immediatamente: a 5 anni frequenta un laboratorio d'arte, a 16 anni ha realizzato la sua prima mostra personale, e cosi ha continuato ininterrottamente per 20 anni.

Al termine del liceo è entrato alla Scuola Nazionale di Belle Arti Prilidiano Pueyrredón, dove ha conseguito il titolo di Professore nazionale di disegno e pittura, con ottimi voti.

Pochi anni dopo, ha conseguito una laurea, Bachelor of Visual Arts presso la National University of Art (UNA).

Le sue opere fanno parte di collezioni museali permanenti ed anche collezioni private in tutto il mondo.

I suoi dipinti sono stati esposti in molti importanti luoghi internazionali: New York City, Tokyo, Shangai, Spagna, Italia, Olanda, Taipei, Bangkok, Belgio, Messico, Perù, Uruguay, Argentina, ecc.

Pál Fried (1893-1976)

Pál Fried è stato un artista Ungherese naturalizzato statunitense famoso come pittore specialmente di ritratti eseguiti a giovani donne, alcune anche appartenenti a quello che cominciava ad essere chiamato jet-set e di scene di genere western, orientalista, ispanico.

Pál Fried ha lavorato con i pastelli ma soprattutto con olio su tela, e ha sperimentato con gli effetti di luce e con la resa del movimento, fissando l'attimo della scena raffigurata.

I suoi dipinti rappresentano principalmente figure femminili giovani e graziose ritratte sullo sfondo soprattutto di vie parigine o di altri luoghi, cowboy e paesaggi del west americano, vedute marine ed anche alcuni soggetti africani ed orientalisti.

Claude Monet | Riposo sotto i Lillà, 1873

"Riposo sotto i Lillà" è un dipinto ad olio su tela (50x65 cm) realizzato nel 1873 dal pittore Francese Claude Monet. È conservato nel Musée d'Orsay di Parigi.

Riposo sotto i Lillà, Monet ha usato colori tenui per i personaggi, fondendoli sullo sfondo. Dove sono le gambe dell'uomo appoggiato a destra?

L'unica cosa che salta all'occhio è l'abito bianco di una donna.

Uno sguardo più attento permette poi di distinguere le tre persone grazie al contrasto bianco e nero. Il processo è diverso in Lilacs in the Sun.

Macchie di luce giocano sugli abiti dei due modelli. Monet ha applicato questo effetto in diversi dipinti (La colazione, Le donne in giardino, La lettrice...)

L'occhio è catturato dai forti contrasti creati da questi tocchi di colori chiari, poi si scopre il volto della giovane donna sulla destra -potrebbe essere Camille, la moglie di Monet.

Claude Monet | The Gare Saint-Lazare, Arrival of a Train, 1877

Harvard Art Museums / This is the largest in Monet’s series of twelve paintings of the Saint-Lazare train station in Paris, a subject favored by many impressionist painters.

While completing the series, Monet relocated from the town of Argenteuil to an apartment near the station in Paris.

He worked on all the paintings at the same time, and sometimes he leaned the stretched canvases against each other while the paint was still wet.

This caused the cork spacers on the backs of the stretchers to be pressed into the adjacent paintings, creating circular indentations in the surface that are visible along the top edge of this work.

Sandro Botticelli | Bella Simonetta, 1485

The painting is also known by the title “Bella Simonetta”, based on an early identification of the young woman as Simonetta Cattaneo (1453-1476), a Genoese noblewoman who went on to marry the Florentine Marco Vespucci in 1469 and was loved by Giuliano de’ Medici.

Museum: Pitti Palace

Collection: Palatine Gallery

Location: Prometheus Room

Technique: Tempera on wood

Size: 61 x 40.5 cm

Inventory: Inv. 1912 n. 353

Vincent Van Gogh | Spectators in the Arena at Arles, 1888

Van Gogh moved to France in 1886 and from February 1888 he was settled at Arles, in Provence, where in just 15 months he produced over 200 canvases.

The subject of this painting is a bullfight at the ancient amphitheatre, and yet the arena is barely noticeable, for the main motif is the public, the colourful crowd gathered to watch the popular spectacle. Amongst the viewers we can see the artist's friends and acquaintances that he so often depicted in other canvaes.

During the period when this painting was produced, Gauguin was working in Arles alongside van Gogh and the latter was much taken with his fellow artist's painting style. Note the flattened space and the replacement of individual strokes with general patches of colour, outlined with a broad dark contour.

Peter Bell, 1969 | Impressionist painter

Peter Bell’s ethereal Impressionist style🎨 permeates his idyllic European coastal scenes. His brushwork and palette showcase the subtleties of light and atmosphere in gauzy skies, lush gardens, charming buildings and glistening waters.

Born in Washington, D.C., Bell was educated at the Brooklyn Museum Art School and the National Art School in his hometown. He was initially a department-store commercial artist and freelancer before devoting himself to full-time painting and teaching. Bell’s critically acclaimed work adorns numerous private collections and has received many awards🎨.

Van Gogh | Le pont de Trinquetaille in Arles, October, 1888

Vincent Van Gogh made some drawings and paintings of the Trinquetaille bridge:

"I have a view of the Rhone - the Iron Bridge of Trinquetaille, where the sky and the river are absinthe-colored, the quays of a lilac tone, the characters blackish, the iron bridge of an intense blue".

To Theo van Gogh. Arles, Saturday, 12 May 1888

I'm writing you another few lines to tell you that I've been to see the gentleman whom the Arab Jew in Tartarin calls "the shustish of the beace".

I still got 12 francs back and my host was reprimanded for keeping my trunk; as I wasn't refusing to pay, he had no right to hold it. If they'd found in favour of the other party, that would have done me harm, because he wouldn't have failed to go around saying that I had not been able or not been willing to pay him, and that he'd been forced to take my trunk.

Odilon Redon | Butterflies, 1910

Before 1900 Odilon Redon made drawings almost exclusively in black and white; afterward he began to focus on paintings and pastels in sensuous color.

Many of his late works in color took nature’s small beauties, such as butterflies, seashells and flowers, as objects of contemplation and presented them with a fantastic intensity.

Redon was a Symbolist; he believed that art could transcend the everyday and open onto a marvelous world of the mind.

Philippe Guillerm (French, 1959)

Philippe Guillerm began his professional life in Paris, France the city where he was born and lived for twenty years.

Through the years, he has traveled around the world with his wife Jacqueline and their two daughters Monique and Swanne on his forty-eight foot sailboat.

Guillerm's music-inspired sculptures are whimsical and curvaceous string instruments, he uses the theme as a way of expressing human nature and needs, you see an instrument, he sees an attitude. In addition to the musical theme, many of his sculptures depict sea scenes and animals.

Anna Bocek (Polish, 1973)

Anna Bocek studied at Academy of Fine Arts in Gdansk, Poland, Faculty of Painting Set Design. Diploma in 1999. Undoubtedly, such mainspring of art for me is theatre - the most important source of inspiration and spiritual experiences both, as a viewer and an artist. Both aspects are equally important for me anyway.

The first directly influences the topics of my paintings (related not so much to the theatrical space itself, as to the human being existing in it). The second one makes my paintings come to life and gives them tree-dimensional characteristic.

Maurice de Vlaminck (French, 1876-1958)

De Vlaminck was a french painter. He is considered one of the principal figures in the Fauve Movement, a group of modern artists who from 1904-1908 were united in their use of intense color. Vlaminck was born in Paris of ‘bohemian’ musical parents and he in turn became an accomplished musician.

For a time Vlaminck was a professional racing cyclist until he suffered a bout of typhoid fever in 1896 which abruptly curtailed his sporting career.

Nevertheless he did his military service between 1896-99 and it was only in 1900, when he met the painter André Derain, that he started to take art seriously.

Serge Marshennikov | VideoArt

Serge Marshennikov è un pittore Russo nato ad Ufa, la capitale e la città più popolata della Repubblica di Baschiria.

Nel 1995 frenquentò l'Ufa Art College, continuando la sua formazione presso una delle più prestigiose accademie d'arte del mondo, l'Accademia di Belle Arti Repin di San Pietroburgo, in Russia.

Marshennikov è stato premiato "Chairman's Choice Award"Al salone del Centro internazionale per il rinnovo dell'arte 2008/2009 e ha ricevuto il Certificato di Eccellenza per il suo eccezionale risultato in arte.

Nel 2008 è stato scelto come "Top 30" dalla Portrait Society of America.

I dipinti di Marshennikov sono venduti con successo attraverso importanti aste d'arte, tra cui Christie's of London e Bonham's a Knightsbridge, London.

William Bouguereau | Les oranges, 1865

The image of a mother and child is a symbol of universal relevance. It exists and is celebrated within every culture, throughout its respective history.

Through iconic works like Les Oranges, Bouguereau has made an enduring contribution to this fundamental canon of imagery and he continues to have a profound impact on how such images are produced and received to this day.

The present painting is among Bouguereau's greatest achievements. His virtuosity is apparent in every element of the painting, which was executed at the height of his genius.

His debt to the Renaissance masters is evident here and the religious overtones of this painting are subtly underlined by the inclusion of the oranges, recognized in symbolic terms as a substitute for the apple in the hand of the infant Christ.

Antonio Fuertes (Spanish painter, 1940-1988)

Antonio Fuertes was a self taught painter. His works are very mesmerizing and they are often presented with an oriental Theme.

He mostly paints and draws figures, people, especially male and female in the Alhambra in Granada and Moroccan landscapes.

Earlier he used to work in shop advertising and was engaged in the cinemas and theatre in Madrid.

Alan Ayers | Illustratore di romanzi rosa

Alan Ayers è un artista premiato di copertine per romanzi d'amore nella categoria storica della rete di autori pubblicati da Romance Writers of America.

Nato a Gainesville, in Florida, mi sono laureato alla Tyler School of Art della Temple University con un BFA nel 1981.

Sebbene abbia ricevuto una formazione tradizionale e abbia creato immagini in acrilico ed olio per molti anni, lavoro in digitale dal 1995.

Sento che il mondo digitale ha portato nuova energia al mio lavoro.

Peter Philipp Rumpf | Ragazza che legge su una sedia di vimini

Peter Philipp Rumpf (1821-1896) è stato un pittore ed incisore Tedesco.

Rumpf era figlio del pasticciere Sebastian Rumpf e di Marianne Rumpf, nata Melzer.

Imparò l'arte dolciaria dal padre e nel 1836 iniziò a studiare nella classe di scultura con Johann Nepomuk Zwerger allo Städel Art Institute di Francoforte.

Dal 1838 studiò pittura con Jakob Becker, Carl Friedrich Wendelstadt, Heinrich von Rustige e Jakob Fürchtegott Dielmann.