Gustave Courbet | Quotes / Aforismi

• "Beauty, like truth, is relative to the time when one lives and to the individual who can grasp it".
• "La bellezza, come la verità, è relativa al tempo in cui si vive ed all'individuo che può afferrarla".
• "Fine art is knowledge made visible".
• "L'arte è la conoscenza resa visibile".
• "I am not one who was born in the custody of wisdom; I am one who is fond of olden times and intense in quest of the sacred knowing of the ancients".
• "Non sono uno che è nato sotto la custodia della saggezza; Sono uno che ama i tempi antichi e intenso nella ricerca della sacra conoscenza degli antichi".

James McNeill Whistler | Nocturne: Blue and Gold, St Mark's, Venice, 1880

Nocturne: Blue and Gold, St Mark's, Venice is an 1880 painting by James Abbot McNeill Whistler (American Tonalist painter, 1834-1903), now in the National Museum of Wale.

Following his bankruptcy in 1879, Whistler spent a year in Venice where he concentrated on etchings and pastels.

Only three oil paintings, produced largely from memory in the evenings, survive from this visit.

Gustave Courbet | Jo, La Belle Irlandaise, 1866

Gustave Courbet | Jo, the Beautiful Irishwoman | The Metropolitan Museum of Art

The "beautiful Irishwoman" depicted in this painting is Joanna Hiffernan (born 1842/43), mistress and model of the artist James McNeill Whistler (1834-1903)🎨, and perhaps subsequently Courbet’s lover.

Although dated 1866, the picture was likely undertaken in 1865, when the two men painted together at the French seaside resort of Trouville; Courbet wrote of "the beauty of a superb redhead whose portrait I have begun".

He would paint three repetitions with minor variations. | © The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Pierre Auguste Renoir | Woman playing a guitar, 1897

Woman Playing a Guitar / "Femme jouant de la guitare"/"Joueuse de guitare ou La Guitariste" is an 1897 painting by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, now in the Museum of Fine Arts of Lyon, which bought it in 1901.

The work was one of the first paintings acquired by Paul Durand-Ruel.

Renoir painted several paintings of guitar-players and borrowing classical motifs - here, he is influenced by Camille Corot, Titian and Rubens.

Marc Chagall (1887-1985) | Flowers and lovers

• "You could wonder for hours what flowers mean, but for me, they're life itself, in all its happy brilliance. We couldn't do with out flowers".
• "Potresti chiederti per ore cosa significano i fiori, ma per me sono la vita stessa, in tutto il suo felice splendore. Non potevamo fare a meno dei fiori".
• "Art is the increasing effort to compete with the beauty of flowers - and never succeeding".
• "L'arte è lo sforzo incessante di competere con la bellezza dei fiori - e non riuscirci mai".

Pierre-Auguste Renoir | L'Église à Essoyes, 1890

The great impressionist painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir🎨 lived in the charming little village of Essoyes, in the Aube department of Champagne-Ardennes (in north-central France) from 1896-1907.

The village, hometown of his wife Aline and model and governess of his children Gabrielle Renard, is represented in many of his paintings.

Marc Chagall | Music and Colour

• "Mozart never composed anything, ever! He copied what was written on his soul".
• "Mozart non ha mai composto nulla, mai! Ha copiato ciò che è stato scritto sulla sua anima".
• "Color is all. When color is right, form is right. Color is everything, color is vibration like music; everything is vibration".
• "Il colore è tutto. Quando il colore è giusto, anche la forma è giusta. Il colore è tutto, il colore è vibrazione come la musica; tutto è vibrazione".

Francis Picabia | Paysages

Francis Picabia, born Francis-Marie Martinez de Picabia (1879-1953), was a French avant-garde painter, poet and typographist.

After experimenting with Impressionism and Pointillism, Picabia became associated with Cubism.

His highly abstract planar compositions were colourful and rich in contrasts.

He was one of the early major figures of the Dada movement in the United States and in France.

He was later briefly associated with Surrealism, but would soon turn his back on the art establishment.

Marc Chagall | Les Amoureux

"When you did catch a glimpse of his eyes, they were as blue as if they’d fallen straight out of the sky. They were strange eyes.. ..long, almond-shaped.. ..and each seemed to sail along by itself, like a little boat"!

- Quote of Bella Chagall - her description of their first encounter in Vitebsk, 1909.

Michele Lehmann, 1940 | Abstract painter

Michele Lehmann was born in Switzerland but moved to Mijas in southern Spain over 30 years ago.

After arriving there, Michele opened an art gallery as an outlet for local artists.

Although not an artist herself she began sketching to pass the time.

It began with a sketch of an old woman in black who passed the gallery every day.

She moved too fast for Michele to draw so the image captured her from behind.

Gari Melchers (1860-1932) | Naturalist painter

Julius Garibaldi Melchers was an American artist🎨. He was one of the leading American proponents of naturalism. He won a 1932 Gold medal🎨 from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

The son of German-born American sculptor Julius Theodore Melchers, Gari Melchers was a native of Detroit, Michigan, who at seventeen studied art at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf under von Gebhardt and is associated with the Düsseldorf school of painting.

Virginia Woolf | Quotes about Women

• "As long as she thinks of a man, nobody objects to a woman thinking".

• "Finché pensa ad un uomo, nessuno si oppone ad una donna che pensa".

• "Women have served all these centuries as looking-glasses possessing the magic and delicious power of reflecting the figure of man at twice its natural size".

• "Per tutti questi secoli le donne hanno svolto la funzione di specchi, dotati della magica e deliziosa proprietà di riflettere la figura dell’uomo a grandezza doppia del naturale".

Dame Laura Knight (British Impressionist painter, 1877-1970) | A girl reading

Gyuri Lohmuller, 1962: "L'emozione è Arte"

Nato a Gataia, in Romania e pittore autodidatta, con mostre in Austria, Germania, Francia ed Ungheria, Gyuri Lohmuller preferisce i temi surrealisti.

I suoi dipinti riflettono le sue emozioni più profonde.

"L'emozione", dice, "è Arte".

Virginia Woolf | Quotes

• • "I wish you’d find the exit out of my head".

• "Io scriverei poesie d'amore anche sulle parti di te che tu non sopporti".

• "My mind turned by anxiety, or other cause, from its scrutiny of blank paper, is like a lost child-wandering the house, sitting on the bottom step to cry".

• "Se il mio cervello, distratto da un'ansia o da altra causa, deve distogliersi dalla carta bianca, è come un bimbo sperduto, che gira per casa e siede a piangere sull'ultimo gradino".

Dame Laura Knight (British Impressionist painter, 1877-1970) | The Dark Pool, 1908-1918 | Laing Art Gallery

Jacques Prévert / Daniel Gerhartz | Quicksands / Sabbie mobili

Quicksands

Demons and wonders

Winds and tides

The sea has gone far away

And you

Like seaweed softly stroked by the wind

Stir dreaming in the sands of our bed

Demons and wonders

Winds and tides

The sea has gone far away

But in your half open eyes

Two small waves wait

Demons and wonders

Winds and tides

Two small waves to drown me.

Sabbie mobili

Dèmoni e meraviglie

Venti e maree

Il mare si è ritirato già in lontananza

E tu

Come un'alga dolcemente dal vento accarezzata

Nelle sabbie del letto ti agiti sognando

Dèmoni e meraviglie

Venti e maree

Il mare si è ritirato già in lontananza

Ma nei tuoi occhi socchiusi

Due piccole onde sono rimaste

Dèmoni e meraviglie

Venti e maree

Due piccole onde per farmi annegare.

Sables mouvants

Démons et merveilles

Vents et marées

Au loin déjà la mer s'est retirée

Et toi

Comme une algue doucement caressée par le vent

Dans les sables du lit tu remues en revant

Démons et merveilles

Vents et marées

Au loin déjà la mer s'est retirée

Mais dans tes yeux entrouverts

Deux petites vagues sont restées

Démons et merveilles

Vents et marées

Deux petites vagues pour me noyer.

John Callcott Horsley | The Morning of St Valentine,1865

Title: The Morning of St Valentine🎨;
Author: John Callcott Horsley (British painter, 1817-1903)
Date: 1865;
Medium: Oil on canvas;
Dimensions: w458 x h383 cm (Without frame);
Current location: Walker Art Gallery, National Museums Liverpool.

John Callcott Horsley RA was an English Academic painter of genre and historical scenes, illustrator and designer of the first Christmas card🎨. He was a member of the artist's colony in Cranbrook.

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.

Vittorio Matteo Corcos | La signora con ombrellino, 1884

Born into a Jewish family of the Italian port city of Livorno in 1859 and died in 1933, in Florence, Vittorio Matteo Corcos is known for his portraits of parisian society and his genre scenes.

Corcos studied in Florence and then in Naples, where he was one of Domenico Morelli's best students.

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".

Micko-Vic / Miodrag

Micko-Vic è il soprannome del pittore professionista - Miodrag. Micko è un artista autodidatta.

Micko è nato in Serbia, in una città industriale vicino a Belgrado.

Dopo la laurea in ingegneria elettrica presso l'Istituto Nikola Tesla, si è presto trovato in una professione che non era affatto adatta alla sua personalità, cosi si da all'arte.

Il suo stile di disegno parla dell'artista come rappresentante del cubismo moderno.

Nei dipinti di Micko-Vic ci sono forme cubiche affilate e colori brillanti, e prima esegue le sue opere con una matita ed un pennello, poi acrilico e gel.

I temi principali di Micko-Vic sono ritratti, paesaggi e scene della vita quotidiana.

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

French Artists | Sitemap

Pierre-Auguste Renoir | La plage du Lavandou, 1894

French traditions in the fine arts are deep and rich, and painting, sculpture, music, dance, architecture, photography, and film all flourish under state support.

During the Renaissance led to Italy becoming the main source of stylistic developments until France matched Italy's influence during the Rococo and Neoclassicism periods.

During the 19th century and up to mid-20 century France and especially Paris was considered the center of the art world with art styles such as Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, Cubism, Fauvism originating there as well as movements and congregations of foreign artists such as the École de Paris.

Liu Maoshan, 1942 | Modern impressionist painter

Liu Maoshan is a native of Suzhou, Jiangsu province. He is now vice-president of the Suzhou Chinese Painting Academy and a member of Chinese Artists Associations. He is rated as a national first class artist.

He was graduated from the Suzhou Institute of Arts and Crafts in 1962.

Having mastered a solid and intensive understanding of the works of classical European masters and modern impressionism, he later changed his interest to the creation of Chinese landscape painting.

Anja Bührer | Surreal silhouettes

Anja Bührer, aka Latoday, is a Berlin-based photographer and digital artist. Bührer uses her hauntingly beautiful aesthetic to depict a myriad of dreamy scenes. Bührer's conceptual photographs lie somewhere between dreams and nightmares, as though one is trapped in this in-between state of unconsciousness.

There's a haziness throughout her dreamed, souls, and street collections that somehow balance the familiar with the unknown.

Lado Gudiashvili Symbolist painter

Lado Gudiashvili / ლადო გუდიაშვილი (1896-1980) was a 20th-century Georgian painter.

Gudiashvili was born in Tiflis (now Tbilisi) on March 18 (30), 1896 into a family of a railroad employee.

He studied in the Tiflis school of sculpture and fine art (1910-1914), where he met the Armenian artist Alexander Bazhbeuk-Melikyan, and later in Ronson's private academy in Paris (1919-1926).

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.

William Turner | L'eruzione del Vesuvio, 1817

La drammatica rappresentazione di Joseph Mallord di William Turner (1775-1851) sul Vesuvio è una delle numerose iterazioni artistiche di eruzione di vulcani dalla fine del diciottesimo all'inizio del diciannovesimo secolo.

Turner visitò Napoli e salì al Vesuvio nel 1819; tuttavia, non ha mai assistito ad un'eruzione in prima persona e questa composizione probabilmente ha preceduto il suo soggiorno italiano.

William Turner | L'Eruzione del Vesuvio, 1817

Philip Wilson Steer | Pittore Impressionista

Steer, Philip Wilson - Pittore, nato a Birkenhead il 28 dicembre 1860. Ricevette la sua istruzione artistica nella Scuola d'arte di Gloucester, a Parigi nello studio di Julian con il Bouguereau, e all'École des Beaux-arts con il Cabanel.

Attraversò dapprima un periodo in cui subì influssi varî, compresi quelli del Whistler e del Bastien-Lepage, fino al 1889, quando intese la grande importanza dell'impressionismo francese e del Monet.

Nel 1866 venne fondato New English Art Club, di cui lo St. rimase per 30 anni il membro più importante. Nel 1893 divenne assistente del Brown alla Slade School e in tale qualità esercitò un grandissimo influsso sulla generazione successiva di pittori.

Maria Oosthuizen, 1972 | Embrace painting

Maria Magdalena Oosthuizen is a full-time artist exhibiting in various galleries.

Oosthuizen was born in Paarl (Western Cape) South Africa. She currently resides in Mossel Bay, a small coastal town in South Africa, with her husband, and three children.

Maria is a qualified hairdresser.

Diego Velázquez and the Modern recreations

Diego Velázquez is the most influential figure in the history of Spanish portraiture.

Velázquez is estimated to have produced between only 110 and 120 known canvases.

The respect with which twentieth century painters regard Velázquez's work attests to its continuing importance.

Jean-Leon Gérome (1824-1904)

Jean-Léon Gérôme is considered among the greatest French academic painters of the 19th century, following in the footsteps of the father of French neo-classical painting, Jacques-Louis David.

Born in 1824 into a modest family in Vesoul, Haute-Saône, Gérôme moved to Paris in 1841 and enrolled at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in the studio of Paul Delacroche and later that of Charles Gleyre.

John Callcott Horsley | The world's first Christmas card, 1843

John Callcott Horsley, (born January 29, 1817, London, England - died October 18, 1903, London), British🎨 narrative painter best known as the designer of the first Christmas card🎨.

Created in 1843 for Callcott’s friend Sir Henry Cole, an edition of 1,000 cards was placed on sale in London.

Samuel Peploe | Colourist painter

Samuel John Peploe, RSA (1871-1935) is one of the group of four artists known as the "Scottish Colourists".

The other colourists were John Duncan Fergusson, Francis Cadell and Leslie Hunter.

Born in Edinburgh, he studied art in Paris and lived there from 1910-1912.

It was through painting holidays in Northern France that he was introduced to the use of bold colour, inspired by the bright sunlight.

Dunoyer De Segonzac | Modern / Impressionist painter

André Dunoyer de Segonzac (1884-1974) was a French painter and graphic artist.

Segonzac was born in Boussy-Saint-Antoine and spent his childhood there and in Paris. His parents wanted him to attend the military academy of Saint-Cyr but, recognizing his strong interest in drawing, they agreed to his enrollment at the Free Academy of Luc-Olivier Merson.

Abraham Bloemaert | I disegni

Abraham Bloemaert (1564-1651) è stato un pittore Olandese.

Figlio dell'architetto e dello scultore Cornelis Bloemaert, dal quale ricevette le prime lezioni prima di recarsi ad Utrecht nel 1575, dove, dopo un breve periodo di studio autodidatta sui manieristi di Anversa, Bloemaert divenne allievo di Gerrit Splinter e di Joos de Beer.

Presso quest'ultimo venne a contatto con la pittura fiamminga di Anthonie Blocklandt formatasi su una base romana-parmigiana.

Nel 1580 si trasferì a Parigi per seguire un perfezionamento artistico sotto la guida di vari maestri, tra i quali Hieronymus Francken I e Jean Bassot.

Durante il triennio di formazione francese si rivelò fondamentale anche la permanenza presso la scuola di manieristica di Fontainebleau.

Abraham Bloemaert | Circe, 1625-1628

Author: Abraham Bloemaert (Dutch Mannerist painter🎨, ca.1564-1651);
Title: Circe;
Medium: Oil on canvas;
Dimensions: 22 1/8 x 19 ¼ in. (56.2 x 48.9 cm.)
Provenance: Private collection, England - with Salomon Lilian, Amsterdam and Geneva, where acquired by the present owner in 2006;
Current location: Christie's.

Daughter of Helios and Hecate, the goddess of witchcraft, the enchantress Circe was notorious in Greek mythology for her knowledge of herbs and potions.

The story is recounted by Homer in the Odyssey (Book X): Odysseus and his companions came to the island retreat of the cruel sorceress on their journey home from the Trojan War. It was Circe’s way with travelers to offer them food laced with a magic potion that transformed them into swine.

Cornelis Cornelisz (1562-1638) | Mannerist painter

Cornelis Cornelisz van Haarlem - Dutch🎨 Golden Age painter and draughtsman, was one of the leading Northern Mannerist artists in the Netherlands, and an important forerunner of Frans Hals🎨 as a portraitist.

Together with Carel van Mander, Hendrick Goltzius and other artists, he started an informal drawing school that has become known in art history circles as the Haarlem Academy or "Haarlem Mannerists".