James Smetham | The Mandolin, 1866

James Smetham (9 September 1821 - 5 February 1889) was an English Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood painter and engraver, a follower of Dante Gabriel Rossetti.

Smetham worked in a range of genres, including religious and literary themes as well as portraiture; but he is perhaps best known as a landscape painter.

His "landscapes have a visionary quality" reminiscent of the work of William Blake, John Linnell and Samuel Palmer.

Claude Monet | Rising Tide at Pourville, 1882

Throughout his career Claude Monet depicted France’s English Channel coastline.

In works such as Rising Tide at Porville / Marée montante à Pourville, he combined keen observation with Impressionism’s subjective use of color and light effects.

Henrik Willem Mesdag also painted churning waters, of the nearby North Sea.

Here, a small ship with wind-torn sails is tossed by massive, white-capped waves.

The broad expanse of water, almost matching the tone of the sky, dramatizes nature’s mighty power.

Claude Monet | Rising Tide at Pourville (Marée montante à Pourville), 1882 | Brooklyn Museum

Claude Monet | Boats below the Cliffs at Pourville, 1882

Bateaux devant les falaises de Pourville / Boats below the Cliffs at Pourville features a bold geometrically structured composition of diagonals and horizontals, reflective of the more simplified approach that Monet was then exploring.

The horizon line bisects the canvas into two parts of roughly equal size; two tranches of nearly identical size and shape form the sand and sea, whilst the diagonal line of the cliff runs to the very centre of the composition.

The slightly raised vantage point from which Monet has captured this view serves, in comparison with other views from this group, to considerably foreshorten the angle of the shoreline.

Edward William Cooke (1811-1880)

Edward William Cooke was an English🎨 landscape and marine painter and gardener.

Cooke was born in Pentonville, London, the son of well-known line engraver George Cooke; his uncle, William Bernard Cooke (1778-1855), was also a line engraver of note, and Edward was raised in the company of artists.

He was a precocious draughtsman and a skilled engraver from an early age, displayed an equal preference for marine subjects (in special in sailing ships) and published his "Shipping and Craft" - a series of accomplished engravings - when he was 18, in 1829.

Vladimir Kush, 1965 | Pillow Book

Il dipinto raffigura il momento del risveglio.

Quando la notte tiene ancora le redini nella parte oscura del letto-libro, e la luce dorata del mattino penetra attraverso le tende aperte dello spazio dell'abitazione.

I sogni guariscono la propria anima, bilanciando la realtà con elementi di magia ed il mondo intangibile della fantasia.

Morpheus sta ancora salvaguardando il sonno dorato che rimane sulle ciglia setose della ragazza.

Un segnalibro a forma di piuma d'uccello simboleggia il volo dell'immaginazione.

Franz Skarbina | Pittore impressionista

Franz Skarbina (1849-1910) è stato un pittore impressionista Tedesco, disegnatore, incisore ed illustratore.

Nato a Berlino, era figlio di un orafo di Zagabria.

Dal 1865-1869, ha studiato all'Accademia delle arti prussiane.

Dopo la laurea, ha trascorso due anni come tutor alle figlie del conte Friedrich von Perponcher-Sedlnitzky (1821-1909), durante il quale ha viaggiato a Dresda, Vienna, Venezia, Monaco, Norimberga e Merano.

Dietz Edzard (1893-1963)

Dietz (Dietrich Hermann) Edzard (1893-1963) was born in Bremen.

From 1911, he studied painting at Max Beckmann in Berlin, and worked in the Netherlands thereafter.

In 1927, he moved to France, and in 1929 the first exhibition of his work took place in Paris at the Jeu de Paume, a museum exclusively devoted to Impressionist masters. He got married to the artist Suzanne Eisendieck (1908-1998) in 1938.

During the Second World War, he was captured in the detention and deportation camp Les Milles.

His works are held by the collections of international art museums, and by American and Canadian private collections.

Guiding themes of his creativity are the circus and the theatre.