Textual description of firstImageUrl

Max Buri | Portrait / Genre painter

Max Alfred Buri (1868-1915) was an Swiss painter. While still at school he was given drawing lessons by Paul Volmar (1832-1906) in Berne.
From 1883 he was a pupil of Fritz Schider (1846-1907) in Basle, where he became acquainted with the works of Hans Holbein the younger and Arnold Böcklin.
In 1886 he went to the Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Munich, transferring in 1887 to Simon Hollosy's painting school.


Textual description of firstImageUrl

Picasso: Painting is a blind man's profession..

Pablo Picasso - Two figures, 1904
La pittura è una professione da cieco: uno non dipinge ciò che vede, ma ciò che sente, ciò che dice a se stesso riguardo a ciò che ha visto - Pablo Picasso
Textual description of firstImageUrl

Barry Gross, 1948 | Portrait / Surrealist painter

In art historical terms, the early works of Barry Gross, American painter, combine the hyperfocus of Surrealism with Renaissance spirituality and humanism.
It is then all set to motion with the dynamism and drama of Baroque.
Dali and Fra Angelico join forces with Bernini.


Textual description of firstImageUrl

Auguste Rodin | Drawings


Auguste Rodin (1840-1917) was a prolific draughtsman, producing some 10,000 drawings, over 7,000 of which are now in the Musée Rodin, Paris.
His drawings were seldom used as studies or projects for a sculpture or monument. The draughtsman’s oeuvre developed in tandem with the sculptor’s.

Textual description of firstImageUrl

Rainer Maria Rilke ~ Letters on Cézanne /Lettere su Cézanne


The extraordinary letters (translated from the german by Jane Bannard Greene), show to what degree the eye of one artist can penetrate to the essence of another art.
The most distinguished of modern German poets, Rainer Maria Rilke, was born when Paul Cézanne had already been painting nearly a decade.

Portrait of Rainer Maria Rilke by Knut Odde, 1897
Textual description of firstImageUrl

Leonardo da Vinci ~ Quale scienza è meccanica, e quale non è meccanica

Trattato della Pittura- Parte prima /29
Dicono quella cognizione esser meccanica la quale è partorita dall'esperienza, e quella esser scientifica che nasce e finisce nella mente, e quella essere semimeccanica che nasce dalla scienza e finisce nella operazione manuale.
Ma a me pare che quelle scienze sieno vane e piene di errori le quali non sono nate dall'esperienza, madre di ogni certezza, e che non terminano in nota esperienza, cioè che la loro origine, o mezzo, o fine, non passa per nessuno de' cinque sensi.
Textual description of firstImageUrl

Leonardo da Vinci ~ Conclusione del poeta, del pittore e del musico

Trattato della Pittura- Parte prima /28
Tal differenza è in quanto alla figurazione delle cose corporee dal pittore al poeta, quant'è dai corpi smembrati agli uniti, perché il poeta, nel descrivere la bellezza e bruttezza di qualunque corpo, te lo dimostra a membro a membro, ed in diversi tempi, ed il pittore tel fa vedere tutto in un tempo. Il poeta non può porre colle parole la vera figura delle membra di che si compone un tutto, come il pittore, il quale tel pone innanzi con quella verità ch'è possibile in natura.
Textual description of firstImageUrl

Madre Teresa /Agim Sulaj ~ The most beautiful day / Il giorno più bello

The most beautiful day: Today.
The easiest thing: Equivocate.
The biggest obstacle: Fear.
The gravest error: give up, to despair.
The root of all evils: Egoism.
The most beautiful occupation: Work.
The worst route to follow: Faintheartedness.
The best teachers: Children.

Il giorno più bello? Oggi.
L’ostacolo più grande? La paura.
La cosa più facile? Sbagliarsi.
L’errore più grande? Rinunciare.
La radice di tutti i mali? L’egoismo.
La distrazione migliore? Il lavoro.
La sconfitta peggiore? Lo scoraggiamento.
I migliori professionisti? I bambini.
Textual description of firstImageUrl

Giovanni Panza | Impressionist /Genre painter

Giovanni Panza (Miseno, March 9, 1894 - Napoli, December 20, 1989) was an Italian painter.
Born into a family of poets and painters, he was the nephew of Salvatore Postiglione and Luca Postiglione, sons of the painter Raphael Postiglione, who introduced him to painting.
Besides being a painter was Panza, like Uncle Luke, also a poet and writer.
His painting remained faithful to the tradition-romantic nature, tracing the figurative tradition of the Neapolitan school of the nineteenth century.
Represented landscapes, figures, roads, bucolic scenes, markets that he derived from the daily life of the neighborhoods in Naples.


Textual description of firstImageUrl

Charles Angrand | Neo-Impressionist painter


Charles Angrand (1854-1926) was a visible presence in the Parisian avant-garde in the late 1880s and early 1890s. Associated with a circle of artists known as the Neo-Impressionists, Angrand emulated the shadowy crayon drawings of Georges Seurat, Neo-Impressionism's standard-bearer.
Here Angrand presents himself, not at all as an artist, but as a bourgeois dandy, impeccably dressed and smoking a small cigar.

Textual description of firstImageUrl

Rainer Maria Rilke | La sera / The evening

Johan August Malmström (1829-1901) Dancing Fairies, 1866

Come una indefinibile fata d'ombre...
Vien da lungi la Sera, camminando
per l'abetaia tacita e nevosa.

Textual description of firstImageUrl

Mother Teresa /Jeanie Tomanek ~ Love life /Ama la vita

Love life as it is
Love her fully, unpretentious.
Love her when they love you or hate you when.
Love her when no one understands you,
or when you include everyone.
Love her when all forsake you,
or when you exalt like a king.
Love her when they steal everything,
or when you give it.
Love her when it makes sense
or when it seems not to have even a little‘.
Love her in complete happiness,
or in absolute solitude.
Textual description of firstImageUrl

Sir George Clausen RA | Realist painter


Sir George Clausen RA (18 April 1852 - 22 November 1944), was an British artist working in oil and watercolour, etching, mezzotint, dry point and occasionally lithographs. He was knighted in 1927.
George Clausen was born in London on 18 April 1852, the son of a decorative artist. From 1867-1873, he attended the design classes at the South Kensington Schools in London with great success.
He then worked in the studio of Edwin Long RA, and subsequently in Paris under Bouguereau and Robert-Fleury. He was an admirer of the naturalism of the painter Jules Bastien-Lepage; about whom he wrote in 1888 and 1892.

Textual description of firstImageUrl

Leonardo da Vinci | Il pittore dà i gradi delle cose opposte all'occhio..

Trattato della Pittura | Prima parte / 27

Benché le cose opposte all'occhio si tocchino l'un l'altra di mano in mano, nondimeno farò la mia regola di venti in venti braccia, come ha fatto il musico infra le voci, che benché la sia unita ed appiccata insieme, nondimeno ha pochi gradi di voce in voce, domandando quella prima, seconda, terza, quarta e quinta, e cosí di grado in grado ha posto nomi alla varietà di alzare e abbassare la voce.

Leonardo Da Vinci - Musical Rebus

Textual description of firstImageUrl

Leonardo da Vinci ~ Come la musica si dee chiamare sorella e minore della pittura

Trattato della Pittura- Parte prima /25

Viola Organista c. 1493-95
La musica non è da essere chiamata altro che sorella della pittura, conciossiaché essa è subietto dell'udito, secondo senso all'occhio, e compone armonia con la congiunzione delle sue parti proporzionali operate nel medesimo tempo, costrette a nascere e morire in uno o piú tempi armonici, i quali tempi circondano la proporzionalità de' membri di che tale armonia si compone, non altrimenti che faccia la linea circonferenziale per le membra di che si genera la bellezza umana.
Textual description of firstImageUrl

Marie Laurencin | Cubist painter

Marie Laurencin (1885-1956) French painter, designer, illustrator, etcher and lithographer.
Born in Paris.
Studied at the Académie Humbert, where Braque was a fellow pupil. Met Picasso, André Salmon and Apollinaire; influenced by Picasso and Matisse, and began to paint pictures mainly of sloe-eyed girls in a decorative, arabesque-like style. Painted 'Apollinaire, Picasso and their Friends' 1909.


Textual description of firstImageUrl

Lorado Taft ~ The Solitude of the Soul /La solitudine dell'anima, 1914

In stone, four life-sized figures, two male and two female, posed around and halfway emerging from, or captured by, an indistinct central volume.
By the American sculptor Lorado Taft, 1860-1936. In the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago.
The Neoclassicism of the sculptors Harriet Hosmer and Randolph Rogers was replaced in the second half of the 19th century by the more realistic naturalism of French-trained sculptors such as American sculptor Lorado Zadoc Taf (1860-1936). An instructor in modeling at the School of the Art Institute for 20 years, Taft created public monuments for Chicago that made the city a center for sculpture. The figures in this work are only partly freed from the marble, a technique that emphasizes the mass and outline of the stone.
Explaining The Solitude of the Soul, Taft wrote, “The thought is the eternally present fact that however closely we may be thrown together by circumstances . . . we are unknown to each other”.
Textual description of firstImageUrl

Dita Omuri | Fashion/Abstract painter


Award winning artist Dita Omuri, born and raised in northern Albania, escaped her home country running towards the unknown and away from the restricted ways of expressing her emotions through art.
From a very young age, Dita’s sketchbook was her constant companion. By winning a young art competition she secured a scholarship at a traditional Art school aged 14. Learning the “Old Masters Techniques” and becoming aware that the only legal art form in Albania was Social Realism. Her passion for art, freedom and creativity was stifled in Albania.
Textual description of firstImageUrl

William Shakespeare | The Sonnets, 1609

Italian translation ➦ William Shakespeare ~ I Sonetti, 1609

Sonnet V

Those hours, that with gentle work did frame
The lovely gaze where every eye doth dwell,
Will play the tyrants to the very same
And that unfair which fairly doth excel:
For never-resting time leads summer on
To hideous winter and confounds him there;
Sap cheque'd with frost and lusty leaves quite gone,
Beauty o'ersnow'd and bareness every where:
Then, were not summer's distillation left,
A liquid prisoner pent in walls of glass,
Beauty's effect with beauty were bereft,
Nor it nor no remembrance what it was:
But flowers distill'd though they with winter meet,
Leese but their show; their substance still lives sweet.


Textual description of firstImageUrl

Tom Lovell | Western painter and illustrator


Tom Lovell (1909-1997) was a founding member of the National Academy of Western Art. He received many honors for his illustrations and paintings. He was winner of the prestigious Prix de West award twice for his paintings. He was inducted into the Society of Illustrators in 1974. In 1992, Lovell received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Cowboy Hall of Fame and the Robert Lougheed Memorial Award for Traditional Painter of Western History.
Textual description of firstImageUrl

Robert Hagan, 1947 | Western painting

Robert Hagan raised in the lush, languorous sub-tropical northern New South Wales, Australia and educated at Newcastle University, he communicates in a typical offhanded Aussie manner.
Widely traveled with studios in Suffolk, England, San Diego, USA, Southport, Australia and Pattaya, Thailand.

Western painting | Robert Hagan 1947 | Australian Impressionist painter

Textual description of firstImageUrl

Lorenzo Bartolini | Neoclassical sculptor


Lorenzo Bartolini (7 January 1777 - 20 January 1850) has been recognised as one of the great sculptors of Europe.
His style is quite different from the traditional Neo-Classical style of Antonio Canova and Bertel Thorvaldsen, because it is not based on the antique or on standard Academic principles.
He was a controversial and polemical artist.
His fascinating life has all the drama of a novel by Stendhal.

Textual description of firstImageUrl

Giambologna | Hercules and the Centaur Nessus, 1599

The marble group of Hercules and the Centaur Nessus, was completed in 1599 by Flemish sculptor Giambologna, born Jean Boulogne (1529-1608). The sculpture was carved, impressively, from a single block of marble by Giambologna and it sits in the open-air gallery Loggia dei Lanzi on the Piazza della Signoria in Florence, among the square's other famous marble occupants.
Showing an advanced understanding of anatomy - visible in Hercules' rib cage, showing through his taut skin and the veined legs of the centaur, poised in battle - Giambologna's statue is a powerful evocation of the strength of mortal man.


Textual description of firstImageUrl

Lorenzo Bartolini | The Nymph Arnina, 1825

For the first time ever, the original marble The Nymph Arnina by Lorenzo Bartolini (1777-1850), was exposed to the public for the first time on 18 November until February 8th 2015, accompanied by his beautiful plaster cast, owned by the Academy Gallery, returned after being deposited for a few decades at the Civic Museum of Prato, and together with some documents aimed to evoke the complex history of the work that Bartolini, in this version, shows the dedication to Giovanni degli Alessandri, leading figure in the cultural life of the early nineteenth century Florentine.


Textual description of firstImageUrl

Pio Fedi ~ The Rape of Polyxena, 1865 | Loggia dei Lanzi, Florence

The Rape of Polyxena is a marble statue located in the Loggia dei Lanzi, the  open-air museum in Florence, Italy’s Piazza della Signoria.
It was sculpted in 1868 by Italian sculptor who worked chiefly in the Romantic style, Pio Fedi (1815-1892), but it was placed alongside several sculptures from the Renaissance. The Rape of Polyxena embodies Hellenistic, Renaissance, Baroque and Neoclassicist mannerisms regarding its style and theme. Fedi intricately blended multiple styles and stories in order to construct The Rape of Polyxena. The most prominent literary sources of the Greek legend concerning Polyxena are Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Euripides’ Hecuba and Bocaccio’s Famous Women. This project discusses the various sources of the scene presented and the different sculptures that may have inspired Fedi to create his work.
Textual description of firstImageUrl

Giambologna ~ The Rape of Sabine, 1579-83 | Loggia dei Lanzi, Florence


The manneristic celebrated group Rape of the Sabines by the Flemish artist Jean Boulogne, better known as Giambologna (1529-1608), is part of the statuary under the Loggia dei Lanzi in Florence’s Piazza Signoria.
The massive statue is 4.10 meters high (statues became much bigger after Michelangelo’s David) and depicts a young man lifting a girl up over his shoulder, as an older man is crouched at his feet in complete dismay. For this reason, the statue is also known as the "Three ages of Man". At the base of the statue there is a bronze plaque that depicts scenes of the abduction of the Sabine women in bas-reliefs.
Textual description of firstImageUrl

Giambologna | The Appennine Colossus, 1579-1580

Shrouded within the park of Villa Demidoff, in Medici Villas (Unesco World Heritage List, 2013), Pratolino, Vaglia, Tuscany, just 7 miles north of Florence, Italy, there sits a gigantic 16th century sculpture - 14-meter-tall masterpiece statue - known as Colosso dell'Appennino, or the Appennine Colossus. The brooding structure was first erected in 1580 by Flemish sculptor Giambologna, pseudonym of Jean de Boulogne (Douai, 1529 - Florence, 1608).
Textual description of firstImageUrl

Antonio Canova | Psyché et l'Amour, 1788-1793

"Psyche Revived by Cupid's Kiss" is a sculpture by Antonio Canova first commissioned in 1787 by Colonel John Campbell. It is regarded as a masterpiece of Neoclassical sculpture, but shows the mythological lovers at a moment of great emotion, characteristic of the emerging movement of Romanticism.
It represents the god Cupid in the height of love and tenderness, immediately after awakening the lifeless Psyche with a kiss. The story of Cupid and Psyche is taken from Lucius Apuleius' Latin novel The Golden Ass and was popular in art.
- Joachim Murat acquired the first or prime version (pictured) in 1800. After his death the statue entered the Louvre Museum in Paris, France in 1824;


Textual description of firstImageUrl

Antonio Canova | Drawing

Antonio Canova - Autoritratto, 1792

Antonio Canova (1757-1822) was the leading proponent of Neoclassicism and Italy's last internationally famous artist.
The sculptor Antonio Canova, born in the village of Possagno in 1757, rose to celebrity from humble origins. For biographical notes -in english and italian- and works by Canova see Antonio Canova ~ Neoclassical sculptor.
Textual description of firstImageUrl

Madre Teresa/ Brita Seifert ~ Tieni sempre presente /Always keep in mind

Tieni sempre presente che la pelle fa le rughe,
i capelli diventano bianchi,
i giorni si trasformano in anni.
Però ciò che é importante non cambia;
la tua forza e la tua convinzione non hanno età.
Il tuo spirito e` la colla di qualsiasi tela di ragno.
Dietro ogni linea di arrivo c`e` una linea di partenza.
Dietro ogni successo c`e` un`altra delusione.
Textual description of firstImageUrl

Bahram Dabiri, 1950 | Cubist/Surrealist/Romantic painter


Bahram Dabiri [بهرام دبیری] was born in the city of Shiraz, Iran in the year of the Tiger, 1950, under the sign of Sagittarius, whose symbol, the Centaur with bow and arrow figure greatly in his works. Looking at the reliefs and sculptures on the walls of nearby Persopolis and the splendid inscription of the Naqsheh Rustam Monument, are amongst the artist’s treasured childhood memories.
At the age of twelve, without encouragement or tutelage but strictly on his own, Dabiri started his career in what he likes to call “The Paintings”.
Textual description of firstImageUrl

Leonardo da Vinci ~ Conclusione infra il poeta ed il pittore

Trattato della Pittura- Parte prima /24

Poiché noi abbiamo concluso la poesia essere in sommo grado di comprensione ai ciechi, e che la pittura fa il medesimo ai sordi, noi diremo tanto di piú valere la pittura che la poesia, quanto la pittura serve a miglior senso e piú nobile che la poesia, la qual nobiltà è provata esser tripla alla nobiltà di tre altri sensi; perché è stato eletto di volere piuttosto perdere l'udito ed odorato e tatto, che il senso del vedere; perché chi perde il vedere, perde la veduta e bellezza dell'universo, e resta a similitudine di uno che sia chiuso in vita in una sepoltura, nella quale abbia moto e vita.
Textual description of firstImageUrl

Leonardo da Vinci ~ Arguizione del poeta contro il pittore

    Trattato della Pittura - Parte prima /22

Tu dici, o pittore, che la tua arte è adorata, ma non imputare a te tal virtú, ma alla cosa di che tal pittura è rappresentatrice.
Qui il pittore risponde: O tu, poeta, che ti fai ancora tu imitatore, perché non rappresenti tu colle tue parole cose che le lettere tue contenitrici di tali parole ancora esse sieno adorate?
Ma la natura ha piú favorito il pittore che il poeta, e meritamente le opere del favorito debbono essere piú onorate, che quelle di chi non è in favore.
Textual description of firstImageUrl

Leonardo da Vinci ~ Risposta del re Mattia ad un poeta che gareggiava con un pittore

    Trattato della Pittura- Parte prima /23

Portando il dí del natale del re Mattia un poeta un'opera fattagli in laude del giorno ch'esso re era nato a benefizio del mondo, ed un pittore presentandogli un ritratto della sua innamorata, subito il re rinchiuse il libro del poeta, e voltossi alla pittura, ed a quella fermò la vista con grande ammirazione. Allora il poeta forte isdegnato disse: O re, leggi, leggi, e sentirai cosa di maggior sostanza che una muta pittura.
Textual description of firstImageUrl

Leonardo da Vinci ~ Disputa del poeta col pittore..

    Trattato della Pittura - Parte prima /21

Dice il poeta che la sua scienza è invenzione e misura; e questo è il semplice corpo di poesia, invenzione di materia, e misura ne' versi, e che essa si veste poi di tutte le scienze. Al quale risponde il pittore avere i medesimi obblighi nella scienza della pittura, cioè invenzione e misura; invenzione nella materia, ch'egli deve fingere, e misura nelle cose dipinte, acciocché non sieno sproporzionate; ma ch'ei non si veste tali tre scienze, anzi, che le altre in gran parte si vestono della pittura, come l'astrologia, che nulla fa senza la prospettiva, la quale è principal membro di essa pittura, cioè l'astrologia matematica, non dico della fallace giudiciale, perdonimi chi per mezzo degli sciocchi ne vive.
Textual description of firstImageUrl

Leonardo da Vinci ~ Dell'occhio...

    Trattato della Pittura - Parte prima /20

L'occhio, dal quale la bellezza dell'universo è specchiata dai contemplanti, e di tanta eccellenza, che chi consente alla sua perdita, si priva della rappresentazione di tutte le opere della natura, per la veduta delle quali l'anima sta contenta nelle umane carceri, mediante gli occhi, per i quali essa anima si rappresenta tutte le varie cose di natura.
Ma chi li perde lascia essa anima in una oscura prigione, dove si perde ogni speranza di rivedere il sole, luce di tutto il mondo. E quanti son quelli a cui le tenebre notturne sono in sommo odio, ancora ch'elle sieno di breve vita!
Textual description of firstImageUrl

Elena Kukanova, 1979 | Figurative painter

Russian painter Elena Kukanova /Елена Куканова was born in Moscow.
She studied at the Art School and Lyceum of Moscow from 1988-1998.
For the next six years Kukanova attended the Art Academy of Moscow where the focus was entirely on portraits. Her father is a Colonel in the Russian Army.
She grew up in an environment where she was exposed to the military world of Russia.
She loves the theatre and currently works in one of Moscow`s theatres as a costume and scenery designer.


Textual description of firstImageUrl

William Shakespeare | I Sonetti, 1609

In original english➦ William Shakespeare | Sonnets, 1609

V
L’ore cortesi che squisite danno
le forme al tuo bel viso, onde ogni sguardo
è avvinto, quel potere empio s’avranno:
fare meschino quel ch’era gagliardo.
Il tempo senza posa estate infonde
al tristo inverno, ch’entro lei s’inuna:
gelide linfe stringono le fronde,
beltà innevata è persa in plaga bruna.
Non rimanesse estate distillata,
liquida essenza in carceri di vetro,
beltà dal proprio effetto rovinata
senza rimedio avrebbe il tempo tetro.
fior distillato, se l’inverno avanza
perde il sembiante, e non dolce sostanza.

Richard (Riccardo) Aurili (1834-1914)

Textual description of firstImageUrl

Olga Akasi, 1970 | Symbolist painter


Ольга Акаси was born in Kiev, Ukraine. Lives and works in Kiev.
"Ukrainian artist, the unique in the Ukraine, who works in the technology of old masters, without being neither the restorer, nor the museum worker.
Akasi is an artist of the new generation with an original manner and theme characteristic for all her works. However, she never follows methods of actual art specializing in criticizing the public taste or perception standards".

Textual description of firstImageUrl

John Atkinson Grimshaw | Moonlight painter


John Atkinson Grimshaw (1836-1893) was an British Victorian artist who became famous for his sombre views of the dockyards and his nocturnal scenes of urban lanes with leafless trees silhouetted against the moonlight sky.
During his later life, he became a close friend of James McNeill Whistler who admired his work and admitted: "I considered myself the inventor of nocturnes until I saw Grimmy’s moonlight picture".
For biographical notes -in english and italian- and other works by Grimshaw see Atkinson Grimshaw | Victorian-era painter.
Textual description of firstImageUrl

Leonardo da Vinci ~ Come la pittura avanza tutte le opere umane..

Trattato della Pittura - Parte prima /15


L'occhio, che si dice finestra dell'anima, è la principale via donde il comune senso può piú copiosamente e magnificamente considerare le infinite opere di natura e l'orecchio è il secondo, il quale si fa nobile per le cose racconte, le quali ha veduto l'occhio. Se voi istoriografi, o poeti, o altri matematici, non aveste con l'occhio visto le cose, male le potreste voi riferire per le scritture.