O Capitano! Mio Capitano! / O Captain! My Captain! | Walt Whitman, 1865

After Abraham Lincoln’s🎨 assassination in 1865, Walt Whitman (American🎨 poet, essayist and journalist, 1819-1892) wrote “O Captain My Captain”. The poem is written in a form of an elegy and is aimed to honor the sixteenth president of the United States.

The entire poem itself provides extended metaphor that implies comparisons between seemingly dissimilar things, for the U.S. after the Civil War and the killing of the President Lincoln.

O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done;

The ship has weather'd every rack, the prize we sought is won;

The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,

While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring:

But O heart! heart! heart!

O the bleeding drops of red,

Where on the deck my Captain lies,

Fallen cold and dead.

Thomas Eakins 1844-1916 | Sketch for the Portrait of Walt Whitman, 1887

Bill Mack, 1949 | Relief sculptor

The impact of Bill Mack's art is achieved not only by his dramatic portrayal of the human form, but also by the utilization of a wide variety of materials with which to execute his artistic vision.

The final work emerges as a classic example of the interplay of form and materials.

For over 35 years, American🎨 sculptor Bill Mack has created sculpture in relief and in the round for government, corporate and private collections.

His art hangs in galleries in four continents and he has had exhibits in Tokyo, England, France and Germany.

In reference to his interest in relief sculpture, Mack states, A lot of sculptors have no reason to do it and they just don't develop in that direction.

I've had to actually re-work pieces by some teachers of sculpture and some sculptors of note who do all their work in the round and for one reason or another, have difficulty doing something in relief. It's not like I'm tooting my own horn, but I know there's no one in the United States, or in the world, for that matter, who can technically do a relief portrait better than I can.

Andrey Belle / Андрей Белле, 1957 | Abstract / Mixed media painter

Aндрей Белле was born in 1957 in Minsk, Bielorussia. Since his birth, he lived and studied in Leningrad, now St Petersburg. From 1975-1977, he served in the Soviet Army. In 1977, he went straight from the army into the V. I. Mukhina Leningrad Higher School of Commercial Art.

He began to exhibit his work while still at the institute. Upon graduating and being professionally assigned to the Lot Central Research Institute, he started work as an independent artist - a painter and graphic artist.

From the mid-1980s onwards, he drew closer to musical circles: from 1985-1992, he worked with the Akvarium rock group.

In 1988, he was in charge of the group’s charity concerts for the Soviet Cultural Foundation in order to erect a monument to Petr Tchaikovsky.

From 1988-1992, he exhibited and worked with the Mitki group. Once perestroika had begun, he was much exhibited both in Russia and worldwide - in the USA, the UK, Canada, Germany, Belgium, Holland and France, promoting Russian art, which was not too popular during the post-perestroika period in Europe and America.

Troy Brooks, 1972 | Pop-Surrealism painter

Toronto🎨-based artist Troy Brooks is a contemporary surrealist painter known for his elaborate oil paintings dominated by towering women enveloped in a landscape of visual metaphor.

His heroine plays out intimate scenes, usually caught in moments where something transformative has or is about to happen.

Brooks, who suffered greatly as a gay youth growing up in Canada, channels anger and escapism ever so subtly in characters inspired by Hollywood’s golden age, namely female leads who stood up to their male counterparts in less egalitarian times.

Brooks' impact on the pop-surrealist movement is widely recognized, exhibiting work in Canada, the US and Europe.

He lives in Toronto.

Giulio Romano | Renaissance / Mannerist painter

Giulio Romano🎨, also known as Giulio Pippi, (c. 1499 - 1 November 1546) was an Italian painter🎨 and architect. A pupil of Raphael🎨, his stylistic deviations from high Renaissance🎨 classicism help define the 16th-century style known as Mannerism🎨.

For biographical notes -in english and italian- and other works by Romano see:

• Giulio Romano | Mannerist painter🎨

Ambrosius Benson | Northern Renaissance painter

Ambrosius Benson (c. 1495/1500, in Ferrara or Milan - 1550, in Flanders) was an Italian painter🎨 who became a part of the Northern Renaissance🎨.

While many surviving paintings have been attributed, there is very little known of him from records, and he tended not to sign his work. He is believed to be responsible for mainly religious art, but also painted portraits on commission.

He sometime painted from classical sources, often setting the figures in modern-dress, or a contemporary domestic setting. In his lifetime he was successful; he had a large workshop, his work was sold internationally and he was especially popular in Spain.

Benson became popular as a source for pastiche with 19th-century painters, who are sometimes known as the "followers of Benson". In particular his many variations of the Magdalen and Sibilla Persica were further copied and became popular with contemporary buyers.

Elena Vizerskaya, 1980 | Surrealist photographer

Elena Vizerskaya / Елка Визерская - Kassandra, is wonderful talented Russian🎨 photographer specialized in photo manipulating. She creates enigmatic universes teeming details with surgical precision. Graduated with flying colors from a children’s art school in 1994. Graduated from the Boychuk College of Decorative Arts and Design in Kiev, Ukraine in 2000.

The year 2001 saw me pursue a rather eclectic mix of design projects spanning practically all relevant areas, with the exception of web design and ikebana.

This mixed bag would engage my creativity for the next 3 years.

- In 2004, however, I happily took time off to experience the joys of motherhood, which, among other things, gave me a new sense of creative direction as I decided to concentrate on photography. I’ve kept at it with a passion ever since.

Mannerism Art | Sitemap

Mannerism is a style in European art that emerged in the later years of the Italian🎨 High Renaissance🎨 around 1520, lasting until about 1580 in Italy, when the Baroque style🎨 began to replace it. Northern Mannerism continued into the early 17th century.

Stylistically, Mannerism encompasses a variety of approaches influenced by, and reacting to, the harmonious ideals associated with artists such as Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael🎨, and early Michelangelo🎨.

Where High Renaissance art🎨 emphasizes proportion, balance, and ideal beauty, Mannerism exaggerates such qualities, often resulting in compositions that are asymmetrical or unnaturally elegant.

The style is notable for its intellectual sophistication as well as its artificial (as opposed to naturalistic) qualities.

It favors compositional tension and instability rather than the balance and clarity of earlier Renaissance🎨 painting. Mannerism in literature and music is notable for its highly florid style and intellectual sophistication.

Giuseppe Arcimboldo🎨 | The librarian

Rosso Fiorentino | Musician Angel, 1522 | Art in Detail

Playing putto /Musical Angel is a fragment of a lost altarpiece which probably depicted the Madonna and Child with Saints.

This little work belonging to the period of maturity of the artist.

In 1605 the picture was collocated in the Tribune beside the more precious masterworks Medici family had collected.

Recent studies revealed the panel to be a fragment of a larger painting including - such as other altarpieces by Rosso🎨 - the angel in the lower part of the scene. A sense of vitality and tenderness emanates from this little cherub playing a lute, probably dating to the beginning of the third decade of 16th century.

Michelangelo Buonarroti | High Renaissance | Sculpture

Michelangelo, in full Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni (born March 6, 1475, Caprese, Republic of Florence [Italy]-died February 18, 1564, Rome, Papal States) Italian Renaissance sculptor, painter, architect and poet who exerted an unparalleled influence on the development of Western art.

Michelangelo was considered the greatest living artist in his lifetime, and ever since then he has been held to be one of the greatest artists of all time. A number of his works in painting, sculpture, and architecture rank among the most famous in existence.

Although the frescoes on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel🎨 (Vatican; see below) are probably the best known of his works today, the artist thought of himself primarily as a sculptor. His practice of several arts, however, was not unusual in his time, when all of them were thought of as based on design, or drawing. Michelangelo worked in marble sculpture all his life and in the other arts only during certain periods. The high regard for the Sistine Ceiling🎨 is partly a reflection of the greater attention paid to painting in the 20th century and partly, too, because many of the artist’s works in other media remain unfinished.