Odd Nerdrum, 1944 | Visionary | Baroque style painter

Od Nerdrum is a Swedish-born, Norwegian figurative painter whose work is held by museums worldwide. Themes and style in Nerdrum's work reference anecdote and narrative.
Primary influences by the painters Rembrandt and Caravaggio help place his work in direct conflict with the abstraction and conceptual art considered acceptable in much of his native Norway. Nerdrum creates six to eight paintings a year.
They include still life paintings of small, everyday objects (like bricks), portraits and self-portraits, and large paintings allegorical and apocalyptic in nature. The subjects of Nerdrum's paintings are often dressed as if from another time and place.
Rembrandt and Caravaggio were primary influences on Nerdrum's work, while secondary influences include Masaccio, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Titian and the less obvious influences, according to Vine and either mentioned by Nerdrum himself or other critics, that include Brueghel, Goya, Chardin, Millet, as well the even less apparent Henry Fuseli, Caspar David Friedrich, Ferdinand Hodler, Edvard Munch, Käthe Kollwitz, Salvador Dalí, Chaim Soutine and Lars Hertervig.

Brita Seifert, 1963 | Surrealist painter

Brita Seifert, German Fantastic/Surrealist painter, was born in Leipzig, Germany. In 1980 I started drawing with pencil and paper, and then learned to paint with oils.
Never having agreed with the method of art education in school, all my techniques in the application of art materials were self-taught. Being interested in all that encompasses art and design I decided to investigate computer art.

Michal Lukasiewicz, 1974 | Pop art portraits painter

Michal Lukasiewicz was born in Pulawy, Poland and since 1995 lives and work in Antwerp, Belgium.

“My paintings are of the human form, the soft tenderness that it can transfer to the viewer; never the anger of the world but the peace and harmony that humans are capable of.

I have been influenced by living in Belgium and painters of the Benelux countries and I try to show the placid side of the subject using light, the reflection of light and the shadows to emphasise the subjects form and curves.

I never use colour but the subtleness of tone to achieve these effects. I try to achieve the smoothness of skin and the body so no brush strokes are visible to the viewer.

I have developed this technique for painting the human body and have works in many collections”.

Larissa Morais / Лариса Морейс, 1966 | Figurative | Still Life painter

Larissa Morais [Лариса Морейс] was born and raised in Moscow. She has been painting since she was in high school, however her first love was not the brush but the keys of a piano. The replacement of a teacher changed her vision from music and into the world of art. While helping her sister one afternoon with her art homework something sparked her passion for painting and perhaps she stumbled upon her destiny.
Larissa became a graduate from BFA, Moscow Theatrical Arts Institute, and attended the Graduate School of Restoration and conservation where throughout the years she took courses in conservation and restoration of 15th-and 16th-century paintings.

Larissa Morais, 1966 | Figurative / Still Life painter

Russian painter⏭ Лариса Морейс creates a realistic impression as if it couldn't possibly be anything but a photo. She views her subject matter as architecture. She sees the subject and presents it in a way that is usually not seen from the naked eye.

Her favorite subject to paint is the human figure from which she brings a reality to the paintings where attention to detail is as strong as attention to the character of the model. In her artwork, we are in the company of beautiful men and women, intimately poised and positioned.

Her delicate technique is with very thin layers of oil paint, while using the black background for shadowing. She captures every detail of her subject. For her it is all there, she just uncovers it.

Sandra Sedmak Engel | Abstract Figurative painter

A Maryland native, Sandra Sedmak Engel has lived in Baltimore, Md for the last 19 years. She holds a BFA with honors from the University of Maryland, and is very involved in many local arts organizations.
Sandra served as the Artist's Representative of the Steering Committee for School 33 Arts Center for several years, and was an integral part of starting up the Member's Gallery.
She is an honorary member of The Creative Alliance in Baltimore, where she also volunteers as a life drawing monitor. She is currently teaching encaustic painting workshops at both art centers, as well as in studio.

Johannes Vermeer | The Milkmaid /La Lattaia, c. 1657-1658

The Milkmaid was painted by Johannes Vermeer in about 1657-58. The small picture (18 x 16 1/8 in., or 45.5 x 41 cm) could be described as one of the last works of the Delft artist’s formative years (ca. 1654-58), during which he adopted various subjects and styles from other painters and at the same time introduced effects based on direct observation and an exceptionally refined artistic sensibility.

Influenced by the detailed realism of Gerrit Dou (1613-1675) and his followers in Leiden, Vermeer created his most illusionistic image in The Milkmaid (Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, SK-A-2344).

Ivan Loginov / Иван Логинов | Academic portrait painter

Иван Логинов is an Russian artist⏭.

I was born in a small town of Abakan in the south of Siberia. At the age of 15 I went to St. Petersburg to study drawing.

La Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana

Vatican Apostolic Library -BAV, official library of the Vatican, located inside the Vatican palace. It is especially notable as one of the world’s richest manuscript depositories.

The library is the direct heir of the first library of the Roman pontiffs. Very little is known of this library up to the 13th century, but it appears to have remained only a modest collection of works until Pope Nicholas V (1447-55) greatly enlarged it with his purchase of the remnants of the imperial library of Constantinople (now Istanbul), which had recently been conquered by the Ottoman Turks.

Baroque sculpture in Rome | The Four Fountains | Le Quattro Fontane

The Quattro Fontane /The Four Fountains - is an ensemble of four Late Renaissance⏭ fountains located at the intersection of Via delle Quattro Fontane and Via del Quirinale in Rome.

They were commissioned by Pope Sixtus V and built at the direction of Muzio Mattei, and were installed between 1588-1593.

The figure of one fountain is said to represent:

The River Tiber, in front of an oak-tree; a she-wolf, the symbol of Rome, was a later addition.

A second fountain represents the River Aniene, a tributary of the Tiber, called Anio in ancient Rome, which provided most Roman aqueducts with water. Pope Sixtus proposed to build a canal to bring the water of the Aniene to Rome.