Citazioni da Picasso: "Dipingere non è un'operazione estetica.."

• "Quando uno inizia un ritratto e cerca per successive eliminazioni di trovare la forma pura... si finisce inevitabilmente con un uovo.."

• "La pittura non è fatta per decorare gli appartamenti. È uno strumento di guerra offensiva e difensiva contro il nemico".

Paul Gauguin | Post-Impressionist painter

Paul Gauguin, in full Eugène-Henri-Paul Gauguin (born June 7, 1848, Paris, France-died May 8, 1903, Atuona, Hiva Oa, Marquesas Islands, French Polynesia) French painter, printmaker and sculptor who sought to achieve a "primitive” expression of spiritual and emotional states in his work.

The artist, whose work has been categorized as Post-Impressionist, Synthetist and Symbolist, is particularly well known for his creative relationship with Vincent van Gogh as well as for his self-imposed exile in Tahiti, French Polynesia.

His artistic experiments influenced many avant-garde developments in the early 20th century.

Van Gogh | Saintes-Maries (series)

Saintes-Maries is the subject of a series of paintings that Vincent van Gogh made in 1888.

When Van Gogh lived in Arles, he took a trip to Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer on the Mediterranean sea, where he made several paintings of the seascape and town.

The work he produced in Saintes-Maries took on a more experimental and expressive style than his earlier work.

Over the course of his visit, Van Gogh made two paintings of the sea, one of the village, and nine drawings.

Vincent van Gogh | Small bottle with peonies and blue delphiniums, 1886

Vincent van Gogh began experimenting with color in his still life flower series.

By the summer of 1885, the artist created some 40 paintings with a traditional approach, meaning that the flowers were in a vase and placed in the center of the canvas.

His 1886 painting Small Bottle with Peonies and Blue Delphiniums, done with oil on painter's board -a cheaper material than canvas-, from the Gemeente Museum collection, is one of them.

Flowers became the subject of many of the artist's works during this period.

But after painting over 10 species in mid-September, he sought out other subjects including fruit, shoes, fish and budding flower bulbs.

Vincent van Gogh | Small bottle with peonies and blue delphiniums, 1886 | Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam

Édouard Manet Quotes: "Black is not a color"

• Everything is mere appearance, the pleasures of a passing hour, a midsummer night's dream. Only painting, the reflection of a reflection - but the reflection, too, of eternity - can record some of the glitter of this mirage.

• A painter can say all he wants to with fruit or flowers or even clouds.

• A good painting is true to itself.

• In una figura, cercate la grande luce e la grande ombra, il resto verrà da sé.

Victor Gilbert | Belle Époque painter

The mid-nineteenth and early twentieth century saw the introduction of art based on daily life, a depiction of everything from the street vendors to the homeless in and around France.

Artists were often deeply embroiled in the social issues of the time and sought to free themselves from the imposing historicism that had stifled art production for decades.

Leo Putz | Impressionist painter

Leo Putz (1869-1940) was a Tyrolean painter. His work encompasses Art Nouveau, Impressionism and the beginnings of Expressionism. Figures and landscapes are his predominant subjects.

Leo Putz was born in Merano in South Tyrol, Italy, in 1869.

His artistic career began in 1885 under the aegis of his stepbrother.

This was Robert Poetzelberger (1856-1930) who was a professor at the Munich Academy and who taught him drawing.

Renoir: "Irregularity is the basis of all art"

• "They tell you that a tree is only a combination of chemical elements. I prefer to believe that God created it, and that it is inhabited by a nymph".

• "Ti dicono che un albero è solo una combinazione di elementi chimici. Io preferisco credere che sia stato Dio a crearlo e che sia abitato da una ninfa".