Charlie Chaplin | Speech to Humanity, 1940

The Great Dictator is a 1940 American political satire, and black comedy film written, directed, produced, scored by, and starring British comedian Sir Charles Spencer Chaplin KBE (1889-1977).

Chaplin spent many months drafting and re-writing the speech for the end of the film, a call for peace from the barber who has been mistaken for Hynkel.

Regrettably Chaplin’s words are as relevant today as they were in 1940.

Nikolay Dubovskoy | Romantic painter

Nikolay Nikanorovich Dubovskoy / Николай Никанорович Дубовской (1859-1918) was a Russian landscape painter, associated with the Peredvizhniki.

Together with Isaac Levitan, he helped create what came to be known as the "Landscape of Mood".

He displayed artistic talent at an early age; copying illustrations from Niva and other popular magazines.

Claude Monet | Woman Seated under the Willows, 1880

A woman sits among loosely painted, crescent-shape blades of emerald and lemon-lime green grass, under tall trees in this vertical scene.

The brushstrokes are unconnected and visible, so many of the details difficult to make out.

Facing our left almost in profile, the woman’s form is suggested with thick strokes of eggshell white, periwinkle blue, mint green, and deep pink.

We get the impression of a light-colored dress that pools around her hips and legs, and a hat atop dark hair. Her face is painted with an area of blush peach.

Claude Monet | Woman Seated under the Willows, 1880 | National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

Gabriele D'Annunzio | I pastori / The Shepherds

Settembre, andiamo. È tempo di migrare.

Ora in terra d'Abruzzi i miei pastori

lascian gli stazzi e vanno verso il mare:

scendono all'Adriatico selvaggio

che verde è come i pascoli dei monti.

Giovanni Segantini | Mezzogiorno sulle Alpi / Midday in the Alps, 1891

Gabriele D’Annunzio | La pioggia nel pineto / The rain in the pinewood

Taci. Su le soglie

del bosco non odo

parole che dici

umane; ma odo

parole più nuove

che parlano gocciole e foglie

lontane.

Claude Monet | The Rain (La pluie), 1886-1887

Toni Demuro, 1974 | Surreal memory of the Trees

Italian painter and illustrator Toni Demuro was born in Sardinia.

In 1997 he graduated in painting at the Academy of Fine art in Sassari and since then has worked as a creative in the field of visual arts and design.

He won the prize "Acquaviva nei Fumetti" in 1996 and has collaborated as an illustrator with Legambiente, published with Vanity Fair, Carlo Spera Editore, Eli Edizioni, La Peste (Mexico) and Manifesto (Greece).

Mary Sauer, 1986 | Figurative painter

Painter Mary Sauer was born in Greenville, Kentucky. Her work has been exhibited throughout the United States including over a dozen shows in New York City alone.

Mary is a 2014 recipient of The Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation Grant for traditional figure painting and winner of the 2014 Director’s Award at the Springville Museum of Art’s annual Spring Salon.

Mary's art is influenced by nineteenth century painting including John Singer Sargent, the Pre-Raphealites, and the French Academics as well as contemporary realist academic painting and fashion photography.

Alfred H. Maurer | Post-impressionist painter

Alfred Henry Maurer (1868-1932) was an American Modernist painter.

He exhibited his work in avant-garde circles internationally and in New York City during the early twentieth century.

Highly respected today, his work met with little critical or commercial success in his lifetime, and he died, a suicide, at the age of sixty-four.

Lionel Walden | Seascape painter

A famous painter of seascapes and marine scenes, Lionel Walden (1861-1933) was born in Connecticut.

He first became interested in art in Minnesota, where the family moved when his father became rector of an Episcopal Church there.

As a young man Walden moved to Paris where he studied with E. A. Carolus-Duran.

Pierre-Auguste Renoir: "La mia Italia" | Le lettere..

Italia, autunno 1881.

Alla signora Charpentier,

Dovevo pranzare un mattino con voi, e mi avrebbe fatto infinitamente piacere, perché è già passato tanto tempo.

Ma sono diventato improvvisamente viaggiatore e mi ha preso la febbre di vedere Raffaello .

Pierre-Auguste Renoir | Un jardin à Sorrente, 1881 | Sotheby's

Jean-Honoré Fragonard | Rococo painter

Jean-Honoré Fragonard (1732-1806), French Rococo painter whose most familiar works, such as The Swing (1767), are characterized by delicate hedonism.

Fragonard was the son of a haberdasher’s assistant. The family moved to Paris about 1738, and in 1747 the boy was apprenticed to a lawyer, who, noticing his appetite for drawing, suggested that he be taught painting.

François Boucher | Rococo painter

François Boucher (1703-1770) was a French painter, draughtsman and etcher, who worked in the Rococo style.

Boucher is known for his idyllic and voluptuous paintings on classical themes, decorative allegories, and pastoral scenes.

He was perhaps the most celebrated painter and decorative artist of the 18th century.

Jean-François Millet: "To tell the truth, peasant subjects suit my nature best.."

• "Art will never come except from some small disregarded corner where an isolated and inspired man is studying the mysteries of nature".

• "L'arte non verrà mai se non da qualche piccolo angolo trascurato dove un uomo isolato e ispirato sta studiando i misteri della natura".

Barbara Fox, 1956 | Watercolor painter

Barbara Fox has achieved a tremendous following on both the national and international level as a watercolor painter with a vivid and unique style.

Her paintings have been featured in solo and group exhibitions in museums and galleries throughout the United States, including the Phillips Museum of Art in Lancaster, Pennsylvania; the Millicent Rogers Museum in Taos, Mexico; the Salmagundi Club New York City; The Neville Museum in Green Bay Wisconsin; and the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts.

Gabriel Ferrier | Orientalist painter

Gabriel-Joseph-Marie-Augustin Ferrier (29 September 1847 in Nîmes - 6 June 1914 in Paris) was a French portrait painter and orientalist.

His father was a pharmacist.

He began his studies at the École des Beaux-Arts, where he worked with Ernest Hébert and Isidore Pils.

His first exhibit was at the Salon in 1869.

Stuart Dunkel, 1952 | Classical whimsey

Born in New Jersey Stuart Dunkel began playing classical music and painting at the age of 5. He went on to study music music at Boston University, Mannes College of Music, the Juilliard School (Doctorate).

He also studied art at the Boston Museum School, Kent State, the Academy of Realist Art, the Seattle Academy of Art and privately with renowned artists.

After a career as a musician playing with top orchestras around the world, Stuart switched to fine art at the age of 42.

Marc Chagall: "Lo stile non è importante. Esprimersi lo è"

• "Color is everything. When color is right, form is right. Color is everything, color is vibration like music; everything is vibration".

• "Despite all the troubles of our world, in my heart I have never given up on the love in which I was brought up or on man's hope in love. In life, just as on the artist's palette, there is but one single colour that gives meaning to life and art–the colour of love".

Dennis Lewan, 1943 | Romantic painter

Mr. Lewan, American painter, has developed a style with unique qualities and has become the modern day master of realism, romanticism and fantasy.

He says, "I concentrate on picking up where the "Old Masters" left off, by adding camouflaged images in many of my paintings.

I like to have a painting tell a story and stimulate the imagination of everyone who views it".

"I like to create in each painting a special place that people want to 'walk into and visit".

Charles J. Dwyer, 1961

A Wisconsin native, Charles J. Dwyer, Jr. graduated from the Milwaukee School of Art, where he studied fine arts, painting and printmaking.

Dwyer has shown his work in a variety of galleries across the U.S.A.

In the Spring of 1992 the artist's growing reputation was underlined when his first New York exhibition sold out.

Naoto Hattori, 1975 | Pop Surrealist painter

Japanese painter Naoto Hattori was born in Yokohama Japan.

He graduated with honors from the Illustration Department at School of Visual Arts in New York.

He received Awards from the Society of Illustrators and The New York Directors Club.