Wisława Szymborska | Ruben's Women / Le donne di Rubens

Ercolesse, fauna femminile,

nude come il fragore di botti.

Fanno il nido in letti calpestati,

nel sonno la bocca si apre al chicchirichì.

Le pupille rovesciate all’indietro

Penetrano dentro le ghiandole da cui i lieviti stillano nel sangue.

Peter Paul Rubens | Frans Snyders - Ceres with two Nymphs, 1624 | Museo Nacional del Prado

Le Quattro Stagioni | I Concerti ed i Sonetti di Antonio Vivaldi

Le Quattro Stagioni è un gruppo di quattro concerti per violino del compositore italiano Antonio Vivaldi (Compositore e violinista Barocco, 1678-1741), ognuno dei quali dà espressione musicale ad una stagione dell'anno.

Furono composti intorno al 1718-1720, quando Vivaldi era maestro di cappella alla corte di Mantova.

Furono pubblicati nel 1725 ad Amsterdam, in quella che all'epoca era la Repubblica delle Sette Province Unite, insieme ad altri otto concerti, con il titolo Il cimento dell'armonia e dell'invenzione.

Un ritratto anonimo ad olio conservato al Museo Internazionale e Biblioteca della Musica di Bologna, generalmente ritenuto di Vivaldi, 1723

Antonio Vivaldi's "Four Seasons" | Music and Sonnets

The Four Seasons (Italian: Le quattro stagioni) is a group of four violin concerti by Italian composer Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741), each of which gives musical expression to a season of the year.

These were composed around 1718-1720, when Vivaldi was the court chapel master in Mantua.

They were published in 1725 in Amsterdam in what was at the time the Dutch Republic, together with eight additional concerti, as Il cimento dell'armonia e dell'inventione (The Contest Between Harmony and Invention).

Orazio Gentileschi | Young Woman with a Violin (Saint Cecilia), 1612 | Detroit Institute of Arts

Roberto Ferri, 1978 | Portrait of Pope Francis

Roberto Ferri devoted himself to Caravaggesque and academic painting - including Ingres, David, Gericault - but also by Surrealist painters.

Ferri's way of painting is elevated by a technique which is almost virtuosity, where the traditional tools of the surrealism are inserted onto the traditional iconographic elements.

His career took on greater notoriety for having been in charge of portraying Pope Francis.

There were two works commissioned from the Italian artist, which occupy privileged places in the Vatican.

Vincenzo Sorrentino, 1956 | Neo Baroque painter

Vincenzo Sorrentino was born in Torre Annunziata, (Naples) Italy.

He is an illustrator, painter, sculptor and modeler of ceramic works.

His exhibition activity began in 1984 in institutional places, private galleries and at cultural institutes.

He taught painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Naples, and since 2001 he his a professor of fresco theory and technique at the Brera Academy of Fine Arts in Milan.

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

The Milkmai 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).

Gian Lorenzo Bernini | David, 1623-1624

David is one of the four sculptures executed by the young Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598-1680) for Cardinal Scipione Borghese.

The artist worked on the statuary groups for the Villa on the Pincio for seven crucial years during which his brilliance, freedom, narrative bent, and delight in amazement blossomed and then developed in all their power.

The work had been commissioned from Bernini by Cardinal Montalto for his villa in 1623.

The cardinal’s untimely death blocked the commission, but Scipione Borghese decided to take it over.

Bernini interrupted his work on the Apollo and Daphne, dedicating himself to this new sculpture, which - according to Baldinucci, one of the artist’s first biographers - he finished in only seven months of work.

Gian Lorenzo Bernini | David, 1623-1624 | Galleria Borghese

Rembrandt van Rijn | Woman with a Pink, early 1660

Her forehead crisscrossed with jewels, the sitter of this portrait displays a pink, or carnation, a symbol of love and marriage.

The gilt picture frame visible in the background locates her in a luxurious interior, but her pensive expression elevates the portrait beyond a mere statement of status.

If scholars are correct in identifying the sitter in the pendant portrait hanging next to this one as auctioneer Pieter Haringh, then the woman who appears here must be his wife, Elisabeth Delft. | Source: © Metropolitan Museum of Art

Rembrandt | Woman with a Pink, early 1660s | Metropolitan Museum of Art

Rembrandt's 'recipe for a stopping-out varnish'

Rembrandt's 'recipe for a stopping-out varnish' on the verso of a drawing 'Landcape with a River and Trees', 1654-55.

• "..in order to etch, take white turpentine oil, and add half the turpentine to it; pour the mixture into a small glass bottle and let it boil in pure water for half an hour".

It is evident that Rembrandt refers (alas fragmentarily) to a so-called 'stopping-out varnish', used to terminate the bite of acid in select areas of a plate that had already been exposed to the etching agent.

Thus other portions will remain exposed to the acid to deepen the bite.

Eberhard Keil | Pupil of Rembrandt

Eberhard Keil or Keyl dit Monsù Bernardo (1624-1687) was a Danish Baroque painter who became a pupil of Rembrandt.

Keil was born in Helsingør.

According to the RKD he was a pupil of the Danish painter Morten Steenwinkel, who became a pupil of Rembrandt in Amsterdam in the years 1642-1644.

5 Masterpieces from the Hermitage

The State Hermitage Museum / Государственный Эрмитаж has been open to the public since 1852.

It was founded in 1764 when Empress Catherine the Great acquired a collection of paintings from the Berlin merchant Johann Ernst Gotzkowsky.

The museum celebrates the anniversary of its founding each year on 7 December, Saint Catherine's Day.

Antonio Canova | Hebe, 1800-1805

Hebe is one of the most famous works of Antonio Canova (1757-1822), an outstanding Neoclassical sculptor of the late 18th - early 19th century.

According to ancient myth, Hebe was the daughter of Zeus and Hera and was the embodiment of youth.

As serving-maid to the gods on Mount Olympus, she was responsible for bringing round cups of nectar, the drink of eternal youth and immortality, during feasts.

Canova depicted the goddess flitting swiftly and easily across the clouds, hardly touching them with the toes of her bare feet. | © Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg

Antonio Canova (1757-1822) | Hebe, 1800-1805 | Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg

Famous Sculptures of the Galleria Borghese, Rome

The Galleria Borghese Museum houses and displays a collection of ancient sculptures, bas-reliefs and mosaics, as well as paintings and sculptures dating from the 15th through the 19th centuries.

Among the masterpieces of the collection - the first and most important part of which goes back to the collecting of Cardinal Scipione Borghese (1579-1633), nephew of Pope Paul V - are paintings by Caravaggio, Raphael, Titian, Correggio, Antonello da Messina and Giovanni Bellini and sculptures by Gian Lorenzo Bernini and Antonio Canova.

The works are displayed in the 20 frescoed rooms that, together with the portico and the entrance hall, constitute the spaces of the Museum open to the public.

More than 260 paintings are housed in the storerooms of the Galleria Borghese, which are located above the floor of the Pinacoteca and set up like a picture gallery.

Cristoforo Stati (Italian, 1556-1619) | Adone and Venere, XVI-XVII | Installation Galleria Borghese

5 Masterpieces at the Uffizi Gallery

The Uffizi Gallery entirely occupies the first and second floors of the large building constructed between 1560-1580 and designed by Giorgio Vasari.

It is famous worldwide for its outstanding collections of ancient sculptures and paintings (from the Middle Ages to the Modern period).

The collections of paintings from the 14th-century and Renaissance period include some absolute masterpieces: Giotto, Simone Martini, Piero della Francesca, Beato Angelico, Filippo Lippi, Botticelli, Mantegna, Correggio, Leonardo, Raffaello, Michelangelo and Caravaggio, in addition to many precious works by European painters (mainly German, Dutch and Flemish).

Moreover, the Gallery boasts an invaluable collection of ancient statues and busts from the Medici family, which adorns the corridors and consists of ancient Roman copies of lost Greek sculptures.

Johan Zoffany (1733-1810) | Tribuna of the Uffizi, 1772-1777 | Royal Collection (UK)

5 Masterpieces of The Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Metropolitan Museum of Art presents over 5,000 years of art from around the world for everyone to experience and enjoy.

The Museum lives in two iconic sites in New York City - The Met Fifth Avenue and The Met Cloisters.

Millions of people also take part in The Met experience online.

Since its founding in 1870, The Met has always aspired to be more than a treasury of rare and beautiful objects.

Every day, art comes alive in the Museum's galleries and through its exhibitions and events, revealing new ideas and unexpected connections across time and across cultures.

Guido Reni | The Immaculate Conception, 1627

Guido Reni (Bologna, 1575-1642), during his lifetime the most celebrated living painter in Italy, was famous for the elegance of his compositions and the beauty and grace of his heads, earning him the epithet "Divine".

This altarpiece, with its otherworldly space shaped by clouds and putti in a high-keyed palette, was commissioned in about 1627 by the Spanish ambassador in Rome for the infanta of Spain.

It later hung in the cathedral of Seville, where it deeply influenced Spanish painters, especially Bartolomé Estebán Murillo, whose workshop produced many iterations of this subject.

The Immaculate Conception became a symbol of the universality of the Catholic Church and was used for the conversion of populations across Spain’s global empire. | Source: © Metropolitan Museum of Art

Guido Reni (Italian, 1575-1642) | The Immaculate Conception, 1627 | Metropolitan Museum of Art

Rembrandt | The Night Watch, 1642

Militia Company of District II under the Command of Captain Frans Banninck Cocq, also known as The Shooting Company of Frans Banning Cocq and Willem van Ruytenburch, but commonly referred to as The Night Watch (Dutch: De Nachtwacht), is a 1642 painting by Rembrandt van Rijn.

It is in the collection of the Amsterdam Museum but is prominently displayed in the Rijksmuseum as the best-known painting in its collection.

The Night Wahtc is one of the most famous Dutch Golden Age paintings.

Rembrandt's large painting (363x437 cm (12 by 14+1⁄2 feet)) is famed for transforming a group portrait of a civic guard company into a compelling drama energized by light and shadow (tenebrism).

The title is a misnomer; the painting does not depict a nocturnal scene.

Sir Anthony Van Dyck | Baroque painter

Sir Anthony van Dyck (1599-1641) was the most important Flemish painter of the 17th century after Rubens, whose works influenced the young Van Dyck.

He also studied and was profoundly influenced by the work of Italian artists, above all, Titian.

Anthony van Dyck studied under Peter Paul Rubens and was one of his most accomplished students.

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.

Ginevra Cantofoli | Baroque painter

Ginevra Cantofoli (1618-1672) was an Italian painter.

She was active in Bologna in the Baroque period.

Cantofoli was born in Bologna, Italy in 1618.

She trained under Giovanni Andrea Sirani, the father of Elisabetta Sirani, in Bologna.

Van Gogh, Rembrandt and the Rijksmuseum

Vincent van Gogh travelled to Amsterdam in 1885 to visit the Rijksmuseum, which had recently opened.

On the day of his visit he painted his "View of Amsterdam from Central Station".

The paint still wet, he took the new work with him to the Rijksmuseum.

Vincent van Gogh | Wheat field, 1888 | Rijksmuseum