Happy Birthday to Lucien Lévy-Dhurmer !

Lucien Lévy-Dhurmer - a French artist and a leading exponent of Symbolism and Art Nouveau - was born on this day, September 30, 1865 to a Jewish family in Algiers, French Algeria.

His works include paintings, drawings, ceramics, furniture and interior design.

In 1865, he began studying drawing and sculpture in Paris at the Ecole Supérieure de Dessin et de Sculpture in 1879.

He first exhibited at the Paris Salon of 1882 where he showed a small ceramic plaque.

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.

Pierre-Auguste Renoir | The Bay of Naples, 1881

The corner of the balcony visible at lower left in this composition indicates Renoir’s vantage point overlooking the bay of Naples.

His position afforded an iconic view of the harbor with the volcano Mount Vesuvius in the background, wafting smoke into the sky.

Inspired by the southern Italian light, Renoir painted another version of this vista at a different time of day (The Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Mass.).

James Duncan, a wealthy sugar refiner, purchased the present work in 1883, making it the first Impressionist picture acquired by a Scottish collector.

Pierre-Auguste Renoir | The Bay of Naples, 1881 | Metropolitan Museum of Art

Ferdinand du Puigaudeau | Neo-Impressionist painter

French painter Ferdinand Loyen du Puigaudeau (1864-1896) is often known for his mystical scenes of processions and carnivals around Pont Aven and by his association with the Gauguin and the Pont Aven School.

Still, after Gauguin moved on to the Pacific and many of the other artists of the group to Paris, Puigaudeau remained on the coast, moving an estate called Kervaudu at Le Croisic, near the mouth of the Loire.

Once there, he turned his attention to the beautiful landscape of the region: coastal cliffs with twisting fig trees, flowering fields dotted with small villages.

Odilon Redon | Portrait of Marie Botkine, 1900

Odilon Redon | Portrait of the ceramist Marie Botkin, pastel | Musée d'Orsay, Paris, France

Portrait of Marie Botkine

Autor: Odilon Redon (1840-1916)

Date: 1900

Style: Symbolism

Genre: Portrait

Media: Pastel, paper

Dimensions: 48 x 64 cm

Location: Musée d'Orsay, Paris, France

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.

Alfred Boucher | The Mentor to Camille Claudel

A French sculptor and painter, Alfred Boucher (1850-1934), was Camille Claudel's teacher and the founder of the artists' city La Ruche in Paris.

Born in Bouy-sur-Ovin (Nogent-sur-Seine), he was the son of a farmhand who became the gardener of the sculptor Joseph-Marius Ramus, who, after recognizing Boucher's talent, opened his studio to him.

He won the Grand Prix du Salon in 1881 with La Piété Filiale.

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".

Pierre Puvis de Chavannes | Symbolist painter

French painter Pierre Cécile Puvis de Chavannes (1824-1898) is known for his mural painting - large-scale decorative painting - in the Symbolism style.

Puvis's work is seen as symbolist in nature, even though he studied with some of the romanticists, and he is credited with influencing an entire generation of painters and sculptors, particularly the works of the Modernists.

One of his protégés was Georges de Feure.

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.

Marc Chagall's Colors

An early modernist, Marc Chagall (1887-1985) was associated with the École de Paris as well as several major artistic styles and created works in a wide range of artistic formats, including painting, drawings, book illustrations, stained glass, stage sets, ceramics, tapestries and fine art prints.

He experienced modernism's "golden age" in Paris, where "he synthesized the art forms of Cubism, Symbolism, and Fauvism, and the influence of Fauvism gave rise to Surrealism".

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".

Anne Bachelier, 1949 | Surrealist /Visionary painter

French painter and illustrator Anne Bachelier, was born in Louvigne du Desert, France.

Metamorphosis, transition, and evolution provide the common threads of the art of Anne Bachelier.

The artist captivates her audience with compelling, highly imaginative images that are distinct, unique, inventive and immediately recognizable.

William Bouguereau | La magliaia, 1873

Subito dopo che Adolphe William Bouguereau (1825-1905) completò Tricoteuse, nel 1874, Goupil trasferì il dipinto nella loro galleria all'Aia e lo vendette alla famiglia Poortman.

Il Tricoteuse è rimasto nei Paesi Bassi da allora e con la stessa famiglia per quasi un secolo.

Senza dubbio con l'aiuto del suo potente commerciante, Goupil, Bouguereau era stato acquisito da molti collezionisti nei Paesi Bassi in quel momento.

Il Tricoteuse avrebbe sicuramente contribuito alla reputazione di Bouguereau ai massimi livelli della società olandese.

L'immagine di una contadina in costume italiano, è uno dei primi esempi sul tema della maglieria, a cui ritorna per tutta la sua carriera.

Claude Monet | Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe, 1865-1866

From: Musée d’Orsay, Paris

This fragment, there is a second also in the Musée d'Orsay, is one of the remaining parts of the monumental Luncheon on the Grass by Monet.

The work was started in the spring of 1865 and measured over four metres by six.

It was intended to be both a tribute and a challenge to Manet whose painting of the same title had been the subject of much sarcasm from the public as well as the critics when it was exhibited in the Salon des Refusés in 1863.

But the project was abandoned in 1866, just before the Salon where Monet intended to show it, opened.

Sonia Delaunay | Mother of Abstraction

From: MoMa, The Museum of Modern Art

"We are...only at the beginning

of color research (full of mysteries

still to be discovered)...."

Sonia Delaunay-Terk (13 November 1885 - 5 December 1979)

Red and green, blue and orange, yellow and violet: these color combinations were vital to the artistic practice and theory of Sonia Delaunay-Terk, whose vast body of work-paintings and drawings, prints and illustrations, textiles and furnishings, clothing and accessories-enthralled its earliest viewers, users, and wearers.

While living in Paris in the 1910s, Delaunay-Terk and her husband, Robert Delaunay, began to explore the visual properties of contrasting colors-colors opposite one another on the color wheel.

Franck Gérard, 1969 | AI retro creations

Franck Gérard is a self-taught French visual artist living and working in Angers, France who worked creating computer graphics for architecture for over 20 years.

He began presenting geometric abstract artworks on Instagram in 2020.

With 190,000 followers in 3 years Franck Gérard is recognised as an innovative visual artist.

Francine Van Hove, 1942 | Modern painter

Francine Van Hove is a contemporary French painter.

Born in Saint-Mandé (Seine, France), she studied in Paris and received a Fine Arts degree with qualifications to teach in secondary schools.

After teaching one year at Lycee de Jeunes Filles in Strasbourg, she resigned from her position and decided to come back to Paris in 1964 where she now lives and continues to paint.