Nikolay Bogdanov-Belsky | At School Doors, 1897

Descending from peasant class, Nikolai Bogdanov-Belsky dedicated a significant portion of his work to rural schoolchildren.

His heroes hover indecisively at the classroom door, solve problems at the blackboard, read books or converse with the teacher.

The master's idealistic paintings upheld the notion that education was capable of improving public morality and overcoming the backwardness of the Russian countryside.

This lovingly painted and slightly sentimental canvas was possibly inspired by the personal memories of the artist, who attended Sergei Rachinsky's village school in Tatevo, Smolensk Province.

Ilya Repin | Historical / Genre painter

Ilya Yefimovich Repin / Илья́ Ефи́мович Ре́пин, (1844-1930), Russian painter of historical subjects known for the power and drama of his works.

Born to a poor family near Kharkov, Repin learned his trade from a painter of icons named Bunakov and in 1864 became a student at the Academy of Fine Arts at St. Petersburg.

Charles Hawthorne | Portrait / Genre painter

Charles Webster Hawthorne (1872-1930) was an American painter and a noted teacher who founded the Cape Cod School of Art in 1899.

He was born in Lodi, Illinois and his parents returned to Maine, raising him in the state where Charles' father was born.

At age 18, he went to New York, working as an office-boy by day in a stained-glass factory in New York, and studying at night school and with Henry Siddons Mowbray and William Merritt Chase, and abroad in both Holland and Italy.

Hugues Merle | The Lunatic of Etretat, 1871

"The Lunatic of Etretat" is a painting by French Academic artist Hugues Merle (1822-1881).

It is part of the collection of the Chrysler Museum of Art, in Norfolk, Virginia.

The woman’s face is a mask of suffering while she cradles, not a sleeping baby, but a wooden log!

Is Merle’s "Lunatic" mourning the loss of a child, or mad with longing for one?

Hugues Merle | Genre painter

From National Gallery of Art:

Born in 1823 at Saint-Marcellin (Isère), Hugues Merle studied in Paris with the history painter Léon Cogniet (1794-1880) and devoted himself to a wide range of subjects, from religious themes and historical anecdotes to incidents from contemporary life, particularly of the urban and rural poor.

His greatest popular successes, however, were won by scenes of maternal affection and childhood innocence that he sought to imbue with impish sweetness and sentimentality.

Angiolo Tommasi | The Emigrants /Gli Emigranti, 1986

Angelo Tommasi is a Naturalistic painter, influenced by Courbet’s realism, and played an active role spreading the technique employed by the Macchiaioli.

The monumental painting The Emigrants shows a common situation in Italy after the unification process.

The burning and dramatic theme of overseas emigration is vividly depicted by the packed crowds at the Port of Livorno, people who have resigned themselves to their fate and the expectation of embarkation. The painting's extraordinary dimensions contribute to an illustration of the theme of Italian emigration on an almost epic scale.

Bernard Blommers | Goodbye father, 1885

Bernardus Johannes (Bernard) Blommers (1845-1914) was a Dutch etcher and painter of the Hague School.

He learned lithography early in his career, and then studied at the Hague Akademie under Johan Philip Koelman until 1868.

His early paintings were mostly genre works depicting fishermen and their wives, heavily influenced by Jozef Israëls.

Adolf von Becker | Genre painter

Adolf von Becker (1831-1909) was a Finnish genre painter and art professor of German descent.

He was one of the first Finnish artists to study in Paris, who taught many of the young artists of the Golden Age of Finnish Art.

Becker was born in Helsinki, where he began his artistic studies at the newly founded Finnish Art Society Drawing School; he also studied law.

Bartolomeo Bezzi | Genre painter

Bartolomeo Bezzi (1851-1923) was an Italian painter.

Bartolomeo Bezzi was born in Fucine di Ossana (Trento), then in the Austrian Empire.

Having lost his father as a child, Bezzi lived with an uncle and enrolled at the Brera Academy in Milan at the age of twenty, exhibiting for the first time in 1878.

He won the Fumagalli Prize in 1882 and the following year he took part in the Esposizione di Belle Arti di Roma, receiving general acclaim for his landscape painting.

Jules Worms | The furtive message, 1877

In the "Furtive Message" Jules Worms (French academic painter, 1832-1924) re-creates a Spanish street as it might have appeared in the time of Goya.

The background is based on a watercolor sketch the artist made during an 1877 visit to Salamanca.

The picturesque setting forms a backdrop for a farce.

Jules Worms | The furtive message, 1877 | Haggin Museum, California

Antonio Mancini | Verist painter

Antonio Mancini (14 November 1852 - 28 December 1930) was an Italian painter.

Mancini was born in Rome and showed precocious ability as an artist.

At the age of twelve, he was admitted to the Institute of Fine Arts in Naples, where he studied under Domenico Morelli (1823-1901), a painter of historical scenes who favored dramatic chiaroscuro and vigorous brushwork, and Filippo Palizzi.

Mancini developed quickly under their guidance, and in 1872, he exhibited two paintings at the Paris Salon.

Hortense Haudebourt-Lescot | Genre painter

Hortense Haudebourt-Lescot, born Antoinette Cécile Hortense Viel (1784-1845), was a French painter, mainly of genre and historical scenes.

She was born in Paris to Jean-Baptiste Viel, a perfumer, and his wife Cécile, née Lejeune.

Her mother became a widow two years later and remarried; to Jean-Louis Lescot, a pharmacist.

Anna Klumpke | Catinou knitting, 1887

Encouraged by an independent, educationally oriented mother, Anna Elizabeth Klumpke (1856-1942) was a copyist in the Luxembourg Museum and studied at the Académie Julien in Paris.

She enjoyed an education guided by the concept that women artists could compete with their male counterparts.

In her memoirs of 1940, Klumpke cites a most influential moment in her childhood: receiving the gift of a Rosa Bonheur doll.

Her admiration of Bonheur, the French painter of animals, led her to paint the aging woman’s portrait - which is considered a companion piece to her portrait of leading suffragist Elizabeth Cady Stanton.

Giacomo Moretti, 1939 | Genre painter

Giacomo Moretti is an Italian painter born in Cava dei Tirreni in the province of Salerno Italy. For some years he lived in Naples where in 1971 he received, on the occasion of the First Neapolitan Biennial of Contemporary Painting, the diploma with a gold medal.

He later moved to La Rochelle, France. Giacomo Moretti has achieved great success among collectors, obtaining interesting prices.

Luigi Bazzani | Neo-Pompeian painter

Luigi Bazzani, also called Il Bazzanetto, was an Italian painter, illustrator and watercolorist.

He was born November 8, 1836, in Bologna, Italy.

Bazzani studied at Bologna's Accademia di Belle Arti then traveled to France, Germany and, eventually, Rome where he settled down in 1861 and began to specialize in genre and landscape subjects as well as set designs for theaters.

Many of his paintings featured the remains of the city's monuments from classical antiquity.

Rosmery Mamani Ventura, 1985 | Pastel painter

Rosmery Mamani Ventura is an award winning hyperrealistic pastel artists from Bolivia.

She was born in Omasuyos, near Lake Titicaca where she lived until 1998.

At 14 she migrated from her rural Aymara indigenous community to the city of El Alto to work as a maid, a move that brought excitement, but also struggle.

Despite the hardships, that move was also the first step toward discovering her talent as an artist.

Antonio Zoppi | Grandpa plays the accordion for Grandma

Antonio Zoppi (1860-1926) was an Italian painter, mostly of genre and costume scenes, as well as landscapes.

He was born and resident in Novara. In 1881 at Milan he exhibited: Paggio del secolo XVI.

In 1881 at Rome he exhibited: Fate la carità e In vino laetitia.

To other exhibitions he sent: Winter Sun; Dolci ricordi; Il nonno; Adele; Study of a head; A landscaper of Tobacco; and Savoy and Winter Morning.

Antonio Zoppi | Grandpa plays the accordion for Grandma / Il Nonno suona la fisarmonica per la Nonna | Simpson Galleries, Houston, Texas

Paul-Louis Delance | Allegorical / History painter

Paul-Louis Delance (1848-1924) was a French painter and educator.

He is known for his allegorical and genre scene paintings early in his career, and his religious, and landscape paintings later in his career.

Paul-Louis Gustave Delance was born on March 14, 1848, in Paris, France.

His grandfather was Comte Joseph van Roosebeck from Belgium.

Paul Emil Jacobs | Orientalist painter

Paul Emil Jacobs (1802-1866) was a German painter, noted for Orientalist themes, portraits and figures.

Jacobs, son of the philologist Frederick Jacobs, received his art training at the Munich Academy of Fine Arts and first became known for his painting of Mercury and Argus (from Classical mythology).

In 1824 he went to Rome, where he attracted critical attention by painting "The Raising of Lazarus".

In 1836 he made a series of historical paintings at the Welfenschloss in Hannover.

Jehan-Georges Vibert | Academic painter

Jehan Georges Vibert or Jean Georges Vibert (1840-1902) was a French academic painter.

He was born in Paris, the son of engraver and publisher Théodore Vibert, and grandson of the influential rose-breeder Jean-Pierre Vibert.

He began his artistic training at a young age under the instruction of his maternal grandfather, engraver Jean-Pierre-Marie Jazet.

Vibert was more interested in painting than engraving and entered the studio of Félix-Joseph Barrias and eventually the École des Beaux-Arts when he was sixteen.