Maxime Maufra (1861-1918) Impressionist painter

Maxime Maufra was a French🎨 landscape and marine painter, etcher and lithographer.

Maufra first began painting at 18.

He was encouraged to do so by two artists from Nantes such as the brothers Charles Leduc and Alfred Leduc and the landscape painter Charles Le Roux.

Pierre-Auguste Renoir | Portraits / Figures | Page 2

• "Shall I tell you what I think are the two qualities of a work of art? First, it must be indescribable, and, second, it must be inimitable".
• "Vuoi sapere quali sono le due qualità di un'opera d'arte? In primo luogo, deve essere indescrivibile e, in secondo luogo, deve essere inimitabile".

Pierre-Auguste Renoir🎨

Gustave Caillebotte | A Balcony in Paris

Those boulevards, don’t forget, were still pretty new in 1877.

In the mid-19th Century, Napoléon III had ordered a massive redevelopment of the unruly French capital - led by Georges-Eugène Haussmann, the prefect of the Seine, who boldly (you might say pitilessly) cleared out Paris’s dense, politically restless faubourgs.

In their place arose standardised blocks of housing, fronting new extended axes that showcased landmarks like so many imperial baubles.

Auguste Rodin | Victor Hugo et les Muses, 1890

After Victor Hugo’s death in 1885, it was decided to erect a monument in his honour in the Panthéon as a pendant to Injalbert’s statue of Mirabeau. Auguste Rodin🎨 was awarded🎨 the commission in 1889. The sculptor chose to depict Victor Hugo in exile, seated amongst the rocks of Guernsey, his arm outstretched as if to calm the waves. It was an image both of the poet lost in contemplation and of the champion of the Republican cause.

This first project, “which lacked clarity and whose silhouette was muddled”,was unanimously rejected. In 1891, the Ministry of Fine Arts found another site for it. It would eventually be erected in the gardens of Palais-Royal.

Édouard Manet | Le déjeuner sur l'Herbe, 1863

Rejected by the jury of the 1863 Salon, Manet🎨 exhibited Le déjeuner sur l’herbe under the title Le Bain at the Salon des Refusés (initiated the same year by Napoléon III) where it became the principal attraction, generating both laughter and scandal.

Yet in Le déjeuner sur l'herbe, Manet🎨 was paying tribute to Europe's artistic heritage, borrowing his subject from the Concert champêtre - a painting by Titian🎨 attributed at the time to Giorgione🎨 (Louvre) - and taking his inspiration for the composition of the central group from the Marcantonio Raimondi engraving after Raphael's Judgement of Paris🎨.

Gustave Caillebotte | Paris Street, Rainy Day, 1877

This complex intersection, just minutes away from the Saint-Lazare train station, represents in microcosm the changing urban milieu of late nineteenth-century Paris.

Gustave Caillebotte🎨 grew up near this district when it was a relatively unsettled hill with narrow, crooked streets.

As part of a new city plan designed by Baron Georges-Eugène Haussmann, these streets were relaid and their buildings razed during the artist’s lifetime. In this monumental urban view, which measures almost seven by ten feet and is considered the artist’s masterpiece, Caillebotte strikingly captured a vast, stark modernity, complete with life-size figures strolling in the foreground and wearing the latest fashions.

Pierre-Auguste Renoir | Portraits / Figures | Page 6

• "It took me twenty years to discover painting: twenty years looking at nature, and above all, going to the Louvre".
• "Mi ci sono voluti venti anni per scoprire la pittura: venti anni guardando la natura e, soprattutto, andando al Louvre".
• "You come to nature with all your theories, and she knocks them all flat".
• "Tu ti avvicini alla natura pieno di tue teorie ma lei le abbatte tutte".

Pierre-Auguste Renoir🎨

Pierre-Auguste Renoir | Portraits / Figures | Page 5

• "On the whole, the modern palette is the same as the one used by the artists of Pompeii... I mean it has not been enriched. The ancients used earths, ochres, and ivory-black - you can do anything with that palette".
• "Nel complesso, la tavolozza moderna è la stessa utilizzata dagli artisti di Pompei ... Voglio dire, non è stata arricchita. Gli antichi usavano terre, ocre e nero-avorio - puoi fare qualsiasi cosa con quella tavolozza".

Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Halil Pasha (1857-1939) | Impressionist painter

Halil Paşa was a Turkish painter and art teacher.

He was one of Turkey's first Impressionists.

His family was originally from Rhodes and his father, Selim, was one of the founders of the Turkish Military Academy.

Like many early Western-style Turkish artists, he received his training in technical drawing and painting at the "Mühendishane-i Berrî-i Hümâyûn" (Military School of Engineering, now known as the Istanbul Technical University).

Pierre-Auguste Renoir | Portraits / Figures | Page 4

• "I've known painters who never did any good work because instead of painting their models they seduced them".
• "Ho conosciuto pittori che non hanno mai fatto un buon lavoro perché invece di dipingere i loro modelli li hanno sedotti".
• "People love to be nice, but you must give them the chance".
• "Alla gente piace essere gentile, ma devi dargli la possibilità".

Pierre-Auguste Renoir🎨

Pierre-Auguste Renoir | Portraits / Figures | Page 3

• "The only way to understand painting is to go and look at it. And if out of a million visitors there is even one to whom art means something, that is enough to justify museums".
• "L'unico modo per capire la pittura è andare a guardarla. E se su un milione di visitatori ce n'è anche uno per cui l'arte significa qualcosa, questo è sufficiente per giustificare i musei".

• "Photography freed painting from a lot of tiresome chores, starting with family portraits".
• "La fotografia ha liberato la pittura da molte faccende noiose, a cominciare dai ritratti di famiglia".

Pierre-Auguste Renoir🎨

Pierre-Auguste Renoir | Portraits

• "The work of art must seize upon you, wrap you up in itself and carry you away. It is the means by which the artist conveys his passion. It is the current which he puts forth which sweeps you along in his passion".
• "L'opera d'arte deve afferrarti, avvolgerti in se stesso e portarti via. È il mezzo con cui l'artista trasmette la sua passione. È la corrente che egli emette che ti trascina nella sua passione".

- Pierre Auguste Renoir

Gustave Caillebotte | Impressionist painter | Page 4

Painter and Patron of Impressionism, Gustave Caillebotte (French, 1848-1894) may be considered also part of the first movement after Impressionism: Neo-Impressionism🎨.

He made a giant impact on the history of France when he invested in his Impressionist friends' artwork: Claude Monet🎨, Auguste Renoir🎨, and Camille Pissarro🎨 among others.

Caillebotte was born on 19 August 1848 to an upper-class Parisian family living in the rue du Faubourg-Saint-Denis.

For biographical notes -in english and italian- and other works by Caillebotte see:

• Gustave Caillebotte | Impressionist painter | Page 1🎨
• Gustave Caillebotte | Impressionist painter | Page 2🎨
• Gustave Caillebotte | Impressionist painter | Page 3🎨

Gustave Caillebotte | Impressionist painter | Page 3

Gustave Caillebotte (1848-1894), French painter, art collector and impresario who combined aspects of the academic and Impressionist styles in a unique synthesis.

Born into a wealthy family, Caillebotte trained to be an engineer but became interested in painting and studied at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris.

He met Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Claude Monet in 1874 and showed his works at the Impressionist exhibition of 1876 and its successors.

Vladimir Gusev / Владимир Гусев, 1957 | Impressionist painter

Russian artist🎨 Владимир Гусев🎨 successfully works on genre paintings, landscapes, still lifes and portraits.

Rejecting the naturalistic way of fine, Vladimir Gusev🎨 in his work does not neglect certainty.

His landscape works are always interesting on composition, spatial and color palette. Optimistic perception of nature allows him to make a sharp poetic expression.

Painting Gusev gives a feeling of lightness and ease of perception. Gusev - an active participant in many youth, Moscow, national and international exhibitions.

His works are in private collections in the USSR, Japan, France, Italy, Yugoslavia, Germany, Britain, Poland and Finland.

Gustavo Pujalte, 1944 | Impressionist painter

Gustavo Antonio Pujalte was born in Aspen, near the city of Alicante, Spain. At the age of six, he left Spain with his parents and sisters to settle Argentina.

From an early age he showed a talent for drawing and painting, who inherited from his father, a prominent violinist and artist, and from which he received his first lessons.

At fifteen, he began his professional career by painting portraits of prominent members of the Argentine society.

At the age of seventeen, he held his first art exhibition. In order to increase their knowledge and technique, he moved to Buenos Aires, where he studied painting at the famous Catalan master Vicente Puig.

Richard Macneil, 1956 | Ballet dancers

Self-taught artist Richard Macneil paints diverse contemporary scenes with oil, joy, and lightness of heart.

His subjects include city scenes, couples, romance, shopping, outdoor scenes, weddings, flowers, children and Christmas. His vibrant work has a beauty that can lift any spirit.

Richard Macneil has always worked in the creative industry.

Berthe Morisot | Impressionist painter

One of "les Trois Grandes Dames" of Impressionism alongside Marie Bracquemond and Mary Cassatt🎨, French painter Berthe Morisot 1841-1895 was a painter and a member of the circle of painters in Paris who became known as the Impressionists🎨.

Jean-Louis Forain | Impressionist painter

Jean-Louis Forain (23 October 1852 - 11 July 1931) was a French🎨 Impressionist painter, lithographer, watercolorist and etcher.

He was one of France's best known and revered artists during his time and may best be remembered for his numerous drawings chronicling and commenting on Parisian city life at the end of the 19th century. Followers and admirers of Forain's work include Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec🎨.

Georges d'Espagnat | Impressionist painter

Georges d'Espagnat (1870-1950) was a French🎨 Impressionist painter and engraver, known for his depictions of figures, still lifes and landscapes.

D'Espagnat made more than a thousand canvases, using the vivid colors of the Fauvist painters, highlighting them with darker lines like in Renoir's works.

Made in the tradition of his mentor Pierre-Auguste Renoir🎨, d’Espagnat believed that paintings should adhere to the formal concern of artists like Tintoretto🎨, while also taking cues from nature.