Paul Merwart | Genre painter

Paul Merwart, or Paweł Merwart (25 March 1855, Marianivka, Kherson Governorate, Ukraine - 8 May 1902, Saint-Pierre, Martinique) was a French-Polish illustrator and painter; mostly of portraits and genre scenes, inspired by literature, the Bible and music.

His mother was Polish and his father was a French soldier who was serving in the Crimean War.

He was raised in Lwów, then Poland, now Ukraine.

Anna Bilińska (1854-1893)

Anna Bilińska, also known as Anna Bilińska-Bohdanowicz, (8 December 1854 - 18 April 1893) was a Polish painter, known for her portraits. A representative of realism, she spent much of her artistic life in Paris.

Life

She was born in Zlatopol (formerly a frontier town of the Russian Empire, today a part of Novomyrhorod) as Anna Bilińska, and spent her childhood there with her father who was a Polish physician. Of her background, she joked that she "ha[d] a Cossack's temperament but a Polish heart" (Polish: ma temperament kozaczy, ale serce polskie).

The family then moved to Central Russia, where Anna’s first art teachers were Ignacy Jasiński and Michał Elwiro Andriolli, both deported by the Tsarist government to Vyatka for their part in the January Uprising of 1863–1864. Later she studied music and art in Warsaw, where in 1877 she became a student of the painter Wojciech Gerson.

Wislawa Szymborska | I'm working on the world / Progetto un mondo

Progetto un mondo,

nuova edizione, riveduta,

per gli idioti, ché ridano,

per i malinconici, ché piangano,

per i calvi, ché si pettinino,

per i sordi, ché gli parlino.

Ecco un capitolo:

La lingua di Animali e Piante,

dove per ogni specie

c’è il vocabolario adatto.

Robert Lyn Nelson | Let It Be

Wislawa Szymborska | A few words on the soul / Qualche parola sull'anima

We have a soul at times.

No one's got it non-stop,

for keeps.

Day after day,

year after year

may pass without it.

Sometimes

it will settle for awhile

only in childhood’s fears and raptures.

Marc Chagall | Deux tetes

Frédéric Chopin: "Play Mozart in memory of me!"

Frédéric François Chopin (1 March 1810 – 17 October 1849) was a Polish composer and virtuoso pianist of the Romantic period who wrote primarily for solo piano.

He has maintained worldwide renown as a leading musician of his era, one whose "poetic genius was based on a professional technique that was without equal in his generation".

All of Chopin's compositions include the piano.

Most are for solo piano, though he also wrote two piano concertos, a few chamber pieces, and some 19 songs set to Polish lyrics.

His piano writing was technically demanding and expanded the limits of the instrument, his own performances noted for their nuance and sensitivity.

His major piano works also include mazurkas, waltzes, nocturnes, polonaises, the instrumental ballade (which Chopin created as an instrumental genre), études, impromptus, scherzos, preludes, and sonatas, some published only posthumously.

Maria Wodzińska | Portrait of Frédéric Chopin, 1836 | National Museum Warsaw

George Sand: "L'intelletto cerca, il cuore trova"

Amantine Lucile Aurore Dupin (1 July 1804 - 8 June 1876), best known by her pen name George Sand, was a French novelist, memoirist and journalist.

One of the most popular writers in Europe in her lifetime, being more renowned than both Victor Hugo and Honoré de Balzac in England in the 1830s and 1840s, Sand is recognised as one of the most notable writers of the European Romantic era.

• "Art is a demonstration of which nature is the proof".

• "Life resembles a novel more often than novels resemble life".

• "La vita assomiglia ad un romanzo più spesso di quanto i romanzi assomiglino alla vita".

• "I have an object, a task, let me say the word, a passion. The profession of writing is a violent and almost indestructible one".

• "Ho un oggetto, un compito, lasciatemi dire la parola, una passione. La professione dello scrittore è violenta e quasi indistruttibile".

Auguste Charpentier | Portrait of George Sand, 1838 | Musee Carnavalet (detail)

Wisława Szymborska | Ringraziamento / Thank-you note

Devo molto

a quelli che non amo.

Il sollievo con cui accetto

che siano più vicini a un altro.

La gioia di non essere io

il lupo dei loro agnelli.

Mi sento in pace con loro

e in libertà con loro,

e questo l’amore non può darlo,

né riesce a toglierlo.

Alex Venezia | A still moment

Wisława Szymborska: Contributo alla statistica / A Word on Statistics

Su cento persone:

che ne sanno sempre più degli altri

- cinquantadue;

insicuri a ogni passo

- quasi tutti gli altri;

pronti ad aiutare,

purché la cosa non duri molto

- ben quarantanove;

buoni sempre,

perché non sanno fare altrimenti

- quattro, be’, forse cinque;

Rene Magritte | Golconda, 1953