Pedro Salinas | Non rifiutare i sogni / Don’t reject dreams / No rechaces los sueños

Non rifiutare i sogni in quanto sogni.

Tutti i sogni possono

esser realtà, se il sogno non finisce.

La realtà è un sogno. Se sogniamo

che la pietra è la pietra, quello è la pietra.

A correre nei fiumi non è un’acqua,

ma è un sognare, l’acqua, cristallino.

Marc Chagall

Gabriele Münter e Wassily Kandinsky | Amore ai tempi dell'astrattismo

Gabriele Münter (1877-1962) è stata una pittrice espressionista Tedesca.

Vasilij Vasil'evič Kandinsky / Василий Васильевич Кандинский (1866-1944) è stato un pittore Russo, naturalizzato francese, precursore e fondatore della pittura Astratta.

Insieme, con Franz Marc ed altri, fondarono il movimento artistico espressionista Der Blaue Reiter (Il cavaliere azzurro).

La Münter era di Berlino e proveniva da una famiglia benestante che aveva vissuto a lungo negli Stati Uniti.

Nel 1901 si iscrisse ad un corso d'arte a Monaco di Baviera.

L'anno successivo, poiché alle donne erano precluse le Accademie, iniziò a prendere lezioni presso la scuola d'arte privata Phalanx-Schule (appena fondata da W. Kandinsky) dove seguì i corsi di Wilhelm Husgen e quelli di Wassily Kandinsky.

Wassily Kandinsky | Ritratto Gabriele Münter, 1903 | Lenbachhaus, Monaco di Baviera

Alexandr Pushkin | Eugene Onegin e la storia d'amore di Tatyana

"Eugenio Onegin" / "Евгений Онегин" è un romanzo in versi di Aleksandr Pushkin, composto dal 1822-1831 e pubblicato completo per la prima volta nel 1833.

Trama

Eugenio Onegin è il nome del personaggio principale della storia: è un giovane già disilluso dalla vita e che sembra aver già provato tutto quello che gli era possibile, provando un certo spleen.

Si ritira in campagna e diventa amico di un giovane poeta, Vladimir Lenskij. Questi è innamorato di Olga con cui si è appena fidanzato. La sorella di Olga, Tatyana, si innamora a prima vista di Onegin.

Ardendo di questo amore, ella gli scrive una lettera infiammata, ma Onegin la respinge.

Il monumento di Onegin e Tatyana a Kazakistan, Petropavlovsk, Piazza intitolata a Pushkin

Pedro Salinas / Chagall | "Per vivere non voglio isole, palazzi, torri.."

To live I don't want

islands, palaces, towers.

What steeper joy

Than living in pronouns!

Take off your clothing,

features, pictures;

I don't want you like that,

masked as another,

always a daughter of something.

Marc Chagall | Over the town / Sulla città, 1918

Aleksandra Ekster | Avant Garde painter

Aleksandra Aleksandrovna Ekster (1882-1949) cubo-futurist, suprematist, constructivist and designer is one of most famous Russian Avant Garde female painters that gained international recognition.

She was a multi talented artist - a painter, ceramist, graphic artist, clothes designer.

Alexandra Ekster would also become a co-founder of the Art Déco.

In Paris, Aleksandra Ekster was a personal friend of Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, who introduced her to Gertrude Stein.

Marc Chagall | Stained glass windows

One of Chagall's major contributions to art has been his work with stained glass. This medium allowed him further to express his desire to create intense and fresh colors and had the added benefit of natural light and refraction interacting and constantly changing: everything from the position where the viewer stood to the weather outside would alter the visual effect (though this is not the case with his Hadassah windows).

It was not until 1956, when he was nearly 70 years of age, that he designed windows for the church at Assy, his first major project. Then, from 1958-1960, he created windows for Metz Cathedral.

Marc Chagall | Paris through my window, 1913

After Marc Chagall moved to Paris from Russia in 1910, his paintings quickly came to reflect the latest avant-garde styles.

In "Paris Through the Window", Chagall’s debt to the Orphic Cubism of his colleague Robert Delaunay is clear in the semitransparent overlapping planes of vivid color in the sky above the city.

The Eiffel Tower, which appears in the cityscape, was also a frequent subject in Delaunay’s work. For both artists it served as a metaphor for Paris and perhaps modernity itself.

Chagall’s parachutist might also refer to contemporary experience, since the first successful jump occurred in 1912. Other motifs suggest the artist’s native Vitebsk.

Marc Chagall | Paris through my window, 1913 | The Guggenheim Museums and Foundation

Vasiliy Polenov (1844-1927)

Vasily Dmitrievich Polenov /Васи́лий Дми́триевич Поле́нов was a Russian landscape painter associated with the Peredvizhniki movement of realist artists.

His contemporaries would call him the "Knight of Beauty" as he embodied both European and Russian traditions of painting.

His vision of life was summarized as following: "Art should promote happiness and joy".

As a painter and a humanist, he would truly believe in the civilizing mission of Art, Culture and Education.

The Wanderers’ movement and the Abramtsevo Circle

During the 1880s, his work was spotted by Vladimir Stassov, a supporter of the traveling exhibition society (the Wanderers), which he joined then.

This artistic movement was born from the desire to break with the themes imposed by the Academy to better represent contemporary concerns. In addition, the members promote the accessibility of art among the people by organizing traveling exhibitions (not limited to the artistic centers of Moscow and St. Petersburg).