Paris, 1925: Art Dèco gazzled the World / L'Art Déco abbagliò il mondo

Art Déco Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes - Esposizione internazionale delle arti decorativi ed industriali moderni, tenutasi a Parigi nel 1925 - e per quest'ultimo motivo noto anche come Stile 1925 - viene considerato un fenomeno del gusto che interessò sostanzialmente il secondo ed il terzo decennio del secolo XX: riguardò le arti decorative, le arti visive, l'architettura, la moda.

L'Expo parigina del 1925 vide trionfare, fra i molti espositori stranieri, la speciale raffinatezza francese in varie categorie merceologiche, dall'ebanisteria agli accessori di moda: Parigi restava il centro internazionale del buon gusto anche negli anni critici seguiti alla prima guerra mondiale.

Philippe Faraut, 1963 | Figurative sculptor

Philippe Faraut is a figurative artist specializing in life-size portrait sculptures and monumental stone sculptures.

His media of choice are water-based clay and marble.

From his extensive research of the human face he developed a technique of modeling the portrait that he shares with his sculpting students during his numerous sculpting classes and seminars taught hroughout the US.

Jacques Van Den Abeele, 1960 | Figurative sculptor

Jacques Van den Abeele, Belgian sculptor, is exhibited in galleries spread over Belgium, France, The Netherlands, Switzerland and the United States of America.

He realized also monumental sculptures for state orders.

For Jacques Van den Abeele, art is above all a quest for the essential foundations of existence, moving towards what lies behind appearances: feelings, emotions, fears.

Leonardo da Vinci | Ultima Cena / Last Supper, 1494-1498

Last Supper, one of the most famous artworks in the world, painted by Leonardo da Vinci probably between 1494 and 1498 for the Dominican monastery Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan.

It depicts the dramatic scene described in several closely connected moments in the Gospels, including Matthew 26:21–28, in which Jesus declares that one of the Apostles will betray him and later institutes the Eucharist.

According to Leonardo’s belief that posture, gesture, and expression should manifest the “notions of the mind”, each one of the 12 disciples reacts in a manner that Leonardo considered fit for that man’s personality.

The result is a complex study of varied human emotion, rendered in a deceptively simple composition.

Leonardo da Vinci | Ultima Cena / Last Supper, 1494-1498 | Convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie, Milan

Auguste Rodin | L'Adieu / Farewell, 1898

The Farewell or The Convalescent / L'adieu - is composed of Camille Claudel with short hair (1884) and two independent hands added in front of her face, the work attests to Rodin's passion for assemblages, evident in both his narrative and portraiture registers.

By placing her head and hands on a block of plaster, Rodin shed light on his thoughts about pedestals.

The construction causes Camille's face to stand out slightly from the plaster block and conveys a sense of slow absorption that contributes to the melancholy of the composition.

Auguste Rodin | L'Adieu /Farewell, 1898 | Musée Rodin, Paris

Mariangela Gualtieri | Sii dolce con me

Sii dolce con me. Sii gentile.

È breve il tempo che resta. Poi

saremo scie luminosissime.

E quanta nostalgia avremo

dell’umano. Come ora ne

abbiamo dell’intimità.

Angeles Anglada

Henri Chapu | Jeanne d'Arc à Domremy, 1873

19th-century France was fascinated by the figure of Joan of Arc, an historical, mythified heroine who figured in the readily anti-British nationalist movement in the second half of the 19th century.

Henri Chapu (French sculptor, 1833-1891), a classical sculptor who explored a sincere, elegant form of naturalism with great finesse, chose to represent not the warrior maiden in a suit of armour but the shepherdess from Lorraine listening to the voices asking her to help the king to liberate the kingdom.

Henri Chapu | Jeanne d'Arc à Domremy, 1873 | Musée d'Orsay, Paris

Norman Rockwell | Picasso vs. Sargent, 1966

Picasso vs. Sargent was created in 1966 by Norman Rockwell (American painter and illustrator, 1894-1978) for the January 11, 1966 edition of the LOOK magazine.

It is part of the collection of the National Museum of American Illustration.

Norman Rockwell left the Saturday Evening Post in 1963 and his paintings took a more political turn.

He spent the last decade of his life creating works that dealt with issues such as civil rights and the fight against poverty.

From 1964 Rockwell went on to create work for LOOK Magazine.

Norman Rockwell | Picasso vs. Sargent, 1966 | National Museum of American Illustration

Gian Lorenzo Bernini | David, 1623-1624

David is one of the four sculptures executed by the young Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598-1680) for Cardinal Scipione Borghese.

The artist worked on the statuary groups for the Villa on the Pincio for seven crucial years during which his brilliance, freedom, narrative bent, and delight in amazement blossomed and then developed in all their power.

The work had been commissioned from Bernini by Cardinal Montalto for his villa in 1623.

The cardinal’s untimely death blocked the commission, but Scipione Borghese decided to take it over.

Bernini interrupted his work on the Apollo and Daphne, dedicating himself to this new sculpture, which - according to Baldinucci, one of the artist’s first biographers - he finished in only seven months of work.

Gian Lorenzo Bernini | David, 1623-1624 | Galleria Borghese

Sphinx of Naxos

The Sphinx of Naxos, also Sphinx of the Naxians, now in the Archaeological Museum of Delphi, is a 2.22 meter tall marble statue of a sphinx, a mythical creature with the head of a woman, the chest and wings composed of the impressive feathers of a prey bird turned upward, and the body of a lioness.

The Sphinx stood on a 10 meter column that culminated in one of the first Ionic capitals, and was erected next to the Temple of Apollo in Delphi, the religious center of Ancient Greece, in 560 BCE.

The first fragments were excavated from the sanctuary of the Temple of Apollo in 1860. The remainder was found in 1893.

Famous Sculptures of the Galleria Borghese, Rome

The Galleria Borghese Museum houses and displays a collection of ancient sculptures, bas-reliefs and mosaics, as well as paintings and sculptures dating from the 15th through the 19th centuries.

Among the masterpieces of the collection - the first and most important part of which goes back to the collecting of Cardinal Scipione Borghese (1579-1633), nephew of Pope Paul V - are paintings by Caravaggio, Raphael, Titian, Correggio, Antonello da Messina and Giovanni Bellini and sculptures by Gian Lorenzo Bernini and Antonio Canova.

The works are displayed in the 20 frescoed rooms that, together with the portico and the entrance hall, constitute the spaces of the Museum open to the public.

More than 260 paintings are housed in the storerooms of the Galleria Borghese, which are located above the floor of the Pinacoteca and set up like a picture gallery.

Cristoforo Stati (Italian, 1556-1619) | Adone and Venere, XVI-XVII | Installation Galleria Borghese

Masterpieces of the Pinacoteca di Brera

The collection of the Pinacoteca di Brera includes some of the greatest masterpieces of Italian and foreign art from the 13th to the 20th century.

The works are displayed on the first floor of the building, where the Academy of Fine Arts is also located.

The Pinacoteca museum, which opened in 1809 thanks to Napoleon Bonaparte, was born as a collection of the finest works of art and was dedicated to the education of students.

The collection included Italian art masterpieces taken from churches and monasteries that were suppressed at the time when Milan was the capital city of the Kingdom of Italy. | Source: © Pinacoteca di Brera

Antonio Canova (Italian, 1757-1822) | Napoleone come Marte pacificatore / Napoleon as Mars the peacemaker, 1811 (detail) | Pinacoteca di Brera

Edmé Bouchardon | Cupid cutting his bow from the club of Hercules, 1750

Cupid cutting his bow from the club of Hercules (L'Amour se taillant un arc dans la massue d'Hercule) is a marble statue created by the sculptor Edmé Bouchardon (French sculptor, 1698-1762 in 1750 and currently preserved at the Musée du Louvre.

Born at Chaumont, Edmé Bouchardon became the pupil of Guillaume Coustou and gained the Prix de Rome in 1722.

Resisting the barocchetto tendency of the day he was classic in his taste, pure and chaste, always correct, charming and distinguished, a great stickler for all the finish that sandpaper could give.

Edmé Bouchardon | Cupid cutting his bow from the club of Hercules, 1750 (detail) | Musée du Louvre

Masterpieces of the Musée d’Orsay

Pierre-Auguste Renoir | Bal du moulin de la Galette, 1876

This painting is doubtless Renoir's most important work of the mid 1870's and was shown at the Impressionist exhibition in 1877.

Though some of his friends appear in the picture, Renoir's main aim was to convey the vivacious and joyful atmosphere of this popular dance garden on the Butte Montmartre.

The study of the moving crowd, bathed in natural and artificial light, is handled using vibrant, brightly coloured brushstrokes.

The somewhat blurred impression of the scene prompted negative reactions from contemporary critics.

This portrayal of popular Parisian life, with its innovative style and imposing format, a sign of Renoir's artistic ambition, is one of the masterpieces of early Impressionism. | © Musée d'Orsay, Paris

Pierre-Auguste Renoir (French, 1841-1919) | Bal du moulin de la Galette, 1876 | Musée d'Orsay, Paris

5 Masterpieces at the Uffizi Gallery

The Uffizi Gallery entirely occupies the first and second floors of the large building constructed between 1560-1580 and designed by Giorgio Vasari.

It is famous worldwide for its outstanding collections of ancient sculptures and paintings (from the Middle Ages to the Modern period).

The collections of paintings from the 14th-century and Renaissance period include some absolute masterpieces: Giotto, Simone Martini, Piero della Francesca, Beato Angelico, Filippo Lippi, Botticelli, Mantegna, Correggio, Leonardo, Raffaello, Michelangelo and Caravaggio, in addition to many precious works by European painters (mainly German, Dutch and Flemish).

Moreover, the Gallery boasts an invaluable collection of ancient statues and busts from the Medici family, which adorns the corridors and consists of ancient Roman copies of lost Greek sculptures.

Johan Zoffany (1733-1810) | Tribuna of the Uffizi, 1772-1777 | Royal Collection (UK)

5 Masterpieces of The Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Metropolitan Museum of Art presents over 5,000 years of art from around the world for everyone to experience and enjoy.

The Museum lives in two iconic sites in New York City - The Met Fifth Avenue and The Met Cloisters.

Millions of people also take part in The Met experience online.

Since its founding in 1870, The Met has always aspired to be more than a treasury of rare and beautiful objects.

Every day, art comes alive in the Museum's galleries and through its exhibitions and events, revealing new ideas and unexpected connections across time and across cultures.

Guido Reni | The Immaculate Conception, 1627

Guido Reni (Bologna, 1575-1642), during his lifetime the most celebrated living painter in Italy, was famous for the elegance of his compositions and the beauty and grace of his heads, earning him the epithet "Divine".

This altarpiece, with its otherworldly space shaped by clouds and putti in a high-keyed palette, was commissioned in about 1627 by the Spanish ambassador in Rome for the infanta of Spain.

It later hung in the cathedral of Seville, where it deeply influenced Spanish painters, especially Bartolomé Estebán Murillo, whose workshop produced many iterations of this subject.

The Immaculate Conception became a symbol of the universality of the Catholic Church and was used for the conversion of populations across Spain’s global empire. | Source: © Metropolitan Museum of Art

Guido Reni (Italian, 1575-1642) | The Immaculate Conception, 1627 | Metropolitan Museum of Art

Camille Claudel (1864-1943)

Camille Claudel was a French sculptor and graphic artist.

In 1882 the sculptor Auguste Rodin agreed to supervise a small group of young women students, one of whom was the seventeen-year-old Camille Claudel.

Auguste and Camille fell in love almost at first sight.

Aristotele: "Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies"

Aristotele / Ἀριστοτέλης, (Stagira, 384 a.C. o 383 a.C. - Calcide, 322 a.C.) è stato un filosofo Greco antico, ritenuto una delle menti più universali, innovative, prolifiche ed influenti di tutti i tempi, sia per la vastità che per la profondità dei suoi campi di conoscenza.

Insieme a Platone, suo maestro, e a Socrate è considerato uno dei padri del pensiero filosofico occidentale, che però soprattutto da Aristotele ha ereditato problemi, termini, concetti e metodi.

• "La cultura è un ornamento nella buona sorte ma un rifugio nell'avversa".

• "Education is an ornament in prosperity and a refuge in adversity".

Hermann Hesse | Vieni con me!

Vieni con me!

Devi affrettarti però -

sette lunghe miglia

io faccio ad ogni passo.

Dietro il bosco ed il colle

aspetta il mio cavallo rosso.

Gis de Maeyer

Derek Boshier | Pop art painter

Biography from the Tate Gallery

British painter, sculptor, photographer and printmaker Derek Boshier ((1937-2024)) studied painting and lithography at Yeovil School of Art in Somerset (1953-7), Guildford College of Art (1957-9) and the Royal College of Art, London (1959-62), where he was one of the students associated with Pop art.

Boshier juxtaposed contrasting styles within his paintings, but he favoured topical subject-matter such as the space race, political events and the Americanisation of Europe.