Arturo Martini | Modern sculptor

Arturo Martini, (1889, Treviso - 1947, Milan), Italian sculptor and painter who was active between the World Wars.

He is known for figurative sculptures executed in a wide variety of styles and materials.

Martini was trained in goldsmithing and in ceramics and worked for a time as a potter.

In 1905 he began sculpting; he attended art classes in Italy at Treviso and Venice before traveling to Munich, Germany, where he studied under the academic sculptor Adolf von Hildebrand in 1909.

Emilio Greco | Figurative sculptor

Emilio Greco (1913-1995) - Italian sculptor and draughtsman, mainly of female figures and portrait busts.

Born in Catania, Sicily.

At the age of thirteen entered the workshop of a stone mason, learning to carve crosses and figures for cemeteries; also began making sculpture on his own account and studied briefly at the Palermo Academy 1934.

The Marathon Boy, 340-330 B.C.

The Marathon Boy or Ephebe of Marathon is a Greek bronze sculpture found in the Aegean Sea in the bay of Marathon in 1925.

It is conserved in the National Archaeological Museum of Athens where it is dated to around 340-330 BC.

The Museum suggests that the subject is the winner of an athletic competition.

Massimo Fedele, 1964 | Abstract painter

Massimo Fedele was born in Turin, Italy.

After a few months his family moved to Apulia, in San Vito dei Normanni (Brindisi) where he still lives and works.

After obtaining a diploma from the local Technical and Commercial Institute, he realised he was not on the right track.

Antonio Canova | Paolina Borghese, 1805-1808

The reclining Paolina Borghese as Venus Victrix in the center of the room holds an apple in her hand, evoking the Venus Victrix in the judgement of Paris, who was chosen to settle a dispute between Juno (power), Minerva (arts and science) and Venus (love).

The same subject was painted on the ceiling by Domenico de Angelis (1779), framed by Giovan Battista Marchetti's tromp d'oeil architecture, and was inspired by a famous relief on the façade of the Villa Medici.

This marble statue of Pauline in a highly refined pose is considered a supreme example of the Neoclassical style.

Sleeping Hermaphroditus / L'Ermafrodito dormiente

The ambivalence and voluptuous curves of this figure of Hermaphroditus, who lies asleep on a mattress sculpted by Bernini, are still a source of fascination today.

His body merged with that of the nymph Salmacis, whose advances he had rejected, Hermaphroditus, son of Hermes and Aphrodite, is represented as a bisexed figure.

The original that inspired this figure would have dated from the 2nd century BC, reflecting the late Hellenistic taste for the theatrical.

Department of Greek, Etruscan and Roman Antiquities: Hellenistic Art (3rd-1st centuries BC) Greek, Etruscan and Roman Antiquities - Musée du Louvre.

Henri Matisse | Orientalist Odalisque

In 1917 Matisse relocated to Cimiez on the French Riviera, a suburb of the city of Nice.

His work of the decade or so following this relocation shows a relaxation and a softening of his approach.

This "return to order" is characteristic of much art of the post-World War I period and can be compared with the neoclassicism of Picasso and Stravinsky as well as the return to traditionalism of Derain.

Michelangelo | Bacchus, 1496-1497

Bacchus (1496-1497) is a marble sculpture by the Italian High Renaissance sculptor, painter, architect and poet Michelangelo Buonarroti.

The statue is somewhat over life-size and depicts Bacchus, the Roman god of wine, in a reeling pose suggestive of drunkenness.

Commissioned by Raffaele Riario, a high-ranking Cardinal and collector of antique sculpture, it was rejected by him and was bought instead by Jacopo Galli, Riario’s banker and a friend to Michelangelo.

Along with the Pietà the Bacchus is one of only two surviving sculptures from the artist's first period in Rome.

Paul Gauguin quotes: "Art = a mad search for individualism"

• "L'arte è un'astrazione: spremetela dalla natura sognando di fronte ad essa e preoccupatevi più della creazione che del risultato".

• "When the physical organism breaks up, the soul survives. It then takes on another body".

Gian Lorenzo Bernini, uomo ed artista universale

Oltre ai suoi autoritratti e ad un ritratto fattogli dal Gaulli (Roma, Gall. Corsini), il Bernini è stato descritto fisicamente e moralmente da numerosi autori: basti ricordare lo Chantelou, ed il figlio Domenico, che lo disse "aspro di natura, fisso nelle operazioni, ardente nell'ira".

Egli fu l'artista più intimamente legato al cattolicesimo risorgente nella temperie postridentina, e non può esserci dubbio sulla sua convinzione religiosa; pare che negli anni successivi al 1630 la sua fede si fosse approfondita e che nell'ultimo periodo della sua vita frequentasse assiduamente gesuiti e oratoriani: era amico intimo dei padre G. P. Oliva, gesuita, per il quale disegnò il frontespizio al secondo volume delle Prediche (1664) e ebbe come consigliere spirituale anche un suo nipote, padre Marchesi, oratoriano.

Paul Gauguin | Post-Impressionist painter

Paul Gauguin, in full Eugène-Henri-Paul Gauguin (born June 7, 1848, Paris, France-died May 8, 1903, Atuona, Hiva Oa, Marquesas Islands, French Polynesia) French painter, printmaker and sculptor who sought to achieve a "primitive” expression of spiritual and emotional states in his work.

The artist, whose work has been categorized as Post-Impressionist, Synthetist and Symbolist, is particularly well known for his creative relationship with Vincent van Gogh as well as for his self-imposed exile in Tahiti, French Polynesia.

His artistic experiments influenced many avant-garde developments in the early 20th century.

Pablo Picasso | Periodi artistici

Periodo blu

Partendo dal 1901 lo stile pittorico di Picasso incominciò a presentare tratti originali e nuove soluzioni artistiche; in quell'anno, infatti, ha inizio il cosiddetto «periodo blu», che si protrae sino alla primavera del 1904.

Questa fase artistica picassiana, come già accennato, scaturì in seguito alla morte suicida dell'amico Carlos Casagemas, come affermato dallo stesso maestro andaluso:

«Quando mi resi conto che Casagemas era morto, incominciai a dipingere in blu» - Pablo Picasso

Damian Tirado, 1960: "Envie de chic?"

Damian Tirado is a Venezuelan painter and sculptor, currently living in France.

Passionate about drawing and painting, he entered the School of Fine arts Cristobal de Rojas in Caracas.

He began his career as a designer and make up artist in the world of fashion and theatre, and as an illustrator for several big brands, collaboration among others with fashion designer Guy Melliet.

Damian Tirado, 1960 | Fashion Designer /Sculptor

Damian Tirado was born in Caracas, Venezuela. An autodidact, Triado has been passionate about painting and drawing since childhood.

He continued his studies at the school of Fine Arts "Cristobal de Rojas" in Caracas, and then began his career as a freelance visual artist. He has worked in theater world as a decorative painter and a makeup artist.

Vala Ola, 1962 | Figurative sculptor / painter

"The bronze gives me an opportunity to mold the sense of life into an everlasting form.

From the force of a muscle in motion to a tender human emotion expressed.

That along with the abstract quality of composition is what inspires me" - Vala Ola.

Wolfgang Alexander Kossuth | Ballet dancers

German musician and sculptor Wolfgang Alexander Kossuth (1947-2009) was born in Pfronten, Germany.

He was a painter, a sculptor, a violinist and an orchestra leader and he dedicated all hos life to art, join the passion for the music with the figurative arts one.

His artworks portray important people of the musical, literally and ballet background.

He prefers sculpture because with it he expresses himself better. The human being is always the centre of the composition.

Alexander Kossuth | Roberto Bolle

Pietro Magni | The Reading Girl / La Lettrice, 1856

Pietro Magni's marble statue The Reading Girl brought the Milanese sculptor international fame and recognition.

It was exhibited numerous times at international exhibitions throughout Europe and America, each time to great public and critical acclaim.

Stylistically it owes much to the artistic tradition of verismo or "realism" that characterized Italian art during the middle years of the nineteenth century, but it also recalls earlier aspects of Italian romanticism.

Amedeo Modigliani: "Happiness is an angel with a serious face"

When I know your soul, I will paint your eyes.

Quando conoscerò la tua anima, dipingerò i tuoi occhi.

It is your duty in life to save your dream.

Il tuo unico dovere è salvare i tuoi sogni.

Leonora Carrington | Surrealist painter

Leonora Carrington, (1917-2011), British-born Mexican Surrealist artist and writer, known for her haunting, autobiographical, somewhat inscrutable paintings that incorporate images of sorcery, metamorphosis, alchemy and the occult.

Carrington was raised in a wealthy Roman Catholic family on a large estate called Crookhey Hall.

Gil Bruvel, 1959 | Visionary painter / sculptor

Gil Bruvel is a visionary artist, capable of translating complex ideas and fleeting impressions into stunning works of art.

His curiosity about the human condition and the workings of the human mind is honed through daily meditative practice.

His art emerges from a deep contemplation of images, emotions, and sensations, which he refines continually before he casts them into material form.