Kay Ruane, 1956 | Symbolist painter

Kay Ruane is a contemporary American visual artist widely recognized for her intricate, highly detailed graphite drawings.

Currently based in Los Angeles, her meticulously rendered graphite-on-board and graphite-on-paper worlds often explore themes of human existence, isolation, intimacy and the cultural disconnect between interior spaces and the outside world.

Education: Earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) in Studio Arts from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and advanced her artistic training at Indiana State University and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Ignacio Larra, 1954 | Symbolist painter

Ignacio Larra is a renowned Spanish figurative and mural painter born in Caracas, Venezuela.

At age 14, he relocated to Spain with his parents, where his father -the celebrated landscape artist Juan Larramendi- became his primary artistic mentor.

Larra's distinct style, known for its deep symbolism, intimacy and meticulous attention to fine detail, was heavily shaped by his time spent in Amsterdam studying classical Flemish and Dutch painting.

His father recognized his early talent for painting figures and portraits, guiding his transition into fine oil painting.

William Blake: "È più facile perdonare un nemico che un amico"!

• "Il Cristianesimo è Arte e non soldi. I Soldi sono la sua Maledizione".

• "Reprimono il desiderio solo quelli che lo hanno tanto debole da poterlo reprimere".

• "È più facile perdonare un nemico che un amico".

• "La via dell'eccesso conduce al palazzo della saggezza".

• "Nessun uccello vola troppo in alto, se vola con le proprie ali".

• "Chi manca di coraggio è esuberante d'astuzia".

• "Una verità detta con cattiva intenzione batte tutte le bugie che si possono inventare".

• "Nel tempo della semina impara, in quello del raccolto insegna, d'inverno godi".

Bruno Catalano, 1960 | Lo scultore dei viaggiatori

Bruno Catalano è uno scultore Franco-Italiano di fama internazionale, celebre per la serie di sculture in bronzo intitolata "Les Voyageurs" (I Viaggiatori).

Catalano è nato a Khouribga, Marocco.

La sua vita è stata segnata da un profondo senso di sradicamento: all'età di 15 anni fu costretto all'esilio dal Marocco insieme alla sua famiglia, sbarcando a Marsiglia con la speranza di una nuova vita.

Prima di dedicarsi interamente all'arte a 30 anni, ha lavorato come marinaio ed elettricista.

Influenzato da maestri come Rodin, Giacometti e César, ha sviluppato una tecnica unica che gli permette di creare figure umane con ampie porzioni del corpo mancanti, sfidando apparentemente le leggi della fisica.

Henri Martin | Neo-Impressionist / Symbolist painter

Henri Martin was born in Toulouse on 5 August 1860; his father was a cabinetmaker and his mother of Italian origin.

In 1877, after convincing his father with great difficulty, he enrolled in the École des Beaux-Arts in Toulouse, and studied with Jules Garipuy.

Two years later he was awarded a prize and a scholarship that enabled him to join Jean-Paul Laurens's workshop at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris.

Masaaki Sasamoto, 1966 | Nihonga style painter

Born in Tokyo, Japanese artist Masaaki Sasamoto 笹本正明 is renowned for his unique contribution to the Nihonga (Japanese-style painting) genre.

He graduated from Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music, specializing in Japanese painting.

He has been a permanent participant of solo and group art exhibitions throughout Japan.

Masaaki Sasamoto currently lives and works in Yamanashi Prefecture, on the island of Honshu, Japan.

Rainer Maria Rilke | Do not be afraid, it’s me / Non aver paura, sono io..

Do not be afraid, it’s me.

You do not feel that I infringe on you,

with all your senses?

He put wings, my heart,

and now, white flies around your face.

Do not you see my soul before you,

adorned with silence?

Jean-Claude Campana, 1941 | It's Carnival time

Jean-Claude Campana is an French painter, who has been painting for more than thirty years, started his career by exhibiting together with Baboulène, Buffet, Hilaire, Brayer...

The approach of these Masters encourages the talent of Campana, who already in his youth, builds up a strong character.

Strengthened by his expérience in surrealism, symbolism and realism, Jean-Claude Campana has been devoted to Venice since about a fifteen years, in a very personal style.

Agnes Slott-Møller | Symbolist painter

Agnes Slott-Møller, born Rambusch (10 June, 1862, in Nyboder - June 11, 1937 in Løgismose) was the daughter of the later commander in the Navy Jacob Heinrich Victor Rambusch (1825-1886) and his wife Constantine Juliane born Hansen (1834-1891).

She was a Danish painter and sculptor who was influenced by Italian art before the Renaissance, British Pre-Raphaelites and the Arts and Crafts Movement in his image and style.

Alphonse Osbert | Symbolist / Pointillist painter

Alphonse Osbert (23 March 1857 - 11 August 1939) was a French Symbolist painter.

Educated at the École des Beaux-Arts, his earliest passion was for the great Spanish masters, particularly Jusepe de Ribera. A shift away from his academic style took place in the late 1880s under the influence of several acquaintances associated with Post-Impressionism* and Symbolism*.

Jens Ferdinand Willumsen | Symbolist / Expressionist painter

Jens Ferdinand Willumsen (1863-1958) was a Danish painter, sculptor, graphic artist, architect and photographer.

He became associated with the movements of Symbolism and Expressionism.

J. F. Willumsen was born in Copenhagen, Denmark.

He was the son of Hans Willumsen and Ane Kirstine.

Alexi Torres, 1976 | Symbolist painter

Cuban painter Alexi Torres creates works that capture the creative powers of the universe as well as the problems facing it.

He grapples with how to express the influences of the past, possibilities of the future and the responsibilities of the now.

Torres creates woven canvasses which immortalize influential figures and emblems past and present.

Paul Gauguin | The Siesta, 1892-94

The unaffected grace and communal ease of Tahitian women impressed Gauguin enormously.

The artist worked on this painting over an extended period, incorporating numerous changes.

The skirt of the woman in the foreground, for example, was originally bright red; there was a dog in the position now occupied by the basket at lower right; and the woman seated at the left edge of the porch was previously situated further to the left. | © The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Paul Gauguin: "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".

Charles Conder | Symbolist / Impressionist painter

Charles Edward Conder (24 October 1868 - 9 February 1909) was an English-born painter, lithographer and designer.

He emigrated to Australia and was a key figure in the Heidelberg School, arguably the beginning of a distinctively Australian tradition in Western art.

Conder was born in Tottenham, Middlesex, the second son, of six children, of James Conder, civil engineer and Mary Ann Ayres.

Federico García Lorca | Indovinello della chitarra / Riddle of the guitar

Nel rotondo

crocevia

sei fanciulle

ballano.

Tre d’argento

e tre di carne.

Federico Beltrán Masses | Tres Para Uno / Three for one, 1934

William Blake | Pittore Simbolista / Romantico

Tigre! Tigre! divampante fulgore

Nelle foreste della notte,

Quale fu l'immortale mano o l'occhio

Ch'ebbe la forza di formare

La tua agghiacciante simmetria?

Amor non cerca di compiacer se stesso

Né per se stesso ha cura

Ma per un altro ogni favor rassegna

E il Cielo erige in un oscuro inferno.

Dimitri Vojnov, 1946 | Symbolist / Surrealist painter

Dimitri Vojnov had always a strong interest for the great painters of art history and Renaissance, such as Piero della Francesca or Hans Holbein. He uses as a background coloring an intense cobalt blue that is a reference to the Renaissance period.

Undoubtedly his work shows his long term classical academic education in painting which fascinates with provocative and erotic illustrations, which often are exaggerated in a grotesque way.

Oscar Wilde | Se non avessimo amato / Ay! had we never loved

Se noi non avessimo amato,

Chi sa se quel narciso avrebbe attratto l'ape

Nel suo grembo dorato,

Se quella pianta di rose avrebbe ornato

Di lampade rosse i suoi rami!

Caspar David Friedrich | Ruins of the Oybin, 1835 | Hermitage Museum

Oscar Wilde | Flower of Love

Sweet, I blame you not, for mine the fault was, had I not been made of common clay

I had climbed the higher heights unclimbed yet, seen the fuller air, the larger day.

From the wildness of my wasted passion I had struck a better, clearer song,

Lit some lighter light of freer freedom, battled with some Hydra-headed wrong.

Had my lips been smitten into music by the kisses that but made them bleed,

You had walked with Bice and the angels on that verdant and enamelled meed.

Paul Cadmus