Jules Breton | Naturalist painter

As one of the primary painters of peasant themes in the nineteenth century, and an artist strongly influenced by his own native traditions from northern France, Jules Breton’s reputation rivaled that of Eugène Delacroix or Jean-Dominique Ingres at the time of his death in 1906.

Since then, after a long period of relative obscurity, Breton has returned to considerable favor; he is now regarded as a primary painter of daily life with an inherent and substantial understanding of the old masters form the Italian renaissance especially Raphael.

Norberto Proietti (1927-2009)

Norberto Proietti, known as Norberto was an Italian painter of Naive art, known worldwide by his works that contain dozens of industrious "little monks".

Norberto was born in the close knit and charming hamlet of Spello in 1927. His father was an agent in the livestock trade who also sold olives and grain and at the same time, he managed a modest trattoria. His mother helped out in the trattoria and was also a dressmaker of outfits for first communions.

He went on to immortalize the fairytale-like collection of ancient stone houses of his home town in most of his paintings: paintings that were set in delightful medieval villages framed by the sky and countryside.

As an adolescent, Norberto was sent to his uncle in Trastevere, a district of Rome, where he learned the tailoring. He returned to Spello in 1951 and opened his own tailor's shop.

Pontormo | Mannerist painter

Jacopo da Pontormo*, original name Jacopo Carrucci (born May 24, 1494, Pontormo, near Empoli, Republic of Florence (Italy)-buried Jan. 2, 1557, Florence) Florentine painter who broke away from High Renaissance classicism to create a more personal, expressive style that is sometimes classified as early Mannerism.

Pontormo was the son of Bartolommeo Carrucci, a painter. According to the biographer Giorgio Vasari, he was apprenticed to Leonardo da Vinci and afterward to Mariotto Albertinelli and Piero di Cosimo.

At the age of 18 he entered the workshop of Andrea del Sarto, and it is this influence that is most apparent in his early works.

In 1518 he completed an altarpiece in the Church of San Michele Visdomini, Florence, that reflects in its agitated-almost neurotic-emotionalism a departure from the balance and tranquillity of the High Renaissance.

Henri Fantin-Latour: "L'uomo di talento dovrebbe camminare da solo.."

"Success can be harmful, it makes you relax, you sit on it and are distracted.

You alone should correct the faults, you know what I think of advice, correction.

The gifted man should walk alone, straight to his goal, what happens is nothing, rejection, success, selling pleasing, all that is nonsense".

Van Gogh | La Mousmé, 1888

The intention and determination that inform Van Gogh's art can be obscured by the sensational legends that have arisen about his life.

The artist's correspondence, particularly frdeom his brief mature period of 1888-1890, contradicts popular lore and attests to the deliberateness, sensitivity, and integrity of his work.

On July 29, 1888, Van Gogh wrote his younger brother Theo, an art dealer in a Parisian gallery, that "if you know what a 'mousmé' is (you will know when you have read Loti's Madame Chrysanthème), I have just painted one.

Shafira Yablonski, (Impressionist painter, 1938)

Ukrainian painter Shafira Yablonski was born in the city of Dneprodzerzhinsk.

When Shafira was 3 years old the world war II began and her family was evacuated to Kazakhstan.

When the war was over and the city of Dneprodzerzhinsk was liberated, they returned home to Ukraine.

There Shafira spent her childhood and adolescence and finished high school.

All her childhood she was fond of drawing. When Shafira was 15, she joined the art studio at the House of Culture and began learning to paint.

Henri Fantin-Latour, Il pittore di fiori, stufo dei suoi capolavori..

Contemporaneo degli impressionisti, l'artista francese Henri Fantin-Latour si distinse per i suoi dipinti di fiori e per i ritratti di gruppo degli intellettuali parigini dell'epoca.

Figlio di Théodore Fantin-Latour, anch'egli artista, che lo iniziò all'arte della pittura, studiò all'École de Dessin di Parigi.

Tuttavia, trasse la sua vera formazione copiando le opere classiche dei Grandi Maestri del Museo del Louvre, in particolare Tiziano e Veronese.

Più tardi, nel 1861, fu per un certo periodo discepolo di Gustave Courbet, anche se il suo realismo intimo e discreto era molto diverso da quello del suo maestro e li fece ben presto separare.

Ludovic Alleaume | Academic painter

An excellent painter and draughtsman, Ludovic Alleaume (1859-1941) worked in an academic style that owed little to the more avant-garde trends in contemporary French art.

He exhibited regularly at the Salon des Artistes Français between 1883-1938, winning several prizes including a second prize in the category of lithography in 1896 and a second class medal for painting in 1905.

Alleaume also exhibited at the Salon des Humoristes and the Salon d'Hiver and, outside of Paris, took part in exhibitions in Angers, Nantes, Nice, Rouen and Toulouse, as well as London.

Tullius Heuer | Surrealist painter

"Hi, i’m Tullius Heuer and i live in a city called Maceió, located at the state of Alagoas, Brazil.

I’m a self-taught digital artist. I’m actually working with freelance works for living, including stuff like CD covers, posters, book covers, logos/branding/visual identity, advertisement etc.

My personal artworks consist in my thoughts and feelings about life and existence. I don’t have a specific theme to focus in my works, but most of them usually have strong emotional touches with positive messages.

Paul César Helleu | Belle Époque painter

Paul César Helleu (1859-1927) was a French oil painter, pastel artist, drypoint etcher, and designer, best known for his numerous portraits of beautiful society women of the Belle Époque.

He also conceived the ceiling mural of night sky constellations for Grand Central Terminal in New York City.

He was also the father of Jean Helleu and the grandfather of Jacques Helleu, both artistic directors for Parfums Chanel.

His work epitomises the charm and elegance of French culture at the time - the Belle Époque - with all its verve and focus on fashion.

Camille Corot | Legacy

Corot's place in the history of 19th-century painting is an assured one. When he started painting, the landscape sketch was regarded primarily as raw material for more considered work and was of no great artistic consequence in itself.

Corot was one of the first to show that the sketch had qualities of vitality and spontaneity, a basic truth to nature that a more finished picture lacked.

At the time of his death the sketch had triumphed, and any artificiality or contrivance in landscape painting was regarded with suspicion.

Corot had helped to prepare the way for the Impressionist landscape painters, who learned much from him and looked upon him with respect and veneration.| From © Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.

Alireza Karimi Moghaddam, 1975 | Van Gogh's life story

Cartoonist and illustrator Alireza Karimi Moghaddam was born in Tehran, Iran.

He earned a master’s degree in graphic art at Azad University in Iran, and is now based in Lisbon, working with art faculty of the University of Lisbon and the National Society of Fine Arts.

Since his teenage years he has immersed himself in the life and art of Vincent van Gogh.

For the past thirty years his award-winning cartoons and illustrations have conveyed van Gogh’s life as "a symbol of beauty and love, an inspiration for the future".

Rae Perry, 1989 | Figurative painter

"American artist🎨 originally from Dallas Texas, I now live and work in Dublin. I spent two years in Florence, Italy where I completed the drawing program at the Angel Academy of Art.

I am mainly self-taught when it comes to painting, and I primarily focus on still-life subject matter.

I eventually plan to incorporate the human figure in my paintings.

My influences range from the classic illustrators, to the Pre-Ralphelites and the great 19th century artists (Mucha, Waterhouse, Whistler, N.C.Wyeth and Chardin)".

Toshiyuki Enoki 榎俊幸, 1961 | Lacquer painter

Japanese artist🎨 Toshiyuki Enoki was born in Tokyo. Educated in several different genres of Lacquer painting, traditional Japanese painting and western painting, Toshiyuki Enoki's works are an amalgamation of the new and aged, reality and myth.

This artist strives to antiquate his works, not only in his thematic tribute to well known traditional artists such as Maruyama Oukyou also in his artist process.

Arkady Ostritsky / Аркадий Острицкий, 1948

Аркадий Острицкий was born in Kishinev, Moldova. He was recognized very early as gifted in drawing and painting and by the age of 20 was accepted in Moldova's most distinguished Art Academy - the Repin Art Academy.

He graduated with distinction, earned many awards, and became one of his country's most important painters.

He was chosen to paint numerous monumental works in public institutions, and created many large frescos. He also became a distinguished art teacher and many young artists came under his tutelage.

John George Brown | Genre painter

From Thyssen-Bornemisza National Museum:

John George Brown (November 11, 1831 – February 8, 1913), the son of an impoverished lawyer, was born near Durham, England.

At fourteen he began a seven-year apprenticeship as a glass-cutter in Newcastle-on-Tyne, studying at night from 1849-1852 with William Bell Scott at the School of Design.

From 1852-53 he worked at the Holyrood Glass Works, Edinburgh, studying evenings at the Trustees Academy with Robert Scott Lauder.

Dante Gabriel Rossetti | Lovesight / Visione d'Amore

Lovesight

When do I see thee most, beloved one?

When in the light the spirits of mine eyes

Before thy face, their altar, solemnize

The worship of that Love through thee made known?

Or when in the dusk hours (we two alone)

Close-kissed and eloquent of still replies

Thy twilight-hidden glimmering visage lies,

And my soul only sees thy soul its own?

Niccolò Paganini: "La felicità non esiste ma la si canta!"

▻ "The violin is my mistress, but the guitar is my master".

▻ "Paganini non ripete!"

▻ "Paganini does not repeat!"

▻ "My secret, if I can call it secret, will indicate the violinists the way to penetrate the instrument much better than what has been done until now and it can demonstrate them, that violin is much more full of opportunities than what is commonly believed.

This discovery is not due to chance, but it is due to a deep study and applying it will no longer be necessary to practice four or five hours a day, it will remove the current scholar method, which studies to make the instrument difficult instead of teaching it".

Barney Seale | A head of Niccolo Paganini, 1782-1840

Meredith Marsone, 1977 | Abstracted Love

Meredith Marsone's (formerly Collins) paintings and drawings explore questions of heritage and identity.

At times there is a tension in her works that reference her Pakeha and Māori heritage, ta moko or floral designs delicately adorn faces of her subjects.

Heritage as well as the continuity of one's lineage are depicted in Meredith's works which often feature her with her daughters.

William Logsdail | Genre painter

William Logsdail (1859-1944) was a prolific British landscape, portrait and genre painter of large scale metropolitan scenes, particularly London landmarks.

He exhibited at the Royal Academy, the Royal Society of British Artists, the Grosvenor Gallery, the New Gallery (London), and others.

He is notable for his realistic London and Venice scenes and his plein air style.