Lavinia Fontana | The first professional Woman painter in the Italian history of art

Lavinia Fontana (1552-1614) was an Italian painter.

She is regarded as the First Woman artist, working within the same sphere as her male counterparts, outside a court or convent.

She was the first woman artist to paint female figures, and was the main breadwinner of a family of 13.

Lavinia Fontana was born in Bologna, the daughter of the painter Prospero Fontana, who was a prominent painter of the School of Bologna at the time and served as her teacher. Continuing the family business was typical at the time.

Boris Pasternak | Sunrise / L’alba

Sunrise

You were my life sometime ago.

Then came the war, the devastation.

You vanished, leaving me alone,

Without a trace or explanation.

When many years had passed me by,

Your voice awakened me by chance.

I sat and read Your Word all night

And came to life out of a trance.

Pavlos Samios (1948-2021)

Pavlos Samios - Παύλος Σάμιος - was a Greek painter and professor at the Athens School of Fine Arts.

Samios was born in Athens, Greece. His interest about art rose during his early childhood when he used to spend many hours at his father's workshop (Samios’ father was a shoemaker).

As a teenager he worked at Dionysios Karoussos icon-painting studio and at the same time he attended drawing lessons under Panos Sarafianos so that he could pass the exams in order to enter the School of Fine Arts where he became accepted in 1969.

Federico García Lorca | Serenade / Serenata

Along the banks of the river

the night is bathing

and on the breasts of Lolita

die of love the branches.

Die of love branches.

Vanessa Lemen | Harmony in the Ebb and Flow

Dino Buzzati / Alex Alemany | Lettera d'amore

Alex Alemany, 1943

Sono finalmente ritornato, tesoro, ed ora aspetto che tu mi raggiunga.

Nell’ultima tua lettera, che ho avuto un mese fa, dicevi appunto che non potevi più vivere senza di me. Ti credo, perché uguale è il sentimento mio. Non è come un’attrazione fatale, quasi un castigo?

Di solito, tra uomo e donna, soltanto uno dei due si innamora. L’altro, o l’altra, accetta, o subisce. Nel nostro caso, meravigliosamente, la passione è pari in entrambi. Pazzi tutti e due. Ciò è bellissimo ma fa anche paura. Siamo come due foglie furiosamente sospinte l’una verso l’altra da opposti venti.

Che cosa accadrà quando si incontreranno?