Vladimir Kush, 1965 | The Metaphorical Realism

The Founder of Metaphorical Realism, Vladimir Kush once showed enthusiasm for the German Romanticism of Caspar Friedrich, admired works of the Impressionists from Édouard Manet to Vincent van Gogh and Paul Cézanne, and took interest the Russian Symbolists, Kandinski, Petrov-Vodkin and Filonov.

From reproductions, Vladimir, for the first time, learned about Surrealist painters - René Magritte and Salvador Dali.

But Vladimir sought his own direction, his own creative method.

Vladimir remembered a precept given by Dali: “Any rewarding painting is grasp and retention of the Unknown”.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning | Come ti amo? / How Do I Love Thee?

Come ti amo? Lascia che conti tutti i modi.

Ti amo con la profondità, la vastità, l'altezza

che l'anima mia raggiunge quando smarrita tocca i confini

dell'essere e della grazia ideale.

Harriet Hosmer | Clasped Hands of Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning | Harvard University, Cambridge

Gabriel von Max | Romantic / Symbolist painter

Gabriel Cornelius Ritter von Max (23 August 1840 – 24 November 1915) was a Prague-born Austrian painter.

He was born Gabriel Cornelius Max, the son of the sculptor Josef Max and Anna Schumann.

He studied between 1855 and 1858 at the Prague Academy of Arts with Eduard von Engerth.

His studies included parapsychology (somnambulism, hypnotism, spiritism), Darwinism, Asiatic philosophy, the ideas of Schopenhauer, and various mystical traditions.

The spiritual-mystical movement was emphasized by the writings of Carl du Prel, and the Munich painter Albert Keller was also an influence.

Thérèse Schwartze | Self-portrait, 1888 | Uffizi Gallery

The artist presents herself by citing a well-known precedent: Sir Joshua Reynolds, who in his youthful self-portrait of 1749 portrays himself while making a screen with one hand over his eyes and holding the tools of his trade in the other.

After an initial apprenticeship with his father, Thérèse studied at the Rijksakademie, in Munich and in Paris.

Returning to Amsterdam she opened a very active studio, receiving important commissions and awards.

Claude Monet at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC

Claude Monet | Woman with a Parasol - Madame Monet and Her Son, 1875

From: National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

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From low on a hillside, we look up at a light-skinned woman and boy standing in tall grass against a sunny blue sky in this vertical painting.

The woman stands at the center of the composition, and the moss-green parasol she holds over her head almost brushes the top edge of the canvas.

Her body faces our left but she turns her head to look at us.

Her long dress is painted largely with strokes of pale blue and gray with a few touches of yellow.

Her voluminous skirts swirl around her legs to our left.