Albert Carrier-Belleuse | Chryselephantine sculpture

Carrier-Belleuse is the name used by this sculptor -born Carrier de Belleuse- on his mature pieces, after initially signing works "A. Carrier". His career began firmly in the applied arts, with his apprenticeship at thirteen to a Parisian ciseleur today known as Bauchery (or Beauchery), and he did subsequent work for Jacques-Henri Fauconnier and Fannière Frères. His formal education took place at the Petite Ecole - chosen after an unhappy stint at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in 1840 under the direction of David d'Angers, his official master.

While at the Petite Ecole in the 1840s, Carrier-Belleuse began his lifelong practice of providing commercial houses with models for edition, as statuettes or as ornament for functional pieces. Around 1850, the sculptor moved to England as a designer for Minton China Works, at Stoke-upon-Trent, as well as for Wedgewood, Coalbrookdale Ironworks, and Graham Jackson furniture makers.

Even after returning to Paris in 1855, he continued to send models to British firms throughout his life.

He began to garner acclaim as a fine-arts sculptor after ten years of showing in the Salon, beginning with two portrait medallions in 1850 and a flurry of busts and groups with mythological or historical subjects between 1857-1861, the latter of which earned him a third-class medal.

Catherine Calcagni | Ed intanto fuori piove..

Assorta nella penombra

delle pagine gialle della mia vita

mi siedo con l'abbandono

con le mani raccolgo il vuoto

e mi conforta la pena

non guardo fuori...

sento solo....confesso

il rigurgito fuso delle mie angosce

eppur..... c'era il sole

Jeremy Mann

The fountain of the Four Rivers / La Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi, 1651

Quattro enormi allegorie sedute in pose contrastanti agli angoli delle rocce in marmo bianco che rappresentano i maggiori fiumi di ciascuno dei quattro continenti noti, secondo le cognizioni geografiche del XVII secolo:

Il Danubio per l'Europa, scolpito da Antonio Raggi;

Il Gange per l'Asia di Claude Poussin;

Il Rio della Plata per l'America di Francesco Baratta;

Il Nilo per l'Africa di Antonio Fancelli.

Will Barnet | Abstract painter

American painter and printmaker Will Barnet (1911-2012) has lived through every major artistic school in modern American art.

He can remember watching John Singer Sergent paint murals on the ceiling of the Boston Public Library in the 1920s, and being the printmaker in New York for Mexican muralist José Clemente Orozco.

He remembers the explosion of Abstract Expressionism that would come to define the so-called New York School of artists.

Alda Merini / Michelangelo | Bambino..

Bambino,

se trovi l'aquilone della tua fantasia

legalo con l'intelligenza del cuore.

Vedrai sorgere giardini incantati

e tua madre diventerà una pianta

che ti coprirà con le sue foglie.

Michelangelo Buonarroti | La Madonna di Bruges 1503-1505

Edgar Allan Poe | Il Corvo, la poesia illustrata da Manet

Il Corvo - The Raven - ed altre poesie è una raccolta di poesie scritte da Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849), scrittore, poeta, critico letterario, giornalista, editore, storyteller e saggista statunitense, considerato tra le figure più importanti della letteratura americana, inventore del racconto poliziesco, della letteratura horror e del giallo psicologico, finisce per diventare anche uno dei rappresentanti maggiori del racconto gotico.

Il Corvo fu pubblicato per la prima volta il 29 gennaio 1845, sul New York Evening Mirror.

Édouard Manet 1832-1883 | Illustration for The Rave by Edgar Allan Poe

Richard Baxter, 1966

Richard Baxter is an Australian painter, photographer and digital artist.

These three aspects of visual art constantly interweave for me, and I don't like to create borders between them as they all enhance each other in different ways.

The main, simple message in all my recent work is that life is joyous and explosive, here and now in the present, amidst the ordinary, amongst the flowers and the garbage.

Yannick Bouchard, 1982 | Surrealist / Symbolist painter

I am not claiming myself as a "surrealist artist", but my art is undeniably marked by their influence.

I was also very impressed by some notable fantasy artists, as well as erotic artists; the way they depict beauty and sensuality, and how they bring grandiose imaginary worlds to life.
Overall, my paintings are more or less a mixture of all those types; surrealism, fantasy with a touch of symbolism and even sometimes macabre.

But most of all, my paintings are images resulting of my inner thoughts and feelings; they are the expression of my love for the human body, the inspiring curves of femininity, as well as the superphysical side of the human mind, the mystical and the magical, or just very simple little things, like textures, colors and nature.

They are not intellectual pieces. They don't depict sophisticated and complicated opinions and cryptic theories.

Their essence is to stimulate the imagination and guide viewers where only they want to go. Mostly, I paint for myself; I paint what I want, I paint what I like, what moves me, what I feel and what I am.

Kent R. Wallis | Romantic Impressionist painter

Kent R. Wallis, born in Ogden, Utah, began his formal art endeavors rather late compared to most other artists.

He received his Bachelors' and Masters' degrees from Utah State University in Business Administration in 1969; after which he was employed by the B. F. Goodrich Company in Akron, Ohio.

He worked for six years in the fields of marketing and finance. During that 6-year experience, personal feelings kept reoccuring that his career was not fulfilling his creative needs.

With his sense of frustration growing, in January of 1975 he renewed an old hobby that had been abandoned years earlier but which he had enjoyed during his young life--drawing and painting. He did so in an effort to sharpen his creative faculties and give more purpose to his free time.

Momix Ballet

Conosciuta nel mondo intero per le sue opere di eccezionale inventiva e bellezza, Momix è una compagnia di ballerini, diretta dall'americano Moses Pendleton. Sin dalla fondazione ha acquisito grande notorietà per la sua capacità di evocare un mondo di immagini surreali utilizzando il corpo, costumi, attrezzi, luci e giochi d’ombra.

The Vigeland Sculpture Park

Il Parco delle sculture di Vigeland, un'area di circa 320 ettari, si trova all'interno del Frognerparken di Oslo, l'antica Kristiania, in periferia della capitale norvegese.
E' dedicata all'esposizione permanente di sculture, bassorilievi e opere in ferro battuto dell'artista norvegese Gustav Vigeland. Disseminate nel Parco Vigeland oltre 200 sculture che ritraggono scene di vita quotidiana.

Il tema di fondo dell'intero parco, il ciclo della vita, dalla nascita e della morte, si articola in cinque aree: Il Cancello, Il Ponte, La Fontana, La Terrazza del Monolite e la Ruota della Vita.
Tutti i sentieri del Parco Vigeland portano all’obelisco, monolite granitico si staglia in cielo per 17 metri, con scolpiti 121 corpi avvinghiati. Vigeland si occupò anche del design e della progettazione architettonica del parco.

Mark Mawson | Conceptual photographer

Mark Mawson is a London based photographer with 25 years experience of producing creative and inspiring images.

He specialises in shooting liquids and his colourful liquid work, titled "Aqueous", has become very well known and collectable. An Aqueous video was projected onto the walls of Buckingham Palace for The Queen's diamond jubilee concert.

Mark also enjoys shooting underwater fashion and beauty and his non commissioned personal work shows a love of atmospheric, cinematic work.

His work is held in many private collections around the world.

Ronit Baranga, 1973 | Surrealist sculptor

An Israeli artist with a head full of memories. Memories that might come from childhood, confronting the hands of an adult? An art that creates mysterious characters, images of women hiding behind their masks, or objects that have a life of themselves, and some human presence.

Miriana Mitrovich | Abstract photographer

Miriana Mitrovich is Bulgarian-born Canadian artist, born in Sofia. As a daughter of a ballerina and a sculptor, she was enrolled in a classical ballet and piano lessons by the age of six and sculpting portraiture under the guidance of her father. At the age of ten, she was accepted as one of twenty-eight children from across the country into a nine-year program at the National Ballet School in Sofia.

La Galleria degli Uffizi di Firenze

La Galleria degli Uffizi, una imponente ed armoniosa struttura del Cinquecento fiorentino, uno dei musei più conosciuti al mondo, è sito nel Piazzale degli Uffizi a Firenze.

Fù realizzata dall'architetto Giorgio Vasari su disposizione di Cosimo I, il quale volle riunire tutti gli uffici amministrativi della città in un solo grande edificio.

La costruzione del palazzo iniziò nel 1560 per terminare nel 1580, quando Giorgio Vasari era già morto.

L’opera fu portata a termine dagli architetti Alfonso Parigi e Bernardo Buontalenti, che mantennero il disegno originale.

Piazza della Signoria - Fontana del Neptune

Concerto di Capodanno di Vienna, 2014

La Filarmonica di Vienna ha invitato a Daniel Barenboim per guidare il Concerto di Capodanno del 2014. Questo è un riconoscimento a 25 anni di collaborazione musicale dell’orchestra col Direttore Generale Musicale dell’Opera di Stato Berlinese, qui ha diritto il suo premier Concerto di Capodanno con la Filarmonica di Vienna nel 2009, e per tutti gli apporti artistici, in aggiunta al riconoscimento mondiale del suo coraggio personale per costruire dei ponti e riconciliare quello ch’è irreconciliabile.

Tanti auguri di Buon 2014 !

Il giorno nasce con un nuovo raggio di sole,
la vita nasce con un nuovo amore
ed il tuo anno nuovo con i miei migliori auguri.
            Auguri di Buon Anno!

Dal 1939 la Wiener Philarmoniker in concerto

Evento di fama mondiale, perla della tradizione musicale viennese, il Concerto di Capodanno di Vienna rappresenta per gli appassionati del genere un appuntamento irrinunciabile. Trasmesso dalla Goldener Saal -Sala d'Oro- del prestigioso Musikverein, per l’occasione addobbata con opere d’arte floreali di matrice sanremese, l’esibizione dell’orchestra dei filarmonici annovera un pubblico di oltre un miliardo di spettatori e vanta la messa in onda di emittenti televisive di oltre quaranta paesi.

Buon 2014.. Felice Anno Nuovo !!

Libera in cielo i tuoi desideri
perché ad ogni ventata improvvisa tu te ne posa ricordare.
Libera in cielo le tue paure
perché con la sua profondità le mischi con le stelle
e le trasformi in nuovi punti di riferimento per crescere.

Elli Michler | I wish you time / Ti auguro tempo

Non ti auguro un dono qualsiasi,
ti auguro soltanto quello che i più non hanno:

I don't wish you all sorts of gifts.

I just wish you, what most people don't have:

Carl Payne, 1969 ~ Figurative sculptor

British sculptor Carl Payne was born in Staffordshire. During his education he studied Figurative Sculpture and began on his first commission in 2000. Since then, Payne has compiled an extensive ensemble of commissions including 'Ride a Cock Horse to Banbury Cross' and 'King George and Queen Mary' which were unveiled by George Best, Bobby Moore and Pele and by Princess Anne at Banbury respectively. Today he has a wide variety of collectors throughout the world.

Payne's works are incredibly lifelike, portraying their subjects flawlessly, the pieces look like they might spring to life at any given moment. Despite a lack of use of colour, the pieces convey a dynamic sense of weight and movement, capturing the viewer in the freeze-frame that his sculptures are trapped in.

Leonardo Bistolfi | Symbolist sculptor

Leonardo Bistolfi (1859-1933) was an Italian sculptor, an important exponent of Italian Symbolism. Bistolfi was born in Casale Monferrato in Piedmont, north-west Italy, to Giovanni Bistolfi, a sculptor in wood and to Angela Amisano.
In 1876 he enrolled in the Brera Art Academy in Milan, where his teacher was Giosuè Argenti. In 1880 he studied under Odoardo Tabacchi at the Accademia Albertina in Turin.

His first works Le lavandaie "The Washerwomen", Tramonto ‘Sunset’, Vespero ‘Evening’, Boaro ‘Cattle-hand’, Gli amanti ‘The Lovers’, executed between 1880 and 1885, show the influence of the Milanese Scapigliatura. In 1882 he sculpted L'Angelo della morte ‘The Angel of Death’ for the Brayda tomb in the Turin cemetery known as the Cimitero Monumentale, and in 1883 he produced a bust of the painter Antonio Fontanesi for the Accademia Albertina: these works show a turn towards Symbolism which the artist was never to abandon.

From this time until 1914 Bistolfi produced many busts, medals and portraits of prominent figures including the Piedmontese painter Lorenzo Delleani, the kings of Italy Vittorio Emanuele II and Umberto I, the criminologist Cesare Lombroso, the writer Edmondo De Amicis, and the publisher and journalist Emilio Treves.
In the early 1890s he was made an honorary member of the Accademia Albertina and became secretary of the Circolo degli Artisti ‘Artists’ Circle’.
In 1892 he began a two-year task of decorating Chapel XVI of the Sacro Monte di Crea, one of the Sacri Monti of Piedmont and Lombardy which are recognised as UNESCO World Heritage Sites. In 1893 he married Maria Gusberti.

Michel Rauscher, 1957 | Abstract Figurative painter

Michel Rauscher painter and photographer, born in Alsace is a passionate autodidact. Great traveler, he takes his endless curiosity in regions, on land that fascinated him in search of color, light and authenticity, with a predilection for the African continent.
His need for discovery and the interpretation of dreams become sources of inspiration for his painting. It evokes the beauty of the everyday magic of ordinary, the emotion of the moment. He expresses his artistic sensibility with timeless themes, stylized characters in cracked places, evocative and poetic silhouettes causing emotion and enthusiasm.

Jacqueline Osborn | Stories on canvas

British painter* Jacqueline Osborn captures strong, graphic and compelling images in her present series of paintings entitled Moments in Time.
Although Jacqueline has lived in California for half of her life she admits that England will always be home to her and that she is fortunate that she can return fairly often.
Her work communicates precious every-day moments that tell a story of another era, place and generation. Her warm and restrained palette suggests a mood of times gone by - out of reach, elusive moments that are captured on her canvases.

Mary Jane Cross, 1951 | Figurative painter

Born in 1951, American painter* Mary Jane Q. Cross received her formal training at the Worcester Art Museum, in 1970-1973 in a time of Expressionism.

Followed by workshops with Daniel Green and mentoring with Fran Hoyt (student of Vincent Dumond), Mary Jane designed her own curriculum based on the Atelier System, to gain the tools necessary to make her art speak with historic purity, and her own unique voice.

Amy Brown, 1972 | The forest spirit

Born in Bellingham, Washington, Amy Brown is the first Fairy Artist in America.

As a child she spent countless hours drawing fairy princesses at an old, dark wood table in the living room of the beach cabin her parents rented.

The doodling continued throughout her adolescence and at the age of 21 she began to take her art seriously, specializing in painting the fairy realm.

Amy started working with water-colors and found a deep love for the translucent qualities of the paint.

Sculture di ghiaccio e Neve ad Harbin

John Keats / Aldo Luongo | You say you love / Dici di amarmi

Dici di amarmi, ma con una voce

più casta di quella di una suora che canta

il tenue Vespro della sera a se stessa,

mentre suona la campana a festa...

Please, amami sul serio!

You say you love; but with a voice

Chaster than a nun's, who singeth

The soft Vespers to herself

While the chime-bell ringeth -

O love me truly!

Dici di amarmi, ma con un sorriso

freddo come un'alba di settembre,

come se fossi la suora di San Cupido

nella settimana di astinenza.

Please, amami sul serio!

You say you love; but with a smile

Cold as sunrise in September,

As you were Saint Cupid's nun,

And kept his weeks of Ember.

O love me truly!

Édouard Manet | Quotes /Aforismi

• Everything is mere appearance, the pleasures of a passing hour, a midsummer night's dream. Only painting, the reflection of a reflection - but the reflection, too, of eternity - can record some of the glitter of this mirage.
• A painter can say all he wants to with fruit or flowers or even clouds.
• A good painting is true to itself.
• - In una figura, cercate la grande luce e la grande ombra, il resto verrà da sé.
• - Si vede come si vuol vedere, ed è questa falsità che costituisce l'arte.
• - Dobbiamo ammaliare la verità, darle l'apparenza della follia.
• - Un quadro è una combinazione originale delle linee e dei toni che si mettono in evidenza.

Sir William Russell Flint | Watercolour painter

British painter and illustrator Sir William Russell Flint (1880-1969) was known especially for his watercolour paintings of women. He also worked in oils, tempera and printmaking. He was born in Edinburgh. From 1894-1900 Flint apprenticed as a lithographic draughtsman while taking classes at the Royal Academy of Art, Edinburgh.

From 1900-1902 he worked as a medical illustrator in London while studying part-time at Heatherley's Art School. He furthered his art education by studying independently at the British Museum. He was an artist for the Illustrated London News from 1903-1907, and produced illustrations for editions of several books, including Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales, 1912.

Leonard Cohen | Winter Lady /Signora Inverno

Boris Indrikov ~ Russian painter

Signora in viaggio, resta ancora un po’
finché la notte non sarà terminata
Sono solo una tappa del tuo cammino,
so che non sono il tuo amante.

Vivevo con una bimba di neve
quand’ero soldato
e combattei ogni uomo per lei
finché le notti non crebbero in freddo.

Trav'ling lady, stay awhile
Until the night is over.
I'm just a station on your way,
I know I'm not your lover.

Well I lived with a child of snow
When I was a soldier,
And I fought every man for her
Until the nights grew colder.

Pavel Mitkov, 1977 | Impressionist /Abstract painter

Award winning painter Pavel Mitkov, born in Sofia, Bulgaria, is the most successful and collected Bulgarian artist in the European connoisseur of art community in recent years. Extremely talented, his philosophy of life pertains to wisdom unusual for his young age. The paintings of Pavel Mitkov reflect not only his natural artistic talent, but also his passion for painting.

Goxwa Borg, 1961

Maltese painter Goxwa Borg was born in Valetta, Malta. She began painting at a very young age and enrolled at the Saint Martin School of Art. Years later, she moved to Boston where she attended Emerson College for film studies. In 1993 she was awarded fellowship at the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris.

Her encaustic works on canvas defy categorization. Although she draws inspiration from ancient frescos, her paintings have a very contemporary feel. Goxwa explores all genres, yet all of her paintings have the same element of mystery and intrigue. In 1993 she had her first of many solo exhibitions. Since then she has shown in various cities including Paris, New York, Strasbourg and San Francisco. Goxwa currently resides in Paris and her exhibitions continue to draw crowds of admirers and collectors.

Leonardo da Vinci | Che differenza è dalla pittura alla poesia

Trattato della Pittura - Parte prima /17

La pittura è una poesia muta, e la poesia è una pittura cieca, e l'una e l'altra vanno imitando la natura quanto è possibile alle loro potenze, e per l'una e per l'altra si può dimostrare molti morali costumi, come fece Apelle con la sua Calunnia.

Ma della pittura, perché serve all'occhio, senso piú nobile che l'orecchio, obietto della poesia, ne risulta una proporzione armonica; cioè, che siccome di molte e varie voci insieme aggiunte ad un medesimo tempo, ne risulta una proporzione armonica, la quale contenta tanto il senso dell'udito, che gli uditori restano con stupente ammirazione quasi semivivi.

Gaylord Ho, 1950

Taiwanese sculptor Gaylord Ho was born in Hsin-Wu, Taiwan. Born to poor farmers Gaylord spent most of his free time helping, along with his brother, with the chores of scratching out a living on a small rice farm in middle Taiwan. His parents, while certainly not well off financially, were accepting and loving of their children and believed strongly in education. Gaylord was sent off to the public school system as soon as he was of age.

Oscar Wilde: "A volte è meglio tacere e sembrare stupidi.."

• "L'arte non esprime mai altro che se stessa".

• "Il pensiero e il linguaggio sono per l'artista gli strumenti della sua arte".

• "L'arte è una passione".

• "E' solo il battitore d'asta che può ammirare egualmente e imparzialmente tutte le scuole d'Arte".

Amy Brown

Hocine Ziani, 1953

Algerian painter Hocine Ziani was born in Algeria, lives and works in France. He is an autodidactartist. Professional painter since 1978-1993 in Algeria, 1994-2009 in France. Founding member of the Central Army Museum, Algiers. Affiliated to the “Maison des Artistes”, Paris. Member of the ADAGP, Paris. Member of the International Fine arts Academy, Quebec.

Helene Schjerfbeck | Espressionist painter

Finnish painter Helene Schjerfbeck (1862-1946) is most widely known for her realist works and self-portraits, and less well known for her landscapes and still lifes. Throughout her long life, her work changed dramatically.

She was supposedly a Realist, a Romanticist, an Impressionist, a Naturalist, a Symbolist, an Expressionist and a wildly ahead-of-her-time Abstractist.

Helena Sofia Schjerfbeck was born in Helsinki, Finland (then an autonomous Grand-Duchy within the Russian Empire), to Svante Schjerfbeck (an office manager) and Olga Johanna (née Printz).

When she was four she suffered a hip injury, which prevented her from attending school.

Il Festival delle sculture di ghiaccio di Harbin

Il Festival Internazionale Cinese del Ghiaccio e Neve - “Harbin International Ice and Snow Sculpture Festival” - si svolge fin dal 1984 nella città di Harbin, sita nella provincia orientale del Heilongjiang, confinante con la Siberia.
Dal 1984 il Festival della Neve e del Ghiaccio porta in città i migliori scultori del ghiaccio che su una superficie di 750 mila metri quadrati, con 180 mila metri cubi di ghiaccio e 150 mila di neve creano palazzi, ponti, strade, pagode, che formano un'intera città lucente dalla bellezza surreale.
Ogni anno si realizzano sculture di ghiaccio che tendono a riprodurre una intera città, creando un'atmosfera incantata grazie anche a giochi di luce. Durante il Festival sono previste gare di scultura di ghiaccio e neve che attirano centinaia di artisti da tutto il mondo. Ufficialmente il festival ha inizio il 5 gennaio e si conclude dopo un mese, ma in realtà la manifestazione dura fino a quando le condizioni meteo lo permettono: è infatti l'arrivo della primavera, e del conseguente innalzamento della temperatura, a decretare lo sciogliersi delle sculture.