Michail Lermontov | Il Demone, 1829 | Prima parte

Michail Jur'evič Lermontov /Михаил Юрьевич Лермонтов (1814-1841) è una delle personalità letterarie più importanti del Romanticismo russo.

Poeta, scrittore e drammaturgo fu contemporaneo di Aleksandr Sergeevič Puškin (1799-1837) e come lui, morì in duello.

Autore del poema “Il Demone” e di “Un eroe del nostro tempo”, il suo capolavoro in prosa che uscì nel 1840, un anno prima della sua morte.

"Il Demone" / Демон rappresenta uno dei capolavori della Letteratura Russa, oltre che della Letteratura Romantica Europea.

"Il Demone" fu iniziato nel 1829 da un Lermontov sedicenne e concluso nel 1841. Lermontov scrisse ben otto redazioni del poema.

Berthe Morisot | Subjects

Berthe Morisot (1841-1895) painted what she experienced on a daily basis.

Most of her paintings include domestic scenes of family, children, ladies, and flowers, depicting what women's life was like in the late nineteenth century.

Instead of portraying the public space and society, Morisot preferred private, intimate scenes.

This reflects the cultural restrictions of her class and gender at that time.

Berthe Morisot | Lo stile artistico

Berthe Morisot (Bourges, 14 gennaio 1841 - Parigi, 2 marzo 1895) è stata una delle interpreti più significative, fantasiose e vivaci del movimento impressionista.

È importante notare inoltre come la Morisot, insieme a Mary Cassat, Eva Gonzalès e Marie Bracquemond, sia stata una delle poche pittrici impressioniste.

Thomas Cole

Charles Warren Mundy, 1945 | From Venice to Paris

Born in Indianapolis, Mundy received his undergraduate degree in art from Ball State University and his Masters of Fine Art at Long Beach State in Los Angeles.

Over the years he has received numerous awards from his participation in both regional and national juried exhibits, including the prestigious Hoosier Salon.

He was awarded the honor of Signature Membership in Oil Painters of America in 1993. Most recently, his plein air landscapes done in France, Italy, Spain, New England and most recently, Martha’s Vineyard, have received critical acclaim.

Berthe Morisot | Style and technique

Because she was a female artist, Morisot's paintings were often labeled as being full of "feminine charm" by male critics, for their elegance and lightness.

In 1890, Morisot wrote in a notebook about her struggles to be taken seriously as an artist: "I don't think there has ever been a man who treated a woman as an equal and that's all I would have asked for, for I know I'm worth as much as they".

Her light brushstrokes often led to critics using the verb "effleurer" (to touch lightly, brush against) to describe her technique.

In her early life, Morisot painted in the open air as other Impressionists to look for truths in observation.

Marianne von Werefkin | Expressionist painter

Marianne von Werefkin (1860-1938), Russian-German-Swiss painter, a member of ancient russian nobility, was born in the Russian town of Tula.

She was well educated according to western standards and the young girl's artistic talents were recognised early and encouraged.

She had her first private academic drawing lessons at the age of fourteen.

She was introduced to Illarion Michailowitsch Prjanischnikow, a member of the "Peredwischniki", where she began her studies, by the Repin family.

When her family moved to St. Petersburg in 1886 Marianne von Werefkin took private lessons under Repin.

Antonio Nunziante, 1956 | Metaphysical art

Italian painter Antonio Nunziante is one of the most important and celebrated painters in Italy today. He was born in Naples 1956, considered an artistic prodigy, having repeatedly experimented with oil paintings at 8 years old. After attaining a secondary school Art diploma in Asti, while demonstrating the maturity of his own painterly hand, he entered at the Fine Arts Academy for two years.

In 1975 his career began to flourish as a professional painter and he returned to Turin, where he completed restoration techniques in Florence. His visits to Italian and Europeans museums enriched his experience bringing him in contact with masterpieces of distinguished painters like Rembrandt and Vermeer.

Adriano Bonifazi | Romantic genre painter

Adriano Bonifazi (1858-1914) was an Italian painter who worked in Capri and Rome and primarily produced idealised or Romantic 'portraits' of young boys and girls, often in rustic dress.

Rather than naturalistic identifiable portraits, Bonifazi often painted pendants, that is paired paintings, depicting a young girl and a young boy, in an Romantic vein, offering flowers to their beloved or looking whistfully out of the picture space.

HongNian Zhang, 1947 | Realist painter

HongNian Zhang 张红年 is an Chinese painter🎨, who works in the Western academic tradition. Works by this gifted artist have been exhibited and acquired by museums, galleries, corporations and private collectors across the globe.

Growing up in China, Mr. Zhang became accomplished in art at a young age. He was one of the top students at the highly selective and prestigious Central Art Academy’s Affiliated High School in Beijing.

The instruction there was rigorous, paving the road for his future success. Unfortunately, the Cultural Revolution broke out and temporarily forestalled his art career. In 1970, Zhang and his classmates were sent to a forced labor camp in the remote countryside. He labored there for 4 years and creating art was prohibited.

Beatriz Martin Vidal, 1973 | Surrealist illustrator

Beatriz Martin Vidal was born in Valladolid, Spain.

After studying law for a time and then Fine Arts and Illustration in Bologna, Italy, she now works in her home city as a prize-winning fine artist and illustrator.

She has had several exhibitions of painting and has recently illustrated Ovid s Metamorphoses and a book of classic Russian tales, published in Spain.

Gernot Rasenberger, 1943 | Cityscape painter

Gernot Rasenberger was born in Frankfurt Germany, the grandson of the great 19th Century painter Alfred Rasenberger. Gernot studied at the Fine Art Academy in Dusseldorf where he graduated with honors.

He painted in the traditional “Dusseldorfer” school, a style that his grandfather was one of the founders.

Rasenberger traveled extensively throughout Europe and America and has had many exhibitions throughout the world.

He is well known in Europe for his paintings of Landscapes and river scenes. Today the artist lives with his family on the island of Majorca off the coast of Spain.

Felix Vallotton (1865-1925) | Nabi Painter

Félix Vallotton was a Franco-Swiss painter of portraits, figures, interiors and landscapes, wood-engraver, lithographer, sculptor and writer.

Born in Lausanne. Went to Paris in 1882 and studied at the Académie Julian under J. Lefebvre. Repaired and copied Old Master paintings; admired Holbein, Poussin and Ingres.

Concentrated mainly on wood-engraving 1891-1897, primarily portraits and scenes from everyday life treated with sardonic humour.

Kate Powell, 1995 | Symbolist painter / Illustrator

Kate Louise Powell is an illustrator and animal rights activist originally from Halifax, West Yorkshire, currently based in Glasgow.

After drawing recreationally her whole life, Kate started to take her artistic career more seriously in 2012 and produced a number of popular illustrations with the reoccurring motifs of flowers and butterflies.

Since then she has experimented with photography, mixed media and paint, but still works mostly in pencil/coloured pencil and black ink.

Paul Signac | Art Quotes

"Of the three primary colors, the three binary ones are formed.

If you add to one of these the primary tone that is its opposite, it cancels it out. This means that you produce the required half-tone.

Therefore, adding black is not adding a half-tone, it is soiling the tone whose true half-tone resides in this opposite me have just described. Hence the green shadows found in red.

The heads of the two little peasants. The yellow one had purple shadows; the redder and more sanguine one had green ones".

Van Gogh | Fishing in spring the Pont de Clichy (Asnieres), 1887

In this canvas, Vincent uses pointillist like dabs and his own developing thick dashes of yellows, lavender and greens to portray a locale commonly chosen by the impressionists, the Seine around Asnieres. A fisherman with blue pants, yellow brown shirt and black hat with pole resting in his right hand on his black outlined leg is fishing in the Seine below with the Pont de Clichy in the background.

The Seine is depicted in lateral strokes of blue from cobalt to sky blue in the foreground and lighter blues to white beyond the fisherman. The lavender and prussian blue strokes are repeated in the foreground water, the fisherman’s pants and the under arch of the bridge.

Reflections of the river’s bank are accomplished with multihued vertical strokes coming at the viewer with lavender and cobalt at top left and then greens and peach and blue vertical strokes at center right.

The green, yellow and blue boats are moored between brown vertically stroked wavy poles driven into the river bottom and look like man’s humble use of the carefully constructed tree trunk Vincent depicts at left.

Two trunks have been cut and we can see the bare trunk tops in yellow while the red and green and black dots and horizontal dashes give the tree detail and character and a life-like emotion as it lends a comforting shade to the pastoral scene. While vague figures cross the bridge in the distance and the green and yellow flashes of the leaves frame our fisherman, he is in a quiet and tranquil harbor and is peacefully awaiting his catch.

The painting hangs at the Art Institute in Chicago, here are some of their words on the work:

“In technique, Fishing in Spring is a testament to Vincent van Gogh’s friendship with Paul Signac**. Van Gogh had seen works by Signac and George Seurat** in the spring of 1886 at the final Impressionist exhibition. Signac was an eloquent spokesman for Seurat’s pioneering Neo-Impressionism**, explaining it as a natural development of Impressionism. Under Signac’s influence, Van Gogh’s palette brightened, his brushstrokes became more varied, and his subject matter expanded. The setting of this work is the Seine River at the Pont de Clichy, near Asnières, where Van Gogh and Signac painted together on several occasions”.

Vincent would later help to have Seurat and Signac**’s paintings exhibited at Le Tambourin alongside his own and all three were allowed to show at the XXX in January of 1887 in an entry salon. This painting is not mentioned in any of Vincent or Theo’s letters so we cannot know what Vincent thought of it precisely.

Though the bridge has changed, the location of Vincent’s perspective for this work can be found today.  It is just off the Quai de Clichy across the Seine from Asnieres.

Oil on Canvas,
Art Institute of Chicago,
Spring 1887

Frøydis Aarseths, 1986 | Figurative painter

Frøydis Aarseth is a full time artist and runs her own school of figurative art in Bergen, Norway. Frøydis Aarseth was born in Norway in 1986. She has always known what she wanted in life and that is to live life as a figurative artist – not only to paint paintings that are beautiful to look at, but also to convey a deeper importance that will give the viewer something more than only aesthetics.

She began her studies at The Florence Academy of Art🎨 in Italy in 2006 and graduated from the academy in 2009. After this she continued her studies in Paris, France under the direction of the figurative master Odd Nerdrum🎨.

Sabin Howard, 1963 | Classical figures sculptor

The New York City sculptor Sabin Howard grew up in New York City and in Torino, Italy.

He studied art at the Philadelphia College of Art and then earned his MFA from the New York Academy of Art.

For twenty years, he taught at the graduate and undergraduate levels.

He has been elected to the board of the National Sculpture Society.

He has received numerous commissions and has showed his work at more than fifty solo and group shows.

Denis Nunez Rodríguez, 1967 | Surrealist painter

Cuban painter Denis Nunez Rodriguez was born in Matanzas, Cuba.

He studied drawing and painting in Cuba`s National Art School and graduated in 1986 as a painter and professor of painting and drawing.

Núñez has held numerous solo exhibitions in Cuba and worldwide.

His works have been recognized with numerous awards🎨 and most of them illustrate book covers of famous authors.

Conor Walton, 1970 | Allegorical figurative painter

Conor Walton is a leading Irish artist and a painter of international renown.

He has had eighteen solo exhibitions in Europe and America and participated in museum exhibitions at the National Portrait Gallery (London), MEAM (Barcelona), The National Gallery of Ireland, the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Museo Páblo Serrano (Zaragoza), Palazzo Litta (Milan), Palazzo Cini (Venice), the American University Museum (Washington DC), WMOCA (Wisconsin), Castello di San Leo (Italy) PO.RO.S Museum (Portugal), Pasinger Fabrik (Munich) and Winchester Museum (UK).

Judy Drew, 1951 | Pastel painter

Judy Drew is an Australian painter.

Her passion for the Post-Impressionism period and the influence of Japanese art in the late 1880's, along with her creative sense of colour and form, allow Judy to create beautiful and modern work, even though Judy's work is contemporary she retains a touch of sentiment in all her pieces.

Her rich and textured pastels convey her emotion and love for this medium creating refreshing and strong compositional work, which is sensitive to the subject matter.

Margaret Dyer | Impressionist Figurative painter

A Master Pastelist with the Pastel Society of America and award-winning🎨 member of the American Impressionist🎨 Society, Margaret Dyer has made her living for over 20 years selling her work and teaching workshops.

Margaret has lived in and around Atlanta, GA, since her family moved from New York in 1960.

She attended the Atlanta College of Art at the High Museum of Art and furthered her studies under painters Roman Chatov and Kate Fetterolf.

Sergio Lopez, 1983 | Figure / Plein Air painter

Sergio Lopez, American painter and illustrator, was born in Sonoma County, California.

He received his BFA from the Academy of Art in San Francisco. Upon discovering oil paint and charcoal, he began filling sketchbooks rapidly, with real life observations and imagined ones alike.

Laura Knight | Ballet dancers

Dame Laura Knight, (née Johnson), (4 August 1877 - 7 July 1970) was an English artist who worked in oils, watercolours, etching, engraving and drypoint. Knight was a painter in the figurative, realist tradition and who embraced English Impressionism.

In her long career, Knight was among the most successful and popular painters in Britain.

Her success in the male-dominated British art establishment paved the way for greater status and recognition for women artists.

Takeji Fujishima | Romantic painter

Fujishima Takeji / 藤島 武 (1867-1943) was a Japanese painter, noted for his work in developing Romanticism and Impressionism within the Yōga (Western-style) art movement in late 19th- and early 20th-century Japanese painting. In his later years, he was influenced by the Art Nouveau movement.

Fujishima was born to an ex-samurai class household in Kagoshima, Satsuma Domain in southern Kyūshū, Japan, where his father had been a retainer of the Shimazu clan daimyō.

Andrey Aranyshev, 1956 | Abstract painter

A painter who is a philosopher costs dear, but it is double as costly if he is a truly master of art. Andrey Aranyshev / Андрей Аранышев carries rare conviction in combining the methods of creating conditional decorativeness, colour surface and figuraly-spatial reality.

His objects are bright and delicate; his images are not flesh but emotion. However the artist doesn't create antropomorphous phantoms.

His actual "characters" are energy of light, colour, an exquisite line and harmony of composition.

Michael Mao | Figurative painter

Michael Mao, Chinese-born American painter, was grown up in Shanghai, China. He began teaching himself drawing and painting at the young age of seven.

He also learned painting through many workshops during the weekends when he was in middle school and high school.

After graduated from Tongji University, one of the most prestigious architecture schools in China, Michael did many architectural renderings while working as an instructor in School of Architecture and Urban Design at Tongji University.

In 1992, Michael moved to the United States to advance his architecture career by pursuing his Master of Architecture at University of Texas at Arlington.

Nikolay Bogdanov-Belsky | Genre painter

Hикола́й Петро́вич Богда́нов-Бе́льский (1868-1945) was an Russian🎨 academic, portrait and landscape painter.

Nikolay Petrovich Bogdanov-Belsky graduated from Petersburg Academy of Arts where he studied at J. Repin🎨.

At the beginning of the XX th century the pictures of N. Bogdanov-Belsky are exhibited at the established museums of Russia and obtained by them.

He also had a flair for portrait painting-he painted the Russian tsar Nikolay II, prince Sergey Alexandrovich and Emperess Maria Fyodorovna.

Duong Quoc Dinh, 1967 | Body painter

Vietnamese painter and Fine art photographer Dương Quốc Định was passionate in drawing when he was a little boy.

He graduated from Industrial Graphics of Dong Nai Fine Arts University in 1989.

After 4 years being photographers, Dương Quốc Định achieved 10s of national and international rewards.

In March, 2007, Duong Quoc Dinh was one of the 10 excellent artists rewarded and highly appreciated by Dong Nai People Committee.

Cristina Troufa, 1974 | Surrealist / Symbolist painter

Cristina Troufa is a Portuguese based artist, working predominately in figurative painting. In recent works, she uses her own image in autobiographical paintings that explore her livings and spiritual beliefs. As a form of self-knowledge and self-questioning, her work explores, in a symbolic and surrealistic way, an inner world, which remains inaccessible to the voyeur, who can only guess what each painting represents.

Cristina Troufa holds a masters degree in Painting since 2012 and a degree in Painting since 1998 bout in FBAUP (University of Fine Arts of Porto).

She has exhibited trough Portugal, in solo and group exhibitions since 1995 and international exhibitions, Italy, Spain, France and Australia.

Lidia Wylangowska | Figurative painter

Polish painter Lidia Wylangowska - born in Polen, Poland - works from her workshop in Illinois, and holds regular exhibitions at the Polish Museum of America, Chicago.

"My art tells my story. It's a story of my world, of my thoughts and emotions entwined in an internal dialogue. And some of it can be expressed only through painting. It is incredible, how fairy-tales I heard once-upon-a-time, in my childhood actually influenced my life and defined who I am. As an adult, I still believe in happy endings and that good will prevail".

Ramon Casas | Modernist painter

Ramón Casas i Carbó (1866-1932) was a Spanish artist.

Living through a turbulent time in the history of his native Barcelona, he was known as a portraitist, sketching and painting the intellectual, economic and political elite of Barcelona, Paris, Madrid and beyond; he was also known for his paintings of crowd scenes ranging from the audience at a bullfight to the assembly for an execution to rioters in the Barcelona streets.

Also a graphic designer, his posters and postcards helped to define the Catalan art movement known as Modernisme.

Bruno Bruni, 1935 | Surrealist Lithographer

Italian-born German painter🎨, sculptor and lithographer Bruno Bruni🎨 has become one of the most famous contemporary artists in Germany. He shot to fame thanks to a representational art with mass appeal. He is famous not only as an artist but also as a Hamburg character: He's almost a work of art himself.

Admired as one of Germany's top ranking artists, Bruno Bruni🎨 was born in Gradara - Pesaro, a small Italian town near the Adriatic Sea.

Dino Buzzati | Symbolist / Surrealist painter

Dino Buzzati-Traverso (14 October 1906 - 28 January 1972) was an Italian🎨 novelist, short story writer and poet, as well as a journalist for Corriere della Sera.

His worldwide fame is mostly due to his novel The Tartar Steppe, but he is also known for his well received collections of short stories.

However, Dino Buzzati was also a skilful painter and illustrator - his talent became apparent with the evocative, beautifully crafted color plates of his 1945 children’s book The Bears’ Famous Invasion of Sicily.

Rose Frantzen, 1965 | Symbolist painter

American painter🎨 Rose Frantzen was born and raised in the community of Maquoketa, a city of about 6000 people in east-central Iowa.

Ms. Frantzen trained at the American Academy of Art in Chicago. She also studied at Chicago's Palette and Chisel Academy and at the Lyme Academy of Arts in Connecticut. She has worked under the mentorship of Richard Schmid🎨 and made painting tours of Australia, Guatemala, Mexico and Russia.

Asher B. Durand | Hudson River School painter

Asher Brown Durand, (born August 21, 1796, Jefferson Village, New Jersey, U.S. - died September 17, 1886, Jefferson Village), American painter🎨, engraver, and illustrator, one of the founders of the Hudson River school🎨 of landscape painting.

He was apprenticed in 1812 to an engraver.

By 1823 his reputation was established with his engraving of John Trumbull’s painting Declaration of Independence.

Carl Holsøe (1863-1935)

Il pittore Carl Vilhelm Holsoe, un membro di spicco della scuola di pittura Danese nella seconda metà del XIX ed all'inizio del XX secolo, era molto apprezzato da colleghi e collezionisti.

Carl Vilhelm Holsøe è nato nella Danimarca occidentale e si è trasferito a Copenaghen nel 1882 per studiare alla Kongelige Danke Kunstakademi.

Nel 1884 frequentò le lezioni alla Kunstnernes Studieskole sotto la guida di Peder Severin Kroyer.

Stephan Sinding | Romantic / Symbolist sculptor

Stephan Abel Sinding (1846-1922) was a Norwegian-Danish sculptor. He moved to Copenhagen in 1883 and had his breakthrough the same year. In 1890 he obtained Danish citizenship. In 1910 he settled in Paris where he lived and worked until his death in 1922.

Early life and education

Stephan Abel Sinding was born in Trondhjem as a son of mining engineer Matthias Wilhelm Sinding (1811-1860) and Cecilie Marie Mejdell (1817-86).

Sinding was the brother of the composer Christian Sinding and painter Otto Ludvig Sinding and the nephew of Nicolai Mejdell (1822-1899) and Thorvald Mejdell (1824-1908), and through the former a first cousin of Glør Thorvald Mejdell, who married Stephan's sister Thora Cathrine Sinding.

Wang Zhongqi 王忠齐, 1958 | Symbolist painter

Born in Shanghai, Wang Zhongqi studied Fine Arts with focus on Oil Painting at Jiatong University Shanghai.

Soon after his works were nominated for an international competition in New York and were exhibited at Chioda Club in Tokyo. In 2002 Wang Zhongqi was engaged to support the Princeton University Art Museum due to his excellent art advisor competence.

Etienne Pirot, 1952 | Abstract / Symbolist sculptor

Born in Grenoble, French sculptor Étienne Pirot [Étienne] spent his childhood and his youth in the "Dauphiné" province. He went to University in Ottawa (Canada) and back in France, he obtained a degree in plastic arts in Marseille. Then he became a student at the "Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux Arts" in Paris and an art teacher from 1974-1976.

Nasreddine Dinet | Orientalist / Genre painter

Nasreddine Dinet, born as Alphonse-Étienne Dinet (28 March 1861 - 24 December 1929, Paris) was a French🎨 orientalist painter and was one of the founders of the Société des Peintres Orientalistes [Society for French Orientalist Painters].

He became so enchanted with North Africa and its culture, that he converted to Islam, and was proficient in Arabic.

In addition to his paintings, he translated Arabic literature into French.

Gesine Marwedel, 1987 | Body painter

Born in Eckernförde, Germany, Gesine Marwedel, german painter, raised in Dortmund. After finishing school 2005, worked in an indian orphanage for some months. The experiences I made there had influences on my subject of study such as on my artwork.

I studied "rehabilitation science" from 2005-2008 and finished with the BA graduation.

Dalila Del Valle, 1958 | Body painter

Dalila is absolutely a painter of great recognition, unequivocal quality of the possession of an own style, characterized by beautiful faces and naked figures that, simultaneously are covered by incredible tattoos on the skin.

To these two conditions it would be necessary to add two more other: the exclusive feature of the technique and the own culture of the city or country where it exposes his works, changing the reason for its tattoos.

Nobody like her to know how to impregnate of its personality and enormous technical capacity its works and orders.

Madeline Von Foerster, 1973 | Surrealist painter

Madeline von Foerster was born in San Francisco to german-austrian parents. Now lives and works in Germany.

Studied illustration at the Californian College of Arts in San Francisco. After completing her studies, she relocated to New York city at the suggestion of one of her teachers and resides there to this day.

To create her unique paintings, Madeline von Foerster uses a five century-old mixed technique of oil and egg tempera, developed by the Flemish Renaissance Masters.

September McGee, 1953 | Impressionist painter

Best known for her painterly figurative works, American Impressionist, September McGee, has recently released several new exciting series. Her paintings sing with nonpareil energy evoking a sensuous magic and timely romanticism.

Her novel palette fused with texture and spirited brush strokes defines McGee’s distinctive Impressionistic style. Winner of many national juried exhibition awards and honors, and an extensive resume of over fifty prestigious juried exhibitions to date, September has built her national reputation as an important American painter.

Allen Bentley | Love story

American painter Allen Bentley received his MFA from the University of Pennsylvania in 2000 and his BFA from Western Carolina University in 1996. Bentley’s work has been exhibited across the country, with solo exhibitions in New York, Chicago, San Diego and Philadelphia.

He has shown in the Philadelphia International Airport and in Artworks at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. In 2009, Bentley had his first solo museum show at the Delaware Center for the Contemporary Arts.

He teaches Life Drawing and Intro Drawing at Montgomery College in Rockville, MD. When Bentley is not traveling the country working with professional to celebrity dancers, he lives in Montgomery Village, MD with his wife and children.

El Greco | Technique and style

The primacy of imagination and intuition over the subjective character of creation was a fundamental principle of El Greco's (1541-1614) style.

El Greco discarded classicist criteria such as measure and proportion. He believed that grace is the supreme quest of art, but the painter achieves grace only by managing to solve the most complex problems with ease.

El Greco regarded color as the most important and the most ungovernable element of painting, and declared that color had primacy over form.

Francisco Pacheco, a painter and theoretician who visited El Greco in 1611, wrote that the painter liked "the colors crude and unmixed in great blots as a boastful display of his dexterity" and that "he believed in constant repainting and retouching in order to make the broad masses tell flat as in nature".

Nicolai Fechin (1881-1955)

Nicolai Fechin was born in the city of Kazan, Russia, the son of Ivan Alexandrovitch Fechin, an accomplished icon maker, woodcarver, and gilder.

 At the age of thirteen Fechin was ready to begin his life's work, attending the Kazan School of Art (1895-1901) and then the St. Petersburg Imperial Academy of Arts, where he was taught by the great Russian master, Ilya Repin.

His work appeared in America for the first time at the 1910 International Exhibit of the Carnegie Institute in Pittsburgh.

In both western Europe and America, Fechin was greeted with instant acclaim.

Among such distinguished contemporaries as Claude Monet, Pissarro, Gaston La Touche, Sisley and John Sargent, he won his first prizes and medals. He was called a "Moujik in art", the "Tartar painter".

Zhiwei Tu, 1951 | Romantic / Impressionist painter

Awards winning painter Zhiwei Tu was born in Northern Guangdong Province, China.

As a child he worked his family's land, herded sheep, and attended the village school.

It was there that he became infatuated with painting and drawing.

When he was in high school, a professional artist was sent to the village to paint a portrait of Mao Zedong.

Tony Pavone | Last Lover

Born in Ohio from parents of European descent, Tony Pavone's childhood was filled with art, operas, musicals and passion for culture.

His artistic abilities became evident when, at the age of 3, he opened his father's anatomy and art books and drew the internal anatomy of the human body.

At the age of 10, his family moved to Florida, and after high school, Tony received a full scholarship to the University of South Florida for symphonic string bass.

"The more I played music, the more art pulled at me". Before long, Tony left USF and enrolled in the Ringling School of Art and Design. Earlier in his professional career Tony worked as a graphic illustrator and rose quickly to creative director, then to Art director.