Dan Thompson | Figurative painter

American painter🎨 Dan Thompson was born in Alexandria, Virginia, and graduated from the Corcoran School of Art in Washington, DC.

He earned his MFA from the Graduate School of Figurative Art of the New York Academy of Art, and supplemented his training with several additional years of private study and studio apprenticeships along the east coast of the United States.

He has been awarded🎨 two grants from the Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation and has twice received the Ethel Lorraine Bernstein Memorial Award🎨 for Excellence in Painting from the Corcoran College of Art and Design. In 2001, Thompson won Best of Show in the American Society of Portrait Artist’s International Portrait Competition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

In 2006 Dan Thompson co-founded the Grand Central Academy of Art in New York.

In 2008, he co-founded the Janus Collaborative School of Art in New York. Dan Thompson has also instructed privately at Studio 126 in New York and is on the faculty of Parsons the New School for Design, the New York Academy of Art, The Art Students League of New York, and Studio Incamminati, in Philadelphia, PA.

He has demonstrated and taught workshops in San Francisco, Seattle, Santa Fe, Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia, New Orleans, Washington, D.C, and Sarasota, FL. He has also demonstrated and instructed internationally in Toronto, Canada, Subiaco, Italy, and in the Provence region of France.  In 2007, Thompson was selected an ARC Living Master Artist.

Since 2002 Mr. Thompson has demonstrated portrait drawing and painting and served as a juror and board member for the Portrait Society of Canada’s International Portrait Conference in Toronto.

He has also lectured at the Dahesh Museum of Art, served as a speaker at Studio Incamminati’s Advanced Portrait Workshop and Symposium, and written on technique and painting practice for several art publications across the United States.

His work can be found in public and private collections throughout the United States, and in Canada, Europe, and the Middle East.

Nathan Altman | Avant-garde artist

Nathan Isaevich Altman / Натан Исаевич Альтман (1889-1970) was a Russian avant-garde artist, Cubist painter, stage designer and book illustrator and book illustrator, who was born in Ukraine in the Russian Empire and worked in France and the Soviet Union.

Altman was born in Vinnytsia, in the Podolia Governorate of the Russian Empire (present-day Ukraine) to a family of Jewish merchants.

From 1902-1907, he studied painting and sculpture at the Art College in Odessa (now independent Ukraine).

In 1906, he had his first exhibition in Odessa.

Gustav Klimt (1862-1918) | Quotes

• "I can paint and draw. I believe this myself and a few other people say that they believe this too. But I'm not certain of whether it's true".

• "Art is a line around your thoughts".

• "Today I want to start working again in earnest I'm looking forward to it because doing nothing does become rather boring after a while".

• "There is nothing that special to see when looking at me".

• "All art is erotic".

• "Tutta l'arte è erotica".

Fra Filippo Lippi | Early Renaissance painter

Fra Filippo Lippi (1406-1469), Florentine painter in the second generation of Renaissance artists.

While exhibiting the strong influence of Masaccio (e.g., in Madonna and Child, 1437) and Fra Angelico (e.g., in Coronation of the Virgin, c. 1445), his work achieved a distinctive clarity of expression. Legend and tradition surround his unconventional life.

Adam Clague | Impressionist painter of the figure

Adam Clague studied at Pensacola Christian College, where he received instruction from master artist Brian Jekel and earned a Master of Fine Arts degree. Adam now lives near Kansas City, Missouri and enjoys the adventure of pursuing art with his wife and fellow painter, Andrea Orr Clague.

Adam is a member of the Oil Painters of America and the Missouri Valley Impressionist Society. In 2013, the artist had a feature article in Artists On Art Magazine and was honored to receive the Portrait Award of Excellence in the OPA National Exhibition. Adam’s work has been displayed in various venues and is represented by Hudson Fine Art in Ohio and Augusta Wood in Missouri.

Adam is grateful for the opportunity to paint the beauty of God’s creation. He hopes to share that beauty with others and seeks to glorify the Lord through his work and life.

Gustavo Pujalte, 1944 | Impressionist painter

Gustavo Antonio Pujalte was born in Aspen, near the city of Alicante, Spain. At the age of six, he left Spain with his parents and sisters to settle Argentina.

From an early age he showed a talent for drawing and painting, who inherited from his father, a prominent violinist and artist, and from which he received his first lessons.

At fifteen, he began his professional career by painting portraits of prominent members of the Argentine society.

At the age of seventeen, he held his first art exhibition. In order to increase their knowledge and technique, he moved to Buenos Aires, where he studied painting at the famous Catalan master Vicente Puig.

Hans Dahl | Pittore romantico di genere

Hans Dahl (1849-1937) è stato un pittore Norvegese, noto principalmente per i suoi paesaggi.

Biografia

Dahl nacque a Granvin, nella odierna contea di Vestland.

Dopo un periodo di servizio militare, Hans studiò arte presso Karlsruhe e Düsseldorf, dove ebbe come insegnante il pittore Hans Gude.

Nel 1902 fu nominato cavaliere dell'ordine di Sant'Olav.

Visse a Berlino fino al 1919, anno di morte dell'omonimo figlio. In seguito rimpatriò definitivamente per trasferirsi a Balestrand.

Agnolo Bronzino | Art in Detail

Agnolo Bronzino (1503-1563)🎨 was a stand-out artist of the second-wave of Italian Mannerism🎨 in the middle of the 16th century.

He lived his entire life in Florence🎨 and modeled his painting style so closely to that of his mentor, Jacopo Pontormo🎨.

For biographical notes and earlier works by Bronzino🎨 see:

• Agnolo Bronzino | Mannerist painter🎨.

Ugo Flumiani | Marine painter

Ugo Flumiani (1876-1938) was an Italian painter who was born in Trieste.

Flumiani has participated in major exhibitions of Italian and held personal with marine and landscape paintings, in which he reached the good effects of sunlight.

Are recalled: "Now of gold", the intentional exposure of Venice in 1909, "The Mirror", "Song of Autumn" and "Butterflies", the International of 1910, "Reflections" and "Fortunale on the Adriatic" to that of 1920, and "San Canziano" and "Return", these in Venice at the International 1924.

Paul Cadmus | Magic Realism painter

Paul Cadmus, (1904-1999), American artist who created paintings, drawings and prints in a figurative, near-illustrational style during a career that spanned some 70 years.

Cadmus decided upon a career in art when he was still a young boy and enrolled in art classes at New York City’s National Academy of Design (now the National Academy Museum and School of Fine Arts) when he was 15. He studied there until 1926 and at the Art Students League for the following two years and then went to work at an advertising agency.

Between 1931-1933 he lived with artist Jared French. The two traveled to the island of Majorca, Spain, and there Cadmus created the well-known paintings Shore Leave and YMCA Locker Room (both 1933).

Frans Hals | Dutch Golden Age painter

From: The Metropolitan Museum of Art

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The celebrated portraitist and genre painter Frans Hals (1582-1666) has been placed second only to Rembrandt and, during the past hundred years, to Vermeer in the pantheon of great Dutch painters of the Golden Age.

In the second half of the nineteenth century, Hals was actually the most admired artist in some quarters - especially in Paris, since Vermeer’s small oeuvre was still only beginning to be defined, and Hals' bourgeois subjects, his often colorful palette, and above all his bold brushwork became more inspiring to Realist and Impressionist painters than was the venerable model of Rembrandt.

Gustave Loiseau (1865-1935)

Gustave Loiseau nasce a Parigi il 3 ottobre 1865; sarebbe diventato uno dei più importanti pittori post-impressionisti.

Dopo il servizio militare e dopo aver lavorato per l'azienda di famiglia, Loiseau visitò Pont Aven nel 1890, dove lavorò sotto la guida di Paul Gauguin (1848-1903), dopo il ritorno di quest'ultimo dalla sua prima visita a Tahiti.

Dante Gabriel Rossetti | Sonnet X | The Portrait

O Lord of all compassionate control,

O Love! let this my lady's picture glow

⁠Under my hand to praise her name, and show

Even of her inner self the perfect whole:

That he who seeks her beauty's furthest goal,

⁠Beyond the light that the sweet glances throw

Giovanni Bellini | High Renaissance painter

Italian painter Giovanni Bellini (1430-1516) was the founder of the Venetian school of painting and raised Venice to a center of Renaissance art that rivaled Florence and Rome. He brought to painting a new degree of realism, a new wealth of subject matter, and a new sensuousness in form and color.

Perhaps more than any other, Giovanni Bellini [Giambellino] was an artist who passed through different periods and cultural revolutions.

He, before Leonardo, was the great inventor of the representation of sentiment and nature, painting works of extraordinary poetry, landscapes that brought together everything that had been seen until then in Italy and Europe, with the human figure totally immersed in the surrounding space.

Botticelli | Venus and the Three Graces..

Artist: Sandro Botticelli (1445-1510).

Title: Venus and the Three Graces Presenting Gifts to a Young Woman, also known as Giovanna degli Albizzi Receiving a Gift of Flowers from Venus.

Year: 1483-1486.

Type: Fresco, detached and mounted on canvas.

Dimensions: 211 cm × 283 cm (83 in × 111 in).

Location: Musée du Louvre, Paris.

Le Pho | Pittore romantico

Lê Phổ / 黎谱 (1907-2001) è stato un pittore impressionista e romantico Vietnamita.

Dipinse scenari del Vietnam, nature morte con fiori, ambientazioni familiari e ritratti.

Le donne vietnamite, spesso ritratte come figure allungate che evocano l'influenza del surrealismo, sono state un tema ricorrente nel suo lavoro.

Dal 1925-1930, Lê Phổ studiò all'Ecole des Beaux-Arts di Hanoi.

Tina Spratt, 1976 | Figurative painter

British painter🎨 Tina Spratt is best known for her paintings of the female figure, either in oils or pastel, her subjects are often lost in introspection, or surrounded by the fascinating textures of a myriad of fabrics.

"I have always been drawn to the female figure in my work", she has said, "and I hope to recreate the beauty and integrity of a simple, everyday intimacy".

With an emphasis on beautiful fabrics or domestic scenes , she is influenced by artists such as Andrew Wyeth🎨, Rembrandt🎨 and Vermeer🎨.

Kieta Nuij, 1960 | Abstract sculptor

Dutch artist🎨 Kieta Nuij was born in Heerlen in the south of the Netherlands. She is a graduate of the Maastricht Academy of Fine Arts. She started working as an artist - she became a sculptor🎨 in 1984, just after graduating. Initially, she worked in clay, and now she has been creating bronze sculptures for over 25 years.

Characteristic for her art is the use of materials marked by the destructive effects of time - pieces of material, ropes, wood.

Sandro Botticelli | The Map of Hell, 1480-1490

The Divine Comedy Illustrated by Botticelli is a manuscript of the Divine Comedy by Dante, illustrated by 92 full-page pictures by Sandro Botticelli that are considered masterpieces and amongst the best works of the Renaissance painter.

The images are mostly not taken beyond silverpoint drawings, many worked over in ink, but four pages are fully coloured.

The manuscript eventually disappeared and most of it was rediscovered in the late nineteenth century, having been detected in the collection of the Duke of Hamilton by Gustav Friedrich Waagen, with a few other pages being found in the Vatican Library.

Sandro Botticelli | The Map of Hell, 1480-1490 | Vatican Museums

Johannes Vermeer | Tecnica pittorica

Il pittore Olandese Johannes Vermeer (1632-1675) era in grado di ottenere colori trasparenti applicando sulle tele il colore a punti piccoli e ravvicinati, tecnica nota come pointillé, da non confondere con il pointillisme.

La sua tecnica punta a una resa più vivida possibile, con effetti, soprattutto di colore, che egli ricerca con un interesse quasi scientifico, considerando il soggetto una sorta di espediente: "le pitture di Vermeer sono vere nature morte con esseri umani".

Non ci sono disegni attribuibili con certezza all'artista e i suoi quadri presentano pochi indizi dei suoi metodi preparatori.

Zig Ziglar: "Non esiste un ascensore per il successo.."

"Non esiste un ascensore per il successo, devi prendere le scale!"

"There is no elevator to success, you have to take the stairs!"

-Zig Ziglar (1926-2012) Scrittore e speaker motivazionale statunitense.

Edmund Blair Leighton (1852-1922) | Pre-Raphaelite painter

Although his name is not commonly known, Edmund Blair Leighton's most famous works are among the most widely recognized paintings of the period.

His works of Godspeed (1900) and the Accolade (1901), can be seen in almost every poster shop around the world and are used as the epitome of medieval iconography.

If one looks at the visual elements in Godspeed for example, it becomes evident that very few paintings encapsulate with such a strong a sense, the sensibilities of this genre.

The beautiful maiden on the steps of a stone castle, the knight in shining armor, the white steed, and the sense of immediate peril which threatens the subjects contentment almost define our modern day conception of Medieval legend and romantic sentiment.

Henry Tonks | Impressionist painter

Henry Tonks, FRCS (9 April 1862 - 8 January 1937) was a British surgeon and later draughtsman and painter of figure subjects, chiefly interiors, and a caricaturist.

He became an influential art teacher.

He was one of the first British artists to be influenced by the French Impressionists; he exhibited with the New English Art Club, and was an associate of many of the more progressive artists of late Victorian Britain, including James McNeill Whistler, Walter Sickert, John Singer Sargent and George Clausen.

Howard Pyle (1853-1911)

Pyle viene considerato uno degli illustratori ed artisti più importanti.

Vincent van Gogh scrisse una lettera a suo fratello Theo, affermando che i lavori di Pyle "lo avevano stupito"

Howard Pyle (Wilmington, 5 marzo 1853 - Firenze, 9 novembre 1911) è stato un illustratore e scrittore statunitense, autore di romanzi per giovani.

Howard Pyle nacque a Wilmington, in Delaware, figlio di William Pyle e Margaret Churchman Painter.

Da bambino, frequentò scuole private e si interessò sin dalla tenera età al disegno e alla scrittura.

Gerolamo Induno (1825-1890) | History / Genre painter

Gerolamo Induno (13 December 1825 - 18 December 1890) was an Italian painter and soldier, best known for his military scenes. His older brother, Domenico, was also a well-known artist and they often worked together.

He was born in Milan, where his father was a chef and butler at the Milanese court.

He took his first formal art lessons at the Brera Academy, where he studied with Luigi Sabatelli from 1839-1846.

His first exhibit was in 1845; composed of portraits and a scene from The Betrothed by Alessandro Manzoni (now lost).

Der Blaue Reiter / Il Cavaliere Azzurro (1911-1914)

Formata nel 1911 a Monaco come associazione di pittori ed una società espositrice guidata da Wassily Kandinsky e Franz Marc.

Usando un vocabolario visivo di forme astratte e colori prismatici, gli artisti di Blaue Reiter hanno esplorato i valori spirituali dell'arte in contrasto con [ciò che vedevano come] la corruzione e il materialismo della loro epoca.

Il nome, che significa "cavaliere blu", si riferisce a un motivo chiave nel lavoro di Kandinsky: il cavallo e il cavaliere.

Il gruppo, che pubblicò un influente almanacco con lo stesso nome, si dissolse con l'inizio della prima guerra mondiale. | © The Museum of Modern Art

Wassily Kandinsky | Composition IV, 1911

Ricardo Sanz, 1957

Spanish painter Ricardo Sanz is a figurative contemporary artist. His artistic vocation was forged thanks to his grandfather, who owned the gallery of art La Perfecta, where he met the great artists of painting: Sorolla, Zuloaga, Vázquez Díaz, etc.

At the age of 14 he started his education as a painter with the master José Camps, combining this with his studies in History of Art until he graduated from the University of Deusto in Madrid. He continues studying with important contemporary artists in France and Italy.

Carl von Stetten (1857-1942) | Genre painter

Carl Ernst von Stetten was a German-French🎨 portrait and genre painter🎨 who worked in France and joined the Parisian atelier of Jean-Léon Gérôme🎨 in the 1880s.

He went to Paris in the 1870s for training, and there met Courtois and Dagnan-Bouveret🎨 at the studio of Gérôme; it was for Courtois and Stetten the beginning of a lifelong friendship.

The young Stetten posed for several portraits and was a model for works by his friend (and probable lover).

Albert Bloch (1882-1961) | Expressionist painter

Albert Bloch was the only American artist associated with Der Blaue Reiter - The Blue Rider, a group of early 20th-century European modernists.

He was born in St. Louis, Missouri. He first studied art at the St. Louis School of Fine Arts. In 1901-03 he produced comic strips and cartoons for the St. Louis Star newspaper.

Noè Bordignon | Genre painter

Italian painter Noè Bordignon (1841-1920)  was born in Salvarosa near Castelfranco, Veneto.

He began studies in 1859 at the Accademia di Belle Arti of Venice, where he was a pupil of Michelangelo Grigoletti, Carlo De Blaas and Pompeo Marino Molmenti.

In 1865, he won a stipend to study in Rome. He later formed a strong friendship with Tranquillo Cremona.

Tran Nguyen, 1987 | Surrealist painter / illustrator

Tran Nguyen is an award-winning illustrator and fine artist. Born in Can Tho, Vietnam, she currently resides in the peachy state of Georgia.

Nguyen's paintings are created with a soft, delicate quality using colored pencil and acrylic on paper.

She’s most known for her paintings of whimsical women and their melancholic landscapes, which often possess an air of fantasy and surrealism.

She creates illustrations for published media such as magazines, books, wine and beer packaging, animation, advertising, and mural work. Her clients include VH1, Tiger Beer, World Wildlife Fund, and she has showcased with galleries across the world.

Claude Monet | The Parc Monceau, 1878

Monet painted six views of the Parc Monceau: three in 1876 and three in 1878.

In this canvas, the disposition of light and shade in the foreground, the patterns of the leaves, and the broad contours beginning to develop in areas of strong contrast suggest that Monet had already begun to experiment with the boldly two-dimensional motifs that would characterize his work of the 1880s and 1890s. | © The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Claude Monet | The Parc Monceau, 1878 | Metropolitan Museum of Art

Ginette Beaulieu, 1954 | Hyperrealist painter

Ginette Beaulieu was born in Amqui, Quebec. She was always passionate about drawing and in particular, was drawn to the techniques of the Renaissance masters, of which she completed formal training from 1979-1980.

She has shown an interest in various mediums but she prefers to use charcoals and oils.

She studies the old techniques and integrates in its art the use of the natural pigments and the oils elutriated while undertaking a search deepened on the technique of the funds.

John Keats's Love Letter to Fanny Brawne

A Fanny Brawne, 13 ottobre 1819

Mia cara ragazza,

In questo momento mi sono messo a copiare dei bei versi.

Non riesco a proseguire con una certa soddisfazione. Ti devo dunque scrivere una riga o due per vedere se questo mi concede di escluderti dalla mia mente anche per un breve momento. Dentro la mia anima non so a pensare a null'altro.

Tempo fa avevo la forza di ammonirti contro la poco promettente mattina della mia vita.

Il mio amore mi ha reso egoistico.

Tomasz Alen Kopera

Thomas Couture | History / Genre painter

Thomas Couture (21 December 1815 - 30 March 1879) was a French history painter and teacher.

He taught such later luminaries of the art world as Édouard Manet, Henri Fantin-Latour, John La Farge, Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, Karel Javůrek and J-N Sylvestre.

Couture was born at Senlis, Oise, France.

When he was 11 his family moved to Paris, where he would study at the industrial arts school (École des Arts et Métiers) and later at the École des Beaux-Arts.

Cesar Pattein | Les blés, 1891

Nato a Steenvoorde, nel nord della Francia, César Pattein (1850-1931), figlio di un contadino, è cresciuto tra gli agricoltori e ha mantenuto uno stretto legame con la regione rurale per tutta la vita.

In primo luogo ha studiato incisione sotto Guillaume Alphonse Cabasson.

Nel 1878 entra all'Ecole des Beaux-Arts de Lille negli atelier di Alphonse Colas, ritrattista e pittore di scene religiose nato e cresciuto a Lille ed un certo Mr. Bascoppet.

Raramente ha viaggiato molto più lontano di Lille, con il viaggio occasionale a Parigi quando espone al Salon.

Caro Guarinos, 1963 | Surrealist painter

Caro Guarinos is an Spanish painter, born in Alcoy (Alicante).

If we talk about artists, we think, is it born or made?

Well, the artist is born, but the environment where he lives configures his training. This is the case of Caro Guarinos, in which we enter into his surroundings and meet her paternal grandfather who was already a good painter and cartoonist, and much appreciated by Alcoyana society.

Her father, a great artist of wood and creator of innovations and forms of great quality and personality, so on the basis, they influence Caro.

Picasso's Women

"Often while reading a book one feels that the author would heave preferred to paint rather than to write; one can sense the pleasure he derives from describing a landscape or a person, as if he were painting what he is saying, because deep in his heart he would have preferred to use brushes and colors". Pablo Picasso

"For me painting is a dramatic action in the course of which reality finds itself split apart". Pablo Picasso