Ludwig van Beethoven: "L'amore vuole tutto e ha ragione.."

"L'Arte! Chi la può comprendere? A chi si può rivolgere una persona per attirare l'attenzione di questa grande Dea.."

Beethoven

Andy Warhol (1928-1987) | Beethoven

- Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) è stato la figura predominante musicale nel periodo di transizione tra l'epoca Classica e Romantica.

Beethoven fu un innovatore, che ampliò il campo di applicazione della sonata, sinfonia, concerto e quartetto, e la combinazione di voci e strumenti in un modo nuovo.

La sua vita personale è stata segnata da una lotta contro la sordità, e alcune delle sue opere più importanti sono stati composti nel corso degli ultimi 10 anni della sua vita, quando era ancora in grado di sentire.

Alexander Millar, 1960 | Fly With Me

Scottish painter Alexander Millar is one of the UK's most popular contemporary artists. Born and raised in the small mining community of Springside, just outside the town of Kilmarnock on the west coast of Scotland, Millar's earliest memories were of his time spent in the company of old men dressed in dark suits smoking woodbines and large missile-shaped women decked out in big overcoats, pinnies, tartan headscarves and zipped booties, adorned with fake fur around the top.

Jeff Rowland (1964-2018) | Romantic painter of the rain

Jeff Rowland's ideas and inspirations: 'I have always been fascinated in two areas of art; the implicit meaning and the inspiration. I was inspired to paint a rain soaked street through films I saw at the cinema.

I am always inspired to experience what I am about to paint. I remember Billy Connolly saying that he hated songs about Scotland that were written by men in London: men who had never even seen the Highlands. In other words, if you are going to do something creative, get to the very heart of it first'.

Edgar Degas | Sculpture

Degas’ sculpture stands outside the mainstream of nineteenth-century French sculpture. He was never interested in creating public monuments, and, with one exception, neither did he display his sculpture publicly. The exception was "The Little Fourteen-Year-Old Dancer".

It was shown in the sixth Impressionist exhibition held in Paris in 1881, but the work has little to do with Impressionism. Modeled in wax and wearing a real bodice, stockings, shoes, tulle skirt, and horsehair wig with a satin ribbon, the figure astonished Degas’ contemporaries, not only for its unorthodox use of materials, but also and above all for its realism, judged brutish by some. The Little Fourteen-Year-Old Dancer was not seen again publicly until April 1920.

Grand Prix de Rome (1663-1968) | Art history

Dea Roma, Viale Trinità dei Monti, Villa Medici, Roma

Prix de Rome, in full Grand Prix de Rome, any of a group of scholarships awarded🎨 by the French government between 1663-1968 to enable young French artists🎨 to study in Rome.

It was so named because the students who won the grand, or first, prize in each artistic category went to study at the Académie de France in Rome.

Louise Abbéma | Belle Époque painter

Louise Abbéma was a French painter (1853-1927), sculptor and designer of the Belle Époque.

Abbéma was born in Étampes, Essonne. She was born into a wealthy Parisian family, who were well connected in the local artistic community.

She began painting in her early teens, and studied under such notables of the period as Charles Joshua Chaplin, Jean-Jacques Henner and Carolus-Duran.

She first received recognition for her work at age 23 when she painted a portrait of Sarah Bernhardt, her lifelong friend and possibly her lover.

Pascal Dagnan-Bouveret | The petit Savoyard eating in front of an entrance to a house, 1877

Pascal-Adolphe-Jean Dagnan-Bouveret (January 7, 1852 - July 3, 1929), was one of the leading French artists🎨 of the Naturalist school.

He was born in Paris, the son of a tailor, and was raised by his grandfather after his father emigrated to Brazil. Later he added his grandfather's name, Bouveret, to his own.

From 1869 he studied at the École des Beaux-Arts under Alexandre Cabanel🎨 and Jean-Léon Gérôme. In 1873 he opened his own studio with a fellow student Gustave-Claude-Etienne Courtois.

Berthe Morisot | "Ho peccato, ho sofferto, ho espiato"!

"Amo solo le novità estreme o le cose del passato!"

"Fissare qualcosa di ciò che passa…"

"Con mio grande stupore e felicità ho raccolto i più grandi elogi".

"Il ricordo è vero e imperituro, ciò che è sprofondato, che è cancellato, non valeva la pena di essere vissuto; dunque non c’è stato".

John Poppleton | Bodyscapes ‎painter

John Poppleton was born and raised in the suburbs of Sacramento, CA. He was introduced to photography during his junior year of high school in 1988.

He pursued all areas of photography very passionately as a hobby until becoming a professional portrait photographer in 1993, after several friends convinced him to photograph their weddings.

It has always been John’s goal to create something original and different but fantasy portraits were never part of the plan.

Charles Joshua Chaplin | Academic painter

Charles Joshua Chaplin (1825-1891) was a French painter and engraver.

His father was British and his mother french, and he only became a naturalized Frenchman in 1886, although he worked in France all his life.

He was a pupil at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris from 1840, and he regularly visited the studio of Michel-Martin Drolling, whose pupils included Paul Baudry, Jean-Jacques Henner and Jules Breton.

Grigory Gluckmann | The Ballet dancers

Russian-born American painter Gluckmann (Glickman) Grigory Efimovich / Глюкман (Гликман) Григорий Ефимович (1898-1973) was born in Vitebsk, Russia, and studied for three years at the Art Academy in Moscow.

Because of the Revolution, in 1920 escaped to Germany, where he continued his art studies, and then went on to Florence, where he spent a year studying and familiarizing himself with the masters of the Renaissance.

After his Italian sojourn, he settled in Paris in 1924 to work and to launch his professional career as an artist.

Helmo | Fashion Animals

French design team Helmo - Thomas Couderc and Clément Vauchez, put together a pretty crafty series called Bêtes de Mode using an anaglyph 3D technique.

Bêtes de mode - Fashion animals, is a series of 13 images created for the Galeries Lafayette in Paris.

The images of the animals in the red hue merged with images of beautiful people in the cyan hue, in a synchronous pose, make you almost want to put your 3D glasses on.

But really, it’s not necessary, because the design aesthetic is so striking and haunting, they are meant to be viewed as you see them now.

Léon Cogniet | Romantic painter

Léon Cogniet (1794-1880) was a French🎨 history and portrait painter. He is probably best remembered as a teacher, with more than one hundred notable students.

He was born in Paris. His father was a painter and wallpaper designer.

In 1812, he enrolled at the École des Beaux-arts, where he studied with Pierre-Narcisse Guérin.

Olivia Muus, 1985 | Museum of Selfies

Olivia Muus, a designer and marketer based in Denmark, has found a new fun idea that will make sure you won’t get bored the next time you visit a museum.

Olivia, who works as an art director at an advertisement bureau, got the idea with a friend when the two of them were visiting the States Museum of Art (Statens Museum for Kunst).

“I Saw the paintings and thought that there was something selfie’ish in their expressions. I then played around with it a little bit and the result got to look really funny” - she says about the images that were made by holding a phone in front of the images, so that it appears that the characters are in the middle of taking a selfie.

Siegfried Zademack, 1952 | Surrealist painter

Siegfried Zademack, German painter, was born in Bremen.

Freelance artist since 1980. Several artshows of his work in and outside his homecountry.

Siegfried Zademack's surrealistic visionary paintings make recipients and reviewers wonder.

The arrangement of his pictorial thoughts immensely exceeds a realistic reproduction.

His pictures allow us to slip in metaphysical dimensions, between humorous irony and the unfathomable deepness of our souls.

Malvina Hoffman | Figurative sculptor

One of America's foremost sculptors, Malvina Hoffman (1885-1966)🎨 studied with the great French sculptor Auguste Rodin🎨 from 1910 until his death in 1917 and is recognized by some as "America's Rodin🎨".

Hoffman is perhaps best known for her monumental bronze series, "The Races of Mankind", commissioned in 1930 by Chicago's Field Museum of Natural History.

Hoffman first won acclaim for her bronze sculpture of Russian dancers Anna Pavlova🎨 and Mikhail Mordkin and also studied under two other sculptors, Gutzon Borgium of Mount Rushmore fame and Herbert Adams.

Denis Chernov, 1978 | Figurative Pencil painter

Denis Chernov was born in Sambir, Lviv province, Ukraine. He lives and works in Kharkiv after graduating from Kharkiv Art College, in 1998, Kharkiv State Academy of Design and Arts (Chair of Graphic Art), in 2004.

He regularly participates in artistic exhibitions, both in Ukraine and abroad.

Most of Denis Chernov’s artworks are kept in private collections in Ukraine, Russia, Italy, England, Spain, Greece, France, USA, Canada and Japan. Some works have been sold at 'Christie's.

Slava Korolenkov, 1958 | Impressionist painter

Вячеслав Короленков is an Russian painter, known for work in the Figurative Impressionist style.

Korolenkov was born in the small city of Tula, not far from Moscow.

Influenced by Russian artists such as impressionist Konstantin Korovin and Nicolai Fechin, Korolenkov maintains that his greatest teacher is every sunny day that gives him a chance to breathe, smile, and chat with family and friends.

Enric Serra Auqué | Romantic painter

Enric Serra i Auqué (1859-1918) was born in Barcelona where he later attended art school.

Due to a scholarship, he was able to move to Rome in 1879 where he studied at the Accademia di San Luca.

Soon, Serra established himself as a painter in Rome, recorded first sales success and received several commissions for the Vatican.

In 1895 he opened a studio in Paris, which became a meeting point for young Spanish artists.

Myron Barlow | Genre / Figurative painter

Myron G. Barlow (1873-1937) was raised in Detroit, Michigan and remained deeply associated with that city even after he moved to France, where he lived for most of his life.

His artistic career began during his teen years, when formal art training at the Detroit Museum School and at the Chicago Art Institute.

He then traveled to Europe and enrolled in the Ecole des Beau-Arts, Paris in the atelier of Jean-Leon Gérome.

Thomas Ehretsmann, 1974 | Narrative painter

French painter🎨 and illustrator Thomas Ehretsmann was born in Mulhouse, France.

He completed his studies at the School of Decorative Arts in Strasbourg in 1998 and has led a successful career in illustration for over a decade. Notably, his work has been featured in the New Yorker, Rolling Stone, Elle Magazine and various European and American books and journals.

In 2009, he spent several months in Norway studying with the internationally recognized painter, Odd Nerdrum🎨. He received a gold medal from the Society of Illustrators of New York in 2011, and a silver medal from the Society of Illustrators West in 2013.

His works have been exhibited at Gallery Brulee in Strasbourg and at Gallery l’Oeil du Prince in Paris.

Anna Razumovskaya | Romantic Figurative painter

Anna Razumovskaya /Анна Разумовская🎨 is a graduate of the Russian State University For Arts, where she was awarded🎨 the distinction of high-class artist in 1991. Subsequently, she studied art in Germany, Belgium and Holland.

With exhibitions in New York, Paris, Toronto, Amsterdam, Antwerp and Berlin and numerous works in private collections across the globe, she has become one of the most exciting and collectable artists on the contemporare scene.

Born at the height of the cold war, Anna was exposed to very different worlds, that of the austere communist regime alongside the sophistication and femininity of her fashion-conscious mother. She excelled at art school, and enjoyed the freedom of learning and perfecting her technique in a variety of different media.

Ulisse Caputo | Genre painter of the Belle Époque

Ulisse Caputo | An evening at the opera | Christie's

In the present painting "An evening at the opera" the viewer is placed directly in the stalls of the theatre, taking in the movement of the orchestra, the drama at the centre-stage, and the frisson of the swordfight in the upstage right, all under the backdrop of a clear crisp night sky.

The colourful scene is characterized by quick and rich brushstrokes, emphasising the movement of the depiction.

Music and theatre can be considered familiar passions as the artist’s father was a set designer and administrator of the Teatro Verdi in Salerno and this probably influenced the artist in his love for the subjects.

Ulisse Caputo | An evening at the opera | Christie's

Jakub Schikaneder | Impressionistic nocturnes

Jakub Schikaneder (1855-1924) came from the family of a German customs office clerk.

Despite the family's poor background, he was able to pursue his studies, thanks in part to his family's love of art; an ancestor was Urban Schikaneder, the elder brother of the librettist Emanuel Schikaneder.

After having completed his studies in Prague and Munich 1871-1879, Schikaneder, alongside Emanuel Krescenc Liška, was involved in the furnishing of the royal box in the National Theatre in Prague; however, this work was lost in a fire in 1881.

Émile Lecomte-Vernet | Orientalist painter

Émile Vernet-Lecomte, born Charles Émile Hippolyte Lecomte (1821-1900) was a French painter, best known for his Orientalist works.

He came from a family of illustrious painters.

His great-grandfather was Claude Joseph Vernet and his father was the battle painter, Hippolyte Lecomte; who was himself the son-in-law of Carle Vernet, and the nephew of Horace Vernet.

Odilon Redon (1840-1916) | Still Lifes

Odilon Redon🎨's work represent an exploration of his internal feelings and psyche.

He himself wanted to "place the visible at the service of the invisible"; thus, although his work seems filled with strange beings and grotesque dichotomies, his aim was to represent pictorially the ghosts of his own mind. Redon🎨 also describes his work as ambiguous and undefinable:

"My drawings inspire, and are not to be defined. They place us, as does music, in the ambiguous realm of the undetermined".

Odilon Redon | Symbolist / Colorist painter

Odilon Redon (born April 20, 1840, Bordeaux, France - died July 6, 1916, Paris) French Symbolist painter, lithographer and etcher of considerable poetic sensitivity and imagination, whose work developed along two divergent lines.

His prints explore haunted, fantastic, often macabre themes and foreshadowed the Surrealist and Dadaist movements.

Kay Boyce | Figurative painter

British painter and illustrator Kay Boyce was born in Sheffield.

As a child she would often spend hours at a time drawing on rolls of wallpaper; this was the beginning of her passion for art.

Kay studied illustration at Wrexham College before working as a freelance illustrator. She produced editorial work for Women s Weekly, Bella, My Weekly, Sunday Express and Woman's Own.

Her illustration work has carried her through to major book publishers such as Hodder and Staughton, Wadsworth Romantics, Mills and Boon and Mandarin.

Izumi Kogahara / 古河原泉, 1979 | Abstract painter

Izumi Kogahara / 川原泉 is an Japanese painter🎨, born in Utsunomiya, Tochigi Prefecture, Japan. In 2000 she obtained her artistic diploma from the University with honors.

Artist statement

"I would like to describe human beings’ original and complex inner mind with my own “words” (the way of presentation) by feeling energy from them.

Either they are objective way or abstract way, I continue to describe them with same belief".

Vincent van Gogh | Our life is a pilgrim's progress | The Letters

The Letters of Vincent van Gogh🎨 refers to a collection of 903 surviving letters written (820) or received (83) by Vincent van Gogh.

More than 650 of these were from Vincent to his brother Theo.

The collection also includes letters van Gogh wrote to his sister Wil and other relatives, as well as between artists such as Paul Gauguin, Anthon van Rappard and Émile Bernard.

B. Prabha (1933-2001) | Abstract / Figurative painter

B. Prabha was a major Indian artist who worked mainly in oil, in an instantly recognizable style. She is best known for graceful elongated figures of pensive rural women, with each canvas in a single dominant color. By the time of her death, her work had been shown in over 50 exhibitions, and is in some important collections, including India's National Gallery of Modern Art.

Prabha started working at a time when India had few women artists. She was deeply inspired by the work of seminal modernist Amrita Shergil. Prabha was moved by the lives of rural women, and over time, they became the main theme of her work.

Hamish Blakely, 1968 | Flamenco Dancers

The British painter Hamish Blakely explains: "Art in any form, in any media, can be so many things that it can be in danger of being too many.

It can be intellectual, conceptual and political, but I am steadfast in believing that Art is at its best when simply emotional. You see something and you are moved.

Before analysis or a full understanding, the viewer can just enjoy the emotional sensation".

Henri Fantin-Latour | Still lifes

Alongside his work as a portrait painter, Ignace Henri Jean Fantin-Latour (1836-1904) produced a large number of still lifes.

In the 1860s, these even played a major role in his career.

It was in fact in England, which he visited regularly, that Fantin-Latour found many enthusiasts for his paintings of flowers and fruit.

Purchases and commissions then followed, ensuring commercial success for the painter, which, until then, his other work had not provided.

Anton Dieffenbach | Genre painter

Anton Heinrich Dieffenbach (1831-1914) was a German genre and landscape painter, noted for his portrayals of cute children.

He moved to Straßburg with his parents in 1840 and took lessons from a local artist named Charles Duhamel.

With Duhamel's recommendation, he was able to go to Paris and study with the sculptor James Pradier.

Angel Boligan, 1965 | Surreal cartoonist / illustrator

A>ngel Boligàn Corbo was born in Havana. In 1992 he moved to Mexico. He draws for the newspaper EL UNIVERSAL and the satirical magazines CONOZCA MÁS and EL CHAMUCO. He is a member of the cartoonist group "Cartooning for Peace" and won worldwide more than 130 prizes in cartoon competitions.

Angel comes from a country surrounded by dreams, frustrations and sometimes nightmares. Cuba, land of intensive social and political incidents, gave Bolig án the experience of life. A socialist who later will perceive the capitalist world with a broader look, becoming that way an observer with a surprising maturity.

Jean-Jacques Pradier | Neoclassical Romantic sculptor

Jean Jacques Pradier (1792-1852), was a Swiss-born French sculptor🎨 best known for his work in the Neoclassical style.

Born in Geneva, Pradier was the son of a Protestant family from Toulouse. He left for Paris in 1807 to work with his elder brother, Charles-Simon Pradier, an engraver, and also attended the École des Beaux-Arts beginning in 1808.

He won a Prix de Rome that enabled him to study in Rome from 1814-1818 at the Villa Médicts.

Pradier made his debut at the Salon in 1819 and quickly acquired a reputation as a competent artist. He studied under Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres in Paris.

Quang Ho, 1963 | Impressionist Figurative painter

Vietnamese-born American painter Quang Ho🎨, was born in Hue, Vietnam. He immigrated to the United States in 1975 and is now a U.S. Citizen.

His artistic interest began at the early age of three and continued through his schooling and led him to an exciting and successful painting career.

In 1980, at the age of 16, Quang held his first one-man-show at Tomorrows Masters Gallery in Denver Colorado.

The exhibit was a smashing success for the high school sophomore.

In 1982, Quang's mother was killed in a tragic auto accident, leaving him the responsibility of raising four younger brothers and a six year old sister.

19th century Art | Sitemap

From Realism to early Modernism, the 19th century gave birth to a variety of artistic movements.

The Realism and Romanticism of the early 19th century gave way to Impressionism and Post-Impressionism in the later half of the century, with Paris being the dominant art capital of the world. In the United States the Hudson River School was prominent.

Camille Claudel, Debussy and La Valse, 1891

Jane Peterson (1876-1965) | Impressionist painter

Jane Peterson was one of the foremost women painters🎨 in the United States. Her works are housed in museums such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of the City of New York, the National Museum of Women in the Arts and Hirshhorn Museum in Washington D.C.

Her works are a blend of Impressionist🎨 and Expressionist styles, combining an interest in light and in depiction of the spontaneous moment with the use of broad swaths of vibrant color.

She is well known for her vivid, richly painted still life, and beach scenes created along the Massachusetts coast.

Camille Corot | Lo stile artistico

Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot (Parigi, 16 luglio 1796 – Parigi, 22 febbraio 1875) è una delle figure più significative della pittura di paesaggio. Le sue opere, infatti, attingono a piene mani dalla tradizione neoclassica ed, al contempo, anticipano le innovazioni en plein air dell'Impressionismo.

Claude Monet, nel 1897, avrebbe detto di lui: «Qui c'è un solo grande maestro: Corot. Non siamo nulla nei suoi confronti, nulla».

Né il suo contributo nella pittura di figura è meno importante: Edgar Degas, altro noto pittore impressionista, preferiva le sue figure rispetto ai suoi paesaggi, ed in tal senso Corot esercitò un'influenza che traspare persino nelle tele di Pablo Picasso.

Nella sua vita eseguì più di tremila dipinti ed era considerato dai contemporanei come uno dei massimi paesaggisti mai esistiti, a lato di nomi illustri come Claude Lorrain, John Constable e J. M. W. Turner.

Roman Frances, 1950

Spanish painter🎨 Jose Miguel Roman Frances was born in Alcoy, Alicante. At The age of fourteen he began to paint in the workshop of Gaspar Frances Rico.

Rico became more of a friend than a teacher, and his work influenced Frances' artistic formation.

Alessandro Tofanelli, 1959 | Surrealist Landscape painter

When asked about his painting, Italian painter🎨 Alessandro Tofanelli states that he wants to investigate the relationship between time and memory, and to properly do this he has chosen landscape his favorite subject.

In 1977 he graduated from the Arts Institute in Lucca and then moved to Milan, where he attended the Brera Art Academy.

Whilst in Milan, Tofanelli collaborated as an illustrator for several magazines published by Rizzoli and Mondadori.

Catrin Welz-Stein | Digital creator

Catrin Welz-Stein is a German graphic designer who creates stunningly surreal works.

Focused on mixed media, she breathes new life into vintage photos by experimenting in Photoshop, taking pictures apart and assembling them into new content.

Ernest Quost | Impressionist painter

Ernest Quost (1842-1931) was a French Impressionist painter.

Painter of animated cityscapes, landscapes, still lifes, flowers and fruit, pastels. Probably a pupil of Horace Aumont (1839-1864) during his stay in Paris.

He began at the Paris Salon in 1866, was a Societaire des Artistes Français, was awarded medals for his work in the years, 1880, 1882, 1889, 1890 and 1900 and was made a Chevalier and then Officier of the Legion d’honneur in 1883 and 1903, respectively.

Antonino Leto | Genre painter

Antonino or Antonio Leto (1844 in Monreale, Sicily - 1913 in Capri, Italy) was an Italian painter, painting mainly genre / landscape subjects in an impressionistic style.

In 1861, sponsored by his uncle, he moved to study in Palermo under L. Barba and Luigi Lojacono.

He adopted the style and subject matter of Filippo Palizzi.

In 1864, he moved to Naples where he was attracted to the Scuola of Resina style of painting fostered by Giuseppe De Nittis. He took lessons from Adriano Cecioni. He painted both in oil, tempera, and watercolor.

Ivan Kramskoi | Portrait / Genre painter

Ivan Nikolaevich Kramskoi / Kramskoj / Kramsky, Ива́н Никола́евич Крамско́й (8 June 1837 in Ostrogozhsk, Voronezh gubernia, Russia - 5 April 1887 in Saint Petersburg) was an Russian realist painter of Ukrainian origin.

A graduate (1863) and faculty member (1869-87) of the Saint Petersburg Academy of Arts, he was one of the founders and ideologists of the Peredvizhniki.

In the 1850s he visited Kharkiv, and in 1871 he worked in Khotin village in the Sumy region.

He made frequent trips to the Crimea.

Marilyn Simandle, 1946 | Watercolor painter

Marilyn Simandle🎨 is a master Signature Member of Oil Painters of America (OPAM), a Signature member of the American Watercolor Society, Plein-Air Painters of America (PAPA) and the California Art Club.

She has numerous articles in magazines such as Southwest Art and Art of the West.

In 1996, her first book on Watercolor painting was published by North Light and since, a second book is available entitled "Contagious Enthusiasm".

Bruno Walpoth, 1959 | Wooden sculptor

Italian Figurative sculptor🎨 Bruno Walpoth, who carved these incredibly lifelike wooden sculptures, comes from a long lineage of woodcarvers.

Hailing from a family of wood sculptors, Walpoth simultaneously honors a centuries-old tradition and modernizes it for the 21st century.

Drawing from his ancestry along with contemporary ideas inspired from other forms of art, Walpoth transforms his blocks of wood into detailed sculptures of the human body.

Arthur Sarnoff (1912-2000) | Illustrator

Arthur Saron Sarnoff was a prolific illustrator for many American magazines and advertising artist.

Sarnoff was known for illustration and paintings, which were whimsical and attention getting because of their reflection of many aspects of American culture - product consumption, domestic life, sports, celebrities and musical entertainment.

Sarnoff was born in Brooklyn and studied at the Industrial School and the Grand Central Art School in New York City.

Among his teachers were John Clymer and Andrew Wyeth.

Francis O'Toole | Figurative painter

Francis O'Toole is a Dublin based artist, who has studied in Florence, Italy.

At 17 Francis was involved in an industrial accident which very nearly claimed his life. After spending over a year in hospital and rehabilitation, Francis spent a number of years confused about what path to take in life, this lead to him straying into the wrong group of people and encountering a dark world of up and coming criminals.

One day out of concern for her son Francis' mother suggested he paint, at first Francis believe this to be silly, but slowly began to enjoy this activity.