"Zorba the Greek" composer Theodorakis dies at 96

Athens, Sept 2. -Reuters - Composer Mikis Theodorakis, whose music crossed international boundaries in his captivating score for the film "“Zorba the Greek", died on Thursday, plunging Greece into three days of mourning.

A towering man with a brooding presence and a shock of wavy hair, Theodorakis's work evoked a progressive, democratic vision of the world, though his political struggles reflected a darker side of Greece rarely seen by visitors.

As news of his death at home in Athens at the age of 96 swept across the country of 11 million, authorities declared three days of mourning and tributes poured in from across the political spectrum. "Today we lost a part of Greece's soul. Mikis Theodorakis, Mikis the teacher, the intellectual, the radical, our Mikis has gone," said Culture Minister Lina Mendoni.

Anne Cotterill (1933-2010) | Flowers painter

Anne Cotterill was born in the Borders of Scotland, educated in Edinburgh and graduated from Edinburgh College of Art in 1956 at the time when Sir William Gillies was head of painting.

She was awarded a postgraduate scholarship to continue her work in Edinburgh followed by a travelling scholarship to Europe that enabled her to study the work and technique of the great traditional painters.

Married life brought her to West Somerset in the early 1960s where the seasonal changes of the wildflowers in the surrounding countryside are a constant source of inspiration for her paintings.

Remzi Taskıran, 1961 | Portrait painter

Turkish painter Remzi Taşkıran, was born in Adiyaman. He Completed his high school and art education in Istanbul. He had obtained his art education from Saadettin Çağlarca, a painter.

The artist, who has worked for some time as a press painter, has works that were exhibited in collections both at home and abroad.

His artworks are influenced by domestic environment and charming landscape in Istanbul.

His portraits of beautiful oriental women in the folk costumes and ornaments that shine gold, are very charming.

Maintaining his daily life with the paintings he created in his Istanbul studio, Taşkıran takes time to create unique themes of his art while preventing the worries of daily life while he is preparing for his exhibitions.

William Shakespeare | Guardati allo specchio e di’ al volto che vedi..

Look in thy glass, and tell the face thou viewest | Sonnet III

Look in thy glass, and tell the face thou viewest

Now is the time that face should form another;

Whose fresh repair if now thou not renewest,

Thou dost beguile the world, unbless some mother.

For where is she so fair whose unear'd womb

Disdains the tillage of thy husbandry?

John William Waterhouse | Mariana in the South, 1897

John Duncan | Pre-Raphaelite / Symbolist painter

John Duncan (1866-1945) was a Scottish painter. Duncan was born in the Hilltown area of Dundee on 19 July 1866, the son of a butcher and cattleman. John, however, had no interest in the family business and preferred the visual arts.

By the age of 15 he was submitting cartoons to the local magazine "The Wizard of the North" and was later taken on as an assistant in the art department of the Dundee Advertiser. At the same time he was also a student at the Dundee School of Art, then based at the High School of Dundee.

In 1887-88 he worked in London as a commercial illustrator, then travelled to the continent to study at Antwerp Academy under Charles Verlat and the Düsseldorf Art Academy.

In 1889 Duncan returned to Dundee and exhibited in the new Victoria Art Galleries extension of the Albert Institute. The following year he became one of the founder members of the Dundee Graphic Arts Association (now Dundee Art Society).

John Duncan | Tristan and Isolde, 1912

Nel cortile dell'amore di Giulietta e Romeo

Giulietta: - "Oh! Come entrasti tu qui? Ed a qual fine? I muri che circondano questo giardino sono ardui, e pressoché inaccessibili; ed il luogo in cui stai ti sarà tomba, se alcuno de' miei ti sorprende".

Romeo: - "Coll'ali dell'Amore valicai l'altezza di que' muri, ché barriera non v'ha al prepotente Amore: tutto che Amor può tentare, Amor l'osa; onde a' tuoi non ebbi riguardo allorché qui venni"…

William Shakespeare: Giulietta e Romeo, Atto II° scena II°

Wislawa Szymborska | Because it was only love / Perché era amore solamente

Cademmo nell’abbraccio,

ci separammo dal mondo,

non sapevamo se eravamo due corpi

o due anime

o un corpo e un’anima

o se semplicemente

non eravamo

Jeff Rowland

Fred Stead | Landscape / Genre painter

Frederick 'Fred' Stead (1863-1940) was born in Shipley, Yorkshire in August 1863.

He studied initially at the Shipley School of Art before being awarded a scholarship to The Royal Cambrian Academy.

Stead gained a reputation as portrait painter of the rich and wealthy of Bradford and became the Chairman of the Society of Yorkshire Artists.

Marc Chagall | Stained glass windows

One of Chagall's major contributions to art has been his work with stained glass. This medium allowed him further to express his desire to create intense and fresh colors and had the added benefit of natural light and refraction interacting and constantly changing: everything from the position where the viewer stood to the weather outside would alter the visual effect (though this is not the case with his Hadassah windows).

It was not until 1956, when he was nearly 70 years of age, that he designed windows for the church at Assy, his first major project. Then, from 1958-1960, he created windows for Metz Cathedral.

Titian | High Renaissance painter

Titian (Tiziano Vecelli or Vecellio, known in English as Titian, ca. 1485-1576) was the greatest painter of 16th-century Venice, and the first painter to have a mainly international clientele.

During his long career, he experimented with many different styles of painting which embody the development of art during his epoch.

Youth and debut

Titian (Tiziano Vecellio) was born in Pieve di Cadore, a small town at the foot of the Dolomites on the Venetian side of the Alps.

The Vecellios had been based in Cadore since the 14th century. Titian’s father, Gregorio, was a military man. His older brother Francesco was also a painter.

There is still no documentary evidence of Titian’s exact date of birth, but contemporary sources and his early stylistic development suggest that he was born around 1490.

William Shakespeare | Quando quaranta inverni assedieranno la tua fronte..

When forty winters shall beseige thy brow | Sonnet II

When forty winters shall beseige thy brow,

And dig deep trenches in thy beauty's field,

Thy youth's proud livery, so gazed on now,

Will be a tatter'd weed, of small worth held:

Then being ask'd where all thy beauty lies,

Where all the treasure of thy lusty days,

To say, within thine own deep-sunken eyes,

Were an all-eating shame and thriftless praise.

Frank Benson | Eleanor and Benny, 1916

William Shakespeare | Alle meraviglie del creato noi chiediam progenie

From fairest creatures we desire increase | Sonnet I

From fairest creatures we desire increase,

That thereby beauty's rose might never die,

But as the riper should by time decease,

His tender heir might bear his memory:

But thou, contracted to thine own bright eyes,

Feed'st thy light'st flame with self-substantial fuel,

Antonio Frilli | Romeo and Juliet (detail)

Paul Delaroche | The Execution of Lady Jane Grey, 1833

"I am assured that I shall, for losing of a mortal life, win an immortal life" - Lady Jane Grey, February 1554.

Since its rediscovery in 1973 and first exhibition at the National Gallery two years later, Paul Delaroche’s The Execution of Lady Jane Grey, 1833, has become one of the nation’s best-loved paintings.

For the first time, 'Painting History' examines this iconic masterpiece in the context of Delaroche’s great historical paintings, particularly the poignant scenes from English history which made his reputation.

The exhibition features seven major international loans of paintings by Delaroche including 'The Princes in the Tower', 1830 and 'Young Christian Martyr', 1854-5 (both Louvre), and 'Strafford on his way to Execution', 1835 (private collection).

Carlo Maria Mariani, 1931 | Metaphysical painter

Carlo Maria Mariani is an Italian painter. His paintings are rooted both in Neoclassicist theory and modernism.

In the 1970s he defended his choice of medium from attacks by art critics by making parallels between the melancholy for the past of neoclassicism and the then trendy conceptual art.

He received international attention in the 1980s with what was called pittura colta ("cultivated painting") and la Nuova Maniera ("The New Style") in Italy, in which he employed old subjects and styles.

Among other things he depicted Andy Warhol as Napoleon and made "improved" and "corrected" versions of works by Leonardo da Vinci and Raphael.

Henrik Nordenberg | Genre / Interior painter

Carl Henrik Nordenberg (1857-1928) was a German-Swedish landscape, genre and interior painter, etcher and lithographer from the Düsseldorf School.

Nordenberg, nephew of the genre painter Bengt Nordenberg, followed his uncle to Düsseldorf in 1873, where he received private lessons from him.

From 1873 to 1883/1884 he studied at the Düsseldorf Art Academy.

There Andreas and Karl Müller, Heinrich Lauenstein, Eduard Gebhardt, Julius Roeting, Carl Ernst Forberg and Wilhelm Sohn were his teachers.

Marc Chagall | Paris through my window, 1913

After Marc Chagall moved to Paris from Russia in 1910, his paintings quickly came to reflect the latest avant-garde styles.

In "Paris Through the Window", Chagall’s debt to the Orphic Cubism of his colleague Robert Delaunay is clear in the semitransparent overlapping planes of vivid color in the sky above the city.

The Eiffel Tower, which appears in the cityscape, was also a frequent subject in Delaunay’s work. For both artists it served as a metaphor for Paris and perhaps modernity itself.

Chagall’s parachutist might also refer to contemporary experience, since the first successful jump occurred in 1912. Other motifs suggest the artist’s native Vitebsk.

Marc Chagall | Paris through my window, 1913 | The Guggenheim Museums and Foundation

Paul Hagemans (1884-1959)

Born in Antwerp, Paul Hagemans was the son of the celebrated Belgian landscape painter Maurice Hagemans (1852-1917).

Hagemans received early artistic instruction from his father but at the age of fifteen enrolled at the Academy of Antwerp.

Here he was fortunate enough to be tutored by one of the most important landscape painters of nineteenth century Belgium, Isidore Verheyden as well as receiving classes in figure painting from Herman Richir.

Ernest Laurent | Neo-impressionist painter

Ernest Joseph Laurent (June 8, 1859 – June 25, 1929) was a French painter and printmaker. He was born in Gentilly and died in Bièvres, Essonne.

Laurent was a Neo-impressionist artist whose main influences were his instructor Ernest Hébert and his friend Georges Seurat.

Laurent took second prize in the Prix de Rome in 1889 and in 1890, Laurent arrived in Rome, where Hébert remained Director of the Académie de France.

From Rome, he went to Assisi where he underwent a mystical experience.

It would profoundly influence his art.

Emil Nolde, l'Espressionista perseguitato dal nazismo..

Emil Nolde (1867-1956) riscoperto e rivalutato dopo la seconda guerra mondiale, viene oggi considerato uno dei maggiori rappresentanti dell’Espressionismo.

Nel 1926 Nolde conseguì una laurea honoris causa all’università di Kiel.

Pochi anni dopo cominciò ad essere perseguitato dai nazisti perché Hitler considerava il modernismo un'arte degenerata: dal 1937 i suoi lavori furono vietati e non gli fu permesso di acquistare i materiali per dipingere.

Tuttavia, con l'aiuto segreto degli amici, in quegli anni produsse segretamente una serie di dipinti nei quali il suo stile si fece più pacato e disteso.

Emil Nolde (nato Hans Emil Hansen) è stato un pittore ed incisore Tedesco-Danese. È stato uno dei primi espressionisti, membro di Die Brücke, ed è stato uno dei primi pittori di pittura ad olio ed acquarello dell'inizio del XX secolo ad esplorare il colore.

Vasily Polenov (1844-1927)

Vasily Dmitrievich Polenov /Васи́лий Дми́триевич Поле́нов was a Russian landscape painter associated with the Peredvizhniki movement of realist artists.

His contemporaries would call him the "Knight of Beauty" as he embodied both European and Russian traditions of painting.

His vision of life was summarized as following: "Art should promote happiness and joy".

As a painter and a humanist, he would truly believe in the civilizing mission of Art, Culture and Education.

James Nelson-Lewis, 1953 | Pittore Romantico

Nato in Pennsylvania, Lewis si rese conto in tenera età di avere un dono ed una vocazione artistica.

Ha conseguito un BFA presso il Columbus College of Art and Design. Le sue influenze artistiche vanno da Whistler a Wolf Kahn così come molti contemporanei della pittura americana.

Lewis viene nel campo della pittura con anni di esperienza professionale come illustratore, direttore artistico, designer ed insegnante d'arte all'università.

Personalmente la sua pittura è influenzata dal suo lavoro di designer, illustratore e da anni di pittura ed insegnamento dell'acquerello.

Olga Wisinger-Florian | Impressionist painter

Olga Wisinger-Florian (1 November 1844, Vienna - 27 February 1926, Grafenegg) was an Austrian impressionist painter, mainly of landscapes and flower still lifes. She was a notable representative of Austrian Mood Impressionism.

She originally trained as a concert pianist with Julius Epstein.

Wisinger-Florian switched to painting in the mid-1870s. She was a student of painters Melchior Fritsch (1826-1889), August Schaeffer (de) (1833-1916) and Emil Jakob Schindler.

From 1881 she regularly showed paintings at the annual exhibitions mounted at the artist's house and later often showed at Vienna Secession exhibitions.

Leonardo da Vinci | Modo di colorire in tela

Trattato della Pittura - Parte terza | Capitoli 491-516

Il Testo Integrale

Indice

491. Del principio di una pioggia.

492. Della disposizione di una fortuna di venti e di pioggia.

493. Delle ombre fatte da' ponti sopra la loro acqua.

494. De' simulacri chiari o scuri che s'imprimono sopra i luoghi ombrosi e luminati posti infra la superficie ed il fondo delle acque chiare.

495. Dell'acqua chiara è trasparente il fondo fuori della superficie.

496. Della schiuma dell'acqua.

497. Precetto di pittura.

498. Precetto.

499. De' dieci uffici dell'occhio, tutti appartenenti alla pittura.

500. Della statua.

501. Per fare una pittura d'eterna vernice.

502. Modo di colorire in tela.

Leonardo da Vinci | Del vento dipinto

Trattato della Pittura - Parte terza | Capitoli 466-490

Il Testo Integrale

Indice

466. Pittura.

467. Della parte del corpo opaco.

468. Precetto di pittura.

469. De' termini della cosa bianca.

470. Precetto.

471. Perché la cosa dipinta, ancoraché essa venga all'occhio per quella medesima grossezza d'angolo che quella che è più remota di essa, non pare tanto remota quanto quella della remozione naturale.

472. Pittura.

473. Del giudizio ch'hai da fare sopra un'opera d'un pittore.

474. Del rilievo delle figure remote dall'occhio.

475. De' termini de' membri illuminati.

476. De' termini.

477. Delle incarnazioni e figure remote dall'occhio.

478. Pittura.

Leonardo da Vinci | Della prospettiva lineare

Trattato della Pittura - Parte terza | Capitoli 433-465

Il Testo Integrale

Indice

433. Pittura e sua membrificazione e componitori.

434. Pittura e sua definizione.

435. Pittura a lume universale.

436. De' campi proporzionati ai corpi che in essi campeggiano, e prima delle superficie piane d'uniforme colore.

437. Pittura: di figura e corpo.

438. Pittura: mancherà prima di notizia la parte di quel corpo che sarà di minor quantità.

439. Perché una medesima campagna si dimostra alcuna volta maggiore o minore ch'essa non è.

440. Pittura.

441. Delle città ed altre cose vedute all'aria grossa.

442. De' raggi solari che penetrano gli spiracoli de' nuvoli.

443. Delle cose che l'occhio vede sotto sé miste infra nebbia ed aria grossa.

444. Degli edifici veduti nell'aria grossa.

445. Della cosa che si mostra da lontano.

Julian Onderdonk | Impressionist painter

Julian Onderdonk (1882-1922) was a Texan Impressionist painter, often called "the father of Texas painting".

President George W. Bush decorated the Oval Office with three of Onderdonk's paintings.

The Dallas Museum of Art has several rooms dedicated exclusively to Onderdonk's work. His art studio currently resides on the grounds of the Witte Museum.

Early years

Julian Onderdonk was born in San Antonio, Texas, to Robert Jenkins Onderdonk, a painter, and Emily Gould Onderdonk. He was the brother of Eleanor Onderdonk, also a prominent Texas painter, sculptor, and art administrator. His grandfather Henry Onderdonk was the Headmaster of Saint James School in Maryland, from which Julian's father Robert graduated.

Yuri Krotov, 1964 | Landscapes

Yuri Krotov / Юрий Кротов was born in Grivenskaya Cossack Settlement, Krasnodar Territory, located close to the Azov Sea. At the age of 8 he met a local painter G.A. Polugaev who became his mentor.

With Polugaev, Krotov traveled to Moscow and enrolled in Moscow High School of Art under the Surikov Art Institute.

After high school he served in the Soviet Army for 2 years before attending the Moscow State Academic Art Institute named after V.I. Surikov.

His style of impressionist painting blossomed on trips to France, Spain, Italy, Great Britain, Monaco and other European countries.

Vlaho Bukovac | Post-Impressionist painter

Vlaho Bukovac (1855-1922) was born in Cavtat, near Dubrovnik. He showed inclination to drawing in his early childhood, but because of his family's poverty he could not continue his education.

At the age of eleven his uncle took him to the United States, where he spent four hard years. His uncle soon died.

In 1871, he returned to Dubrovnik and embarked as an apprentice on a merchant ship that sailed on regular line Istanbul- Odessa-Liverpool.

In 1873 he went to Latin America, where he worked as a letter drawer in a coach factory in Peru. Three years later he returned to Cavtat.

He found a sponsor in the person of Medo Pucic, a poet who recommended him to the archbishop Strossmayer, a very famous and influential Croatian at that time.

Leonardo da Vinci | Della figura che va contro il vento

Trattato della Pittura - Parte terza | Capitoli 398-432

Il Testo Integrale

Indice

398. Discorso sopra il pratico.

399. Della pratica cercata con gran sollecitudine dal pittore.

400. Del giudicare il pittore le sue opere e quelle d'altrui.

401. Del giudicare il pittore la sua pittura.

402. Come lo specchio è il maestro de' pittori.

403. Come si deve conoscere una buona pittura e che qualità deve avere per essere buona.

404. Come la vera pittura stia nella superficie dello specchio piano.

405. Qual pittura è piú laudabile.

406. Qual è il primo obietto intenzionale del pittore.

Lo Chan Peng 羅展鵬, 1983

Lo Chan Peng was born in Chiayi, Taiwan and graduated Fine Art Department of Chinese Culture University.

Lo Chan-Peng had won many domestic art contests, and became well-known with “Strawberry Journal” series, which honestly records the sub-culture of young generation.

Lo uses his paintings to express what he observed from the real world, which not only depicts the mindset of young generations nowadays, but can be seen as a kind of self-dissect.

Leonardo da Vinci | Delle diciotto operazioni dell'uomo

Trattato della Pittura - Parte terza | Capitoli 359-397

Il Testo Integrale

Indice

359. Delle diciotto operazioni dell'uomo.

360. Della disposizione delle membra secondo le figure.

361. Della qualità delle membra secondo l'età.

362. Della varietà de' visi.

363. Della membrificazione degli animali.

364. Come la figura non sarà laudabile s'essa non mostra la passione dell'animo.

365. Come le mani e le braccia in tutte le loro operazioni hanno da dimostrare l'intenzione del loro motore il piú che si può.

366. De' moti appropriati alla mente del mobile.

367. Come gli atti mentali muovano la persona in primo grado di facilità e comodità.

Leonardo da Vinci | Della grazia delle membra

Trattato della Pittura - Parte terza | Capitoli 316-358

Il Testo Integrale

Indice

316. Della grazia delle membra.

317. Della comodità delle membra.

318. D'una figura sola fuori dell'istoria.

319. Quali sono le principali importanze che appartengono alla figura.

320. Del bilicare il peso intorno al centro della gravità de' corpi.

321. Delle figure che hanno a maneggiare o portar pesi.

322. Delle attitudini degli uomini.

323. Varietà d'attitudini.

324. Delle attitudini delle figure.

325. Dell'attenzione de' circostanti ad un caso notando.

326. Qualità de' nudi.

327. Come i muscoli sono corti e grossi.

Othello and Desdemona: "Heaven is my judge"

Othello (The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice) (ca. 1603) by William Shakespeare is a concentrated, tightly constructed domestic tragedy, with almost no subplot for relief, centered on five or six central characters.

Othello is commonly considered one of Shakespeare's great tragedies and one of his finest works.

Act I

In following him, I follow but myself.

• Iago, scene I

Heaven is my judge, not I for love and duty,

But seeming so, for my peculiar end:

For when my outward action doth demonstrate

The native act and figure of my heart

In compliment extern, 'tis not long after

But I will wear my heart upon my sleeve

For daws to peck at: I am not what I am.

• Iago, scene I

Lord Frederic Leighton (1830-1896) | Desdemona (Othello) 1888

Valeria Corvino, 1953

Valeria Corvino was born in Naples and trained through the study of the amazing artistic wealth of her hometown.

Roman sculpture, capricious Baroque, everyday familiarity with fragments of antiquity, the architectural palimpsest of its territory are its first "masters", together with a completely Mediterranean passion for the secrets of the anatomy and the beauty of the human body.

After studying at the Academy of Fine Arts, he studied the problems of composition working on photography, and therefore on cuts, the zoomed image, the play of light and shadows.

Combining pictorial training, the passion for sculptural volumes, the secrets of photographic framing, he comes to perfect his innate propensity for balance and harmony.

Serguei Zlenko, 1960 | I ballerini

Nato nella Repubblica di Georgia, Serguei Zlenko / Сергей Зленко si è laureato prima presso la scuola d'arte dell'Accademia d'arte russa, e successivamente ha ricevuto una laurea e un master in belle arti dall'Accademia d'arte Surikov di Mosca nel 1984.

Membro delle associazioni di artisti sia russe che finlandesi, ha è presente in gallerie e collezioni in Irlanda, Finlandia, Svezia, Francia, Stati Uniti e nella nativa Georgia.

Da molti anni Serguei ha un equilibrio vivendo in Irlanda con la Finlandia e viaggiando costantemente per il mondo eseguendo le sue commissioni di ritratti squisite e molto ricercate.

Michele Del Campo, 1976 | Figurative painter

Italian painter Michele Del Campo was born in San Nicandro Garganico, a small town in rural South Italy. When he was 18 he moved to Milan (Italy), then he went to study in Dundee (UK), afterwards in Madrid (Spain) and finally in 2008 he moved to London (UK), where he now lives and works.

Lately he is spending part of the year in Valencia (Spain), where he has another studio.

He has a degree in Fine Arts from Universidad Complutense of Madrid (Spain, 2007) and a degree in Illustration and Printmaking from University of Dundee (UK, 2001).

Leonardo da Vinci | De' movimenti dell'uomo ed altri animali

Trattato della Pittura - Parte terza | Capitoli 287-315

Il Testo Integrale

Indice

287. Della bellezza de' volti.

288. Di fisonomia e chiromanzia.

289. Del porre le membra.

290. Degli atti delle figure.

291. Dell'attitudine.

292. De' movimenti delle membra, quando si figura l'uomo, che sieno atti propri.

293. Ogni moto della figura finta dev'essere fatto in modo che mostri effetto.

294. De' moti propri dimostratori del moto della mente del motore.

295. De' moti propri operati da uomini di diverse età.

296. De' movimenti dell'uomo e d'altri animali.

297. Di un medesimo atto veduto da varî siti.

298. Della membrificazione de' nudi e loro operazioni.

299. Degli scoprimenti o coprimenti de' muscoli di ciascun membro nelle attitudini degli animali.

Tomasz Rut, 1961 | Neo Baroque painter

Named one of the most collectible living artists, Tomasz Rut continues to expand the realm of contemporary figurative painting to the artistic limits reached only by the Great Masters of the past. Often compared to the epic works of the Antiquity, Renaissance and Baroque, his Classical artwork, inducted into The Vatican Collection by Pope Benedict XVI, resurrects the dormant tradition of figurative painting, emulating the style, harmonious elegance and passion in the spirit of Michelangelo, Raphael or Caravaggio, but does it in an eloquent, modern adaptation, accommodating the contemporary viewer.

Helen Maria Turner | Impressionist painter

Helen Maria Turner (1858-1958) was an American painter and teacher known for her work in oils, watercolors and pastels in which she created miniatures, landscapes, still lifes and portraits, often in an Impressionist style.

Life and career

Turner was born in Louisville, Kentucky while her parents, Mortimer Turner and Helen Maria Davidson, were on a long visit to family in the town.

Her lineage was respectable; she was the great-granddaughter of John Pintard of New York, granddaughter of a well-known doctor from New Orleans, and daughter of a wealthy Louisiana businessman.

Turner spent much of her early life between Alexandria, Louisiana and New Orleans, and early became a refugee from the American Civil War, which destroyed her father's fortune and led to the loss of his business.

Gustave Boulanger (1824-1888) | Academic painter

Gustave Clarence Rodolphe Boulanger was a French figure painter, Academic artist and teacher known for his Classical and Orientalist subjects.

The Néo-Grecs and the Prix de Rome

Boulanger was born in Paris in 1824.

He never knew his father, and when his mother's death left him orphaned at the age of fourteen, he became the ward of his uncle, Constant Desbrosses, who in 1840 sent him to study first under the history painter Pierre-Jules Jollivet and then at the atelier of Paul Delaroche, where Boulanger met and befriended his fellow student Jean-Léon Gérôme.

Anna Gardell-Ericson (Swedish, 1853-1939)

Anna Maria Gardell-Ericson was a Swedish painter and watercolorist.

She specialized in coastal scenes and landscapes with lakes or rivers.

Her father, Johan Theodore Gardell, is generally described as a landscape painter, although he may have been primarily a local administrative officer.

At the age of sixteen, she began painting and displayed sufficient talent for her to be sent to Switzerland to begin her studies.

Later, she studied with Per Daniel Holm at the Royal Swedish Academy of Fine Arts in Stockholm; making her début at one of the Academy's exhibitions in 1875.

The following year, she won a bronze medal at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia.

Candace Lovely, 1953 | Impressionist painter

Candace Whittemore Lovely is an American painter known for her paintings of contemporary American life, including landscapes of treasured locales and people at play in idyllic locations. She lives and works in Hilton Head Island, South Carolina.

In 1991, Lovely painted the official portrait of former First Lady Barbara Bush that now hangs in the George Bush Presidential Library and Museum.

She has been called "the grand dame of Boston painters".

Domingo Alvarez Gomez, 1942

Domingo Alvarez Gomez is a world-renowned artist who was born in Barcelona, where he still lives and works.

He loved drawing and painting from an early age and was destined to become an artist. He is completely self-taught.

On completing his studies in 1966 he traveled to London before quickly becoming a highly sought-after book illustrator for many publishing houses and design studios in his native Spain.

In 1971 he became editor of a very influential Spanish art magazine. This time in his life was pivotal in shaping his future.

Alan Ayers | Cover painter for Romances

Alan Ayers is an Award winning cover artist for romance novels in the historical category by Romance Writers of America's network of published authors

A native of Gainesville, Florida, I graduated from Temple University’s Tyler School of Art with a BFA in 1981.

Although I was trained traditionally, and created images in acrylic and oil for many years, I've been working digitally since 1995.

I feel the digital world has brought a new energy to my work. I am very comfortable working with a tablet, and often forget I'm not "pushing paint around".

I’ve had the pleasure of working with some of the most talented art directors in publishing and advertising. I greatly enjoy the process of working as a team to create the strongest images possible. I live with my wife Jeanne and our spoiled whippet in Lancaster, PA.

Henry John Yeend King | Victorian genre painter

Henry John Yeend King (1855-1924) was a British artist best known for his paintings of rustic English farms and young women strolling in the countryside.

His technique was influenced by Impressionism, but is notably more restrained, detailed, and realistic in its application.

Born on August 21, 1855 in London, England, King went on to study as a glass painter, later traveling to Paris to study under Léon Joseph Florentin Bonnat and Fernand Cormon where he learned Impressionist techniques.

The plein-air technique prevalent in France influenced his art, and on his return to England he chose to specialise in landscapes and depictions of rustic genre.

Yeend King lived in London for most of his life however, like many of his contemporaries his heart was 'in the country'.

Henri Matisse | Notes of a Painter, 1908

Quotes from: 'Notes d'un Peintre' (Notes of a Painter), Henri Matisse, in 'La Grande Revue', Paris, 25 December 1908; as quoted in Artists on Art - from the 14th - 20th centuries, ed. by Robert Goldwater and Marco Treves; Pantheon Books, 1972, London

"What I am after, above all, is expression. Sometimes it has been conceded that I have a certain technical ability but that, my ambition being limited, I am unable to proceed beyond a purely visual satisfaction such as can be procured from the mere sight of a picture.

But the purpose of a painter must not be conceived as separate from his pictorial means, and these pictorial means must be the more complete (I do not mean complicated) the deeper is his thought. I am unable to distinguish between the feeling I have for life and my way of expressing it".

Ten American Painters, 1897-1918

The Ten American Painters (also known as The Ten) was an artists' group formed in 1898 to exhibit their work as a unified group.

John Henry Twachtman, J. Alden Weir and Childe Hassam were the driving forces behind the organization. Dissatisfied with the conservatism of the American art establishment, the three artists recruited seven others from Boston, New York City, and elsewhere on the East Coast, with the intention of creating an exhibition society that valued their view of originality, imagination, and exhibition quality.

The Ten achieved popular and critical success, and lasted two decades before dissolving.

Foundation

In America, popular painting styles usually originated on the east coast in cities like New York and Boston.

The Ten continued a tradition of artists forming new groups in reaction to a lack of support from existing artists' groups. Thus, the National Academy of Design (founded in 1825 by students dissatisfied by the conservatism of the older American Academy of the Fine Arts) eventually became too conservative to suit the artists who in 1877 initiated the Society of American Artists so they could meet and exhibit their work as a collective.

Frank W. Benson | Summer, 1909

Frank Weston Benson | Impressionist painter

Frank Weston Benson, frequently referred to as Frank W. Benson, (March 24, 1862 - November 15, 1951) was an American artist from Salem, Massachusetts known for his Realistic portraits, American Impressionist paintings, watercolors and etchings.

He began his career painting portraits of distinguished families and murals for the Library of Congress. Some of his best known paintings (Eleanor, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Summer, Rhode Island School of Design Museum) depict his daughters outdoors at Benson's summer home, Wooster Farm, on the island of North Haven, Maine.

He also produced numerous oil, wash and watercolor paintings and etchings of wildfowl and landscapes.

Claude Monet | Vita ed Opere

Claude-Oscar Monet (Parigi, 14 novembre 1840 - Giverny, 5 dicembre 1926) è stato un pittore Francese, considerato il padre dell'Impressionismo.

La formazione artistica

Claude Monet nacque nel 1840 a Parigi in rue Laffitte, secondogenito di Claude Adolphe e di Louise Justine Aubrée, una giovane vedova al suo secondo matrimonio. Nel 1845 i Monet si trasferirono a Sainte-Adresse, un sobborgo di Le Havre, dove il padre iniziò a gestire un negozio di drogheria e di forniture marittime insieme con il cognato Jacques Lecadre. A quindici anni l'adolescente Claude cominciò a disegnare a matita e a carboncino, e a vendere bonarie caricature di personaggi della città alla buona somma di una decina di franchi l'una, acquistando così una certa fama nella città insieme ad un modesto gruzzolo

Eric Bowman, 1960 | Jazz music

Eric Bowman è nato a Pasadena ed è cresciuto a Orange County, in California. Essenzialmente un artista autodidatta, ha avuto un talento per il disegno fin da quando riesce a ricordare, sempre l'artista della scuola durante i suoi anni di scuola elementare e superiore.

Per vocazione, però, l'arte non è stata guidata da un percorso ben definito, ed è diventata un esercizio di apertura di porte che implicano opportunità artistiche.

Mentre il freelance a tempo pieno come artista commerciale lo ha tenuto lavoratore autonomo per molti anni, è stato solo un incontro casuale con due importanti pittori californiani alla fine degli anni '90 che Eric ha sperimentato un importante cambiamento nella sua visione del mondo dell'arte che lo ha portato a un nuovo viaggio nella pittura d'arte.