Mike Worrall, 1942 | Surrealist painter

Born in Matlock Derbyshire, UK, Mike Worrall is an British painter and designer, inspired by historical themes.

Now based in Australia, his massive oil paintings depicting dreamlike surreality hang in private collections and gallery.

As a child, Mike Worrall was always intrigued by the paintings that introduced a mystery element to them to draw in the viewer.

Since then, Worrall creates paintings that follow that similar direction.

Jeremy Lipking, 1975 | Figurative painter

In a remarkably short period of time, Jeremy Lipking🎨 has emerged as one of the country's premier Realist artists. His talent, which rivals that of the late nineteenth century painterly realists such as John Singer Sargent🎨, Joaquin Sorolla🎨 and Anders Zorn🎨, is outstanding for a painter of any age. It is all the more remarkable since he is only thirty years old.

Like these great painters of the past, Lipking is a virtuoso artist. His canvases convey the magical aura of convincing imagery emerging out of a field of paint. Realism has been misunderstood through most of the twentieth century as an art of imitation. In truth, when practiced by a painter like Jeremy Lipking🎨, realist painting is a powerful creative force. Many viewers are drawn to his art thinking that it looks just like a photograph.

Bruno Di Maio (1944-2025)

Bruno Di Maio, was one of the Italy’s best Figurative artists.

His work reflects his great love for Renaissance paintings, yet at the same time a strong desire for expressive autonomy.

Di Maio tries, successfully, in his allegorical and surrealistic interpretation of present, to give life to the recollect quality of the past.

The originality of his vision is seen in the sumptuous subject matter, the quality of his chiaroscuro and the dramatic light effect on the figures and objects in his paintings.

His work is happy, carnal, rich in color and vibrant with light.

In addition to paintings, his artistic training extends to sculpture, engraving, excellent watercolors as well as astounding trompe l’oeil mural paintings.

His works can be found in private and public collections in Europe, Japan, Australia and in the United States.

Claude Monet | La Mare, effet de neige, 1874-75

Claude Monet painted La Mare, effet de neige in Argenteuil winter of 1874-1875.

The aethereal landscape employs tonal blue and white hues to create a frosted snowscape, bordered by homes with snow-dusted roofs.

A trio of silhouetted figures, dwarfed by trees, traverse the scene.

The work is brilliant, charming and subtle, standing as a superb example of Monet’s experimentation with the Impressionist style in the mid-1870s.

During this crucial period of his practice, his increasingly loose brushwork and thick application of paint began to formally convey the more ephemeral and atmospheric effects of the natural world.

Claude Monet | La Mare, effet de neige, 1874/75 | Christie's

Édouard Manet, l'uomo che ha rimesso in discussione l'arte intera!

Amareggiato dalla virulenza delle critiche, nell'agosto del 1865 Manet decise di partire per la Spagna, patria di quel Velázquez che gli aveva ispirato così tanti quadri (a tal punto che iniziò a circolare il nomignolo «Don Manet y Courbetos y Zurbaran de las Batignolas»).

Dopo aver distrutto moltissime delle sue tele in un accesso di sconforto e di rabbia, l'artista si recò a Burgos, Valladolid e Madrid, ed al museo del Prado rimase incantato dai Velázquez (pittore che poté già ammirare de visu al museo spagnolo di Luigi Filippo) e dalla collezione dei dipinti antichi, italiani e nordici.

Il soggiorno spagnolo, d'altro canto, lo deluse, in quanto si rese conto di aver idealizzato troppo la Spagna, che sino ad allora era stato uno straripante repertorio di motivi (più volte dipinse scene legate alla corrida, senza d'altronde mai averne vista una).

Khalil Gibran | On pleasure / Il piacere

Pleasure is a freedom-song, But it is not freedom.

It is the blossoming of your desires,

But it is not their fruit.

It is a depth calling unto a height, But it is not the deep nor the high. It is the caged taking wing,

But it is not space encompassed.

Ay, in very truth, pleasure is a freedom song.

And I fain would have you sing it with fullness of heart; yet I would not have you lose your hearts in the singing.

Some of your youth seek pleasure as if it were all, and they are judged and rebuked.

I would not judge nor rebuke them. I would have them seek.

For they shall find pleasure, but not her alone;

Seven are her sisters, and the least of them is more beautiful than pleasure.

Have you not heard of the man who was digging in the earth for roots and found a treasure?

Ron Barsano, 1945 | Figurative / Abstract painter

American painter Ron Barsano, was born and raised in Chicago Illinois just two blocks from Wrigley Field.

Immediately after High School he started a five year intense fine art program studying drawing and painting under the European taught masters William Mosby and Joseph Vanden Broucke at the American Academy of Art also in Chicago.

Ron moved to Taos, New Mexico in 1970 and became one of the co-founders of the famous "Taos Six".

He currently lives in Arroyo Hondo, New Mexico and shows his work at his Studio Gallery.

Viatcheslav Plotnikov, 1962 | Glamour of Monte Carlo

Viatcheslav Plotnikov was born in Russia. Since a young boy, Plotnikov knew which road his professional life would take. He couldn't of course have foreseen the good fortune he would have, but was however reassured and encouraged by his teachers of the art school: they recognised in him a great pictorial energy and sensed his talent.

Plotnikov was sustained by an intense desire to know and by an unshakeable will to perfect his work: he knew how important it was to master every technique and every style, because from this knowledge he would have been able to germinate a new art.

The neoclassicism would have represented the foundations of a new structure. The dedication and great passion he put into his studies slowly guaranteed the acquisition of a fascinating new knowledge: his character was strengthened internalising the example of the great painters of the past.