Václav Brožík | Academic painter

Václav Brožík (1851-1901) was a Czech painter who worked in the academic style.

Brožík was born on 6 March 1851 in Třemošná, Bohemia, Austrian Empire (now the Czech Republic).

He came from a poor family, studying lithography and porcelain painting through apprenticeships.

Louis-Ernest Barrias | Romantic / Art Nouveau sculptor

Louis-Ernest Barrias (1841-1905) was a French sculptor of the Beaux-Arts school.

In 1865 Barrias won the Prix de Rome for study at the French Academy in Rome.

Barrias was involved in the decoration of the Paris Opéra and the Hôtel de la Païva in the Champs-Élysées.

His work was mostly in marble, in a Romantic realist style indebted to Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux.

Mozart | Concerto for Flute and Harp | 1 - Allegro

Mozart wrote the "Concerto for Flute, Harp, and Orchestra in C major" in April 1778, during his seven-month sojourn in Paris.

It was commissioned by Adrien-Louis de Bonnières, duc de Guînes (1735-1806), a flutist, for his use and for that of his eldest daughter, Marie-Louise-Philippine (1759-1796), a harpist, who was taking composition lessons from the composer, at the duke's home, the Hôtel de Castries.

Mozart stated in a letter to his father that he thought the duke played the flute "extremely well" and that Marie's playing of the harp was "magnifique".

Louis-Ernest Barrias (1841-1905) | Mozart child with a violin, 1887 | Musée Fabre

Nikolay Bogdanov-Belsky | At School Doors, 1897

Descending from peasant class, Nikolai Bogdanov-Belsky dedicated a significant portion of his work to rural schoolchildren.

His heroes hover indecisively at the classroom door, solve problems at the blackboard, read books or converse with the teacher.

The master's idealistic paintings upheld the notion that education was capable of improving public morality and overcoming the backwardness of the Russian countryside.

This lovingly painted and slightly sentimental canvas was possibly inspired by the personal memories of the artist, who attended Sergei Rachinsky's village school in Tatevo, Smolensk Province.

Ilya Repin | Historical / Genre painter

Ilya Yefimovich Repin / Илья́ Ефи́мович Ре́пин, (1844-1930), Russian painter of historical subjects known for the power and drama of his works.

Born to a poor family near Kharkov, Repin learned his trade from a painter of icons named Bunakov and in 1864 became a student at the Academy of Fine Arts at St. Petersburg.

Salvatore Quasimodo | Il girasole piega a occidente / Almost a Madrigal

Il girasole piega a occidente

e già precipita il giorno nel suo

occhio in rovina e l'aria dell'estate

s'addensa e già curva le foglie e il fumo

dei cantieri. S'allontana con scorrere

secco di nubi e stridere di fulmini

quest'ultimo gioco del cielo. Ancora,

Vincent van Gogh | Sunflowers, 1888

Charles Hawthorne | Portrait / Genre painter

Charles Webster Hawthorne (1872-1930) was an American painter and a noted teacher who founded the Cape Cod School of Art in 1899.

He was born in Lodi, Illinois and his parents returned to Maine, raising him in the state where Charles' father was born.

At age 18, he went to New York, working as an office-boy by day in a stained-glass factory in New York, and studying at night school and with Henry Siddons Mowbray and William Merritt Chase, and abroad in both Holland and Italy.

Anne Sexton | Noi / Us

Ero avvolta nella pelliccia

nera, nella pelliccia bianca

e tu mi svolgevi

e in una luce d’oro

poi m’incoronasti,

mentre fuori dardi di neve

diagonali battevano alla porta.

Joseph Lorusso