Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema | Spring / Primavera, 1894

A procession of women and children descending marble stairs carry and wear brightly colored flowers. Cheering spectators fill the windows and roof of a classical building.

Dutch-born British Classicist painter Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema (1836-1912) here represented the Victorian custom of sending children into the country to collect flowers on the morning of May 1, or May Day, but placed the scene in ancient Rome.

Constant Troyon | The Barbizon school of painters

Constant Troyon (1810-1865), French painter, was born in Sèvres, near Paris, where his father was connected with the famous manufactory of porcelain.

Troyon was an animal painter of the first rank, and was closely associated with the artists who painted around Barbizon.

The technical qualities of his methods of painting are most masterly; his drawing is excellent, and his composition always interesting.

It was only comparatively late in life that Troyon found his métier, but when he realized his power of painting animals he produced a fairly large number of good pictures in a few years.

Ricardo Sanz, 1957 | Figurative painter

Ricardo Sanz is a San Sebastián painter. His work is contemporary figurative style.

His artistic vocation was forged through his grandfather, owner of the Art Gallery La Perfecta in which he met the great artists of the painting: Sorolla, Zuloaga, Vázquez Diaz, etc.

At fourteen he began his training as a painter with José Camps, while he continued his studies until graduating in History from the University of Deusto and Art History in Madrid.

In Paris and Italy continues his apprenticeship with prominent painters of the time.

Gian Lorenzo Bernini, uomo ed artista universale

Oltre ai suoi autoritratti e ad un ritratto fattogli dal Gaulli (Roma, Gall. Corsini), il Bernini è stato descritto fisicamente e moralmente da numerosi autori: basti ricordare lo Chantelou, ed il figlio Domenico, che lo disse "aspro di natura, fisso nelle operazioni, ardente nell'ira".

Egli fu l'artista più intimamente legato al cattolicesimo risorgente nella temperie postridentina, e non può esserci dubbio sulla sua convinzione religiosa; pare che negli anni successivi al 1630 la sua fede si fosse approfondita e che nell'ultimo periodo della sua vita frequentasse assiduamente gesuiti e oratoriani: era amico intimo dei padre G. P. Oliva, gesuita, per il quale disegnò il frontespizio al secondo volume delle Prediche (1664) e ebbe come consigliere spirituale anche un suo nipote, padre Marchesi, oratoriano.

Gerard ter Borch | Baroque painter

Gerard Terborch, Terborch also spelled Ter Borch or Terburg (1617-1681), Dutch Baroque painter who developed his own distinctive type of interior genre in which he depicted with grace and fidelity the atmosphere of well-to-do, middle-class life in 17th-century Holland.

Terborch’s father had been an artist and had visited Rome but from 1621 was employed as a tax collector.

François Lassere, 1960 | Oppositionist Art

Born in Puy de Dôme, France, François Lassere is a self-taught painter who practices several techniques.

He was interested in hyperrealism for many years, then moved on to working in raw material, when a painter in Paris suggested to him to expand to new techniques.

Lassere then embarked on a new trend, which he calls “Oppositionism”. From this point on his work will mostly consist of highlighting heterogeneous styles to extract harmony from them.

Alda Merini | Alla tua salute, amore mio!

Sono folle di te, amore

che vieni a rintracciare

nei miei trascorsi

questi giocattoli rotti delle mie parole.

Ti faccio dono di tutto

se vuoi,

Pablo Picasso |The Embrace, 1900

Citazioni da Picasso: "Dipingere non è un'operazione estetica.."

• "Quando uno inizia un ritratto e cerca per successive eliminazioni di trovare la forma pura... si finisce inevitabilmente con un uovo.."

• "La pittura non è fatta per decorare gli appartamenti. È uno strumento di guerra offensiva e difensiva contro il nemico".