Rafal Olbinski, 1943 | Surrealist painter

Rafał Olbiński is a Polish-born illustrator, painter and educator, living in the United States.

Olbiński graduated from the architecture program of the Warsaw University of Technology in 1969.

Olbiński immigrated to the United States in 1981, where he soon established himself as a prominent painter, illustrator and designer.

Laurits Andersen Ring | Style and motifs

Danish artist Laurits Andersen Ring (1854-1933) was one of the finest Danish painters of his generation, a golden generation that established Danish painting in the eyes of the world, numbering amongst his contemporaries his friend Harmmershoi (1864-1916), Holsoe (1863-1935), Ilsted (1861-1933) and Monsted (1859-1941).

A feature often seen in Ring's art is to place one or more objects at the edge of picture, which can be seen in e.g. Runesten ved Roskilde Landevej, Når taget ventes. Jernbaneoverkørsel ved Roskilde Landevej, Summerday by Roskilde Fjord and Lundbyes bænk ved Arresø.

Jacobello Alberegno (Venice, c.1367-1397)

Jacobello Alberegno | Polyptych of the Apocalypse | Whore of Babylon | Accademia Venice

Jacobello Alberegno also Jacobello Albaragno or Jacopo Alberegno (born before 1367; died before July 14, 1397 in Venice) was an Venetian painter active in the second half of the fourteenth century.

Jacobello Alberegno was fixed in the tradition of early Venetian painting masterpieces.

Gustave Caillebotte | A Balcony in Paris

Those boulevards, don’t forget, were still pretty new in 1877.

In the mid-19th Century, Napoléon III had ordered a massive redevelopment of the unruly French capital - led by Georges-Eugène Haussmann, the prefect of the Seine, who boldly (you might say pitilessly) cleared out Paris’s dense, politically restless faubourgs.

In their place arose standardised blocks of housing, fronting new extended axes that showcased landmarks like so many imperial baubles.

Lorenzo Bartolini | Faith in God / Fiducia in Dio, 1835

Lorenzo Bartolini🎨's "Fiducia in Dio" is the artist's best-known work and, more generally, is emblematic of Italian sculpture🎨 in the generation after Canova🎨. The model recalls Canova🎨's Mary Magdalen, but the work is more indebted to the observation of nature than the influence of the antique. It typifies the move towards a softer Neo-classicism which made way for Romanticism in Italian sculpture🎨.

Camille Claudel | L'âge mûr / L'Età matura, 1902

The Age of Maturity/L'âge mûr is probably the work that most lends itself to an interpretation based on autobiographical narrative: the end of the relationship between Claudel🎨 and Rodin🎨.

In actual fact, the association of the three figures with Camille Claudel🎨, Auguste Rodin🎨 and Rose Beuret arose some time after the sculpture was first exhibited. The critics initially saw it as the “symbolic representation of Destiny, in which the ageing man is torn away from love, youth and life”.

Auguste Rodin | Victor Hugo et les Muses, 1890

After Victor Hugo’s death in 1885, it was decided to erect a monument in his honour in the Panthéon as a pendant to Injalbert’s statue of Mirabeau. Auguste Rodin🎨 was awarded🎨 the commission in 1889. The sculptor chose to depict Victor Hugo in exile, seated amongst the rocks of Guernsey, his arm outstretched as if to calm the waves. It was an image both of the poet lost in contemplation and of the champion of the Republican cause.

This first project, “which lacked clarity and whose silhouette was muddled”,was unanimously rejected. In 1891, the Ministry of Fine Arts found another site for it. It would eventually be erected in the gardens of Palais-Royal.

Édouard Manet | Le déjeuner sur l'Herbe, 1863

Rejected by the jury of the 1863 Salon, Manet🎨 exhibited Le déjeuner sur l’herbe under the title Le Bain at the Salon des Refusés (initiated the same year by Napoléon III) where it became the principal attraction, generating both laughter and scandal.

Yet in Le déjeuner sur l'herbe, Manet🎨 was paying tribute to Europe's artistic heritage, borrowing his subject from the Concert champêtre - a painting by Titian🎨 attributed at the time to Giorgione🎨 (Louvre) - and taking his inspiration for the composition of the central group from the Marcantonio Raimondi engraving after Raphael's Judgement of Paris🎨.

Mark Arian, 1947 | Romantic Figurative painter

"To me, art is an expression of the rapture of being… hopefully unveiling a fragment of the radiance within all form. I believe that art can awaken the soul to the timeless presence of beauty and truth" - Mark Missman🎨.

Born in Des Moines, Iowa, Mark Missman - Arian🎨 spent many hours throughout his youth in museums studying the painting techniques of the masters.