Boccaccio Boccaccino | Early Renaissance painter

Boccaccio Boccaccino (1467-1525) was a painter of the early Italian Renaissance, belonging to the Emilian school. He is profiled in Vasari's "Le Vite delle più eccellenti pittori, scultori, ed architettori" (or, in English, Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects).

He was born in Ferrara and studied there, probably under Domenico Panetti.

Few facts of his life are known.

Jens Ferdinand Willumsen | Symbolist / Expressionist painter

Jens Ferdinand Willumsen (1863-1958) was a Danish painter, sculptor, graphic artist, architect and photographer.

He became associated with the movements of Symbolism and Expressionism.

J. F. Willumsen was born in Copenhagen, Denmark.

He was the son of Hans Willumsen and Ane Kirstine.

Giuseppe De Nittis | Impressionist painter

Giuseppe De Nittis (1846-1884) - printmaker, painter and draughtsman.

Born in Barletta in Apulia, De Nittis received his first artistic training from Giambattista Calò, a local painter, before moving to Naples in 1861 to attend the Istituto di Belle Arti.

He was expelled in 1863 for failing to conform to academic practice.

At that time, De Nittis' main interest was in experimenting with plein air painting.

Moses Levy | Post-Macchiaioli painter

Moses Levy (Tunisi, 1885 - Viareggio, 1968) was born in Tunis of a British father and an Italian mother.

His son is the Tunisian-based painter Nello Levy.

Moses trained in Italy - in Lucca, Florence and the studio of Giovanni Fattori - and was subsequently active in Viareggio.

He spent almost the whole of his life in Tunisia, but continued to travel frequently between the northern and southern shores of the Mediterranean.

He was a member of the Group of Four in Tunis in 1936, and the Group of Ten in 1947.

Silvestro Lega | Macchiaioli painter

Italian painter Silvestro Lega (1826-1895) was one of the leading artists of the Macchiaioli and was also involved with the Mazzini movement.

Lega was born in Modigliana, near Forlì, to an affluent family.

From 1838 he attended the Piarist College, where his skill at drawing became evident.

From 1843-1847 he attended the Accademia di Belle Arti, Florence, studying drawing under Benedetto Servolini (1805-79) and Tommaso Gazzarini (1790-1853), then studying painting, briefly, under Giuseppe Bezzuoli.

Antonio Ermolao Paoletti | Genre painter

Antonio Ermolao Paoletti (Venice, May 8, 1834 - Venice, December 13, 1912) was an Italian painter, mainly of Venetian genre scenes, recalling Bamboccianti life of children and women, as well as sacred fresco work for churches in the Veneto.

Antonio's father, Ermolao Paoletti, was a well known scholar and writer of Venice.

He wrote a much cited expansive guide to its architecture, monuments, artistic works, and customs.

Egon Schiele | The genius who died at 28

Painter and precociously talented draftsman; accepted into Vienna's Academy of Fine Arts in 1906 at age sixteen.

From 1907 was mentored by Gustav Klimt, who invited him to exhibit at monumental 1909 Kunstschau exhibition.

From 1910, works characterized by virtuosic use of line in penetrating portraits with expressive, contorted, sexually explicit bodies.

Happy Valentine's Day 💕 | La storia di San Valentino 💕

Saint Valentine, officially known as Saint Valentine of Rome, is a third-century Roman saint widely celebrated on February 14 and commonly associated with "courtly love".

At least three different Saint Valentines, all of them martyrs, are mentioned in the early martyrologies under date of 14 February.

One is described as a priest at Rome, another as bishop of Interamna (modern Terni), and these two seem both to have suffered in the second half of the third century and to have been buried on the Flaminian Way, but at different distances from the city.

Cesar Santos, 1982 | Classical realism painter

Cesar Santos is a Cuban-born American painter, best known for images that transmit the impression of paintings of the past, but are also imbued with contemporary, fresh concepts and his own philosophy.

His work shows a wide range of influences, including sources as diverse as the Renaissance, Nineteenth Century academic work, and contemporary society.

His artistic energy drives him to arrange elusive figures and objects in conceptual designs, yet rendering them in a believable and convincing way.