Pierre-Auguste Renoir | Femme en promenade, 1890

Pierre-Auguste Renoir demonstrated affinity toward portraiture, evidenced by its prevalence in and importance to his oeuvre.

He had a range of patrons, and in fact, his success and resultant legacy as an artist is intimately tied to his penchant for depicting women and children.

In the Paris Salon of 1879, he exhibited a family portrait of Madame Charpentier titled Portrait de Madame Charpentier et ses enfants.

Madame Charpentier was the wife of the publisher of Emile Zola, Gustave Flaubert, and the Goncourt brothers, and this initial work spurred his popularity and resulted in an increasing number of portrait commissions following its public exhibition.

Pierre-Auguste Renoir | Femme en promenade, 1890 | Christie's

Socrate: "Wonder is the beginning of wisdom"

Socrates (Σωκράτης; c. 470 BC - 399 BC) was a classical Greek (Athenian) philosopher credited as one of the founders of Western philosophy.

Through his portrayal in Plato's dialogues, Socrates has become renowned for his contribution to the field of ethics, and it is this Platonic Socrates who lends his name to the concepts of Socratic irony and the Socratic method, or elenchus.

The latter remains a commonly used tool in a wide range of discussions, and is a type of pedagogy in which a series of questions is asked not only to draw individual answers, but also to encourage fundamental insight into the issue at hand.

• "Strong minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, weak minds discuss people".

• "Le menti forti discutono di idee, le menti medie discutono di eventi, le menti deboli discutono di persone".

• "I cannot teach anybody anything. I can only make them think".

• "Non posso insegnare niente a nessuno. Posso solo fargli pensare".

Jacques-Louis David | The Death of Socrates, 1787 (detail) | Metropolitan Museum of Art

Joseph Stella | America's first Futurist

Joseph Stella (born Giuseppe Michele Stella, 1877-1946) was an Italian-born American Futurist painter best known for his depictions of industrial America, especially his images of the Brooklyn Bridge.

He is also associated with the American Precisionist movement of the 1910s–1940s.

Early life and education

Battle of Lights, Coney Island, Mardi Gras, a 1914 portrait of Coney Island by Stella now on display at Yale University Art Gallery in New Haven, Connecticut Stella was born to a middle-class family in Italy, in Muro Lucano, a village in the province of Potenza.

His grandfather Antonio and his father Michele were attorneys, but he came to New York City in 1896 to study medicine, following in the footsteps of his older brother Doctor Antonio Stella.

Joseph Farquharson | Victorian painter

Joseph Farquharson DL (4 May 1846 - 15 April 1935) was a Scottish painter, chiefly of landscapes, in Scotland often including animals.

He is most famous for his snowy winter landscapes, often featuring sheep and often depicting dawn or dusk.

He was born in Edinburgh, Scotland and died at Finzean, Aberdeenshire, Scotland.

Nicknames include "'Frozen Mutton' Farquharson" and "The Painting Laird".

Joseph Farquharson | The Shortening Winter's Day is near a close, 1903

Mariangela Gualtieri, 1951 | Bello mondo

In quest’ora della sera

da questo punto del mondo

Ringraziare desidero il divino

labirinto delle cause e degli effetti

per la diversità delle creature

che compongono questo universo singolare

Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio | The Lute Player, 1597