Jane Crowther, 1962

Originally from York (UK), Jane Crowther studied Illustration BA(Hons) at Kingston Polytechnic.

In the early 1990’s, whilst based in North London, Jane designed a small range of greeting cards to supplement her meagre income as an artist, initially selling them at craft fairs alongside her large multi-media paintings.

The cards started to sell really well and Jane made the commercial decision to concentrate on her card designs.

Alex Gross, 1968 | Pop surrealism painter

Alex Gross lives in Portland, Oregon. In 1990, he received a BFA with honors from Art Center College of Design in Pasadena.

Since then, he has had ten solo exhibitions at various galleries, and participated in dozens of museum and gallery exhibitions across the globe.

His 2017 exhibition with Corey Helford Gallery was his most recent solo exhibition.

In the summer of 2007, Alex's first retrospective museum show was held at the Grand Central Art Center in Santa Ana, California.

Joseph Lorusso, 1966 | Il pittore romantico

Di origini italiane, Joseph Lorusso è stato esposto all'arte in tenera età.

Attraverso diversi viaggi iniziali in Italia, i suoi genitori lo hanno introdotto alle opere dei maestri italiani.

Lorusso avrebbe guardato a queste influenze durante il suo primo sviluppo artistico e sono ancora evidenti nel suo lavoro odierno.

Durante gli anni della scuola, Lorusso si è specializzato in acquerelli e si considera un autodidatta come pittore ad olio.

Eva Melhuish | Scandinavian Christmas cards

Eva Melhuish is an illustrator who has been published across Europe, the USA and has worked on global projects with UNICEF.

With a Swedish mother and English father, Eva is bi-lingual and has travelled extensively.

Her work reflects this diverse background and she illustrates a wide range of subjects, from natural history and horses to gardening and educational books.

Eva grew up in Sweden and her Scandinavian roots are a key influence.

Ed Wheeler | Santa Classic

In a series of self-portraits dressed as Santa Claus, Philadelphia-based artist Ed Wheeler, photographer, incorporates himself in classical paintings from Botticelli to Caravaggio to Monet.

In so doing he transforms the masterworks of art history from the Renaissance to the Surrealists. Santa Classics, his derivative art series, is based on a digital photography process.

Wheeler’s goal is to pay homage to the original paintings while offering art lovers an additional reason to smile.

Francesco Hayez | The Kiss, 1859 | Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan

Molly Brett | Writer / Children's book illustrator

Molly Brett (1902–1990) was an English illustrator and writer of children's literature, best known for her anthropomorphic artwork.

Molly (Mary Elizabeth) Brett grew up in the English county of Surrey, surrounded by animals and nature.

Her mother, Mary Gould Brett, was a respected animal painter who encouraged her daughter to paint from life, and this is reflected in Molly's gift for making her animals look thoroughly naturalistic while giving them human characteristics and activities.

Emily Dickinson | L’erba ha così poche occupazioni / The Grass so little has to do

L’erba ha così poche occupazioni -

un mondo di semplice verde

con solo farfalle su cui meditare

e api da ospitare -

non ha da fare altro che cullarsi

tutto il giorno ai suoni melodiosi

che le brezze portano leggere -

e accogliere in grembo la luce -

Camille Pissarro | Gardeuse de vaches, Eragny | Christie's

Bertolt Brecht | Of all the works of man / Tra tutte le opere

Of all the works of man I like best

Those which have been used.

The copper pots with their dents and flattened edges

The knives and forks whose wooden handles

Have been worn away by many hands: such forms

Seemed to me the noblest.

Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475-1564) | Crouching Boy, 1524 | Hermitage, St. Petersburg

Johannes Vermeer died on this day, in 1675

Dutch Golden Age painter Johannes Vermeer (1632-1675) passed away on this day December 15th, 1675.

He was 43 years old.

Vermeer’s small oeuvre is remarkable.

It is estimated that Vermeer created around 40 to 50 paintings, which is not a big number compared to other master painters of the time.

For example, Rembrandt made around 300 paintings and Frans Hals around 200.

Wisława Szymborska / René Magritte | A Note / Una nota

Life is the only way

to get covered in leaves,

catch your breath on the sand,

rise on wings;

to be a dog,

or stroke its warm fur;

René Magritte

to tell pain

from everything it's not;

to squeeze inside events,

dawdle in views,

to seek the least of all possible mistakes.

An extraordinary chance

to remember for a moment

a conversation held

with the lamp switched off;

and if only once

to stumble upon a stone,

end up soaked in one downpour or another,

mislay your keys in the grass;

and to follow a spark on the wind with your eyes;

and to keep on not knowing

something important.

Polish poet Wislawa Szymborska (1923-2012)

René Magritte | L'Utopie, 1945 | Cleveland Museum of Art

Wisława Szymborska | Una nota

La vita - è il solo modo

per coprirsi di foglie,

prendere fiato sulla sabbia,

sollevarsi sulle ali;

essere un cane,

o carezzarlo sul suo pelo caldo;

distinguere il dolore

da tutto ciò che dolore non è;

stare dentro gli eventi,

dileguarsi nelle vedute,

cercare il più piccolo errore.

René Magritte

Un’occasione eccezionale

per ricordare per un attimo

di che si è parlato

a luce spenta;

e almeno per una volta

inciampare in una pietra,

bagnarsi in qualche pioggia,

perdere le chiavi tra l’erba;

e seguire con gli occhi una scintilla

nel vento;

e persistere nel non sapere

qualcosa d’importante.

René Magritte

Vincent van Gogh | Two peasant women digging in field with snow, 1890

Van Gogh was fascinated with the labour and life of peasants, as expressed in art and literature.

In his paintings and drawings, he prominently featured working men and women.

He believed that to truly capture ‘the heart of the people’, an artist must immerse himself in their world.

He saw labourers as simple, kind-hearted and courageous people, often holding them in higher regard than those he termed "civilized".

Vincent van Gogh | Two peasant women digging in field with snow, 1890 | Kunsthaus Zürich

Happy 194th Birthday, Emily Dickinson!

American poet Emily Dickinson (December 10, 1830 - May 15, 1886) was born 194 years ago, in 1830.

Little-known during her life, she has since been regarded as one of the most important figures in American poetry.

Despite Dickinson's prolific writing, only ten poems and a letter were published during her lifetime.

After her younger sister Lavinia discovered the collection of nearly 1,800 poems, Dickinson's first volume was published four years after her death.

Bronze sculpture of Emily Dickinson by Jane DeDecker

Giovanni Segantini | L’angelo della vita (Dea cristiana), 1894

The Angel of Life (Christian Goddess) was commissioned in 1891 or shortly before by the banker Leopoldo Albini, together with the Pagan Goddess, now exhibited alongside it.

The two works were intended to form a diptych on the theme of women, a mystical mother in the case of the painting considered here, a worldly and lustful vision in the other.

The two figures are portraits of the family nanny, Baba, and of her son Gottardo (painted from memory, since he must have been twelve years old at the time).

Giovanni Segantini | L’angelo della vita (Dea cristiana), 1894 (detaglio) | GAM - Galleria d'Arte Moderna, Milano

Spinario (Boy pulling a thorn from his foot)

Boy with Thorn, also called Fedele (Fedelino) or Spinario, is a Greco-Roman Hellenistic bronze sculpture of a boy withdrawing a thorn from the sole of his foot, now in the Palazzo dei Conservatori, Rome.

There is a Roman marble version of this subject from the Medici collections in a corridor of the Uffizi Gallery, Florence.

The sculpture was one of the very few Roman bronzes that was never lost to sight.

The work was standing outside the Lateran Palace when the Navarrese rabbi Benjamin of Tudela saw it in the 1160s and identified it as Absalom, who "was without blemish from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head".

Lo Spinario | Palazzo dei Conservatori, Musei Capitolini

Mahmoud Darwish | Un altro giorno verrà / Another day will come

Mahmoud Darwish (1941-2008) è stato un poeta, scrittore e giornalista Palestinese.

È autore di circa venti raccolte di poesie, pubblicate a partire dal 1964, e sette opere in prosa, di argomento narrativo o saggistico.

È considerato tra i maggiori poeti in lingua araba.

Darwish ha vinto numerosi premi per le sue opere.

È stato giornalista e direttore della rivista letteraria "al-Karmel" (Il Carmelo), e dal 1994 era membro del Parlamento dell'Autorità Nazionale Palestinese.

È considerato poeta nazionale della Palestina per cui scrisse nel 1988 la Dichiarazione d'indipendenza, poi proclamata da Yasser Arafat.

I suoi libri sono stati tradotti in più di venti lingue e diffusi in tutto il mondo.

Mahmoud Darwish | Un altro giorno verrà

Shamsia Hassani | Hope is always beautiful even when you know you are the loser

Un altro giorno verrà, un giorno femmineo,

alla metafora trasparente,

compiuto, diamantino, di visita nuziale, soleggiato,

fluido, allegro. Nessuno sentirà

alcun bisogno di suicidio o di migrazione.

Poiché ogni cosa, fuori del passato, è naturale e vera,

sinonimo dei suoi attributi originari.

Shamsia Hassani

Come se il tempo oziasse in vacanza… "Prolunga il bel

tempo

della tua grazia. Illùminati nel sole dei tuoi seni di seta,

e aspetta l’arrivo della buona novella. Poi,

potremo crescere. Abbiamo ancora tempo

per crescere dopo questo giorno…"

Un altro giorno verrà,

un giorno femmineo,

dal cenno canterino e dal saluto e verbo azzurri.

Tutto è femmineo fuori del passato,

l’acqua scorre dalle mammelle della pietra.

Nessuna polvere, nessuna siccità, e nessuna sconfitta.

E le colombe dormono in un carro armato abbandonato

quando non trovano un piccolo nido

nel letto degli amanti.

Shamsia Hassani

Mahmoud Darwish | Another day will come

Another day will come, a womanly day

diaphanous in metaphor, complete in being,

diamond and processional in visitation, sunny,

flexible, with a light shadow. No one will feel

a desire for suicide or for leaving. All

things, outside the past, natural and real,

will be synonyms of their early traits. As if time

is slumbering on vacation…"

Shamsia Hassani | Love

"Extend your lovely

beauty-time. Sunbathe in the sun of your silken breasts,

and wait until good omen arrives. Later

we will grow older. We have enough time

to grow older after this day…"/

Another day will come, a womanly day

songlike in gesture, lapis in greeting

and in phrase. All things will be feminine outside

the past. Water will flow from rock's bosom.

No dust, no drought, no defeat.

And a dove will sleep in the afternoon in an abandoned

combat tank if it doesn't find a small nest

in the lovers' bed…

Mahmoud Darwish (1941-2008) was a Palestinian poet and author who was regarded as Palestine's national poet.

In 1988, Darwish wrote the Palestinian Declaration of Independence, which was the formal declaration for the creation of a State of Palestine.

Darwish won numerous awards for his works.

In his poetic works, Darwish explored Palestine as a metaphor for the loss of Eden, birth and resurrection, and the anguish of dispossession and exile.

He has been described as incarnating and reflecting "the tradition of the political poet in Islam, the man of action whose action is poetry".

He also served as an editor for several literary magazines in Israel and the Palestinian territories.

Darwish wrote in Arabic, and also spoke English, French and Hebrew.

Book sculptures by Jodi Harvey-Brown

- "I have always loved art, and I have always loved to read.

Books pull you into a new world, while art lets you see it.

It made sense to me that these two mediums should come together.

The books that we love to read should be made to come to life.

Characters, that we care so much for, should come out of the pages to show us their stories.

What we see in our imaginations as we read should be there for the world to see.

My book sculptures are my way of making stories come alive" - Jodi Harvey-Brown.

7 masterpieces at the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum

Frederick Carl Frieseke | The House in Giverny, 1912

When Frieseke first settled at Giverny in 1906, he stayed at Le Hameau (the hamlet) on the rue du Pressoir.

The two-story cottage surrounded by high walls on three sides enclosing a garden was next door to the home of Claude Monet and had previously been occupied by the American artist Lilla Cabot Perry.

The house shown in The House in Giverny, however, is most likely the Whitman house, the second of Frieseke's three Giverny residences.

Its green shutters and the distinctive open lattice-work of green trellises laden with flowers appear in a number of Frieseke's paintings, including Lilies, Tea Time in a Giverny Garden (both Daniel J. Terra Collection) and Hollyhocks, c. 1912-1913 (Carmen Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection).

The intimacy of Frieseke's small painting and his interest in decorative pattern links the artist more closely with the Nabi painters Vuillard and Bonnard than to his neighbour Monet or with Renoir, the French Impressionist he most admired.

The artist stated his creed published in a 1914 interview: "My one idea is to reproduce flowers in sunlight.

I do not suggest detail by form, as I have to keep it as pure as possible or the effect of brilliancy will be lost.

Of course, there is a limit to the strength of pigments, and one can but relatively give the impression of nature. I may see a glare of white light at noon, but I cannot render it literally [...]

I usually make my first notes and impressions with dashes of tempera, then I paint over this with small strokes in oil to produce the effect of vibration, completing as I go". | Source: © Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum

Frederick Carl Frieseke (American, 1874-1939) | The House in Giverny, 1912 | Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid

Enoch Wood Perry | A Month’s darning, 1876

In their subject matter and compositional format, Enoch Wood Perry’s watercolor paintings are quite similar to his oils, and his method of applying paint was consistently characterized by fastidious attention to detail.

Like his colleague Eastman Johnson, Enoch Wood Perry (1831-1915) studied in Düsseldorf and Paris, where he acquired a respect for careful draftsmanship.

He exhibited "A Month’s Darning" in 1876 at the American Society of Painters in Water Colors and later the same year at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, where it was acclaimed for its evocation of times past.

The critic for the "New-York Tribune" found the woman’s head to be "the best part" of the composition and only regretted "that the sweet-faced girl . . . should have such large-footed men-folks to darn for". | Source: © The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Enoch Wood Perry | A Month’s Darning, 1876 | Metropolitan Museum of Art

Cindy Hendrick | Watercolor illustrator

A love of gardening, nature and woodland animals inspire Hendrick’s artwork.

Spending time in her surroundings, she observes these friends of the forest and field and their quirky behaviors.

The small company Hendrick started from her home in 2004, Woodfield Press has grown from humble beginnings with a handful of notecards and a couple of paper doll kits to a business with products in up to 450 stores throughout the US and the ability to print 40,000 cards at a time.

Camille Pissarro at the Christie's

Camille Pissarro | Paysannes travaillant dans les champs, Pontoise, 1881

In Paysannes travaillant dans les champs, Pontoise, painted in 1881, Camille Pissarro (1830-1903) depicts a group of five young women harvesting peas on the rural outskirts of Pontoise, a bustling market town about forty kilometers northwest of Paris where he and his family had lived for over a decade.

Pissarro had first treated the theme of picking peas in two oils the previous year, and he returned to the motif at least three times following his move to the agrarian hamlet of Éragny in 1884.

Camille Pissarro | Paysannes travaillant dans les champs, Pontoise, 1881 | Christie's

Happy birthday to Théo van Rysselberghe, born on this day in 1862

Happy birthday to Théophile "Théo" van Rysselberghe (23 November 1862 - 13 December 1926), a Belgian neo-impressionist painter, who played a pivotal role in the European art scene at the turn of the twentieth century.

Van Rysselberghe discovered the pointillist technique when he saw Georges Seurat's La Grande Jatte at the eighth impressionist exhibition in Paris in 1886.

Together with Henry Van de Velde, Georges Lemmen, Xavier Mellery, Willy Schlobach and Alfred William Finch and Anna Boch he "imported" this style to Belgium.

Metropolitan Museum of Art | Storia del Museo

Le prime radici del Metropolitan Museum of Art (Met) risalgono al 1866 a Parigi, Francia, quando un gruppo di americani decise di creare una "istituzione nazionale e galleria d'arte" per portare l'arte e l'educazione artistica al popolo americano.

L'avvocato John Jay, che propose l'idea, portò avanti rapidamente il progetto al suo ritorno negli Stati Uniti dalla Francia.

Sotto la presidenza di Jay, l'Union League Club di New York radunò leader civici, uomini d'affari, artisti, collezionisti d'arte e filantropi alla causa.

Alaa Awad, 1981 | Neo-pharaonic style art

Dr. Alaa Awad is an Egyptian painter and muralist, known for his public murals in Cairo and Luxor, Egypt.

Inspired by ancient Egyptian heritage and contemporary society, some of Awad’s most popular work includes scenes of celebration, victory, Sufism, Egyptian social life and culture.

Currently, he serves as an assistant lecturer and PhD candidate at South Valley University (SVU), Faculty of Fine Arts.

His PhD working dissertation title is, "Artistic Vision Inspired by the Murals of War and Peace in Ancient Egyptian Art" and will be released in 2019.

Balbusso Twins, le gemelle dell'illustrazione

Anna ed Elena Balbusso, gemelle, vivono e lavorano a Milano.

Diplomate in pittura all’Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera, dal 1994 operano come illustratrici freelance per la pubblicità e l’editoria sia in Italia che all’estero.

Dal 1998 illustrano libri per ragazzi e copertine con varie case editrici.

Dal 2003 lavorano con testate francesi nell’ambito della comunicazione e dei magazine.

Nel 2006 hanno iniziato nuove collaborazioni nell’editoria per ragazzi in Francia ed in Corea del Sud.

Charles Dickens: "Love is not a feeling to pass away"

Charles John Huffam Dickens (1812-1870) was an English novelist, journalist, short story writer and social critic.

He created some of literature's best-known fictional characters, and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian era.

His works enjoyed unprecedented popularity during his lifetime and, by the 20th century, critics and scholars had recognised him as a literary genius.

His novels and short stories are widely read today.

Charles Dickens | Love is not a feeling to pass away

Love is not a feeling to pass away,

Like the balmy breath of a summer day;

It is not - it cannot be - laid aside;

It is not a thing to forget or hide.

William Powell Frith | The Two Central Figures in "Derby Day" | The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Happy birthday to Édouard Vuillard, born on this day, in 1868

Happy birthday to French Post-impressionist and Nabis painter Edouard Vuillard, born on this day in November 11, 1868.

From 1891 through 1900, Vuillard was a prominent member of the avant garde artistic group Les Nabis, creating paintings that assembled areas of pure color.

His interior scenes, influenced by Japanese prints, explored the spatial effects of flattened planes of color, pattern, and form.

The Prado Mona Lisa, 1507-1516

This version of the Mona Lisa (Louvre) was painted by one of Leonardo’s pupils.

The fact that each pentimento, or change, in Leonardo’s original (to the bust, outline of the veil and position of the fingers) is repeated here suggests that the two works were created simultaneously.

There are also differences with respect to the original, in the unfinished landscape and on the face.

Overall, the panel seems to reflect an intermediate stage in the creation of the Louvre painting.

Prado Mona Lisa, 1503-1516 | Museo Nacional del Prado

Chiaki Okada | Children's book illustrator

Chiaki Okada / 岡田 千晶 is an illustrator and author of children’s books from Osaka, Japan.

Her gentle, calming artwork was selected at the Bologna Children’s Book Fair in 2010 and she has since illustrated books by authors from around the world.

Her first picture book published in English, For All the Stars Across the Sky, was released in 2019. She lives in Japan.

Konstantinos Kavafis | Itaca / Ithaca / Ιθάκη, 1911

"Ithaca" /Ιθάκη è una poesia del poeta greco Konstantinos Kavafis, comunemente considerata la sua opera più popolare.

Fu pubblicata per la prima volta sulla rivista Grammata (Γράμματα, "lettere") della Alessandria. Basata sul viaggio di ritorno di Ulisse nell'Odissea di Omero, la poesia è intitolata all'isola omonima di Itaca.

Una prima versione della poesia, intitolata "Una seconda Odissea" fu scritta nel 1894.

Ithaca ottenne un pubblico globale dopo la sua lettura del 1994 al funerale dell'ex first lady degli Stati Uniti, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis.

Se ti metti in viaggio per Itaca

augurati che sia lunga la via,

piena di conoscenze e d’avventure.

Shamsia Hassani, 1988 | Afghanistan's First Female Street Artist

"I want to colour over the bad memories of war on the walls, and if I colour over these bad memories, then I erase [war] from people's minds.

I want to make Afghanistan famous for its art, not its war" - Shamsia Hassani.

Afghan artist Shamsia Hassani risks all to bring color to war-torn Kabul with her street art and murals.

Born April 1988, she is the first female graffiti artist of Afghanistan.

Through her artworks, Shamsia portrays Afghan women in a male dominant society.

Robert Frost | La mia Ospite di Novembre / My November Guest

Robert Lee Frost (1874-1963) è stato un poeta e drammaturgo Statunitense, considerato tra i maggiori intellettuali del Novecento.

Frost è considerato uno dei più influenti e popolari poeti della storia statunitense; vincitore di quattro Premi Pulitzer e premiato con numerosi altri riconoscimenti, le sue raffigurazioni realistiche della vita rurale e la sua padronanza del discorso colloquiale americano lo resero il poeta più di successo del suo tempo.

Quando lei, mio Dolore, è qui con me,

pensa che questi giorni melanconici

e piovosi d’autunno sono splendidi

come possono i giorni essere; ama

la nuda pianta che appassisce, e va

sull’umido sentiero in mezzo all’erba.

Lawton Silas Parker | Autumn Sunlight

Eduardo León Garrido | Belle Époque painter

Spanish painter Eduardo León Garrido (1856-1949), was a significant figure in the Impressionist movement.

Trained at the Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando, he later moved to Paris where he was influenced by French artistic trends, particularly the works of Manet and the Impressionists.

He is known for his elegant portraits and genre scenes, often bathed in soft, natural light.

Wisława Szymborska | La memoria / Memory finally

La memoria finalmente ha quel che cercava.

Si è trovata mia madre, mi è apparso mio padre.

Ho sognato per loro un tavolo, due sedie. Si sono seduti.

Erano miei di nuovo e per me di nuovo vivi.

Sono balenati con le due lampade sul viso

all'imbrunire, come a Rembrandt.

Victor Nizovtsev

The Tragic Life of Van Gogh by Alireza Karimi Moghaddam

Watch beauty directly;

See them through your soul’s door.

Don’t let technology snatch

the little time you have to relish real beauty.

Maybe this chance won’t repeat for us ever.

Know the value of encountering true beauties,

and don’t turn your back on them. | by Alireza Karimi Moghaddam.

Christopher Marlowe | Vieni a vivere con me e sii il mio amore / The passionate shepherd to his Love, 1599

"The Passionate Shepherd to His Love" (1599), by Christopher Marlowe (English playwright, poet, and translator of the Elizabethan era, 1564-1593), is a pastoral poem from the English Renaissance (1485–1603).

Marlowe composed the poem in iambic tetrameter (four feet of one unstressed syllable followed by one stressed syllable) in six stanzas, and each stanza is composed of two rhyming couplets; thus the first line of the poem reads: "Come live with me and be my love".

Come live with me, and be my love;

And we will all the pleasures prove

That hills and valleys, dales and fields,

Woods, or steepy mountains yields.

Walter Crane | The Passionate Shepherd to his Love illustration

William Blake | A Poison Tree / Un albero avvelenato

I was angry with my friend;

I told my wrath, my wrath did end.

I was angry with my foe:

I told it not, my wrath did grow.

And I waterd it in fears,

Night and morning with my tears:

And I sunned it with smiles,

And with soft deceitful wiles.

William Blake | Songs of Experience: A Poison Tree, 1794 | Metropolitan Museum of Art

Antonia Pozzi | Ti do me stessa, 1934

Bellezza

Ti do me stessa,

le mie notti insonni,

i lunghi sorsi

di cielo e stelle - bevuti

sulle montagne,

la brezza dei mari percorsi

verso albe remote.

Harold Speed

Johannes Vermeer | View of Houses in Delft, 1658

View of Houses in Delft / Het Straatje, known as 'The Little Street' is an unusual painting in Vermeer’s oeuvre, and remarkable for its time as a portrait of ordinary houses.

The composition is as exciting as it is balanced.

The old walls with their bricks, whitewash, and cracks are almost tangible.

The location is Vlamingstraat 40-42 in Delft.

Vermeer’s aunt Ariaentgen Claes lived in the house at the right, with her children, from around 1645 until her death in 1670. | Source: © Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Sylvius D. Paoletti | Genre painter

Sylvius D. Paoletti (1864-1921) was born in Venice, where he worked all his life.

He is the son of the famous genre and landscape painter Antonio Ermolao Paoletti (1833-1912) and learned the art of painting in his father's workshop.

In his works Paoletti devoted himself mainly to serene genre scenes settled in Venice, in which he skillfully captures the southern light with bright and glowing colors.

Paoletti died in 1921.

Love Letters | Gustave Flaubert to Louise Colet

Quando Gustave Flaubert (1821-1880) incontra Louise Colet (1810-1876) aveva appena 24 anni. Lui aspirante scrittore e Lei, poetessa già affermata, più grande di lui di oltre dieci anni, sposata con il flautista Hippolyte Colet, amante del filosofo Victor Cousin, frequentatrice dei migliori salotti e spregiudicata.

Fu a Parigi, nell'atelier dello scultore Pradier, che il romanziere incontrò, nel giugno 1846, Louise mentre posava come modella.

Il giorno dopo Flaubert torna in atelier ed i giorni e le notti seguenti li passa con lei, in un vortice di passioni.

I due avranno una relazione molto coinvolgente, portata avanti fra contrasti dovuti in particolare al desiderio di indipendenza di Flaubert, che conduce una vita giovanile abbastanza libertina.

James Tissot | Young Lady in a Boat

Konstantinos Kavafis | Quanto più puoi / As much as you can / Όσο Mπορείς

Farla non puoi, la vita,

come vorresti? Almeno questo tenta

quanto più puoi: non la svilire troppo

nell’assiduo contatto della gente,

nell’assiduo gestire e nelle ciance.

René Magritte

Edgar Maxence | Il ritrattista romantico

Il pittore Francese Edgard Maxence (1871-1954) ha studiato con Jules-Élie Delaunay e Gustave Moreau.

I suoi contemporanei furono Henri Matisse, Georges Rouault, Albert Marquet, Henri Evenepoel ed altri.

La tecnica pittorica di Edgard Maxence combinava pennellate relativamente spesse con una certa purezza di linee.

Lui utilizzava la foglia d'oro, che enfatizzavano scene mistiche primitive, nonostante i volti realistici.