Donne nell'Arte | Mappa del sito

Sebbene le Artiste siano state coinvolte nella creazione artistica nel corso della storia, il loro lavoro, se confrontato con quello delle loro controparti maschili, è stato spesso offuscato, trascurato e sottovalutato.

L'assenza delle Donne dal canone dell'arte occidentale è stata oggetto di indagine e riconsiderazione sin dai primi anni '70.

L'influente saggio del 1971 di Linda Nochlin, "Perché non ci sono state grandi artiste?", ha esaminato le barriere sociali ed istituzionali che hanno impedito alla maggior parte delle donne di entrare nelle professioni artistiche nel corso della storia, ha spinto ad una nuova attenzione sulle artiste, sulla loro arte e sulle loro esperienze e ha contribuito ad ispirare il movimento artistico femminista.

Frida Kahlo (1907-1954)

Jane DeDecker | The Women's Suffrage Monument / Monumento al Suffragio Femminile

By Jane DeDecker / The concept of this proposed women’s monument was inspired by a letter from Elizabeth Cady Stanton to Lucretia Mott in which she wrote about the power of words and deeds:

"Every word we utter, every act we perform, waft unto innumerable circles, beyond".

I wanted to capture the collective energy from all women who have made this happen, as well as acknowledge that we still need to keep moving as we strive for equality.

When a water droplet impacts a body of water it pushes waves outward and rebounds upward as a smaller droplet. This droplet, called the daughter droplet - gains height - then falls back to the water in what is called a coalescent cascade.

This describes the height, breadth, and lasting impact of the Suffragists’ work.

The composition centrally places Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton writing the Declaration of Sentiments.

Paul Verlaine | Piange nel mio cuore / Tears fall in my heart, 1874

Piange nel mio cuore

Come piove sulla città.

Cos’è questo languore

Che penetra il mio cuore?

O dolce brusio della pioggia

A terra e sopra i tetti!

Per un cuore che si annoia

Oh il canto della pioggia!

Gustave Caillebotte | Jour de pluie à Paris, 1877 | The Art Institute of Chicago

Mitsuru Ichikawa, 1983 | Magic Realism painter

Mitsuru Ichikawa 市川光鶴 is a Japanese painter, born in Nagoya-shi, Aichi Prefecture.

She has been aspiring to be a painter since he was a child, and has been exhibiting mainly at group public exhibitions.

He completed the oil painting course at Musashino Art University Graduate School of Art and Design.

Currently is an associate member of the Independent Art Association.

Nikolai Sverchkov | Equine painter

Nikolai Yegorovich Sverchkov / Николай Егорович Сверчков (1817-1898) was a Russian painter who specialized in genre and hunting scenes with horses.

He was also a member of the Imperial Academy of Arts.

His father was an Imperial groom and coachman. As a child, he worked with his father and began drawing animals.

Impressed with his work, his parents arranged for him to take lessons at the Imperial Academy of Arts with the battle painter, Alexander Sauerweid, from 1827 to 1829.

Unable to keep up with the rigorous program there, he was transferred to the prestigious Saint Peter's School, where he studied from 1829 to 1833.

Upon graduating, he found employment with the Ministry of the Interior.

He painted in his free time and showed his works at the annual exhibitions of the Academy.

In 1839, he was awarded the title of "Free Artist" and quit the civil service.

During the 1840s, he visited several famous stud farms to paint scenes of the horses there.

In 1850, these were published in book form by the Velten company in Karlsruhe.

Following that, he visited Nikolai Nekrasov at his estate near Yaroslavl and created illustrations for some of his works.

In 1852, he was named an "Academician" for his popular troika paintings, and became a Professor in 1855.

From 1856 to 1864, he lived abroad; first in Paris, where he exhibited at the Salon, then in London and Brussels.

In 1863, his painting "Return from the Bear Hunt" was purchased by Emperor Napoleon III who subsequently decorated him with the Legion of Honour for this painting, as well as for The Fair and The Station.

Upon returning to Saint Petersburg in 1864, he was commissioned by Tsar Alexander II to paint a large canvas depicting the departure of Tsar Alexis I to inspect his troops in 1664.

He would continue to receive orders from the Royal Court until 1882.

Most of this work involved equestrian portraits of members of the Royal Family, but he also did battle scenes; especially from the Russo-Turkish War.

He continued to exhibit frequently, participating in many international shows, including the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia.

In all, he produced 350 paintings and over a thousand drawings. | Source: © Wikipedia

Nikolaj Egorovič Sverčkov / Николай Егорович Сверчков (1817-1898) è stato un pittore ed incisore Russo.

Nacque nella famiglia di un impiegato del dipartimento scuderie del tribunale.

Iniziò a disegnare molto presto e ottenne rapidamente un notevole successo, soprattutto nella raffigurazione dei cavalli, che amava fin dall'infanzia.

Il padre, vedendo l'inclinazione del figlio di nove anni verso il disegno, lo mandò alla Scuola educativa dell'Accademia imperiale delle arti (1827-1829), ma dopo un anno e mezzo Nikolai fu costretto ad interrompere gli studi a causa della malattia.

Successivamente, Sverchkov si dedicò seriamente all'autoeducazione artistica, studiò le opere dei maestri della pittura, disegnò costantemente ed amò particolarmente raffigurare scene con cavalli, ottenendo in questo un grande successo.

Le sue opere cominciarono ad essere esposte dal 1844.

Il suo dipinto Ritorno dalla caccia all'orso, esposto nel 1863, fu acquistato da Napoleone III.

Per questo ed altri due dipinti - La fiera e La stazione, Sverčkov ottenne il riconoscimento "Ordine della Legione d'Onore".

Di ritorno a San Pietroburgo dall'estero nel 1864, dipinse Lo zar Aleksey Mikhailovich alla parata militare del 1664 per Alessandro II.

In origine Sverčkov lavorava nel dipartimento economico del ministero russo per gli affari interni.

Nel 1839 espose i suoi primi quadri ad una mostra accademica e due anni dopo, lasciò il suo ufficio governativo.

Pittore di animali, Sverčkov iniziò il suo lavoro creativo nelle fattorie «Khrenovskiy» e «Chesmenskiy state stud».

Nel 1944 realizzò parecchie litografie e, sino alla fine degli anni quaranta, dipinse tre ritratti.

Nel 1852 Sverčkov fu insignito del titolo di accademico del genere folk.

Gli anni cinquanta si distinsero per la sua amicizia con Nikolai Nekrasov, nella tenuta del fratello di cui Sverčkov trascorse molto tempo.

Suo figlio, Georgij Sverčkov, continuò la tradizione con delicatezza anche se non raggiunse la sua notorietà.

Eugène Lami | Fashion in Paris

Eugène Louis Lami (1800-1890) was a French painter and lithographer.

He was a painter of fashionable Paris during the period of the July Monarchy and the Second French Empire and also made history paintings and illustrations for books such as Gil Blas and Manon Lescaut.

He worked at the studio of Horace Vernet then studied at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris with Camille Roqueplan and Paul Delaroche under Antoine-Jean Gros.

Anna Sahlsten | Genre painter

Anna Sofia Sahlstén (1859-1931) was a Finnish painter, primarily known for portraits and genre scenes.

Her father, Clas Vilhelm Sahlstén (1826-1897), was a Chamber Counselor who later became a writer.

Her mother was Edla Elisabeth Heinricius.

When she was eight, her family moved to Helsinki, where she attended a Swedish girls' school; receiving her certificate in 1877.

She then studied at the Finnish Society Drawing School from 1877 to 1880, then at a private school operated by Adolf von Becker, from 1880 to 1882.

Pietro Longhi | Rococò painter

Pietro Longhi (1701-1785) was a Venetian painter of contemporary genre scenes of life.

Pietro Longhi was born in Venice in the parish of Saint Maria, first child of the silversmith Alessandro Falca and his wife, Antonia. He adopted the Longhi last name when he began to paint.

He was initially taught by the Veronese painter Antonio Balestra, who then recommended the young painter to apprentice with the Bolognese Giuseppe Maria Crespi, who was highly regarded in his day for both religious and genre painting and was influenced by the work of Dutch painters.

Longhi returned to Venice before 1732.

Bella, Chagall's Eternal Muse

"In our life there is a single color, as on an artist’s palette, which provides the meaning of life and art. It is the color of LOVE" - Marc Chagall

The love story between Bella Rosenfeld (1889-1944) and Marc Chagall (1887-1985) was a profound, almost mystical connection that began in 1909 in Saint Petersburg.

Bella, a 19-year-old from a wealthy Jewish family, crossed paths with Chagall, a 26-year-old aspiring artist still in art school.

Their love was instantaneous, a moment both would later describe as love at first sight.

Bella, who would go on to become a writer, was captivated by Chagall’s deep blue eyes, describing them as if they had “fallen straight from the sky” and floated independently.

Marc Chagall | Les Amoureux, 1928

Mariangela Gualtieri | Se la parola amore è

Se la parola amore è

uno straccio lurido,

se non ho altra lingua per dire cosa

amo, se l’anima adesso è un ingombro

e il cielo un posto come un altro

se dormiamo e dormiamo

Alfred W. Elmore (1815-1881) | A Greek Ode | Christie's

René Magritte | L'utopie (Utopia), 1945

Painted in June 1945, René Magritte (Belgian surrealist artist, 1898-1967) himself described the scene in L'utopie in his publication, Dix tableaux de Magritte précédes de descriptions, published the following year.

There, he explained that, 'The rose is alone on an island'..

This sense of the solitude of the flower, already emphasised by the span of the distant horizon and the vastness of the ocean, is thus reinforced by Magritte's statement and his own declared intention.

How did the rose reach this island?

René Magritte | L'utopie (Utopia), 1945

This strange and solitary bloom is a glimpse of the poetic and the mysterious, even the miraculous, and is all the more striking as an image of hope in the wake of the Occupation of Belgium, which had only recently ended.

The promontory and the rose in L'utopie appear to have been painted in the mock-Impressionist style that Magritte referred to as Surréalisme en plein soleil.

Where his earlier works had deliberately avoided a sense of 'style' in the rendering of their strange and incongruous subjects, he now added an extra layer of the incongruous by emphasising the painting's status as a subjective representation of the world, while also taking advantage of the association between Impressionism and Realism.

He thus introduced a tension between a style of painting associated with capturing a moment of fleeting 'reality' and his own surreal, poetic universe, while also providing a glimpse of sunlight during the dark days of the Second World War.

At the same time, he revelled in shocking even his most ardent followers by deliberately and irreverently adopting a style that was then associated with bourgeois taste.

Magritte's Surrealism was intended to jolt his viewers out of a complacent understanding of the world around them, but he was aware that his own admirers and followers had developed expectations of his works.

L'utopie and its sister-works of sunlit Surrealism shocked his viewers out of their complacent understandings of his pictures and of the universe alike.

The first owner of L'utopie was Achille Chavée, a writer, friend of Magritte and leading member of the Hainaut group of Surrealists who owned several of the artist's pictures.

During the period that L'utopie was painted, the pair collaborated extensively on a large exhibition of Belgian Surrealism that was held at the Galerie des Editions La Boétie in Brussels, an exhibition that was dominated by Magritte's own works, a fitting reflection of his importance to Surrealism in that nation. | Source: © Christie's

Rene Magritte in front of his painting, 1964 | Christie's

Dipinto nel giugno 1945, René Magritte (Artista surrealista Belga, 1898-1967) stesso descrisse la scena in L'utopie nella sua pubblicazione, Dix tableaux de Magritte précédes de descriptions, pubblicata l'anno seguente.

Lì, spiegò che "la rosa è sola su un'isola".

Questo senso di solitudine del fiore, già enfatizzato dalla distanza dell'orizzonte lontano e dalla vastità dell'oceano, è quindi rafforzato dall'affermazione di Magritte e dalla sua stessa dichiarata intenzione.

Come ha fatto la rosa a raggiungere quest'isola?

Questa strana e solitaria fioritura è uno scorcio del poetico e del misterioso, persino del miracoloso, ed è tanto più sorprendente come immagine di speranza sulla scia dell'occupazione del Belgio, che era appena terminata.

Il promontorio e la rosa in L'utopie sembrano essere stati dipinti nello stile finto-impressionista che Magritte chiamava Surréalisme en plein soleil.

Laddove le sue opere precedenti avevano deliberatamente evitato un senso di "stile" nella resa dei loro soggetti strani ed incongrui, ora aggiungeva un ulteriore strato di incongruo enfatizzando lo status del dipinto come rappresentazione soggettiva del mondo, sfruttando anche l'associazione tra impressionismo e realismo.

Introduceva così una tensione tra uno stile di pittura associato alla cattura di un momento di "realtà" fugace ed il suo universo surreale e poetico, offrendo anche uno scorcio di luce solare durante i giorni bui della seconda guerra mondiale.

Allo stesso tempo, si dilettava a scandalizzare persino i suoi seguaci più ardenti adottando deliberatamente e irriverentemente uno stile che era allora associato al gusto borghese.

Il Surrealismo di Magritte intendeva scuotere i suoi spettatori da una comprensione compiacente del mondo che li circondava, ma era consapevole che i suoi ammiratori e seguaci avevano sviluppato delle aspettative nei confronti delle sue opere.

L'utopie e le sue opere gemelle del Surrealismo illuminato dal sole sconvolsero i suoi spettatori dalla loro comprensione compiacente dei suoi quadri e dell'universo.

Il primo proprietario di L'utopie fu Achille Chavée, uno scrittore, amico di Magritte e membro di spicco del gruppo surrealista dell'Hainaut che possedeva diversi quadri dell'artista.

Durante il periodo in cui L'utopie fu dipinto, la coppia collaborò ampiamente ad una grande mostra del Surrealismo belga che si tenne alla Galerie des Editions La Boétie di Bruxelles, una mostra che fu dominata dalle opere dello stesso Magritte, un riflesso appropriato della sua importanza per il Surrealismo in quella nazione. | Fonte: © Christie's