Vito Maurogiovanni | Le albe di mio Padre / My Father's sunrises

1930.

Mio padre non ha mai dormito la notte: il suo caffè di via De Rossi rimaneva aperto notte e giorno.

Solo nel pomeriggio andava a trovare nel gran letto matrimoniale il riposo che non poteva avere la notte. Lo ricordo, la sera, dietro il bancone a manovrare la macchina espresso, a mescere bibite, limonate, aranciate.

Non erano molti gli avventori della notte.

Capitavano viaggiatori che arrivavano dalla stazione e coloro che erano in procinto di partire, con grosse valigie, per terre lontane.

Hans Brasen

The Hagia Sophia of the Fossati brothers

Gaspare Fossati (1809-1883) and his brother Giuseppe Fossati (1822-1891), were born in Switzerland to a family of architects.

They studied in Venice and Milan.

Until 1833 Gaspare had studied several specimens of Romanic and Renaissance architecture.

He participated in the excavations in Pompey, and subsequently travelled to Russia, where he was soon appointed official architect to the Czar's court in Saint Petersburg, and was entrusted with designing the Russian embassy in Istanbul.

Fernando Pessoa | Presagio / Presságio, 1928

L’amore, quando si rivela,

Non si sa rivelare.

Sa bene guardare lei,

Ma non le sa parlare.

Chi vuol dire quel che sente

Non sa quel che deve dire.

Parla: sembra mentire…

Tace: sembra dimenticare…

Antonio Nunziante

Pierre-Auguste Renoir | Dance at Bougival, 1883

The open-air cafés of suburban Bougival, a town on the river Seine west of Paris, were popular recreation spots for city dwellers, including the Impressionists.

Here, at one such café - its floor littered with cigarettes, burnt matches, and a small bouquet of flowers-an amateur boatman in a straw hat sweeps his stylish partner along in a waltz.

The touch of their gloveless hands, their flushed cheeks and intimate proximity, suggest a sensuous subtext to this scene.

The son of a dressmaker and a tailor, Renoir delighted in capturing intricate details of contemporary fashions, such as the woman’s red bonnet trimmed with purple fruits. | Source: © Museum of Fine Arts Boston

Pierre-Auguste Renoir | Dance at Bougival, 1883 | Museum of Fine Arts Boston

6 artworks to look out for at Tate Britain

Tate è un gruppo di gallerie d'arte con sede a Londra, Liverpool e Cornovaglia, note come Tate Modern, Tate Britain, Tate St Ives e Tate Liverpool + RIBA North.

Quando la Tate aprì per la prima volta le sue porte al pubblico nel 1897, aveva una sola sede, che esponeva una piccola collezione di opere d'arte britanniche.

Oggi dispone di quattro sedi principali e della collezione nazionale di arte britannica dal 1500 ad oggi e di arte moderna e contemporanea internazionale, che comprende circa 70.000 opere d'arte.

Sir John Everett Millais | Mariana, 1851 | Tate Collection

This painting by British painter John Everett Millais (1829-1896) is of Mariana, a character from Shakespeare’s play Measure for Measure.

The story goes that Mariana’s fiancé Angelo leaves after her family’s money is lost in a shipwreck.

Still in love with him, she hopes they will be reunited.

Millais shows Mariana pausing to stretch her back after working at some embroidery, with the autumn leaves scattered on the ground marking the passage of time.

The stained-glass windows in front of her show the Annunciation, contrasting the Virgin's fulfilment with Mariana's frustration and longing.

Sir John Everett Millais | Mariana, 1851 | Tate Collection

Sibilla Aleramo | La Rosa

Eccoci!

Facci posto,

oh sole!

A noi due

e ad una rosa.

Fra il mio seno

e il petto forte che amo,

sta una rosa,

sola.

Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema | The Roses of Heliogabalus, 1888 (detail)

Salvatore Quasimodo | Dammi il mio Giorno / Grant me my Day

Dammi il mio giorno;

ch’io mi cerchi ancora

un volto d’anni sopito

che un cavo d’acque

riporti in trasparenza,

e ch’io pianga amore di me stesso.

Antonio Nunziante | Cometa

Emily Dickinson | Morii per la Bellezza / I Died for Beauty, 1862

Morii per la bellezza, ma ero appena

composta nella tomba

che un altro, morto per la verità,

fu disteso nello spazio accanto.

Arthur Hughes (1832-1915) | Ophelia, 1865

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

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.

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.

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

"Corot painted 3.000 canvases, 10.000 of which have been sold in America"..!

The strong market for Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot's (French painter, 1796-1875) works and his relatively easy-to-imitate late painting style resulted in a huge production of Corot forgeries between 1870 and 1939.

René Huyghe (French writer on the history, psychology and philosophy of art, curator at the Louvre's department of paintings (from 1930), a professor at the Collège de France director of the Musée Jacquemart-André, a member of the Académie Française, 1906-1997) famously quipped that "Corot painted three thousand canvases, ten thousand of which have been sold in America".

Stefan Draschan, 1979 | Coincidences at Museums

Austrian photographer Stefan Draschan is a self-confessed flâneur(a French term popularized in the 19th century for a type of urban male "stroller", "lounger", "saunterer", or "loafer").

Draschan commutes between Vienna, Berlin, Naples, and Paris.

His penchants for museum-going and people-watching blossomed into a wildly successful blog-turned-book: Coincidences at Museums (2019), in which he photographed other museum-goers who inadvertently matched with the paintings in front of them.

Walter Crane | Precursor of Art Nouveau

Walter Crane (1845-1915) was an English artist and book illustrator.

Together with William Morris, Walter Crane was a leader in the Art Nouveau and the Arts and Crafts artistic movements

.

Walter Crane is considered to be the most influential, and among the most prolific, children's book creators of his generation and, along with Randolph Caldecott and Kate Greenaway, one of the strongest contributors to the child's nursery motif that the genre of English children's illustrated literature would exhibit in its developmental stages in the later 19th century.

Crane's work featured some of the more colourful and detailed beginnings of the child-in-the-garden motifs that would characterize many nursery rhymes and children's stories for decades to come.

Émile Zola: "I would rather die of passion than of boredom"

• "[Johann Strauss jr] Ha mostrato come il mondo può essere bello, io invece ho scritto come il mondo può essere brutto".

• "Il talento del Signor Manet è fatto di semplicità e di esattezza. Senza dubbio, davanti alla natura incredibile di alcuni dei suoi colleghi si sarà deciso ad interrogare la realtà, solo con sé stesso: avrà rifiutato tutta la perizia acquisita, tutta l'antica esperienza, avrà voluto prendere l'arte dall'inizio, cioè dall'osservazione esatta degli oggetti. Si è dunque messo coraggiosamente di fronte a un soggetto, ha visto questo soggetto per larghe macchie, per opposizioni vigorose, e ha dipinto ogni cosa così come la vedeva".

Édouard Manet | Portrait of Émile Zola, 1868 | Musée d'Orsay, Paris

Alfonso Simonetti | Romantic painter

Alfonso Simonetti (29 December 1840 - 22 August 1892) was an Italian painter of historical scenes, portraits and landscapes; best known for his works with moonlight and sunset effects.

Simonetti was born in Naples, Italy, to the painter Giuseppe Simonetti (1840-1864) and his wife Vincenza, née Piccirillo.

In 1859, he enrolled at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, where he studied under Gabriele Smargiassi and Giuseppe Mancinelli.

Eugenio Montale | Accade

Accade

che le affinità d'anima non giungano

ai gesti e alle parole ma rimangano

effuse come un magnetismo. Ѐ raro

ma accade.

Daniel Gerhartz | Home

Claude Monet | Alice Hoschedé au jardin, 1881

Monet's magnificent depiction of his garden at Vétheuil exemplifies the visual splendor of Impressionism at its height.

Monet painted this work in 1881 as a new chapter of his life was unfolding, and this picture expresses the exuberance and renewed passion of the artist during this important period.

Seated among the flowers is Alice Hoschedé, the artist's thirty-seven year old lover and the wife of his close friend and patron Ernst Hoschedé.

The composition is lavished with all of the hallmarks of a great Impressionist composition, with its vivid color palette, intermingling of the natural elements and interplay of light and shadow.

Claude Monet | Alice Hoschedé au jardin, 1881

Arthur Schopenhauer: "Music is the melody whose text is the world"

• "For an author to write as he speaks is just as reprehensible as the opposite fault, to speak as he writes; for this gives a pedantic effect to what he says, and at the same time makes him hardly intelligible".

• "A man can be himself only so long as he is alone, and if he does not love solitude, he will not love freedom, for it is only when he is alone that he is really free".

Antonio Nunziante

Pierre-Auguste Renoir | Fragments and studies

Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841-1919) was fascinated by hats and their infinite array of trimmings.

To quote the model-turned-painter Suzanne Valadon: "Renoir particularly loved women's hats... he never ceased buying lots of hats".

The millinery trade was a thriving industry in Paris during the second half of the 19th century.

When the vogue for hats reached its peak, Paris was home to about 1,000 milliners.

Since hats represented the most variable accessory in a wardrobe, even women with moderate means owned several.

In this kaleidoscopic sketch, Renoir lavished his attention on the hats, while the heads are no more individualized than mannequins.

Pierre-Auguste Renoir | Study of Heads, 1890 | Barnes Foundation

Pierre-Auguste Renoir | At the Milliner's, 1878

At the Milliner's is an oil on canvas artwork by Pierre-Auguste Renoir (French Impressionist painter, 1841-1919), created in 1878.

This work is a product of the Impressionism movement, measuring 32.9 x 24.8 cm and is part of the collection of the Fogg Museum in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

At the Milliner's exhibits the quintessential Impressionist technique with its loose brushwork and the interplay of light and color, rather than intricate detail.

Pierre-Auguste Renoir | At the Milliner's, 1878 | Harvard Art Museums / Fogg Museum

Amore non è amore se muta.. | Shakespeare, Sonetto 116

Shakespeare | Let me not to the marriage of true minds | Sonnet 116

Let me not to the marriage of true minds

Admit impediments. Love is not love

Which alters when it alteration finds,

Or bends with the remover to remove:

O no! it is an ever-fixed mark

That looks on tempests and is never shaken;

Alessandro Puttinati | Paolo e Virginia, 1844

Giuseppe De Palma, 2001 | Portrait painter

Giuseppe De Palma is an Italian painter born in Puglia and established in Florence.

Giuseppe De Palma currently is a advanced painting student at the Florence Academy of Art.

His works are inspired by the narrative component of works from the past, a sort of storytelling capable of making painting a communicable language with a social function.

In 2023, Giuseppe de Palma, winner of the first prize of the competition organized by the ARC Scholarship Competition, was awarded the Brian Yoder (Founder of the Art Renewal Center, 1961-2021) Memorial Scholarship.

Egon Schiele | Herbstsonne, 1914

Herbstsonne (Autumn Sun) is a lost masterpiece of Schiele's art unseen since 1942 and thought, until now, to have been destroyed in the Second World War.

One of Schiele's (1890-1918) most important paintings and among the finest of all his landscapes, it is the culmination of a central theme in Schiele's work that had preoccupied him since first coming to artistic maturity in 1910.

Using landscape as an allegory of a human emotion, Herbstsonne is an 'Expressionist' landscape in the truest sense of the word and a masterpiece of the unique and precarious time in which it was made.

Egon Schiele | Herbstsonne, 1914 | Christies

Paulo Coelho: "Ciò che ci ferisce, ci cura anche"

• "Dicono che durante la nostra vita abbiamo due grandi amori. Uno con il quale ti sposerai o vivrai per sempre, può essere il padre o la madre dei tuoi figli: con questa persona otterrai la massima comprensione per stare il resto della tua vita insieme.

E dicono che c’è un secondo grande amore, una persona che perderai per sempre. Qualcuno con cui sei nato collegato, così collegato, che le forze della chimica scappano dalla ragione e ti impediranno sempre di raggiungere un finale felice. Fino a che un giorno smetterai di provarci, ti arrenderai e cercherai un’altra persona che finirai per incontrare.

Abdullah Evindar

Lord Alfred Douglas | Due amori / Two Loves, 1894

Sognai di stare su un piccolo colle

e un piano ai miei piedi s’apriva simile

a vasto giardino che a suo talento fioriva

di fiori e boccioli. V’erano stagni sognanti

placidi e cupi, e candidi gigli,

sparuti, e crochi, e violette

purpuree e pallide, fritillarie sinuose,

rade presenze fra l’erba in rigoglio, e tra le verdi maglie

occhi blu di vergognose pervinche brillanti nel sole.

Fabian Perez

Luigi Pirandello | La Maschera, 1890

Io non ti prego, o vuoto cranio umano,

che il gran nodo mi voglia distrigar.

Follie d 'Amleto! Io sto co 'l Lenau: è vano

de la vita la Morte interrogar.

A che avventarti questa malacia

che in van mi rode, in stolidi perché?

Non vo ‘ sapere a qual mai uom tu sia

appartenuto - ora, appartieni a me.

Sir Thomas Lawrence | John Philip Kemble as Hamlet, 1801 | Tate

Angelo Inganni | Spazzacamino, 1843

Il tondo con lo Spazzacamino, esposto per la prima volta all’Ateneo di Brescia nel 1843, raffigura un soggetto caro e più volte replicato da Angelo Inganni (Brescia, 1807 - Gussago, 1880) e rientra nella serie delle opere inviate nella città natale durante il suo periodo milanese.

Il quadro fu commissionato da Camillo Brozzoni, che ne fece poi dono alla Pinacoteca Tosio Martinengo con il legato del 1863.

Al centro del tondo un giovane spazzacamino, seduto su una panchina di pietra, sta mangiando un pane con un pesce, tiene sotto il braccio sinistro uno scopino di saggina, ai suoi piedi una sacca; sul muro alle sue spalle dei disegni.

Angelo Inganni | Spazzacamino, 1843 | Museo del Risorgimento, Brescia

Olga & Aleksey Ivanov Illustration

Olga and Aleksey Ivanov are considered two of the top Egg Tempera Fine Artists in the country today.

Olga and Aleksey Ivanov are clearly a team built on ingenious creativity, mythology, technical precision, playful storytelling combined with a traditional execution proving masterpieces each time they offer a painting.

Olga and Aleksey Ivanov are considered two of the top Egg Tempera Fine Artists in the country today.

Their modern approach to an ancient art form shows reverence to the medium.

Fra Filippo Lippi (1406-1469)

Fra Filippo di Tommaso Lippi, detto fra Filippo è stato un pittore Italiano del Rinascimento.

Personalità inquieta, divisa tra passioni e condizione di religioso, compì un percorso artistico improntato ad una continua e felice sperimentazione delle grandi novità elaborate in quel periodo a Firenze: dalla lezione masaccesca alla sapiente spazialità prospettica, ai valori di luce e di colore dell'Angelico.

Tra le sue opere più significative si ricordano l'Incoronazione della Vergine (1441-1447 circa).

Henri Chapu | Mercure inventant le caducée, 1861

Henri Chapu's Mercure inventant le caducée (Mercury inventing the caduceus) was executed for la Villa Médicis in Rome in 1861.

The caduceus (from Ancient Greek: κηρύκειον kērū́keion "herald's wand, or staff") is the staff carried by Hermes in Greek mythology and consequently by Hermes Trismegistus in Greco-Egyptian mythology.

The same staff was borne by other heralds like Iris, the messenger of Hera. The short staff is entwined by two serpents, sometimes surmounted by wings. In Roman iconography, it was depicted being carried in the left hand of Mercury, the messenger of the gods.

Some accounts assert that the oldest imagery of the caduceus is rooted in Mesopotamia with the Sumerian god Ningishzida; his symbol, a staff with two snakes intertwined around it, dates back to 4000 BC to 3000 BC.

Henri Chapu | Mercure inventant le caducée, 1861 | Musée d'Orsay

Cenacolo di Leonardo: "Uno di voi mi tradirà" / "One of you will betray me"!

The Last Supper, painted between 1494 and the beginning of 1498, is considered perhaps the most important mural painting in the world, "a beautiful and marvelous thing", as Giorgio Vasari wrote in his Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors and Architects, in which he speaks of Leonardo and describes the Last Supper.

Painter, architect, sculptor, engineer, inventor, mathematician, anatomist and writer, Leonardo da Vinci embodied the ideal of the many-sided man dreamed of by the Italian Renaissance.

Leonardo da Vinci | The Last Supper, 1494-1498 (detail) | Church and Dominican Convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie

Mariangela Gualtieri | Non sono capace, amore / I cannot, my love

Non sono capace, amore, di farti un canto.

Tu sei tutto di spine e di fuoco

e mi tieni lontana dal tuo cuore

pericoloso. Io non so bastarti alla gioia

e così poco così poco mi pare

t’incanto, sollevo quell’ombra scontrosa

Roberto Ferri

Luigi Russolo | Profumo (Perfume), 1910

Quest’opera del 1910 si inserisce nella produzione futurista di Russolo e si avvicina ai dettami della nuova pittura enunciati nei due manifesti dello stesso anno: il "Manifesto dei pittori futuristi" e "La pittura futurista manifesto tecnico".

L’atmosfera inebriante del profumo diventa il centro della composizione più ancora del soggetto rappresentato e viene resa attraverso sottili pennellate di colore, accostate secondo la tecnica divisionista a cui il primo futurismo si rifà apertamente.

Il profilo estatico della donna protagonista della composizione sembra quasi perdere i propri contorni e sfaldarsi nell’ambiente, fino a rendere quella visione atmosferica e simultanea tanto cara ai futuristi.

Luigi Russolo | Profumo (meaning "scent", "fragrance"), 1910 | Mart - Museo di arte moderna e contemporanea di Trento

Anna Ancher | Sewing fisherman's wife, 1890

Sewing fisherman's wife is an oil on canvas painting created by Anna Ancher (Danish Skagen painter, 1859-1935) in 1890.

The painting is in the collection of the Randers Museum of Art in Denmark.

Anna Anchers is celebrated for her transgressive use of color and her fabulous ability to capture a ray of sunlight.

The fine work Sewing fisherman's wife is significant for the artist's work with sunlight in an interior.

Anna Ancher | Sewing fisherman's wife, 1890 | Randers Museum of Art in Denmark

René Magritte | Le Préméditation, 1943

"Before the war, my paintings expressed anxiety", René Magritte explained, "but the experiences of war have taught me that what matters in art is to express charm.

"I live in a very disagreeable world, and my work is meant as a counter-offensive".

Painted during the final months of 1943, Le Préméditation is one of the earliest in a series known as Le Surréalisme en plein soleil (Surrealism in sunshine), created by Belgian Surrealist René Magritte (1898-1967) during the turbulent years of the Second World War in the hope of re-enchanting daily life.

A radiant bouquet of springtime flowers all improbably sprouting from the same plant, Le Préméditation captures a magnificent vision of optimism and hope.

René Magritte | Premeditation, 1943 | Christie’s

Francesco Hayez | Melancholy, 1841-1842

Melancholy is an oil-on-canvas painting created during 1841-1842 by Francesco Hayez (Italian Romantic painter, 1791-1882).

The painting, measuring 138,6 x 104cm, is part of the collection of the Pinacoteca di Brera, in Milan.

The work, executed between 1840 and 1842, is full of erudite references to the Italian and European pictorial tradition: from reflections on the 16th-century painting of the Veneto exemplified by the treatment of the clothing, which echoes the textural effects of Savoldo and Titian, to the citation of Flemish still lifes.

Painted for Marquis Filippo Ala Ponzoni, a patron of the arts, patriot and follower of Giuseppe Mazzini, this picture owed its popularity both to its outstanding quality and to its emblematic value, making it a symbol of the restlessness of Romanticism.

Francesco Hayez (Italian, 1791-1882) | Malinconia, 1841-1842 | Pinacoteca di Brera

Salvatore Quasimodo | Antico inverno / Ancient Winter

Desiderio delle tue mani chiare

nella penombra della fiamma:

sapevano di rovere e di rose;

di morte. Antico inverno.

Alfred Sisley | Snow Effect in Louveciennes, 1874 | Museum Barberini, Potsdam

Antonio Mancini | La lacrima, 1883-1890

Dopo un duro ricovero nel manicomio Provinciale di Napoli nel 1881, Antonio Mancini (1852-1930) trovò ospitalità a Roma, presso gli zii Andrea e Noemi, e durante il suo soggiorno in città può dedicarsi alla pittura utilizzando i nipoti come modelli.

In questa tela si vede infatti Agrippina, con lo sguardo delicato e sofferente e gli occhi lucidi inumiditi dalle lacrime.

Proprio questo dettaglio dà il titolo all’opera, e si dice fosse stato un rimprovero del pittore a far scaturire il pianto.

Antonio Mancini | La lacrima, 1883-1890 (detail) | GAM - Galleria d'Arte Moderna di Milano

Massimo D'Azeglio | A vendetta, 1834-1835

"A Vendetta" is an oil on canvas by Massimo D'Azeglio, created in 1834-1835.

The painting, measuring 179 x 225 cm, is part of the collection of the GAM - Galleria d'Arte Moderna di Milano.

Massimo Taparelli, Marquess of Azeglio (24 October 1798 - 15 January 1866), commonly called Massimo d'Azeglio, was an artist, writer and minister during the Italian Risorgimento.

A vendetta belongs to the historical landscape genre - this refers to landscape paintings drawn "from life" or in a realistic fashion, but populated with figures from history or literature.

Massimo D'Azeglio | Una vendetta, 1834-1835 | GAM - Galleria d'Arte Moderna di Milano

Marco d'Oggiono | Elevazione della Maddalena, 1522-1524

Elevazione della Maddalena was created in 1522-1524 by Marco d'Oggiono (1470-1540), Italian Renaissance painter and a chief pupil of Leonardo da Vinci.

The painting, measuring cm 146x103, is part of the collection of the Pinacoteca Brera, Milano.

The artwork, on a stylistic level is noted for, other than Leonardo’s influences, also the peaceful sweetness of Raphael and the sensuality of Correggio, represents Saint Mary Magdalene elevated to heaven by a multitude of angels.

Marco d'Oggiono | Elevazione della Maddalena, 1522-24 | Pinacoteca Brera, Milano