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

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.

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

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).

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

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

Giovanni Segantini | The Two Mothers / Le due madri, 1889

"The Two Mothers" is an 1889 oil painting by Giovanni Segantini (Italian painter, 1858-1899).

This work is a product of the Divisionist technique and measuring 301x162.5 cm.

It is part of the collection of the GAM - Galleria d'Arte Moderna in Milan.

Presented at the inaugural Milan Triennale in 1891, alongside "Maternità" (Maternity) by Gaetano Previati (1858-1899), "Le due madri" is one of Segantini's most celebrated and talked-about works, and affirmed the revolutionary new technique known as Divisionism.

Giovanni Segantini | Le due madri, 1889 | olio su tela; 301x162.5 cm | GAM - Galleria d'Arte Moderna, Milano

Gaetano Previati | Maternity, 1890-1891 | From Scandal to Masterpiece

The "Maternity" is a monumental painting in which the Italian symbolist painter Gaetano Previati (1852-1920) interpreted the theme of Christian tradition in a secular way.

The painting was completed between 1890 and 1891 resides at the GAM - Gallery of Modern Art in Milan.

The "Maternity" has a complex and tormented genesis, not only due to the difficulties connected with the unconventional interpretation of a great theme, but also because of the high costs of making a painting of monumental dimensions (177 x 411 cm) .

A fundamental work, the painting represents a turning point in Previati's career and a manifesto of the new divisionist painting.

Gaetano Previati | Maternità, 1890-1891 | GAM - Galleria d'Arte Moderna di Milano

Tito Corbella (1885-1966)

Tito Corbella (Pontremoli, 1885 - Rome, 1966) was an Italian painter and postcard designer.

Tito Corbella first studied chemistry at the University of Padua.

However, he changed fields and continued his studies at the Academy of Visual Arts in Venice, where he was a pupil of Guglielmo Ciardi and Ettore Tito.

After his training, he began a career as an illustrator.

In early 1912, he focused more on portraits of women and lovers.

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

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