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.

Frank Buchser (1828-1890)

Frank Buchser è stato un pittore Svizzero.

È noto per i suoi ritratti di importanti personaggi americani del periodo successivo alla guerra civile e per le sue opere con temi orientali.

Buchser viaggiò a Roma passando per Parigi e Firenze e studiò arte a Parigi, Anversa ed all'Accademia di San Luca a Roma.

Mentre era a Roma si finanziò gli studi lavorando per la Guardia Svizzera.

Legros Guillaume (Saype), 1987 | Land art

"Our lives and our acts are destined to become traces of our passage in this world, it is up to us to know what to do with them" - Legros Guillaume (Saype)".

Legros Guillaume alias Saype (born February 17, 1989, in Belfort, France) is a contemporary artist.

He is known for creating ultra-realistic giant paintings in nature using a biodegradable paint he invented himself.

In 2019, Forbes magazine ranked him among the 30 most influential people under 30 in art and culture.

Alberto Giacometti | Scultore surrealista

Giacométti, Alberto - Scultore e pittore svizzero (Stampa, Grigioni, 1901 - Coira 1966), figlio di Giovanni Giacometti.

Frequentò la scuola d'arte di Ginevra; nel 1920-21 fu a Roma; nel 1922 si stabilì a Parigi, ove frequentò Bourdelle e s'iscrisse all'Académie de la Grande-Chaumière.

Dal 1925-1928 eseguiva sculture di carattere decisamente cubista.

Nel 1929 aderì al movimento Surrealista, realizzando degli objets e delle constructions-cages (Boccia sospesa, 1930, Zurigo, Kunsthaus) e dall'esperienza surrealista trasse un senso magico dello spazio, talvolta definito per mezzo di fragili strutture lineari (Palazzo alle 4 del mattino, 1932-33, New York, Museum of modern art).

Edmond Jean de Pury | Genre painter

Baron Edmond Jean de Pury (1845-1911) was a Swiss painter and engraver.

De Pury was born on 6 March 1845 in Neuchâtel.

He was a member of a Prussian noble family and was a nephew of James-Ferdinand de Pury.

He trained at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, studying painting and engraving.

Cuno Amiet | Pittore espressionista

Cuno Amiet (Solothurn, 28 marzo 1868 - Oschwand, 6 luglio 1961) è stato un pittore, illustratore, scultore e grafico Svizzero.

Fu il primo pittore svizzero a dare la precedenza ai colori nelle composizioni, e fu un pioniere dell'arte moderna in Svizzera.

Cuno Amiet nacque a Soletta il 28 maggio 1868 e dedicò tutta la sua vita all'arte.

Clara von Rappard | Symbolist painter

Clara Julia Elisa von Rappard (19 May 1857, Wabern bei Bern - 12 January 1912, Bern) was a Swiss painter.

She worked in a wide variety of genres and materials including illustrations, etchings and murals, although she is best known for landscapes and portraits.

She was the only child of Jurist Conrad von Rappard and Albertine Engell (1832-1922) of Mecklenburg, the younger sister of the writer and women's rights activist Juliane Engell-Günther.

Henri-Frédéric Amiel: "L'uomo che non ha vita interiore è schiavo di ciò che lo circonda"

• "La vita è breve e non abbiamo mai troppo tempo per allietare i cuori di coloro che stanno percorrendo il viaggio oscuro con noi. Oh, sii veloce ad amare, affrettati ad essere gentile"!

• "Life is short and we have never too much time for gladdening the hearts of those who are traveling the dark journey with us. Oh, be swift to love, make haste to be kind"!

Michel Hendrich | Transmission

Hermann Hesse | Sull’Amore / The one who loves is happy!

"Quanto più invecchiavo, quanto più insipide mi parevano le piccole soddisfazioni che la vita mi dava, tanto più chiaramente comprendevo dove andasse cercata la fonte delle gioie della vita.

Imparai che essere amati non è niente, mentre amare è tutto, e sempre più mi parve di capire ciò che da valore e piacere alla nostra esistenza non è altro che la nostra capacità di sentire".

Marc Chagall | The Lovers, 1929

Edouard Menta | Impressionist painter

Edouard John Menta (Swiss, 1858-1915) | Déjeuner sur la terrasse | Christie's

From: Christie's

Born in Geneva, Menta was a pupil of Barthlemy Menn.

Beginning as a landscape painter, Menta switched to genre scenes and portraits.

In "Déjeuner sur la terrasse" we can see the contrasting style of his work.

François Barraud | Figurative painter

François Barraud (24 November 1899 - 11 September 1934) was a Swiss painter.

Barraud was the second eldest of four brothers who all painted or sculpted at various points in their lives.

The brothers, François, Aimé, Aurèle and Charles, were largely self-taught artists having been raised as professional plasterers and house painters.

Barraud attended evening classes at the local art school in 1911 together with his brothers.

Adolf Dietrich | Naïve painter

Adolf Dietrich (November 9, 1877 - June 4, 1957) was one of the most renowned Naïve artists and Swiss painters of the 20th century.

Adolf Dietrich was born to poor farmers in the canton of Thurgau as the youngest of 7 children.

Upon discovering his exceptional graphical talents, his schoolteacher suggested that he become a lithographer.

His parents, however, refused since he was needed as a farmhand.

Ernst Samuel Geiger | Landscape painter

Ernst Samuel Geiger ((Turgi, 1876 - Villeneuve, 1965)) was a Swiss painter and woodcutter.

Geiger was the son of the wine merchant Ulrich and Sophie, née Schwarz. His sister Marie was the mother of Max Bill.

From 1892 to 1896 Geiger attended the Alte Kantonsschule Aarau, where he was a classmate of Albert Einstein and received drawing lessons from Max Wolfinger.

Ernest Biéler (Swiss, 1863-1948)

Born in 1863 in Rolle, Ernest Biéler left for Paris at the age of seventeen to study in the city’s art schools.

He works under the influence of impressionism at first and paints an initial masterpiece that causes quite a stir at the 1889 World’s Fair (Pendant la messe à Saint-Germain en Savièse - During the Mass in Saint-Gemain in Savièse, 1886), the picture’s subject being inspired by a stay in the Canton of Valais.

Illustrating the novels of Emile Zola, Alphonse Daudet and Victor Hugo - over and above the few portrait commissions that come in - makes it possible for him to live in the French capital.

Hermann Hesse | Sono una stella / I am a star / Ich bin ein Stern

Sono una stella del firmamento

che osserva il mondo, disprezza il mondo

e si consuma nel proprio ardore.

Io sono il mare di notte in tempesta

il mare urlante che accumula nuovi

peccati e agli antichi rende mercede.

Abdullah Evindar

Eugenè Burnand | Apostles Peter and John hurry to the tomb on the morning of the Resurrection, 1898

"Peter therefore went out, and the other disciple [John], and were going to the tomb. So they both ran together, and the other disciple outran Peter and came to the tomb first. And he, stooping down and looking in, saw the linen cloths lying there; yet he did not go in.

Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb; and he saw the linen cloths lying there, and the handkerchief that had been around His head, not lying with the linen cloths, but folded together in a place by itself.

Then the other disciple, who came to the tomb first, went in also; and he saw and believed. For as yet they did not know the Scripture, that He must rise again from the dead. Then the disciples went away again to their own homes" - John 20:3-10.

Charles Gleyre | The teacher of Monet and Renoir

Marc Gabriel Charles Gleyre (1806-1874) was a Swiss artist who was a resident in France from an early age.

He took over the studio of Paul Delaroche in 1843 and taught a number of younger artists who became prominent, including Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Alfred Sisley, James Abbott McNeill Whistler, Auguste Toulmouche, Louis-Frederic Schützenberger and Henri-Lionel Brioux.

Jacques Alfred van Muyden (1818-1898) | Genre painter

Jacques Alfred van Muyden was a Swiss🎨 history, portrait and genre painter🎨, engraver, and a co-founder of the "Gesellschaft Schweizerischer Maler und Bildhauer".

Biography

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His mother was Swiss, but his father was a Dutchman from Utrecht. His family wanted him to study law, but he chose painting instead.

Auguste Veillon (1834-1890)

Louis-Auguste Veillon was a Swiss painter🎨, noted for his Orientalist works.

After obtaining a degree in Reformed theology in Lausanne, he joined François Diday at his studio in Geneva, where he primarily painted seascapes and mountain scenes from the Bernese Oberland.

In 1858, he enrolled at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris.

While in Paris, he spent a considerable amount of time in the Louvre, copying the works of the masters, especially the 17th-century Dutch masters and the work of Claude Lorrain🎨.

Michele Lehmann, 1940 | Abstract painter

Michele Lehmann was born in Switzerland but moved to Mijas in southern Spain over 30 years ago.

After arriving there, Michele opened an art gallery as an outlet for local artists.

Although not an artist herself she began sketching to pass the time.

It began with a sketch of an old woman in black who passed the gallery every day.

She moved too fast for Michele to draw so the image captured her from behind.