Juan Gris | The reader, 1926

• "Cézanne made a cylinder out of a bottle. I start from the cylinder to create a special kind of individual object. I make a bottle - a particular bottle - out of a cylinder".

• "I try to make concrete that which is abstract".

• "No work which is destined to become a classic can look like the classics which have preceded it. In art, as in biology, there is heredity but no identity with the ascendants. Painters inherit characteristics acquired by their forerunners; that is why no important work of art can belong to any period but its own, to the very moment of its creation. It is necessarily dated by its own appearance. The conscious will of the painter cannot intervene".

Charles Ricketts R.A. | The Wise and Foolish Virgins, 1914

Elizabeth Forbes | Blackberry Gathering, 1912

Elizabeth Forbes was born in Canada and studied in New York and Munich.

In 1890 she married Stanhope Forbes.

Both painters were leading members of the group of artists who worked at Newlyn in Cornwall at the end of the 19th century, painting local outdoor subjects full of light and atmosphere using characteristic free brushwork.

Elizabeth Forbes | Blackberry Gathering, 1912 | Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool

Van Gogh | Portraits

Vincent van Gogh, known for his landscapes, seemed to find painting portraits his greatest ambition.

He said of portrait studies, "The only thing in painting that excites me to the depths of my soul, and which makes me feel the infinite more than anything else".

Vincent Van Gogh | The flowers

Vincent Van Gogh painted several versions of landscapes with flowers, as seen in View of Arles with Irises, and paintings of flowers, including Irises, Sunflowers, lilacs and roses.

Some reflect his interests in the language of color, and also in Japanese ukiyo-e woodblock prints.

He completed two series of sunflowers: the first while he was in Paris in 1887, and the second during his stay in Arles the following year.

Francisco Goya | La duquesa de Abrantes, 1816

Doña Manuela Isidra Téllez-Girón y Alonso de Pimentel (1793-1838) era la figlia minore dei Duchi di Osuna (P00739) e sorella della Marchesa di Santa Cruz, anch'essa ritratta da Goya.

Nel 1813 sposò Don Ángel María de Carvajal y Fernández de Córdoba y Gonzaga (1793-1839), futuro VIII Duca di Abrantes (1816).

Come il resto dei suoi fratelli, ha ricevuto un'educazione illuminata dalla sua famiglia e tra i suoi hobby c'erano la musica ed il canto, come rivela Goya nel suo ritratto attraverso la partitura musicale.

Cesare Lapini (1848-1893) | Sorpresa