Giotto (1266-1337)

Giotto di Bondone better known simply as Giotto, was an Italian painter and architect from Florence in the late Middle Ages.

He is generally considered the first in a line of great artists who contributed to the Italian Renaissance.

Giotto's contemporary Giovanni Villani wrote that Giotto was "the most sovereign master of painting in his time, who drew all his figures and their postures according to nature. And he was given a salary by the Comune of Florence in virtue of his talent and excellence".

Giotto's masterwork is the decoration of the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua, commonly called the Arena Chapel, completed around 1305. This fresco cycle depicts the life of the Virgin and the life of Christ.

It is regarded as one of the supreme masterpieces of the Early Renaissance. That Giotto painted the Arena Chapel and that he was chosen by the Comune of Florence in 1334 to design the new campanile (bell tower) of the Florence Cathedral are among the few certainties of his biography.

Almost every other aspect of it is subject to controversy: his birthdate, his birthplace, his appearance, his apprenticeship, the order in which he created his works, whether or not he painted the famous frescoes at Assisi, and his burial place.

La Mano del Desierto, 1992

La Mano del Desierto, è una scultura di grandi dimensioni che rappresenta una mano che affiora dalle sabbie del deserto, come se qualcuno cercasse di emergere dalle profondità, una disperata richiesta d'aiuto inascoltata, in mezzo ad uno dei luoghi più aridi del mondo.

La gigantesca scultura di 11 metri di altezza è situata nel deserto di Atacamain in Cile.

L'opera che lo scultore Cileno Mario Irarrázabal* ha realizzato nel 1992, in onore delle vittime di ingiustizie e torture durante il regime militare in Cile, rappresenta l'esacerbazione della debolezza e della vulnerabilità dell'uomo di fronte alla sofferenza, alla solitudine ed alle ingiustizie.

Martin Johnson Heade | Pittore Luminista

Martin Johnson Heade, Heade originariamente scritto Heed, (nato l'11 agosto 1819, Lumberville, Pennsylvania, USA - morto il 4 settembre 1904, St. Augustine, Florida), pittore Americano noto per i suoi paesaggi marini e le nature morte ed associato al estetica Luminista.

Heade è cresciuto nella Pennsylvania rurale e ha studiato arte con il suo vicino, l'artista folk Edward Hicks e forse con il cugino di Hicks, Thomas Hicks, un ritrattista.

Gustave Jean Jacquet

Jacquet was born on 25th May, 1846 in Paris. He was a pupil of Bouguereau and for his debut at the Paris Salon in 1865 he exhibited 'The Reverie' which was very much in his master's style. He received a third class medal in 1868 with his painting 'Army Outing in the 16th Century'. In 1875 Jacquet won a first class medal and he was decorated with the Legion d'Honneur in 1879. Jacquet died in Paris in 1909.

Henri Siddons Mowbray | La fête de la rose, 1887

David Graux, 1970

David Graux è nato a Besançon, Francia, dove tuttora vive e lavora.

Ha sperimentato diversi stili prima di trovare il suo tocco artistico personale.

Il suo soggetto principale è la bellezza ed il mistero della donna, evocati sia attraverso le figure sensuali che attraverso la ricchezza simbolica ed i motivi orientali dei suoi sfondi colorati.

I suoi dipinti sono, in effetti, forme di poesia tangibile.

Come nella poesia simbolista, l'arte di Graux combina l'accessibile con l'incomprensibile.

Djordje Prudnikoff | Realist painter with classical training

Son of a Serbian woman and a Russian man Djordje Prudnikoff [Ђорђе Прудников] was a painter, graphic artist and designer, championed as one of the greatest and most original contemporary artists to emerge from the former Yugoslavia.

Prudnikoff studied art at Belgrade academies of Fine Arts and of Applied Arts, lucubrated industrial design in Vienna.

In 1946, the family moved to Belgrade. After completing his grammar school, Djordje was admitted to the Academy of Fine Arts.

Few months later he left it to enroll at the Academy of Applied Arts where he graduated in the class of Professor Mihailo Petrov.

During his studies Prudnikoff was rewarded several times for graphic design. Graphic industrial design was his preoccupation while staying in Wienna, in 1967.