Peter Paul Rubens | Mars and Rhea Silvia, 1617

Mars and Rhea Silvia is a 1617 painting by Peter Paul Rubens ⎆, now in the Liechtenstein Museum in Vienna. It shows Mars's rape of Rhea Silvia, which resulted in the birth of Romulus and Remus, founders of Rome.

Vintage art

Vintage è un attributo che definisce le qualità ed il valore di un oggetto indossato o prodotto almeno vent'anni prima del momento attuale, e che può altresì essere riferito a secoli passati senza necessariamente essere circoscritto al Ventesimo secolo.
Gli oggetti definiti vintage sono considerati oggetti di culto per differenti ragioni tra le quali le qualità superiori con cui sono stati prodotti, se confrontati ad altre produzioni precedenti o successive dello stesso manufatto, o per ragioni legate a motivi di cultura o costume.

Jean-Léon Gérome | Moses on Mount Sinai, 1900

Painted circa 1895-1900, Gérome’s interpretation of Moses on Mount Sinai is an impressive demonstration of his mastery of color and complex compositional elements.

The overall effect is a powerful evocation of one of the greatest moments in Jewish history.

The setting for Gérome’s painting derives from descriptions of the Revelation in the Books of Exodus and Deuteronomy:

Michelangelo Buonarroti | Archers Shooting at a Herm, 1530-33

The handful of 'presentation drawings' that Michelangelo ⎆ produced during the latter half of his life, and especially around 1530, stand at the very pinnacle of European draughtsmanship. Made as gifts for his closest friends, they were painstakingly worked and often imbued with personal meaning, the nature and full extent of which are not always clear to us.

Despite their intimate nature, most were soon famous through reproduction in engravings, copy drawings, paintings, relief sculpture and carved crystals.

Georgia O'Keeffe | La madre del modernismo americano

Georgia Totto O'Keeffe (1887-1986) viene considerata la Madre del Modernismo Americano. La sua attività artistica è associabile al Precisionismo.

Georgia O'Keeffe nacque nel 1887 in una fattoria vicino a Sun Prairie, nel Wisconsin, seconda dei sette figli di Francis Calyxtus O'Keeffe Sr. (1864-1916) ed Ida Totto (1864-1916), entrambi allevatori di bestiame. Il padre era di origine irlandese, mentre la madre era di origine ungherese, in quanto il nonno George Victor Totto (1820-1894), di cui Ida diede il nome alla figlia, era di origine nobiliare avendo il titolo di conte ed era emigrato in America nel 1848, sposando la diciottenne Isabel Dunham Wyckoff (1830-1894).

Nel 1905 frequentò la School of the Art Institute di Chicago e nel 1907 l'Art Students League a New York. Fu anche allieva di Arthur Wesley Dow al Teachers College dell'Università Colombia.

Eugene Delacroix | Frédéric Chopin and George Sand, 1838

The Portrait of Frédéric Chopin and George Sand was an 1838 unfinished oil-on-canvas painting by French artist Eugène Delacroix ⎆.

Originally a double portrait, it was later cut in two and sold off as separate pieces.

It showed composer Frédéric Chopin (1810-49) ⎆ playing piano while writer George Sand (1804-76) sits to his right, listening and smoking a cigar (a favorite activity of hers). The sitters were lovers at the time, and both were close friends of the artist.

Eugène Delacroix (1798-1863)

Eugène Delacroix was a French romantic painter regarded from the outset of his career as the leader of the french Romantic school.

Delacroix's use of expressive brushstrokes and his study of the optical effects of colour profoundly shaped the work of the Impressionists, while his passion for the exotic inspired the artists of the Symbolist movement.