Wisława Szymborska | The End and the Beginning / La Fine e l'Inizio

Dopo ogni guerra

c'è chi deve ripulire.

In fondo un po' d'ordine

da solo non si fa.

C'è chi deve spingere le macerie

ai bordi delle strade

per far passare

i carri pieni di cadaveri.

Pablo Picasso | Guernica, 1937 | Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid

Vincent van Gogh | Edge of a Wheat Field with Poppies, 1887

From: Denver Art Museum

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Edge of a Wheat Field with Poppies, made in the summer of 1887, gives a sense of the many influences van Gogh was exposed to during his first year in the "hotbed of ideas" [as he called Paris in a letter to his sister].

The small painting captivates us with its bright contrast between the orange yellow of the field and the complementary radiant blue of the sky, the dark green of the new shoots coming up and the vivid vermillion of the poppies, sprinkled across the canvas in free dashes.

The vertical space is evenly divided between earth and sky. The vantage point is surprisingly low to the ground; we look at the scene as though up a hill.

This is not the vast expanse of field shown in Caillebotte’s painting or van Gogh’s later landscapes, but a detail - a highly fragmented view. A slender poplar arcs along the left edge of the painting, and clusters of budding stalks seem to dance on the horizon line.

Vincent van Gogh | Edge of a Wheat Field with Poppies, 1887 | Denver Art Museum

Sir Peter Lely | Study for a Portrait of a Woman, 1670

From: Metropolitan Museum of Art

This sketch provides a good example of Sir Peter Lely’s (Dutch-born English Baroque Era Painter, 1618-1680) working method, as one of the most successful portraitists in England in the second half of the seventeenth century.

Following the example of Van Dyck, Lely painted only the sitter’s head in his or her presence, sometimes laying in an outline for the pose and costume.

Camille Pissarro at the Museum Barberini

Camille Pissarro | Boulevard Montmartre, Twilight, 1897

In a series of fourteen paintings Camille Pissarro focused on the Boulevard Montmartre in the center of Paris.

From his room in the Grand Hôtel de Russie, with the opera building behind him, he had a view of the busy street on which twenty thousand carriages rattled by every day, past the expensive shops and the popular Café Tortoni.

This picture shows the boulevard with fresh green trees in springtime. | Source: © Museum Barberini

Ingrid Tusell, 1978 | Pittrice surrealista

Ingrid Tusell è un'artista nata a Barcellona ed ora vive in un vecchio mulino restaurato nel terreno montuoso di Teruel, in Spagna.

Ingrid dipinge donne che ricordano le forti guerriere indigene.

Il loro sguardo congelato e intenso permea un senso di conoscenza "ultraterrena" e di energia universale femminile.

Spesso crivellati di vita animale e vegetale, i soggetti femminili di Ingrid si fondono all'interno dei loro ambienti consentendo loro di avere una connessione simbiotica con la natura.

Dorothy Johnstone | Modern painter

Dorothy Johnstone (1892-1980) è stata una pittrice ed acquerellista Scozzese.

Johnstone è nata ad Edimburgo nel 1892 ed è cresciuta a Napier Road, vicino alla Gothic Mansion, Rockville.

Suo padre, il paesaggista George Whitton Johnstone RSA (1849-1901), incoraggiò il suo talento artistico ed all'età di 16 anni si iscrisse come studentessa all'Edinburgh College of Art.

Ha frequentato un corso con Ernest Stephen Lumsden dove ha rivelato il suo talento nella ritrattistica informale, un genere per il quale è diventata famosa.

Nel 1914 divenne membro del personale dell'Edinburgh College of Art.

Pierre-Auguste Renoir | Champ de bananiers, 1881

Starting in 1881 the art dealer Paul Durand-Ruel regularly bought paintings from Pierre-Auguste Renoir.

The painter then undertook all the trips he had previously been unable to afford and which would complete his artistic training.

His first trip took him to Algeria, in the footsteps of Delacroix whom he admired. Renoir's visual experience there was as intense as it had been for the older artist.

Seduced by the colours and the "incredible wealth" of nature here, he produced several pure landscapes, quite rare in his oeuvre. This field of banana trees is in the Essai garden in Hamma, created in 1832 in Algiers.