Georgia O'Keeffe: "To create one's own world takes courage"

"I wish people were all trees and I think I could enjoy them then".

"Vorrei che le persone fossero tutte alberi e penso che potrei godermele allora".

"To create one's own world takes courage".

"Per creare il proprio mondo occorre coraggio".

"Long ago I came to the conclusion that even if I could put down accurately the thing I saw and enjoyed, it would not give the observer the kind of feeling it gave me. I had to create an equivalent for what I felt what I was looking at - not copy it".

Jusepe de Ribera | Saint Joseph, 1635

Born in Spain, Jusepe de Ribera spent his entire active career in Italy.

He arrived in Spanish-ruled Naples between 1607 and 1614.

Caravaggio’s presence had a profound impact on Neapolitan painting.

Ribera then travelled to Parma, Rome, before settling in Naples.

Jusepe de Ribera | Saint Joseph, 1635 | Montreal Museum of Fine Arts

Fernando Yáñez de la Almedina | Saint Catherine, 1510 | Museo del Prado

This is one of the Spanish Renaissance's most emblematic depictions of a female figure and the best known of Yáñez de la Almedina’s works.

Both considerations are due to the visibility this work has received at the Museo del Prado, where it has been one of the essential icons in its galleries of 16th-century Spanish painting ever since it arrived in 1946.

Ambrogio de Predis | Portrait of a Lady, 1490

The first time Leonardo da Vinci’s name resounded in the Ambrosiana, it was through the pen of its founder, Cardinal Federico Borromeo, who attributed this little panel to the great Master, describing it as “A portrait of a Duchess of Milan, by the hand of Leonardo”.

Following the Cardinal’s statement, the portrait was for long assumed to depict Beatrice d’Este, the wife of Ludovico il Moro.

Ambrogio de Predis | Ritratto di una dama (probabile ritratto di Beatrice d'Este) | Veneranda Pinacoteca Ambrosiana Milano

Federico Barocci | Aeneas fleeing Troy / La fuga di Enea da Troia, 1598

Aeneas Fleeing from Troy is a painting by Federico Barocci (Federico Fiori), located in the Borghese Collection in Rome.

History

Considering Barocci’s only attempt at a historical narration, this scene was twice ordered by the Della Rovere family as a gift for their further social connection.

The first, now lost, the artwork was intended for the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, Rudolph II.

The second was given to Cardinal Scipione Borghese, adapting the imperial allegory as a scene of the spiritual purity of the Roman Cardinal.

Federico Barocci | Aeneas fleeing Troy, 1598 | Galleria Borghese

Violante Beatrice Siries | Portrait painter

Violante Beatrice Siries (1709-1783) was an Italian painter.

She was born in Florence and studied under Hyacinthe Rigaud and François Boucher in Paris from 1726.

Returning later to Florence she married Giuseppe Cerroti and continued her artistic studies under Conti.

Anna Hills | Impressionist painter

Anna Althea Hills (1882-1930) was an American plein air painter who specialized in impressionist landscapes of the Southern California coast.

Hills was born in Ravenna, Ohio. Her father was the Reverend Aaron Merritt Hills and her mother was Althea Alamanda Ford. Anna was the second of five children.

In 1886, her mother died and her father remarried. Because of her father’s occupation, Anna’s family moved often, living in several places throughout the Midwest.

In 1898, Hills enrolled for art classes at Olivet College in Michigan.