Richard Westall | The Reconciliation of Helen and Paris after his Defeat by Menelaus, 1805

Richard Westall RA (1765-1836) was an English painter and illustrator of portraits, historical and literary events, best known for his portraits of Byron.

He was also Queen Victoria's drawing master.

Westall was the more successful of two half-brothers (both sons of a Benjamin Westall, from Norwich) who both became painters.

His younger half-brother was William Westall (1781-1850), a much-travelled landscape painter.

Richard Westall | The Reconciliation of Helen and Paris after his Defeat by Menelaus, 1805

Alberto Moravia: "Niente ha successo come il successo"

• "A Roma è avvenuto il contrario di quello che avviene nelle altre capitali: la città si è ingrandita e arricchita; ma è rimasta legata a un’idea del vivere elementare e grossolana. Cinica, scettica, priva di ideali, materiale, ottusa, Roma presenta insomma lo spettacolo sconcertante di una capitale il cui fine principale anzi unico sia quello di vivere alla giornata o meglio di sopravvivere".

Renato Guttuso | Portrait of Alberto Moravia, 1982

Charles Courtney Curran

Charles Courtney Curran was an American painter, best known for his canvases depicting women in various settings.

Curran was born in Hartford, Kentucky, where his father taught school.

A few months later after the beginning of the Civil War, the family left there and returned to Ohio, eventually settling in Sandusky on the shores of Lake Erie where the elder Curran served as superintendent of schools.

Chul-Hwan Park, 1964 | Still Life painter

Chul-Hwan Park is a Korean Still Life painter of flowers, with a Master of Painting from Hongik University Graduate School of Fine Arts in Seoul, Korea.

Park’s still-life paintings are of such vivid realism that one nearly expects his flower blooms to exude a fragrance like their real-life counterparts.

One recalls the legendary Korean painter Solgeo, whose painting of a pine tree on a temple wall was so real that it lured birds to nest. Like Solgeo, Park is a true artist of realism.

John Lennon: “Love is the flower you’ve got to let grow”

• "Love is the flower you’ve got to let grow".

John Lennon

• "Love is like wildflowers; it’s often found in the most unlikely places".

• "L’amore è come i fiori di campo; si trova spesso nei posti più improbabili".

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Marc Chagall | Parigi dalla mia finestra, 1913

C'è l'Opéra, il Louvre, L'Arc de Triomphe, Notre-Dame, la Tour Eiffel, il Panthéon, Place de la Concorde, Saint-GermainDes-Pres. Esplodono in arancioni, verdi, blu, viola, rossi.

Ci volteggiano sopra amanti, animali, madri, fiori, angeli.

Chagall non smise mai di ricordarla, di trasfigurarla nei suoi sogni, di farla orizzonte su cui si mimetizzava tutto il suo immaginario intimo e poetico.

C'è la città con i suoi luoghi simbolici, e c'è il pittore con la sua storia, i suoi miti. Parigi evoca e accoglie al tempo stesso, si fa materia onirica nello sguardo di Chagall.

Max Agostini | Impressionist painter

Max Michel Agostini (1914-1997), of Corsican origin from his grandparents, was born in 1914.

He discovered his talent for Impressionistic painting while studying at the Paris Beaux-Arts School.

Drafted into the French army for five years during the Second World War, Max-Agostini was a prisoner of war for three years.

During the postwar years, he was already recognized as an excellent portrait and landscape artist in Châteauroux, where he lived for several years.