Camille Pissarro | Hoarfrost, young peasant girl making fire, 1888

"Gelée blanche, jeune Paysanne faisant du feu" is one of Pissarro’s great masterpieces.

Painted in 1888 at the peak of the artist’s engagement with Neo-Impressionism and conceived on a grand scale, it is a brilliant rendering of light and atmosphere.

The subject is a cold winter’s morning, the low sun casts shadows across the meadow and in these shadows the night’s frost lingers; against this backdrop a young woman and a child build a fire, the smoke rising with a heat that shimmers and eddies across the frozen landscape.

Camille Pissarro | Hoarfrost, young peasant girl making fire / Gelée blanche, jeune Paysanne faisant du feu, 1888 | Museum Barberini

Gabriele d’Annunzio | Aprile

Socchiusa è la finestra, sul giardino.

Un'ora passa lenta, sonnolenta,

ed ella, ch'era attenta, s'addormenta

a quella voce che già si lamenta,

che si lamenta in fondo a quel giardino.

Non è che voce d'acque su la pietra:

e quante volte, quante volte udita !

William Brymner | In the orchard spring, 1892

Coco Chanel: "La felicità non è altro che il profumo del nostro animo"!

• "Se una donna è malvestita si nota l'abito. Se è ben impeccabilmente si nota la donna".

• "Una donna a 19 anni può essere attraente, a 29 seducente ma solo a 39 può essere irresistibile. E più di 39 anni non dimostrerà mai nessuna donna che una volta nella vita sia stata irresistibile".

• "Amo il lusso. Esso non giace nella ricchezza e nel fasto ma nell'assenza della volgarità. La volgarità è la più brutta parola della nostra lingua. Rimango in gioco per combatterla".

Salvatore Quasimodo: "19 gennaio, 1944"

Ti leggo dolci versi d'un antico,

e le parole nate fra le vigne,

le tende, in riva ai fiumi delle terre

dell'est, come ora ricadono lugubri

e desolate in questa profondissima

notte di guerra, in cui nessuno corre

il cielo degli angeli di morte,

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

Arthur Sarnoff (1912-2000)

An illustrator for many american magazines, Arthur Sarnoff was known for illustration and paintings, which were whimsical and attention getting because of their reflection of many aspects of American culture-product consumption, domestic life, sports, celebrities, sex, crime and musical entertainment.

Sarnoff was born in Brooklyn and studied at the Industrial School and the Grand Central Art School in New York City.

Among his teachers were John Clymer and Andrew Wyeth.

Luigi Cima | Verist painter

Luigi Cima (1860-1944) was an Italian painter, considered one of the most fortunate and appreciated representatives of the “verism” of the late nineteenth century, and in any case an absolute protagonist of the artistic world of Belluno.

Luigi Cima was born in Villa di Villa, current municipality of Mel (Belluno) on January 5, 1860.

After completing his technical studies in Feltre, he moved to Venice to enroll at the Academy of Fine Arts, where he attended the courses of Eugenio De Blaas.

Arturo Moradei | Genre painter

Arturo Moradei (1840-1901) was an Italian 19th Century genre artist.

Arturo Moradei was born in Florence in 1840 and after extensive study, he became a very popular painter of romantic figures indulging in everyday life.

His ability to catch expressions and to tell stories in his paintings ensured the popularity of his work during his lifetime.

He died in Italy in 1901.