Rainer Maria Rilke ~ Do not be afraid, it’s me / Non aver paura, sono io..

William Zorach (1887-1968) Spring in Central Park, 1914

Do not be afraid, it’s me.

You do not feel that I infringe on you,
with all your senses?
He put wings, my heart,

and now, white flies around your face.
Do not you see my soul before you,
adorned with silence?
And my prayer of May,

not ripe to your eyes, like a tree?
If you dream, I’m your dream,

but if you’re awake, I am your will;
master of all glory arch my silence starry

Max Streckenbach | Floral still life painter

Max Theodore Streckenbach (1863-1936) was born in Eckernförde, Germany on May 18, 1863 to Udo Streckenbach and Marie Wiebke. Streckenbach was the son of a pharmacist and, as such, was sent to study medicine after finishing high school at Schleswig Catholic School (1876-1885).

He studied medicine in Munich, Berlin, Rostock, Kiel and Bern, Switzerland before returning to his home town of Eckernförde.

His fondness for botany led him to take lessons from his role model, the French painter Fantin-Latour.

Ernesto Canto da Maia | Symbolist sculptor

Ernesto Canto da Maia (1890-1981) was born in 1890 at Ponta Delgada (São Miguel island, Azores) in the midst of a wealthy family. In 1907, after graduating at high school, he leaves to Lisbon and enrols at the Drawing Class of the Fine Arts School, having Ernesto Condeixa, José Luís Monteiro and José Alexandre Soares as teachers. In 1912, he participates at the I Portuguese Caricature Exhibit with a set of small statuetes which criticize the frivolity of life at the cities.

Axel Törneman | The father of Swedish Modernism

Johan Axel Gustaf Törneman (28 October 1880 - 26 December 1925) was one of Sweden's earliest modernist painters. Born in Persberg, Värmland, in Sweden, he grew to work in several modernist styles, was one of the first Swedish expressionist artists, and became a part of the international avant-garde in art after embracing more abstract art styles in Germany and France that were evolving there during the early 1900s. He created his most famous paintings, Night Café I and II, and Trait, in France in 1905. These night café paintings, made from studies in the Place Pigalle, and in other nightclubs popular with artists such as Café du Rat Mort (Dead Rat Café), are seen as two of Swedish modernism's most important works, and are considered breakthrough work of Swedish modernism.

Pyotr Nilus | La Belle Époque

The grandson of General, a member of the War of 1812, Pyotr Alexandrovich Nilus / Пётр Александрович Нилус (1869-1940) was a famous artist, especially in Odessa, where he studied at the Art School (1883-1889). But studies at the Academy of Fine Arts is over for P. Nilus in the year. By doing it in 1889, a year later he left her to do independent work. He made ​​such a bold move young Pyotr Nilus on the advice of great authority - IE Repin, who believed that not every talent academy is good, otherwise it just standardizes.

Vida Gábor | Genre painter

Vida Gábor (1937-1999) was born to a simple working Hungarian family in 1937. He became attracted to music in his early youth and received a music scholarship. He studied and mastered the flute. In 1956, he began working as a flute soloist in the Philharmonic orchestra for the Budapest Opera and continued for 25 years. Although, he has always been painting and sculpting throughout his life, he decided to dedicate himself completely to painting in 1977. Being a perfectionist, he decided to achieve the highest standards in this fine art and to create his own unique style.

Salvatore Fiume | Figurative painter

Salvatore Fiume (1915-1997) was an Italian painter, sculptor, architect, writer and stage designer.

His works are kept in some of the most important museums in the world, among which the Vatican Museums, the Hermitage of Saint Petersburg, the Museum of Modern Art of New York, the Pushkin Museum of Moscow and the Galleria d'Arte Moderna of Milan.

Jean-Francois Raffaelli | Cityscape painter

Jean-François Raffaëlli (April 20, 1850 - February 11, 1924) was a French Realist painter, sculptor and printmaker who exhibited with the Impressionists.

Sandro Botticelli | Mystic Nativity / Natività mistica, 1501

The 'Mystic Nativity' shows angels and men celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ. The Virgin Mary kneels in adoration before her infant son, watched by the ox and the ass at the manger. Mary's husband, Joseph, sleeps nearby. Shepherds and wise men have come to visit the new-born king. Angels in the heavens dance and sing hymns of praise. On earth they proclaim peace, joyfully embracing virtuous men while seven demons flee defeated to the underworld.

Sandro Botticelli | Calumny of Apelles / La calunnia di Apelle, 1496

The Calumny of Apelles is a tempera painting by Italian Renaissance painter Sandro Botticelli. Based on the description of a painting by Apelles, the work was completed in approximately 1494. It is on display in the Uffizi in Florence.

In The Calumny of Apelles, Botticelli drew on the description of a painting by Apelles, a Greek painter of the Hellenistic Period.

Edward Lamson Henry | Genre painter

Edward Lamson Henry (January 12, 1841 - May 9, 1919), commonly known as E.L. Henry, was an American genre painter, born in Charleston, South Carolina.

• Early life

Though born in Charleston, by age seven his parents had died and Henry moved to live with cousins in New York City. He began studying painting, there and at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia. In 1860 he went to Paris, where he studied with Charles Gleyre and Gustave Courbet, at roughly the same time as Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Frédéric Bazille and Alfred Sisley.

Honoré de Balzac | Quotes / Aforismi

The heart of a mother is a deep abyss at the bottom of which you will always find forgiveness.

• A woman knows the face of the man she loves as a sailor knows the open sea.
• There is no such thing as a great talent without great will power.
• True love is eternal, infinite, and always like itself. It is equal and pure, without violent demonstrations: it is seen with white hairs and is always young in the heart.
• There are some women whose pregnancy would make some sly bachelor smile.
• Love has its own instinct, finding the way to the heart, as the feeblest insect finds the way to its flower, with a will which nothing can dismay nor turn aside.

Dmitry Balahonov, 1971 | Saint Petersburgh painting

Dmitry Balahonov /Дмитрий Балахонов was born February 6, 1971. From early childhood, he studied at different art schools. In 1989 he graduated from art school in the city of Bobruisk, after serving in the army engaged in the work of a professional. Since 1992 he has been working independently in the Mogilev. In 1995, goes to live abroad, working with galleries in Tel Aviv, holds solo exhibitions. In 1999 he moved to live in Mogilev, actively cooperates with many galleries and salons of Moscow and St. Petersburg, Minsk.

Georgi Lapchine | Neo-Impressionist painter

Georgi (Georgy, Georges) Alexandrovich Lapchine / Георгий Александрович Лапшин (1885-1950) was born in Moscow. In the early 1900s Lapshin studied at the Stroganov School. In 1906-1909 he lived in Paris, studied with Cormon and J. F. Lhermitte.

Returning to Moscow, participated in the group exhibition of independence (1910), was the founder and permanent participant of "free art" (1911-1917).

In 1918-1922 works were exhibited in Moscow on the 1st and 2nd shows a picture of professional union painters in Moscow (1918), the 2nd National Exhibition of paintings (1919), the 47th exhibition TPHV (1922), as well as the 1st Russian art Exhibition in Berlin (1922). In 1924 he moved to Paris.

Carlo Russo, 1976 | Still life / Figurative painter

Carlo Russo was born in Philadelphia PA. He is currently based in the Fishtown neighborhood of Philadelphia, where he maintains his studio and teaches painting and drawing in addition to creating his newest works. Carlo graduated from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 2004 where he focused his studies in the  methods and practices of traditional realism. Since his graduation, he has been a full-time artist and has exhibited his works in numerous galleries across the United States.

Anna Rose Bain, 1985 | Classical Realist painter

Anna Rose Bain was born and raised in rural Wisconsin. She began drawing from the moment she could pick up a pencil. Inspired by her grandfather, who started painting at the age of 70, she spent her free time as a child sketching from nature and poring over art books.

Anna studied art at Hillsdale College in Hillsdale, MI, and graduated in 2007 with a Bachelor of Arts degree and departmental honors. She was the first in the school's history to have a solo senior art exhibit. She refined her education at the Florence Academy of Art in Italy, taking a figure painting class in the summer of 2006.

Margaret Zox Brown | Expressionist painter

- I grew up in Manhattan with summers at my family’s 18th century barn house on the eastern end of Long Island. Both environments are richly embedded in my being, affecting all my artwork for the past 28 years.

Having a natural and innate propensity for art, I inevitably gravitated towards it. I drew my entire life finding my subject matter in the faces of friends and relatives or the corners of my home practicing and perfecting the rendering of whatever I saw. Then when I was in my late 20’s I decided to treat myself to what seemed almost exotic; oil painting lessons. I immediately discovered color and art buyers immediately discovered me as an expressive, passionate colorist.

Margaret Thomas, 1916 | Abstract / Still life painter

Margaret Thomas was born in London on 26 September 1916. She was introduced to the world of artists, at the age of 12, by her governess Dora Salman who had been at the Slade with Ethel Walker before the Great War. She took Margaret to see Walker at her Thames-side studio and introduced her to other women artists such as Clare Atwood, Beatrice Bland and Eleanor Best.

Hugo Mühlig | Genre painter

Hugo Mühlig (1854-1929) was born in Dresden to a family of artists; his father Meno Mühlig (1823-1873)

was an accomplished Landscape and Genre painter, as was his uncle Bernhard Mühlig (1829-1910).

He was encouraged to follow suit and received his first artistic training from his father before studying at the Dresden Academy of Art between 1877-1880 under the illustrator Viktor Paul Mohn (1842-1911).

Andrew Gifford, 1970 | London painting

Andrew Gifford (b. Sheffield, 1970) is now recognised as one of the most innovative landscape painters working today.

His paintings and light installations have been widely exhibited, including solo public shows at Leeds City Art Gallery (2004), Fruitmarket Gallery Edinburgh (2001) and Middlesbrough Art Gallery (2000). Collections include the New Art Gallery, Walsall and Chatsworth House and in private collections in Europe, USA and Japan. A monograph on the artist was published in 2005.

Michael Bilotta | Conceptual Surrealist Photographer

Michael Bilotta is an award winning conceptual fine art photographer from the Boston area in the U.S.A. All work is 100% photographic and the imagery is created as layered composites in Photoshop. Michael has a winning entry in Canon’s Project Imagination 2012, and his work has appeared in Practical Photoshop magazine and is the April 2013 Photographer of the Month in the Italian publication JC and Art Elite.

Michael is the winner of Camera Obscura Journal's Outstanding Photo Award, Non-Professional category for his photo "Riddles In The Dark" as well as receiving Honorable Mention for "The Collective" in the Professional category.

David Piddock, 1960 | Magic Realism painter

David Piddock has shown in an extensive number of exhibitions across England including: 'Focus on Drawing', Museum of Modern Art in Oxford, the Spectator Open at Christie's, The Gallery in Cork Street, the 'Gallery Fiction' at The Fine Art Society, London, and 'New Acquisitions' at The Museum of London.

Piddock has also exhibited internationally in Centro Modigliani, Florence and Palm Beach Contemporary Art Fair, USA.

Pasquale Romanelli | Andromeda

"As soon as Perseus, great-grandson of Abas, saw her fastened by her arms to the hard rock, he would have thought she was a marble statue" – Ovid, Metamorphoses, Book IV

With Andromeda and the sea monster Romanelli chose a subject that had fascinated artists since the Renaissance. The myth is best known from Ovid’s dramatic account in his Metamorphoses. The poet tells of the Aethiopean princess, whose mother, Queen Cassiopeia, boasted that her daughter was more beautiful than Poseidon’s Nereids. Enraged, the god of the sea sent a monstrous sea creature to devastate the coast of their Aethiopean kingdom. The distraught King consulted the Oracle of Apollo for guidance, only to be told that he had to sacrifice his daughter to the monster to put an end to its rampage.

Pasquale Romanelli | Ruth

The Florentine sculptor Pasquale Romanelli achieved an international reputation for his finely carved mythological and biblical marble figures. Romanelli began his training at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Florence under Luigi Pampaloni but was soon taught by the foremost Tuscan neoclassical sculptor, Lorenzo Bartolini. Remaining in Bartolini’s favour, he went on to become his collaborator and, upon the master’s death in 1850, the successor of his studio. Romanelli’s mythological and allegorical compositions were highly prized by a cosmopolitan clientele, and he exhibited select models in Paris.

Denise Henley | Portrait painter

Born in Guyana, South America, Denise Henley first realized her artistic passion at the tender age of eight. She spent much of her young life immersed in drawing.

As an adolescent, she moved to the United States to study art and after obtaining a B.A in Visual Arts, went on to pursue a career as an artist.

While she works in several mediums and subject-matters, her passion lies in capturing the beauty of the human figure. A constituent of realism, she continuously strives to perfect her drawing skills, believing it to be the backbone of the portrait process.

Balthus | Modern painter

Balthus, pseudonym of Balthazar Klossowski, also spelled Balthasar Klossowsky (born February 29, 1908, Paris, France - died February 18, 2001, La Rossinière, Switzerland), reclusive French painter who, in the midst of 20th-century avant-gardism, explored the traditional categories of European painting: the landscape, the still life, the subject painting, and the portrait.

He is best known for his controversial depictions of adolescent girls.

Eduard Gordeev | Impressionist Cityscape photographer

Eduard Gordeev /Эдуард Гордеев is a talented photographer who lives and works in St. Petersburg, Russia.

He creates artistic landscape photo series of his beloved city St. Petersburg.

These magnificent cityscape images look impressive and atmospheric with a bit of effect of acrylic paintings.

These urban streets seem drenched in mystery and rain.

His captures look as if they were acrylic paintings.

The reflections of city lights and all melting colors turn them into extraordinary pieces of art.

Vatican Light Show Calls Attention to Climate Change

Pope Francis inaugurated a special year of Mercy at the Vatican on Tuesday but fears of terrorism meant that the crowds in St Peter’s Square were much more modest than expected.

The Vatican had hoped that up to 100,000 people would take part in an open-air Mass in the huge Renaissance piazza, but in the end an estimated 40,000 people attended.

Pope Francis inaugurates special Year of Mercy.

Cornelia Hernes, 1979 | Classical Realist painter

Cornelia Hernes was born and raised in Norway until the age of twelve when her family moved to Africa where Cornelia went to boarding schools in Kenya and Tanzania. Much of her fascination with exploring the human condition through her paintings can be attributed to her early exposure to different cultures. Her work is centered on portraying and evoking a large scope of emotions, ultimately with the aim of celebrating life.

Maggie Taylor, 1961 | Digital Surrealist /Visionary painter

Maggie Taylor (born in Cleveland, Ohio) is an artist who works with digital images. She won the Santa Fe Center for Photography's Project Competition in 2004. Her work has been widely exhibited in the United States and Europe and is represented within the permanent collections of several galleries and museums. She is the third wife of American photographer, Jerry Uelsmann.

She produces prints by scanning objects into a computer using a flatbed scanner, then layering and manipulating these images using Adobe Photoshop into a surrealistic montage.