Niccolò Cannicci | Genre painter

Niccolò Cannicci (1846-1906) was an Italian painter🎨, who painted urban and rural views, often depicting the intersection of the urban and industrial landscape with the rural and pastoral.

He was born in Florence. He began his studies in design at Academy of Fine Arts of Florence under professors Marrubini and Pollastrini, and from there moved to the studio of professor Antonio Ciseri.

He then was influenced by the school of the Macchiaioli🎨.

He moved to San Gemignano.

He painted mainly landscapes and genre paintings🎨 of peasant life and animals.

Vittorio Matteo Corcos | Genre painter

A Reassessment of Corcos, Sensuality and Subtlety Intact

- The New York Times, article by Roderick Conway Morris A Reassessment of Corcos, Sensuality and Subtlety Intact, Oct. 7, 2014

The Jewish community of the Tuscan seaport of Livorno produced two notable artists whose lives spanned the 19th and 20th centuries: Vittorio Corcos and Amedeo Modigliani.

Corcos enjoyed a long and prosperous international career, dying at the age of 74 in 1933. Modigliani🎨 struggled to sell his work and died little known at the age of 35 in 1920.

But whereas Modigliani🎨 is now one of the most famous of 20th-century artists, Corcos, outside of Italy at least, is virtually forgotten. One reason is that Corcos’s uninspiringly conventional society and royal portraits have obscured the fact that he also produced some genuinely idiosyncratic images.

Vittorio Matteo Corcos | An Elegant Lady in a Pink Hat and Dress, 1888

Vittorio Matteo Corcos🎨 (4 October 1859 - 8 November 1933) was an Italian painter🎨, known for his portraits.

Many of his genre works🎨 depict winsome and finely dressed young men and women, in moments of repose and recreation.

He was born to Jewish parents, in Livorno. He trained at the Academy of Fine Arts of Florence under Enrico Pollastrini.

Between 1878-1879 he worked under Domenico Morelli🎨 in Naples.

Giovanni Battista Lombardi | Ruth, 1864

Commissioned in 1859 by contessa Marietta Mazuchelli Longo, Lombardi's Ruth was the first of the artist's Old Testament subjects; a series which also included his Rebecca, Deborah, Susanna and Sulamite.

Lombardi's reputation had been built on his sensitive and innovative memorial sculpture, which he produced with his brother Giovita, in the studio in Rome which they set up in 1852.

The contessa Longo was a long-time supporter of Lombardi and indeed had previously commissioned a funerary monument to her deceased husband from the artist.

Olga Boznanska | Hands detail

Olga Boznańska (1865-1940) was a Polish painter, active in Munich and Paris.

Stylistically associated with the French impressionism, Boznańska received the French Legion of Honour in 1912, the Golden Laurel of the Polish Academy of Literature in 1936, the Grand Prix at the Exposition Internationale des Arts et Techniques la Vie Moderne in 1937, and the Order of Polonia Restituta in 1938.

For biographical notes -in english and italian- and other works by Boznańska see:

• Olga Boznanska | Impressionist painter

Adolph von Menzel | Drawing

Adolph Friedrich Erdmann von Menzel (1815-1905) was a German🎨 Realist artist noted for drawings, etchings and paintings.

Along with Caspar David Friedrich🎨, he is considered one of the two most prominent German painters🎨 of the 19th century, and was the most successful artist of his era in Germany.

First known as Adolph Menzel, he was knighted in 1898 and changed his name to Adolph von Menzel🎨.

For biographical notes -in english and italian- and other works by von Menzel see:

• Adolph von Menzel | Realist painter🎨

Trent Gudmundsen, 1978 | Spring Morning

Gudmundsen's depictions of people and landscapes may seem steeped in nostalgia, but actually symbolically reflect the artist's own life: one in which he strives to live simply and tries to make time for the important moments.

Often using his own children and relatives as models in his paintings, Trent encourages and then captures authentic moments of quiet conversation or contemplation; people learning and teaching, talking and interacting, or simply enjoying a moment in thought in that fleeting time between work and play.

Mihaly Zichy | Romantic painter

Mihály Zichy (15 October 1827 in Zala, Kingdom of Hungary - 28 February 1906 in St. Petersburg, Russian Empire) was a Hungarian painter and graphic artist.

Mihály Zichy was a significant representative of Hungarian romantic painting.

During his law studies in Pest from 1842, he attended Jakab Marastoni's school as well.

In Vienna he was Waldmüller's pupil in 1844. "Lifeboat", his first major work, comes from this time.

On Waldmüller's recommendation, he became an art teacher in St. Petersburg.

He swore allegiance to freedom by painting the portrait of Lajos Batthyány, the first Hungarian prime minister, in 1849.

Mikhail Lermontov | Demon, 1829 | Chapter II

Demon / Демон is a poem by Mikhail Lermontov, written in several versions in the years 1829-1839.

It is considered a masterpiece of European Romantic poetry.

Lermontov began work on the poem when he was just 14 or 15, but completed it only during his Caucasus exile.

Lermontov wrote six major variations of the poem, and the final version was not published until 1842, after his death.

Wilhelm Gause | Genre painter

Wilhelm Gause (March 27, 1853 - June 13, 1916) was a German🎨 - Austrian painter🎨. He studied at the Düsseldorf Academy, and in 1888 exhibited his work in Vienna.

Perhaps Gause’s most famous work is “Court Ball at the Hofburg🎨”.

Created in 1900, it hangs today within the walls of the Wien Museum Karlsplatz, Vienna, Austria.

It depicts aristocrats crowding around Franz Joseph I of Austria at the Hofburg Imperial Palace.

On January 28, 2011, Another painting of his, Party on the Ice🎨, 1909 was sold at Sotheby's in New York for $13,750.

Vincent van Gogh | Wheatfield under Thunderclouds, 1890

Landscapes inspired overwhelming, but also very complex emotions in Vincent van Gogh🎨 (1853-1890).

The paintings of wheatfields are an expression of extreme sadness and loneliness, while they at the same time embody the strength he derived from them.

In 1890, an emotionally unsettled, humorless and argumentative Van Gogh was sent by his brother to the rural French city of Auberge Ravoux where he lived under the care and supervision of Dr. Cachet.

For almost three months until his death on July 29th of that year Van Gogh made about 70 paintings, thirteen of which focused on the wheat harvest from the middle of late July.

Van Gogh | Butterflies series

Butterflies is a series paintings made by Vincent van Gogh🎨 in 1889 and 1890.

Van Gogh made at least four paintings of butterflies and one of a moth.

The metamorphosis of the caterpillar into a butterfly was symbolic to Van Gogh of men and women's capability for transformation.

Vincent van Gogh | Butterflies and Poppies | Van Gogh Museum

Gaetano Chierici | Genre painter

Gaetano Chierici (1838-1920) was an Italian painter🎨, mainly of genre works🎨.

He was born in Reggio Emilia, and attended the Reggio Emilia School of Fine Arts in 1850 and 1851.

Chierici continued his studies at the academies of Modena and Florence before completing his training in Bologna under the guidance of Giulio Cesare Ferrari.

His early work was in Italy influenced by the Neo-classicism of his uncle, the artist Alfonso Chierici and of Adeodato Malatesta, but subsequently by the innovations of the Macchiaioli painters🎨.

Josef Lauer | Still Life painter

Josef Lauer was born 1818 in Vienna. He studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in the class of Sebastian Wegmayr, Joseph Mössmer, Thomas Ender and Franz Steinfeld.

Lauer focused on painting still lifes with flowers and fruits, where he was the first depicting floral still lifes integrated in landscapes.

His first exhibition was 1840, then he showed his works in different exhibitions also at the Austrian Kunstverein.

Since 1861 he was also a member of the Viennese Künstlerhaus. He lived and worked solely in Vienna.

Josef Lauer died 1881 in Vienna.

Thomas Moran | Hudson River School

Thomas Moran [1837-1926] was a British-born American painter and printmaker of the Hudson River School in New York whose work often featured the Rocky Mountains.

Moran and his family took residence in New York where he obtained work as an artist.

A talented illustrator and exquisite colorist, Moran was hired as an illustrator at Scribner's Monthly.

Worthington Whittredge | Hudson River School painter

Worthington Whittredge, in full Thomas Worthington Whittredge, (born May 22, 1820, Springfield, Ohio, U.S. - died February 25, 1910, Summit, New Jersey), American🎨 landscape painter associated with the Hudson River school🎨.

Whittredge, originally a house painter, took up portraiture and landscape painting about 1838. Beginning in 1849 he spent five years in Düsseldorf, Germany, and five years in Rome, where he posed for Emanuel Leutze, who used him as the model for George Washington in Washington Crossing the Delaware (1851).

Thomas Cole | Hudson River School painter

Thomas Cole (1801-1848)🎨 inspired the generation of American landscape painters that came to be known as the Hudson River School🎨.

Born in Bolton-le-Moors, Lancashire, England, in 1801, at the age of seventeen he emigrated with his family to the United States, first working as a wood engraver in Philadelphia before going to Steubenville, Ohio, where his father had established a wallpaper manufacturing business.

Hudson River School of painter

Hudson River school, large group of American landscape painters of several generations who worked between about 1825-1870.

The name, applied retrospectively, refers to a similarity of intent rather than to a geographic location, though many of the older members of the group drew inspiration from the picturesque Catskill region north of New York City, through which the Hudson River flows.

An outgrowth of the Romantic movement, the Hudson River school was the first native school of painting in the United States; it was strongly nationalistic both in its proud celebration of the natural beauty of the American landscape and in the desire of its artists to become independent of European schools of painting.

Thomas Moran (1837-1926)

Samuel Colman | Romantic painter

Samuel Colman (March 4, 1832 - March 26, 1920) was an American painter🎨, interior designer, and writer, probably best remembered for his paintings of the Hudson River.

Born in Portland, Maine, Colman moved to New York City with his family as a child. His father opened a bookstore, attracting a literate clientele that may have influenced Colman's artistic development. He is believed to have studied briefly under the Hudson River School painter Asher Durand, and he exhibited his first work at the National Academy of Design in 1850.

By 1854 he had opened his own New York City studio. The following year he was elected an associate member of the National Academy, with full membership bestowed in 1862.

Elena Prudnikova, 1978 | Figurative painter

Russian painter Elena Prudnikova /Елена Прудникова was born in Chita, Russia.

In 1997 she graduated from the Chitinsky Art School as an artist designer. Graduated from Krasnoyarsk art college and St. Petersburg State Academic Institute for Painting, Sculpture and Architecture IE Repin.

Member of the Russian Artists’ Union from 2008, National Pastel Union of Russia, signature member of PSA (Pastel Society of America).

Her works are among private collections in Russia and abroad: Spain, England, France, Japan, Germany, Belgium, Caribbean Isles, America, Latvia and Lithuania, Italy, Switzerland and Brazil.

George Inness | Quotes / Aforismi

George Inness🎨 (1825-1894) was an American artist🎨 whose landscapes melded the paint handling of the French Barbizon School🎨 with subject matter specific to the changing American countryside.

• The true use of art is, first, to cultivate the artist's own spiritual nature.

• Il vero uso dell'arte è, in primo luogo, coltivare la natura spirituale dell'artista.

• The true end of art is not to imitate a fixed material condition, but to represent a living emotion.

• La vera fine dell'Arte non è imitare una condizione materiale fissa, ma rappresentare un movimento vivente.

Vito Campanella | Surrealist / Metaphysics painter

Vito Campanella (1932-2014)🎨 was an Argentine painter of Italian origin born in Monopoli, Bari, Italy.

Before establishing himself in Buenos Aires in 1955, Campanella studied at the Academy of Fine Arts Brera in Milan and in cultural centers of important European artists.

After more than 50 years devoted to painting, Vito Campanella is a universal artist, a renowned painter called Master by the prestigious Swiss dictionary "Art Leaders of the World".

Antonio Ambrogio Alciati | Dama in rosa, 1921

Ambrogio Antonio Alciati | Dama in rosa, 1921 | Museo Borgogna

Il dipinto venne esposto nel 1921 alla mostra della galleria Pesaro di Milano, con il titolo Ritratto di signora, dove ottenne ottimi riscontri di critica: “Quella leggiadra figura di giovane donna, dal taglio del quadro alla grazia e semplicità della posa, dalla serena e un po’ sognosa espressione del volto alla delicata gamma di tinte dell’abbigliamento, è una delizia” (in “Emporium”, novembre 1921, p. 312).

Successivamente la tela fu presentata a Vercelli alla Esposizione artisti vercellesi.

Mostra di oreficeria del 1922 dove venne acquistata dal Museo.

Ambrogio Antonio Alciati | Dama in rosa, 1921 | Museo Borgogna

Pablo Neruda | Ode all'autunno

Modest is the autumn, like the woodcutters.

It's costly to cut all the leaves

off all the trees of all places.

In spring they're sewn on in flight

and now you must let them fall

as if they were little yellow birds:

it isn't easy.

You need time.

Vincent van Gogh🎨 | Autumn Garden, 1888

Armand Point | Symbolist painter

Armand Point (1860-1932) was a French painter, engraver and designer who was associated with the Symbolist movement and was one of the founders of the Salon de la Rose + Croix.

Later he formed his own atelier. Sources differ over the details of his birth and death.

Point's earliest works were Orientalist scenes of markets and musicians and the street life of his youth in Algeria.

Gary Hernandez, 1953 | Classical realism painter

Gary Hernandez is an internationally recognized, award winning🎨 artist. He was born in Victoria, Texas and currently resides in Houston, Texas.

He received training from the Houston Museum of Fine Arts School of Art.

In 1986 he sold his graphics design firm to pursue a full-time career as a professional artist.

Exhibiting extensively in the Houston area, his art has also been showcased in SOHO, New York/ Santa Fe, New Mexico/ Chicago, Illinois/ Cape Cod, Massachusetts/ Scottsdale, Arizona/ Fairfield, Connecticut/ Topeka, Kansas/ Naples, Florida/ Springfield, Massachusetts as well as the Contemporary Arts Museum in Houston.

Jaroslav Seifert | Fragment of a Letter / Frammento di una lettera

All night rain lashed the windows.

I couldn’t go to sleep.

So I switched on the light

and wrote a letter.

Victor Nizovtsev

Come scegliere Titolo, indirizzo web e modello in Blogger

Nei precedenti articoli abbiamo parlato del Primo passo:

- di Come creare un account Google🎨, per chi non ne ha uno,

 e del Secondo passo:

- di Come registrarsi a Blogger🎨.

Questo Terzo passo, andremo ad approfondire la questione della scelta del Titolo - dell'Indirizzo del sito, un punto molto importante e del Modello - Il tema del sito.

Vincent van Gogh | The Old Tower in the Fields, 1884

Edvard Munch | Quotes / Aforismi

I was walking along a path with two friends - the sun was setting - suddenly the sky turned blood red - I paused, feeling exhausted, and leaned on the fence - there was blood and tongues of fire above the blue-black fjord and the city - my friends walked on, and I stood there trembling with anxiety - and I sensed an infinite scream passing through nature.

Quote of an entry in his Diary (22 January 1892), on the experience which inspired his famous painting, '(The Scream🎨)' ('Shrik'), originally titled: 'Der Schrei der Natur' ('The Cry of Nature')

Camminavo lungo la strada con due amici, quando il sole tramontò. Il cielo si tinse all'improvviso di rosso sangue. Mi fermai. Mi appoggiai, stanco morto a un recinto. Sul fiordo nero azzurro e sulla città, c'erano sangue e lingue di fuoco. I miei amici continuavano a camminare ed io tremavo ancora di paura e sentivo che un grande urlo, infinito, pervadeva la Natura. I colori hanno urlato.

Citazione di una voce del suo diario (22 gennaio 1892) sull'esperienza che ha ispirato il suo famoso dipinto "(The Scream🎨)" ("Shrik"), originariamente intitolato: "Der Schrei der Natur" ("The Cry of Nature")

Luigi Rossi | Symbolist / Genre painter

A Swiss painter Luigi Rossi (1853-1923) was born in Cassarate, Lugano. Having studied at the Brera Academy of Fine Arts under the guidance of Giuseppe Bertini, Rossi made his artistic debut in 1871, inaugurating a repertoire of Genre scenes🎨 with a subtle vein of social criticism that was to be a distinctive feature of his work.

His Swiss origin prevented him from receiving the prestigious Prince Umberto Prize, reserved for citizens of the Kingdom of Italy, in 1878. His repertoire then broadened during the 1880s to include mountain landscapes painted en plein air🎨, scenes of peasant life and portraits.

The period from 1885-1888 was spent in Paris, where he also worked a great deal as an illustrator for Alphonse Daudet and Pierre Loti in particular.

Having returned to Milan, he came into contact with the poet Gian Pietro Lucini, a meeting that marks a turning point also in his work as a painter.

This led to some of his most celebrated canvases, which are still solidly realistic but informed by the new Symbolist approach. 

A regular participant in the major Italian and international events with paintings and watercolours, he held a solo show at the Galleria Pesaro, Milan, in 1921. 

He died in Biolda, Lugano. His death was commemorated with two posthumous shows, one at the Società per le Belle Arti ed Esposizione Permanente in Milan and the other at Villa Ciani, Lugano, in 1924.

Luigi Rossi (1853-1923) è stato un'artista di respiro europeo operante fra realtà e simbolo, colto e spontaneo fautore di un'arte sincera. Ha dipinto con sobrietà e misura scene di genere e di vita contadina, ritratti e paesaggi. L'artista è stato illustratore di libri a Parigi e ha svolto un'attività di educatore democratico a Milano. Luigi Rossi nell'ultimo periodo dipinge frequenti motivi della regione amata della Capriasca.

Luigi Rossi nasce nel 1853 a Lugano. Tre anni dopo la famiglia si trasferisce a Milano, dove Luigi verrà iscritto all’Accademia di Brera.

La sua formazione avviene sotto la guida di Giuseppe Bertini, accanto a Bazzaro, Gignous, Tallone, e conosce una parentesi piemontese che gli consente di entrare in contatto con Calderini e Bistolfi.

Nel ’71 l’esordio: Questua infruttuosa e altre opere degli anni immediatamente seguenti, iscritte al filone della cosiddetta pittura di genere, di derivazione induniana, gli valgono il consenso del pubblico e della critica.

Nel ’78, con Ritorno al paese natio, il giovane artista sfiora il riconoscimento del premio Principe Umberto che gli sfugge in quanto non "regnicolo".

All’81 risale la cordiale pagina Verista🎨 dedicata alla sua città di adozione: Una via di Milano. Dai soggiorni nelle valli ticinesi trae invece lo spunto per alcuni dipinti legati al paesaggio o alla raffigurazione della vita contadina; all’altezza dei primi anni ottanta, Rossi esegue a Milano alcuni dei suoi migliori ritratti, intensi e psicologicamente profondi, d’impronta scapigliata.

Dall’85, per tre anni, l’artista è a Parigi, dove lavora come illustratore molto apprezzato in particolare da Daudet e Loti: del primo illustra il ciclo di Tartarino e Sapho, del secondo Madame Chrysanthème; con l’amico Conconi nel ’92 pone mano all’illustrazione delle pastorali Daphnis et Chloé di Longo sofista.

Di ritorno a Milano riprende la consuetudine con la pittura e riallaccia i contatti con l’ambiente artistico della città.

A partire dagli anni novanta si inaugura la stagione migliore della sua pittura entro la quale l’esperienza verista si muta in simbolo: agisce in questo senso l’influsso dell’amico scrittore Gian Pietro Lucini autore di alcune liriche riferite a dipinti di Rossi (Scuola del dolore, Rêves de Jeunesse, Il mosto) in cui si fondono componenti realiste e simboliste.

La sua presenza a rassegne italiane e svizzere è regolare e stimata, al pari della sua partecipazione alle commissioni artistiche dei due paesi.

Ai primi del novecento si apre una misurata parentesi di gusto liberty, mentre prosegue la passione per la pittura di paesaggio, nutrita dall’amore per la regione ticinese della Capriasca, dove nel ’13 acquista la casa di Biolda, il cui giardino sarà teatro di una serie di ritratti all’aperto della figlia Gina.

Dopo l’attiva partecipazione al gruppo degli Acquarellisti lombardi, svolta accanto a Carcano, Gola, Sala e Weiss, e all’attività delle scuole laboratorio dell’Umanitaria, Luigi Rossi tiene una personale nella prestigiosa galleria di Lino Pesaro a Milano nel ’21: l’ampia mostra è di taglio antologico e riunisce le opere dell’esordio, i ritratti, scene di Sicilia e dell’Atlantico, opere a sfondo sociale o allegorico e i paesaggi di diversa epoca.

Dopo la sua morte, avvenuta nel ’23 in Biolda, Luigi Rossi è stato ricordato in due mostre postume alla Permanente di Milano e a Villa Ciani di Lugano, allestite nel ’24. Nel ’79 soltanto, la pubblicazione della prima monografia (Bramante Editrice) segna la ripresa di interesse per l’artista, confermata dall’esposizione di Lugano (1980) e da quelle di Milano-Bellinzona-Losanna (1985-’86).

Al ’99 risale la stampa del catalogo ragionato (Cornèr Banca e Federico Motta) cui fa seguito l’edizione dell’atlante della casa museo Luigi Rossi, in Capriasca nel 2009.