Christmas with Jenny Nyström

Jenny Eugenia Nyström (1854-1946) was a painter and illustrator mainly known as the creator of the Swedish image of the jultomte on Christmas cards and magazine covers, thus linking the Swedish version of Santa Claus to the gnomes and tomtar of Scandinavian folklore.

Her father was a school teacher and piano teacher, and also the cantor of the Kalmar Castle Church.

When Jenny Nyström was eight years old, the family moved to Gothenburg, where her father had found a better paying teaching job.

Théophile Deyrolle | Genre painter

Théophile-Louis Deyrolle (16 December 1844, Paris - 14 December 1923, Concarneau) was a French painter, illustrator and ceramicist.

He came from a family of entomologists and naturalists who owned a well-known taxidermy shop in Paris.

Achille and Émile Deyrolle were among his relatives.

Originally, he studied architecture at the École des Beaux-arts.

While working for Joseph Auguste Émile Vaudremer, he met Alfred Guillou who convinced him to give up architecture for painting.

5 Masterpieces from the Hermitage

The State Hermitage Museum / Государственный Эрмитаж has been open to the public since 1852.

It was founded in 1764 when Empress Catherine the Great acquired a collection of paintings from the Berlin merchant Johann Ernst Gotzkowsky.

The museum celebrates the anniversary of its founding each year on 7 December, Saint Catherine's Day.

Caravaggio | Lute-Player, 1595-1596

"The Lute-Player", painted by Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio in 1595-96, is the only work by the famous master in Russia and it is considered without any exaggeration to be one of the gems of the Hermitage Museum collection.

The Hermitage painting is known to have belonged to Marchese Vincenzo Giustiniani.

The Giustiniani collection was put up for sale in Paris and came into the Hermitage in 1808 through the mediation of the director of the Louvre, Dominique Vivan Denon. | © Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg

Caravaggio (Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio) (1571-1610) | The Lute Player, 1596 | Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg

Vincent Van Gogh | A Lane near Arles, 1888

A Lane Near Arles (Allee bei Arles) was painted by Vincent van Gogh in 1888, while he was living in Arles.

It depicts a lane surrounded by trees running between the fields outside Arles, France.

A Lane Near Arles is currently in the collection of the Pommersches Landesmuseum, Greifswald, in Germany.

Vincent van Gogh settled in Arles in 1888 because he wanted "a different light".

Vincent Van Gogh | A Lane Near Arles, 1888 | Pomeranian State Museum Greifswald, Germany

Pierre-Auguste Renoir in Guernsey, 1883

Between late summer and early autumn of 1883, Pierre-Auguste Renoir spent over a month on the Channel Island of Guernsey, lodging at no. 4 of George Road, St. Peter Port.

The beach of Moulin Huet, and the nearby bay at the east end of the island's rocky south coast within walking distance from his lodgings, provided the inspiration for approximately fifteen paintings, including Rochers de Guernesey avec personnages (plage à Guernesey), alongside Moulin Huet Bay, Guernsey (in the National Gallery, London) and Enfants au bord de la mer Guernsey (in the Barnes Foundation, Pennsylvania).

Pierre-Auguste Renoir | Rochers de Guernesey avec personnages (plage à Guernesey), 1883 | Christie's

Hayley Lever| Impressionist painter

Richard Hayley Lever (1876-1958) was an Australian-American painter, etcher, lecturer and art teacher.

His work was part of the art competitions at the 1928 Summer Olympics and the 1932 Summer Olympics.

Richard Hayley Lever was born and brought up in Adelaide, Australia.

He trained as an artist there under the guidance of James Ashton, an English born seascape artist whose son he was later to befriend in St Ives. In 1894 he set sail to Europe to finish his art studies.

Whilst in Paris he studied the human figure under Rene-Francois-Xavier Prinet but showed a natural inclination for open-air subjects and marine pictures.

6 Famous Sculptures of the Galleria Borghese, Rome

The Galleria Borghese Museum houses and displays a collection of ancient sculptures, bas-reliefs and mosaics, as well as paintings and sculptures dating from the 15th through the 19th centuries.

Among the masterpieces of the collection - the first and most important part of which goes back to the collecting of Cardinal Scipione Borghese (1579-1633), nephew of Pope Paul V - are paintings by Caravaggio, Raphael, Titian, Correggio, Antonello da Messina and Giovanni Bellini and sculptures by Gian Lorenzo Bernini and Antonio Canova.

The works are displayed in the 20 frescoed rooms that, together with the portico and the entrance hall, constitute the spaces of the Museum open to the public.

More than 260 paintings are housed in the storerooms of the Galleria Borghese, which are located above the floor of the Pinacoteca and set up like a picture gallery.

Cristoforo Stati (Italian, 1556-1619) | Adone and Venere, XVI-XVII | Installation Galleria Borghese

Anton Chekhov: "Only one who loves can remember so well"

Anton Pavlovich Chekhov / Антон Павлович Чехов (1860-1904) was a Russian playwright and short-story writer.

His career as a playwright produced four classics, and his best short stories are held in high esteem by writers and critics.

Along with Henrik Ibsen and August Strindberg, Chekhov is often referred to as one of the three seminal figures in the birth of early modernism in the theatre.

Chekhov was a physician by profession.

"Medicine is my lawful wife", he once said, "and literature is my mistress".

• "Il ruolo dell'artista è porre domande, non fornire risposte".

• "The role of the artist is to ask questions, not answer them".

Monument to Anton Chekhov and Lady with the Dog | Yalta, Crimea, Ukraine

Fred Appleyard (1874-1963)

Fred Appleyard was a British artist known for his landscape paintings, portraits, classical subjects and allegorical compositions.

He had 41 works exhibited during his lifetime by the Royal Academy and painted the mural Spring Driving Out Winter in the Academy Restaurant.

Appleyard was born in Middlesbrough, England on 9 September 1874, the son of Isaac Appleyard, an iron merchant. His uncle was the sculptor John Wormald Appleyard.

6 Masterpieces of the Pinacoteca di Brera

The collection of the Pinacoteca di Brera includes some of the greatest masterpieces of Italian and foreign art from the 13th to the 20th century.

The works are displayed on the first floor of the building, where the Academy of Fine Arts is also located.

The Pinacoteca museum, which opened in 1809 thanks to Napoleon Bonaparte, was born as a collection of the finest works of art and was dedicated to the education of students.

The collection included Italian art masterpieces taken from churches and monasteries that were suppressed at the time when Milan was the capital city of the Kingdom of Italy. | Source: © Pinacoteca di Brera

Antonio Canova (Italian, 1757-1822) | Napoleone come Marte pacificatore / Napoleon as Mars the peacemaker, 1811 (detail) | Pinacoteca di Brera

Vincent van Gogh | The Laundry Boat on the Seine at Asnières, 1887

The Laundry Boat on the Seine at Asnières exemplifies some of the radical directions emerging from the paintings Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890) completed in Paris.

In March 1886, Van Gogh left his native Netherlands to reunite with his brother, Theo, in the French capital.

Soon after, he began meeting with several leading avant-garde artists whose works embodied strong reactions against the Impressionist tendencies that dominated the Parisian art world.

In 1887, Van Gogh took up residence in Asnières, a northwestern suburb of Paris, and his encounters with Signac and Gauguin proved catalytic for the painter's developing practice.

Vincent van Gogh | The Laundry Boat on the Seine at Asnières, 1887 | Virginia Museum of Fine Arts

Gauguin shared Van Gogh's enthusiasm for 19th-century Japanese woodblock prints and emulated their large planes of color in his burgeoning Synthetism and Cloisonnism techniques.

The compositional diagonals and strong contours in this painting recall both the distinctive divisions of the picture plane in Japanese landscapes and Gauguin’s simplified adaptation of these features.

The scene's striking chromatic contrasts and thickly layered brushstrokes also point to Van Gogh's interest in the experiments with complementary colors Seurat and Signac were making in these years.

The restaurant and park scenes and the views of the Seine that Van Gogh completed while living in Asnières began to demonstrate the indelible influence of Synthetism, Divisionism, and Pointillism even as a unique Post-Impressionist style was emerging in his paintings. | Virginia Museum of Fine Arts

Vincent van Gogh | Self-portrait as a painter, 1887-88

The Laundry Boat on the Seine at Asnières esemplifica alcune delle direzioni radicali emerse dai dipinti completati da Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890) a Parigi.

Nel marzo 1886, Van Gogh lasciò la natia Olanda per riunirsi al fratello Theo nella capitale francese.

Poco dopo, iniziò a incontrare diversi importanti artisti d'avanguardia le cui opere incarnavano forti reazioni contro le tendenze impressioniste che dominavano il mondo dell'arte parigino.

Nel 1887, Van Gogh si stabilì ad Asnières, un sobborgo nord-occidentale di Parigi, ed i suoi incontri con Signac e Gauguin si rivelarono catalizzatori per la pratica in via di sviluppo del pittore.

Gauguin condivideva l'entusiasmo di Van Gogh per le stampe xilografiche giapponesi del XIX secolo e ne emulò i grandi piani di colore nelle sue fiorenti tecniche di Sintetismo e Cloisonnisme.

Le diagonali compositive e i forti contorni in questo dipinto richiamano sia le divisioni distintive del piano pittorico nei paesaggi giapponesi sia l'adattamento semplificato di queste caratteristiche da parte di Gauguin.

I contrasti cromatici sorprendenti della scena e le pennellate spesse e stratificate indicano anche l'interesse di Van Gogh per gli esperimenti con colori complementari che Seurat e Signac stavano facendo in quegli anni.

Le scene del ristorante e del parco e le vedute della Senna che Van Gogh completò mentre viveva ad Asnières iniziarono a dimostrare l'influenza indelebile del sintetismo, del divisionismo e del puntinismo, anche se uno stile Post-impressionista unico stava emergendo nei suoi dipinti. | Virginia Museum of Fine Arts

More Asnières paintings by Vincent van Gogh

Vincent van Gogh | The restaurant Rispal in Asnières, 1887 | Museo Nelson-Atkins

Vincent van Gogh | Bridges across the Seine at Asnieres, 1887 | Collezione Bührle

Vincent van Gogh | Fishing in spring the Pont de Clichy (Asnieres), 1887 | Art Institute of Chicago

Vincent van Gogh | River Bank in Springtime, 1887 | Dallas Museum of Art

Vincent van Gogh | Restaurant de la Sirène at Asnières, 1887 | Musée d'Orsay

Vincent van Gogh | Fishing in Spring, the Pont de Clichy (Asnières), 1887 | Art Institute of Chicago

Henri Lebasque | Afternoon Tea on the Terrace in Sainte-Maxime, 1914

Henri Lebasque (1865-1937) first visited the French Riveria in 1906 at the suggestion of his friend Henri Manguin.

In 1924, Lebasque relocated to the region to permanently take advantage of its unparalleled light.

In the intervening years, the artist who would earn the sobriquet "Painter of Joy and Light" returned often.

In 1914, he brought his family to the town of Sainte-Maxime, about halfway between Cannes and St. Tropez.

Here, he would undertake an idyllic series of family portraits set on the terrace of their waterfront house.

Henri Lebasque | Afternoon Tea on the Terrace in Sainte-Maxime, 1914 | Christie's

Great paintings from the Clark Art Institute

Adrien Moreau | Contemplation, 1873

The solitary woman in Moreau's painting gazes down toward a duck pond.

Her contemplative expression -and the painting's title- suggest that she has chosen this isolated spot to be alone with her thoughts.

The woman's fashionable city clothes have been painted with a degree of detail that contrasts with the more textured brushstrokes used to describe the surrounding landscape. | Source: © Clark Art Institute

Adrien Moreau (French, 1843-1906) | Contemplation, 1873 | Clark Art Institute

Maria Martinetti | Orientalist painter

Maria Martinetti (1864-1921) was an Italian painter. She was a student of Gustavo Simoni.

She lived and exhibited in Italy and France.

In 1890 she moved to the United States.

She is known for her genre paintings.

Claude Monet | Woman in the Garden, Sainte-Adresse, 1867

This is a very early Impressionist work by the group's leader, Claude Monet.

The sunlight which floods the paintings of the Impressionists - who did most of their painting out of doors, directly from nature - here plays the central role.

Monet spent his childhood in Le Havre, which he periodically visited.

The Le Coteaux estate at Sainte-Adresse near Le Havre belonged to Monet's cousin, Paul-Eugene Lecadre.

Settling here in the summer of 1867, the artist painted several landscapes in the garden of the estate, of which "Woman in the Garden" is of central importance.

Claude Monet (1840-1926) | Woman in the Garden, Sainte-Adresse France, 1867 | Source: © State Hermitage Museum

10 Masterpieces of the Musée d’Orsay

Pierre-Auguste Renoir | Bal du moulin de la Galette, 1876

This painting is doubtless Renoir's most important work of the mid 1870's and was shown at the Impressionist exhibition in 1877.

Though some of his friends appear in the picture, Renoir's main aim was to convey the vivacious and joyful atmosphere of this popular dance garden on the Butte Montmartre.

The study of the moving crowd, bathed in natural and artificial light, is handled using vibrant, brightly coloured brushstrokes.

The somewhat blurred impression of the scene prompted negative reactions from contemporary critics.

This portrayal of popular Parisian life, with its innovative style and imposing format, a sign of Renoir's artistic ambition, is one of the masterpieces of early Impressionism. | © Musée d'Orsay, Paris

Pierre-Auguste Renoir (French, 1841-1919) | Bal du moulin de la Galette, 1876 | Musée d'Orsay, Paris

5 Masterpieces at the Uffizi Gallery

The Uffizi Gallery entirely occupies the first and second floors of the large building constructed between 1560-1580 and designed by Giorgio Vasari.

It is famous worldwide for its outstanding collections of ancient sculptures and paintings (from the Middle Ages to the Modern period).

The collections of paintings from the 14th-century and Renaissance period include some absolute masterpieces: Giotto, Simone Martini, Piero della Francesca, Beato Angelico, Filippo Lippi, Botticelli, Mantegna, Correggio, Leonardo, Raffaello, Michelangelo and Caravaggio, in addition to many precious works by European painters (mainly German, Dutch and Flemish).

Moreover, the Gallery boasts an invaluable collection of ancient statues and busts from the Medici family, which adorns the corridors and consists of ancient Roman copies of lost Greek sculptures.

Johan Zoffany (1733-1810) | Tribuna of the Uffizi, 1772-1777 | Royal Collection (UK)

Camille Pissarro | La charcutiére, 1883

Like 'The Little Country Maid', this painting was executed while the artist lived near Pontoise, north-west of Paris.

During the 1880s he became interested in painting rural market scenes, several of which were based on the markets at Pontoise and its neighbouring villages.

Such subjects allowed Pissarro to combine the study of the human figure with depictions of outdoor scenes of everyday rural life.

Although he wrote to his son Lucien that he wished the painting to have a 'certain naive freshness', hence the light and informal brushstrokes, the central figure of the 'charcutière' was painted from the model and the pose carefully studied.

Camille Pissarro | La charcutiére, 1883 | Tate Gallery

Juliette Wytsman | Impressionist painter

Juliette Wytsman (1866-1925) was a Belgian impressionist painter.

She was married to painter Rodolphe Wytsman.

Her paintings are in the collections of several museums in Belgium.

Wytsman was born as Juliette Trullemans on 14 July 1866 in Brussels, in Belgium.

She first studied under Henri Hendrickx at the Bischoffsheim Institute in Brussels.

5 Important artworks at the Tate Gallery

Tate is a family of art galleries in London, Liverpool and Cornwall, known as Tate Modern, Tate Britain, Tate St Ives and Tate Liverpool + RIBA North.

When Tate first opened its doors to the public in 1897 it had just one site, displaying a small collection of British artworks.

Today we have four major sites and the national collection of British art from 1500 to the present day and international modern and contemporary art, which includes nearly 70,000 artworks.

Henri Matisse | Reading Woman with Parasol, 1921 | Tate

Matisse painted this work while renting a house near Nice in the South of France.

The relaxed, relatively naturalistic style is typical of his work of the early 1920s.

It was bought by the Contemporary Art Society in 1926 with the intention of presenting it to the Tate Gallery.

Matisse wrote that the painting ‘will represent me as well as possible - moreover, I think that it will not frighten the acquisitions committee of the Modern Museum in London'.

In fact, the Tate initially turned it down, but accepted it in 1938.| Source: © Tate

Henri Matisse (French, 1869-1954) | Reading Woman with Parasol, 1921 | Tate Collection