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

5 Masterpieces at the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum

Pierre-Auguste Renoir | Woman with a Parasol in a Garden, 1875

In Woman with a Parasol in a Garden, Renoir’s language is wholly impressionistic: in a setting lacking a visible horizon, the flowers and shrubs are created with tiny dabs of colour, providing a constant interweaving of textures around the two small figures.

The woman, whose parasol shades her from the sun, stands close to the man as he leans down, perhaps to pick a flower, hinting at an intimate relationship.

Contrary to what one may think, this canvas was not painted in the countryside but in the garden of Renoir’s new studio in Montmartre.

His friend George Rivière recalled: "As soon as Renoir entered the house, he was charmed by the view of this garden, which looked like a beautiful abandoned park".

Pierre-Auguste Renoir | Woman with a Parasol in a Garden, 1875 | Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid

10 masterpieces at the Museo Nacional del Prado

Fernando Yáñez de la Almedina | Santa Caterina, 1510 | Museo Nacional del Prado

This is one of the Spanish Renaissance’s most emblematic depictions of a female figure and the best known of Yáñez de la Almedina’s works.

Both considerations are due to the visibility this work has received at the Museo del Prado, where it has been one of the essential icons in its galleries of 16th-century Spanish painting ever since it arrived in 1946.

According to Jacopo de la Vorágine’s The Golden Legend, Saint Catherine of Alexandria was a young, wise and virtuous princess who loved the Lord.

Fernando Yáñez de la Almedina (1489-1536) | Santa Caterina, 1510 | Museo Nacional del Prado

Paolo Sala | Veduta painter

Paolo Sala (1859-1924) was an Italian painter, mainly of vedute and genre scenes.

He often painted dal vero, that is, en plein air.

He was also known for his ability to paint animals in rural scenes.

He founded the Lombard Association of Watercolor painters in 1911.

Margaret Mead | Remember me / Ricordati di me

Years ago, American cultural anthropologist, author and speaker Margaret Mead (1901-1978) was asked by a student what she considered to be the first sign of civilization in a culture.

The student expected Mead to talk about fishhooks or clay pots or grinding stones.

But no. Mead said that the "first sign of civilization in an ancient culture was a femur (thighbone) that had been broken and then healed".

Mead explained that in the animal kingdom, if you break your leg, you die.

"You cannot run from danger, get to the river for a drink or hunt for food.

You are meat for prowling beasts.

No animal survives a broken leg long enough for the bone to heal.

A broken femur that has healed is evidence that someone has taken time to stay with the one who fell, has bound up the wound, has carried the person to safety and has tended the person through recovery.

Helping someone else through difficulty is where civilization starts", Mead said.

Margaret Mead | Remember me

To the living, I am gone,

To the sorrowful, I will never return,

To the angry, I was cheated,

But to the happy, I am at peace,

And to the faithful, I have never left.

Dame Laura Knight | The Dark Pool, 1908-1918

Pascal Campion, 1973 | Conceptual illustrator / animator

Pascal Campion is a French American prolific illustrator and storyteller. He has worked decades in the field of animation, illustration and commercials.

Born in River Edge, New Jersey, Pascal began his art career at a very young age of seven when his older brother Sean, gave him the task of "copying" comic books covers in exchange for Pascal to read the comics!

At the age of three, his family relocated back to the south of France, where he spent hours sketching and drawing both comics and the beautiful landscapes of Provence.

In 1998 Pascal began his studying narrative illustration at Arts Decoratifs de Strasbourg, in France.

Igor Levashov [Игорь Левашов] 1964 | Flower painter

Born near Moscow, Russian painter Игорь Левашов entered the School for Young Painters in 1997 and the world-famed Sourykoff Institute in Moscow in 1984.

He finished his formal training at the Royal Academy of Modern Art in the Hague in 1996.

In this age he discovered his love and passion for flowers.

His detailed paintings are done in oil in a one-time-session.

Hermann Hesse | In the Fog / Nella Nebbia / Im Nebel

Strano vagare nella nebbia!

È solo ogni cespuglio ed ogni pietra,

né gli alberi si scorgono tra loro,

ognuno è solo.

Pieno di amici mi appariva il mondo

quando era la mia vita ancora chiara;

adesso che la nebbia cala

non ne vedo più alcuno.

Julius Von Leypold | Wanderer in the Storm, 1835 | Metropolitan Museum of Art

Wisława Szymborska | Il poeta ed il mondo

Descritta dal comitato per il Nobel come il "Mozart della poesia" ma con "qualcosa della furia di Beethoven", Wisława Szymborska (1923-2012) è stata insignita del Premio Nobel per la letteratura nel 1996 "per una poesia che, con ironica precisione, permette al contesto storico e biologico di venire alla luce in frammenti d'umana realtà".

Il discorso della poetessa Wislawa Szymborska alla consegna del premio Nobel

7 dicembre 1996

(✔en) In un discorso, a quanto pare, la prima frase è sempre la più difficile.

Ebbene, la prima è comunque andata.

Ma ho la sensazione che anche le frasi successive - la terza, la sesta, la decima e così via, fino all'ultima parola - saranno altrettanto difficili, perché si suppone che io parli di poesia.

Pawel Kuczynski

Wisława Szymborska | The poet and the world

Described by the Nobel committee as the "Mozart of poetry" but with "something of the fury of Beethoven", Wisława Szymborska (1923-2012) was awarded the 1996 Nobel Prize in Literature "for poetry that with ironic precision allows the historical and biological context to come to light in fragments of human reality".

Wisława Szymborska | Nobel Lecture

December 7, 1996

(✔it) They say the first sentence in any speech is always the hardest. Well, that one's behind me, anyway. But I have a feeling that the sentences to come - the third, the sixth, the tenth, and so on, up to the final line - will be just as hard, since I'm supposed to talk about poetry.

I've said very little on the subject, next to nothing, in fact. And whenever I have said anything, I've always had the sneaking suspicion that I'm not very good at it. This is why my lecture will be rather short. All imperfection is easier to tolerate if served up in small doses.

Jonathan Wolstenholme

Antonia Pozzi | La vita sognata, 1933

Chi mi parla non sa

che io ho vissuto un’altra vita -

come chi dica

una fiaba

o una parabola santa.

Perchè tu eri

la purità mia,

tu cui un’onda bianca

di tristezza cadeva sul volto

Amedeo Modigliani | Portrait of Jeanne Hebuterne with her Left Arm Behind her Head

Lettere d'amore | Eleonora Duse a Gabriele D’Annunzio: "Eccoti l’anima mia"

Eleonora Duse (1858-1924) incontra per la prima volta Gabriele D'Annunzio (Scrittore, poeta, drammaturgo, militare, politico, giornalista, 1863-1938) nel 1882, a Roma: quest'ultimo è un giovane affascinante, venuto da poco dagli Abruzzi, ma già potendo vantare la pubblicazione di tre sue opere.

Compare davanti alla Duse e le propone, tout court, di andare a letto con lui.

Eleonora lo congeda con sdegno, ma forse anche con un segreto compiacimento (in quel giorno lo descrive: Già famoso e molto attraente, con i capelli biondi e qualcosa di ardente nella sua persona).

Vittorio Matteo Corcos | Portrait of actress Eleonora Duse | Christie's

Luigi Nono | Genre painter

Luigi Nono (1850-1918) was an Venetian painter.

A young Nono entered the Accademia of Venice, then under the leadership of Pompeo Marino Molmenti. But by at the age of twenty years, he went to Polcenigo in the Friulian countryside, and he began to refine his style of landscape paintings, including Sull' Avemaria, Le sorgenti del Gorgazzo, Ritorno dai campi and Verso sera.

He later returned to painting genre subjects of everyday life, and these paintings would prove to be his most influential.

Peter Falk (Lieutenant Columbo), the painter

Peter Michael Falk (September 16, 1927 - June 23, 2011) was an American film and television actor, singer and television director and producer.

He is best known for his role as Lieutenant Columbo on the NBC/ABC series Columbo (1968-1978, 1989-2003), for which he won four Primetime Emmy Awards (1972, 1975, 1976, 1990) and a Golden Globe Award (1973).

In 1996, TV Guide ranked Falk No. 21 on its 50 Greatest TV Stars of All Time list.

He received a posthumous star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2013.

Federico Garcia Lorca | Desiderio / Wish

Solo il tuo cuore ardente…

niente più.

Il mio paradiso…

un campo senza usignolo né lire,

con un fiume discreto e una fontanella.

Senza lo sprone del vento sopra le fronde

né la stella che vuole essere foglia.

Tranquillo Cremona | The ivy / Edera, 1878

Konstantinos Kavafis | La Città / Η Πόλις / The City

Hai detto: "Andrò per altra terra ed altro mare.

Una città migliore di questa ci sarà.

Tutti gli sforzi sono condanna scritta. E qua

giace sepolto, come un morto, il cuore.

E fino a quando, in questo desolato languore?

Pavlos Samios / Παύλος Σάμιος (1948-2021)

Keishi Sakurai, 1974 | Romantic painter

Keishi Sakurai / 桜井 敬史 graduated from the Tokyo University of Arts in 1999, with major in Nihonga (Japanese Painting).

Keishi applies natural mineral pigments, rock paint, natural stone and hide glue on Japanese paper to create his paintings.

Keishi’s works depicting scenes from Japan, Europe, Asia, and bring a gentle feeling of serenity, viewers experience a blissful sense of tranquility when appreciating his works.

At present Keishi lives and works in Tokyo.

Legge di Murphy: "La necessità procura strani compagni di letto"

Della Umanologia | Capitolo Decimo

Prima legge di socio-genetica

• Il celibato non è ereditario.

Principio di Beifeld

• Le probabilità che un giovane maschio incontri una giovane femmina attraente e disponibile aumentano in proporzione geometrica quando è con:

1) la fidanzata,

2) la moglie,

3) un amico più bello e più ricco.

Salvador Dali | Couple aux têtes pleines de nuages, 1939 | Boijmans Van Beuningen Museum, Rotterdam