François-Alfred Delobbe | Genre painter

François-Alfred Delobbe, (13 October 1835, Paris - 10 February 1920, Paris) was a French painter in the Naturalist style.

He was a student of Thomas Couture and William Bouguereau at the École des Beaux-arts, where he had been admitted at the age of sixteen, and had his debut at the Salon in 1861 with a portrait of his mother.

Claude Debussy | Arabesque No. 2. | Allegretto scherzando

The second arabesque in G major is noticeably quicker and more lively in tempo.

It opens with left hand chords and right hand trills.

The piece makes several transpositions and explores a lower register of the piano.

Again notable is a hint of the pentatonic scale.

It closes in a similar fashion to the first arabesque.

Claude Monet | Flower Beds at Vétheuil | Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Francesca (Fanny) Carlini | Fruttivendolo veneziano

Francesca (Fanny) Carlini (Venezia, 1859-1944), figlia del ritrattista Giulio Carlini (Venezia, 1826-1887), segue con buon successo la strada del padre.

E’ una delle prime donne a diplomarsi all’Accademia di Belle Arti di Venezia, intraprendendo poi una carriera che la vedrà vincitrice nel 1884 della Medaglia d’argento del Crystal Palace a Londra.

Rocco Normanno, 1974 | Caravaggio's inspired painter

Rocco Normanno was born in Taurisano, a small town in the province of Lecce.

There, he completed his secondary education at the Professional Institute for Commerce, and, in 2003, he graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Florence.

Normanno currently lives and works in Tuscany.

Rocco Normanno stands out as an artist who freely expresses himself with an autonomous language, but who refers to Caravaggio’s poetics by painting ordinary people, making them become great interpreters of biblical or mythological themes revisited in own way.

Franz Liszt | La Campanella

"La campanella" (Italian for "The little bell") is the subtitle given to the third of Franz Liszt's six Grandes études de Paganini, S. 141 (1851). It is in the key of G-sharp minor.

"La campanella" is a revision of an earlier version from 1838, the Études d'exécution transcendante d'après Paganini, S. 140.

Its melody comes from the final movement of Niccolò Paganini's Violin Concerto No. 2 in B minor, where the tune was reinforced by a "little handbell".

Václav Brožík | Academic painter

Václav Brožík (1851-1901) was a Czech painter who worked in the academic style.

Brožík was born on 6 March 1851 in Třemošná, Bohemia, Austrian Empire (now the Czech Republic).

He came from a poor family, studying lithography and porcelain painting through apprenticeships.

Louis-Ernest Barrias | Romantic / Art Nouveau sculptor

Louis-Ernest Barrias (1841-1905) was a French sculptor of the Beaux-Arts school.

In 1865 Barrias won the Prix de Rome for study at the French Academy in Rome.

Barrias was involved in the decoration of the Paris Opéra and the Hôtel de la Païva in the Champs-Élysées.

His work was mostly in marble, in a Romantic realist style indebted to Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux.

Nikolay Bogdanov-Belsky | At School Doors, 1897

Descending from peasant class, Nikolai Bogdanov-Belsky dedicated a significant portion of his work to rural schoolchildren.

His heroes hover indecisively at the classroom door, solve problems at the blackboard, read books or converse with the teacher.

The master's idealistic paintings upheld the notion that education was capable of improving public morality and overcoming the backwardness of the Russian countryside.

This lovingly painted and slightly sentimental canvas was possibly inspired by the personal memories of the artist, who attended Sergei Rachinsky's village school in Tatevo, Smolensk Province.

Ilya Repin | Historical / Genre painter

Ilya Yefimovich Repin / Илья́ Ефи́мович Ре́пин, (1844-1930), Russian painter of historical subjects known for the power and drama of his works.

Born to a poor family near Kharkov, Repin learned his trade from a painter of icons named Bunakov and in 1864 became a student at the Academy of Fine Arts at St. Petersburg.

Salvatore Quasimodo | Il girasole piega a occidente / Almost a Madrigal

Il girasole piega a occidente

e già precipita il giorno nel suo

occhio in rovina e l'aria dell'estate

s'addensa e già curva le foglie e il fumo

dei cantieri. S'allontana con scorrere

secco di nubi e stridere di fulmini

quest'ultimo gioco del cielo. Ancora,

Vincent van Gogh | Sunflowers, 1888

Anne Sexton | Noi / Us

Ero avvolta nella pelliccia

nera, nella pelliccia bianca

e tu mi svolgevi

e in una luce d’oro

poi m’incoronasti,

mentre fuori dardi di neve

diagonali battevano alla porta.

Joseph Lorusso

Gwenneth Barth-White | Pastel painter

American-born Swiss international artist Gwenneth Barth-White is a Maître Pastelliste of the 150-year-old Société des Pastellistes de France and has served as its Vice President for many years.

She's a Master Pastelist of the Pastel Society of America, and a Signature Member of the Portrait Society of America, where she has served as faculty.

Her work has been exhibited in Geneva, Gstaad, New York, Toronto, Paris, and in many French and American venues.

Hugues Merle | The Lunatic of Etretat, 1871

"The Lunatic of Etretat" is a painting by French Academic artist Hugues Merle (1822-1881).

It is part of the collection of the Chrysler Museum of Art, in Norfolk, Virginia.

The woman’s face is a mask of suffering while she cradles, not a sleeping baby, but a wooden log!

Is Merle’s "Lunatic" mourning the loss of a child, or mad with longing for one?

Hugues Merle | Genre painter

From National Gallery of Art:

Born in 1823 at Saint-Marcellin (Isère), Hugues Merle studied in Paris with the history painter Léon Cogniet (1794-1880) and devoted himself to a wide range of subjects, from religious themes and historical anecdotes to incidents from contemporary life, particularly of the urban and rural poor.

His greatest popular successes, however, were won by scenes of maternal affection and childhood innocence that he sought to imbue with impish sweetness and sentimentality.

Pablo Neruda | Your Laughter

Take bread away from me, if you wish,

take air away, but

do not take from me your laughter.

Do not take away the rose,

the lance flower that you pluck,

the water that suddenly

Pierre-Auguste Renoir | Dance at Bougival, 1883 | Museum of Fine Arts Boston

Agim Sulaj, 1960 | Surreal satirical illustrator

Born in Valona, Agim Sulaj, is an Albanian painter, living in Rimini, Italy since 1990 and having Italian citizenship.

After high school, in 1978 Agim Sulaj entered the Tirana Academy des Baux Artes, and completed his studies at the Fine Arts Academy of Tirana in 1985.

As a painter, he started working in the political and satirical magazine Hosteni, producing illustrations and caricatures.

Mario Mariotti | Handimals

The remarkable Italian artist Mario Mariotti (1936-1997) was a conceptual artist who transforms his hands into odd, fantastic creatures.

He can turn hands into almost anything.

His book "Animani" showcased a great variety of wild animals and birds -- all hands, adorned with a lot of paint, a few toothpicks, string and some button eyes.

Philippe Faraut, 1963 | Figurative sculptor

Philippe Faraut is a figurative artist specializing in life-size portrait sculptures and monumental stone sculptures.

His media of choice are water-based clay and marble.

From his extensive research of the human face he developed a technique of modeling the portrait that he shares with his sculpting students during his numerous sculpting classes and seminars taught hroughout the US.

Paul Cheng, 1958 | Ballet Dancers

OPA Signature Member, Art Gallery Painter, Award-Winning Artist, Sr. Illustrator in Animation and Gaming field, Paul Cheng was born in Guangzhou, China.

- "My youth was the decade of China’s Cultural Revolution", he says.

"There were no art teachers and no art teaching books.

I had to explore painting by myself and find some art loving students to draw and paint together".

Wisława Szymborska | Hatred

See how efficient it still is,

how it keeps itself in shape -

our century’s hatred.

How easily it vaults the tallest obstacles.

How rapidly it pounces, tracks us down.

It is not like other feelings.

At once both older and younger.

René Magritte