Louis Aragon | Tutte le parole del mondo / Toutes les paroles du monde…

Quando tutte insieme le parole del mondo ti avrò dato

Tutte le foreste d’America e tutte le messi notturne del cielo

Quando ti avrò dato ciò che brilla e ciò che l’occhio non può vedere

Tutto il fuoco della terra come una coppa di lacrime

Il seme maschile delle specie diluviane

E la mano di un bambino

Sergey Shenderovsky

Marc Chagall's America Windows, 1977

The America Windows are a stunning display of the iconic style of one of the world’s most prolific and expressive artists.

They capture Marc Chagall’s unique vision as he reflected, late in his career, on the resilience and freedom of the creative spirit.

At eight feet high and thirty feet across, these stained glass windows are a vast arrangement of colors of the highest intensity - bright reds, oranges, yellows, and greens - placed against brilliant shades of blue. Representations of people, animals, and items such as writing implements, musical instruments, and artists’ tools float above a skyline of buildings and trees.

Paul-Louis Delance | Allegorical / History painter

Paul-Louis Delance (1848-1924) was a French painter and educator.

He is known for his allegorical and genre scene paintings early in his career, and his religious, and landscape paintings later in his career.

Paul-Louis Gustave Delance was born on March 14, 1848, in Paris, France.

His grandfather was Comte Joseph van Roosebeck from Belgium.

Jean-André Rixens | Orientalist painter

Jean-André Rixens (1846-1925) was a French painter, known for his classical scenes and portraits.

He was born in Saint-Gaudens. His father was a master shoemaker.

After completing his basic education, he was enrolled in 1860 at the École supérieure des beaux-arts de Toulouse.

He paid for his tuition there and supported himself by painting commercial signs and making copies of artworks.

Albert Camus | Invincibile estate / Within Me

Mia cara,

nel bel mezzo dell’odio

ho scoperto che vi era in me

un invincibile amore.

Nel bel mezzo delle lacrime

ho scoperto che vi era in me

un invincibile sorriso.

Marc Chagall

Marc Chagall | The Tree of Life, 1963 | Stained glass

The Tree of Life or The Peace window - La Paix ou L’Arbre de vie - at the chapel of Cordeliers of Sarrebourg, a small town in the Vosges Mountains in France, is a stained-glass window about 15 feet (4,6 meters) wide and 12 feet (3,7 meters) high, contains several symbols of peace and love, such as the young child in the center, being kissed by an angelic face which emerges from a mass of flowers.

The Peace Window / Tree of Life is the largest stained-glass window made by Marc Chagall.

On the left, below and above, motherhood and the people who are struggling for peace are depicted.

Musical symbols in the panel evoke thoughts of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, which was a favourite of Mr. Hammarskjöld's.

Jehan-Georges Vibert | Academic painter

Jehan Georges Vibert or Jean Georges Vibert (1840-1902) was a French academic painter.

He was born in Paris, the son of engraver and publisher Théodore Vibert, and grandson of the influential rose-breeder Jean-Pierre Vibert.

He began his artistic training at a young age under the instruction of his maternal grandfather, engraver Jean-Pierre-Marie Jazet.

Vibert was more interested in painting than engraving and entered the studio of Félix-Joseph Barrias and eventually the École des Beaux-Arts when he was sixteen.

Louis Béroud (1852-1930)

Louis Béroud (1852-1930) was a French painter, a student of Léon Bonnat, renowned for his detailed and realistic works, often depicting interior scenes of famous museums, including the Louvre.

Some of his paintings are visible at the Musée Carnavalet and The Louvre in Paris.

He was awarded the medal of honour at the Salon in 1882 and won the bronze medal at the Universal.

Claude Monet | Nazi looting / Il saccheggio nazista

Under the Nazi regime, both in Germany from 1933 and in German-occupied countries until 1945, Jewish art collectors of Monet were robbed by Nazis and their agents.

Several of the stolen artworks have been returned to their rightful owners, while others have been the object of court battles.

In 2014, during the spectacular discovery of a hidden trove of art in Munich, a Monet that had belonged to a Jewish retail magnate was found in the suitcase of Cornelius Gurlitt, the son of one of Hitler's official dealers of looted art, Hildebrand Gurlitt.

Claude Monet | Fécamp, bord de mer

Emily Dickinson | Marzo: Mese di attesa / March: Month of expectation, 1877

Marzo: mese di attesa.

Le cose che ignoriamo -

E le persone del nostro presagio

Sono in cammino -

Ci sforziamo di fingere fermezza -

Come si deve, ma la gioia solenne

Claude Monet | Strada Romana at Bordighera | Museum Barberini

Mariangela Gualtieri | Amore mio / My love

Amore mio,

è difficile da questo fondo, da questo finale, dire come mi manchi,

come immenso tu sei nel mancare, adesso che mi sono persa

fra masse dure, fra cinghie di buio pesto, senza divinità,

senza la tua mano che tutto sorregge.

Marc Chagall | The Lovers, 1929

Auguste Rodin | L'Adieu / Farewell, 1898

The Farewell or The Convalescent / L'adieu - is composed of Camille Claudel with short hair (1884) and two independent hands added in front of her face, the work attests to Rodin's passion for assemblages, evident in both his narrative and portraiture registers.

By placing her head and hands on a block of plaster, Rodin shed light on his thoughts about pedestals.

The construction causes Camille's face to stand out slightly from the plaster block and conveys a sense of slow absorption that contributes to the melancholy of the composition.

Auguste Rodin | L'Adieu /Farewell, 1898 | Musée Rodin, Paris

Loïc Jouannigot, 1953 | Children's book illustrator

Loïc Jouannigot, born in Brittany, France, is a children's book illustrator.

A graduate of the École des Beaux-Arts, he has worked for the children's book and advertising industries.

From 1987 onwards, he became known more widely as an illustrator of children's literature, with the beginning of a long series of publications on "La famille Passiflore" ("Beechwood Bunny Tails") with texts by Geneviève Huriet.

This serie has been a real best-seller, being translated in 28 languages.

Louis Aragon | Non esistono amori felici / There is no happy love, 1943

Nulla appartiene all’uomo. Né la sua forza

Né la sua debolezza né il suo cuore E quando crede

Di aprire le braccia la sua ombra è quella di una croce

E quando crede di stringere la felicità la stritola

La sua vita è uno strano e doloroso divorzio

Non esistono amori felici.

Marc Chagall

Charles Baudelaire | Inno alla bellezza / Hymn to Beauty

Vieni dal cielo profondo o esci dall’abisso,

Bellezza? Il tuo sguardo, divino e infernale,

dispensa alla rinfusa il sollievo e il crimine,

ed in questo puoi essere paragonata al vino.

Daniel Gerhartz | Green velvet

Claude Debussy / Paul Verlaine | Clair de Lune, 1869

Clair de Lune is a French poem written by Paul Verlaine (French poet associated with the Symbolist movement and the Decadent movement, 1844-1896) in 1869.

It is the inspiration for the third and most famous movement of Debussy's 1890 Suite bergamasque of the same name.

The poem has also been set to music by Gabriel Fauré.

Lucien Lévy-Dhurmer | Sérénade au clair de lune, Venise | Christie's

Henri Chapu | Jeanne d'Arc à Domremy, 1873

19th-century France was fascinated by the figure of Joan of Arc, an historical, mythified heroine who figured in the readily anti-British nationalist movement in the second half of the 19th century.

Henri Chapu (French sculptor, 1833-1891), a classical sculptor who explored a sincere, elegant form of naturalism with great finesse, chose to represent not the warrior maiden in a suit of armour but the shepherdess from Lorraine listening to the voices asking her to help the king to liberate the kingdom.

Henri Chapu | Jeanne d'Arc à Domremy, 1873 | Musée d'Orsay, Paris

Pierre-Auguste Renoir | Femme en promenade, 1890

Pierre-Auguste Renoir demonstrated affinity toward portraiture, evidenced by its prevalence in and importance to his oeuvre.

He had a range of patrons, and in fact, his success and resultant legacy as an artist is intimately tied to his penchant for depicting women and children.

In the Paris Salon of 1879, he exhibited a family portrait of Madame Charpentier titled Portrait de Madame Charpentier et ses enfants.

Madame Charpentier was the wife of the publisher of Emile Zola, Gustave Flaubert, and the Goncourt brothers, and this initial work spurred his popularity and resulted in an increasing number of portrait commissions following its public exhibition.

Pierre-Auguste Renoir | Femme en promenade, 1890 | Christie's

Francois Fressinier, 1968 | Figurative painter

Born in Cognac, France to scholarly portrait photographer parents with an affinity for aesthetics, it was fitting that modern figurative artist, François Fressinier, would develop a unique, enchanting style.

His father's admiration for the works of the Old Masters and his exposure to some of the world's most historic places, along with France's Gallo-Roman ruins and Gothic churches inclined François to explore and create figurative, symbolic artwork.

In addition, his education at the Ecole Brassart in Tours afforded him the opportunity to study the drawings and paintings of old and new masters.

Marlène Dietrich and Édith Piaf

"My Friend Édith Piaf" by Marlène Dietrich

From the autobiographical book Marlène D., 1984

"In my eyes, she really was the sparrow, the little bird whose name she bore.

But she was also Jezebel, whose unquenchable thirst for love must have been due to a feeling of imperfection, her 'ugliness', as she put it -- her delicate, scrawny body, which she sent forth into battle like Circe, the Sirens and Lorelei, the temptress who with her incomparable vitality promised all the pleasures of the world".

Marlene Dietrich ed Édith Piaf, 1952