Salon des Indépendants, Paris 1884

Since 1884, the Salon des Indépendants has played a key role in the history of world art.

Salon des Indépendants, annual exhibition of the Société des Artistes Indépendants, held in Paris since 1884.

In the course of revolutionary developments in painting in late 19th-century France, both artists and the public became increasingly unhappy with the rigid and exclusive policies of the official Salon, an exhibition held sporadically between 1667-1737 and annually thereafter by the Académie Royale de Peinture, which had maintained almost total control over the teaching and exhibition of art since about 1661.

Edgar Degas | Repasseuses | Musée d'Orsay

Giovanni Segantini: ".. Amè piace fare all'amore colle mie concessioni…"

• "… Sarò felice quel giorno che noi in un eletto drappello combatteremo uniti contro la volgarità per la bellezza del senso del colore, per la luce che dà vita alla natura, per la purezza viva e ardente della forma di tutte le cose che dà all’opere nostre quell’armonia ideale dell’anima che si dona all’opera per vivere in essa".

• "… Se si volesse entrare a discorrere seriamente d'arte, per farsi ben capire ed evitare equivoci, sarebbe necessario far precedere un breve trattato di psicologia (nientemeno!). Che altro è l'arte, l'arte bella, vera, elevata, se non l'immagine fotografica, il misuratore che segna il grado di perfezione dell'anima umana?"

Anna Boch | Post-impressionist painter

Anna Boch participated in the Neo-Impressionist movement.

Her early works used a Pointillist technique, but she is best known for her Impressionist style which she adopted for most of her career.

A pupil of Isidore Verheyden, she was influenced by Théo van Rysselberghe whom she met in the artistic group, Les XX.

Anna-Rosalie Boch (1848-1936), known as Anna, was a Belgian painter, art collector, and the only female member of the artistic group, Les XX.

Théo Van Rysselberghe and Les XX

Théo van Rysselberghe was one of the prominent co-founders of the Belgian artistic circle Les XX on 28 October 1883.

This was a circle of young radical artists, under the patronage, as secretary, of the Brussels jurist and art lover Octave Maus (1856-1919).

They rebelled against the outmoded academism of the time and the prevailing artistic standards.

Vincent van Gogh | The Factory at Asnières, 1887

In the late nineteenth century, the French landscape was becoming increasingly marked by signs of industry.

Van Gogh depicts a glass factory in Asnières, a suburb northwest of Paris where the artist painted frequently in the summer of 1887.

The round objects stacked along the sides of the pathway are balls of glass awaiting melting inside the buildings.

They would have been formed into lantern globes for gas streetlights and interior fixtures. | Source: © The Barnes Foundation

Vincent van Gogh | The Factory at Asnières, Summer, 1887 | The Barnes Foundation

Alfred H. Maurer | Post-impressionist painter

Alfred Henry Maurer (1868-1932) was an American Modernist painter.

He exhibited his work in avant-garde circles internationally and in New York City during the early twentieth century.

Highly respected today, his work met with little critical or commercial success in his lifetime, and he died, a suicide, at the age of sixty-four.

Ferdinand du Puigaudeau | Neo-Impressionist painter

French painter Ferdinand Loyen du Puigaudeau (1864-1896) is often known for his mystical scenes of processions and carnivals around Pont Aven and by his association with the Gauguin and the Pont Aven School.

Still, after Gauguin moved on to the Pacific and many of the other artists of the group to Paris, Puigaudeau remained on the coast, moving an estate called Kervaudu at Le Croisic, near the mouth of the Loire.

Once there, he turned his attention to the beautiful landscape of the region: coastal cliffs with twisting fig trees, flowering fields dotted with small villages.

Vincent van Gogh | The Poor and Money, 1882

'Drawing For National Lottery Today' - says the sign on the wall.

Many people have showed up for the event. Vincent wrote to his brother Theo that he saw this scene on a rainy day in The Hague.

He was moved by the vain hope of these shabbily dressed 'poor souls'.

Would the hard-earned money they spent on lottery tickets gain them anything at all?

Vincent van Gogh | The Poor and Money, 1882 (chalk, watercolour, pen and ink, on paper) | Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam

Vincent van Gogh | Pietà (after Delacroix), 1889

Van Gogh based his Pietà on a lithograph of a painting by Eugène Delacroix.

This image of the Virgin Mary mourning the dead Christ is, however, more a variation on the original work than a copy.

Van Gogh has taken Delacroix’s theme and composition and added his own colour and personal signature.

Vincent Van Gogh | The sowers series

Peasant imagery and especially that of the 'Sower' was something that Van Gogh turned to numerous times throughout his career.

His affiliation with this subject was partly as a response to the work of the romantic Realists such as Millet, and a reflection of his own socialist ideals.

The sower in particular was a figure that Van Gogh saw in terms of representing the eternal cycle of agricultural life, of honorable endeavor and tradition, and symbolized these qualities to the artist.

Vincent van Gogh | Mountains at Saint-Rémy, 1889

"Always continue walking a lot and loving nature, for that's the real way to learn to understand art better and better.

Painters understand nature and love it, and teach us to see" 

- Vincent van Gogh's letter to his brother Theo, 1874.

Vincent van Gogh | Mountains at Saint-Rémy, 1889 | Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York

During the years preceding his suicide in 1890, Vincent van Gogh suffered increasingly frequent attacks of mental distress, the cause of which remains unclear.

"Mountains at Saint-Rémy" was painted in July 1889, when Van Gogh was recovering from just such an episode at the hospital of Saint-Paul-de-Mausole in the southern French town of Saint-Rémy.

Van Gogh, Rembrandt and the Rijksmuseum

Vincent van Gogh travelled to Amsterdam in 1885 to visit the Rijksmuseum, which had recently opened.

On the day of his visit he painted his "View of Amsterdam from Central Station".

The paint still wet, he took the new work with him to the Rijksmuseum.

Vincent van Gogh | Wheat field, 1888 | Rijksmuseum

Mario Puccini | The Italian van Gogh

Mario Puccini (1869, Livorno - 1920, Florence) was an Italian Post-Macchiaioli painter, who specialized in landscapes and village scenes.

He was sometimes referred to as "The Italian Van Gogh".

His father was a baker. He worked in his father's bakery and sketched as a hobby until his talent was noticed by Giovanni Fattori, who encouraged him to enroll at the Academy of Fine Arts of Florence, which he did, against parental objections, in 1884 when he was only fifteen.

Reuven Rubin | Post‐impressionist painter

Reuven Rubin (1893-1974) was a Romanian-born Israeli painter and Israel's first ambassador to Romania.

Rubin Zelicovici (later Reuven Rubin) was born in Galaţi to a poor Romanian Jewish Hasidic family. He was the eighth of 13 children.

In 1912, he left for Ottoman-ruled Palestine to study art at Bezalel Academy of Art and Design in Jerusalem.

Finding himself at odds with the artistic views of the Academy's teachers, he left for Paris, France, in 1913 to pursue his studies at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts.

Edward Atkinson Hornel (1864-1933)

Edward Atkinson Hornel (1864-1933) was a Scottish painter of landscapes, flowers and foliage, with children.

He was a cousin of James Hornell. His contemporaries in the Glasgow Boys called him Ned Hornel.

Hornel was born in Bacchus Marsh, Victoria, Australia, of Scottish parents, and he was brought up and lived practically all his life in Scotland after his family moved back to Kirkcudbright in 1866.

Pierre Bonnard: "Art will never be able to exist without nature".

Pierre Bonnard (1867-1947) was a French painter, illustrator and printmaker, known especially for the stylized decorative qualities of his paintings and his bold use of color.

A founding member of the Post-Impressionist group of avant-garde painters Les Nabis, his early work was strongly influenced by the work of Paul Gauguin, as well as the prints of Hokusai and other Japanese artists.

Bonnard was a leading figure in the transition from Impressionism to Modernism.

He painted landscapes, urban scenes, portraits and intimate domestic scenes, where the backgrounds, colors and painting style usually took precedence over the subject.

Vincent van Gogh's suicide letter

Vincent van Gogh was an influential artist during the nineteenth century.

Widely believed to have been struggling with depression and insanity, he went out to a nearby field and shot himself in the chest, before stumbling back to his house where his brother Theo cared for him for two days, before he finally died.

Although he had sent a letter to Theo only three days earlier, he was carrying another letter to his brother on his person at the time of his suicide, largely seen as a suicide note.

Van Gogh severed his own ear with a razor in 1888 | The Courtauld Gallery London

Vincent van Gogh | Studies of heads

Van Gogh considered the modern portrait to be the most important genre for painters.

"What I’m most passionate about, much more than all the rest in my profession - is the portrait, the modern portrait.

I seek it by way of colour, and am certainly not alone in seeking it in this way’, wrote Vincent to this sister Willemien in 1890.

Vincent van Gogh | Head of a woman | Van Gogh Museum

Aleksandre Vashakmadze, 1994 | Inspired by Van Gogh

Aleksandre Vashakmadze was born in Tbilisi, Georgia.

He started drawing at the age of 2 and quickly grew to paintings in his childhood.

His love for art never stopped, but continued into college and after.

The purpose of his paintings is to show Gods creation in his perspective, he brings to life in his paintings his inner world, dealing with things such as trauma, madness, joy, and an inner childlike kindness.

Vincent van Gogh inspires AI Art

Vincent van Gogh (Dutch post-Impressionist painter, 1853-1890) became famous after his suicide, aged 37, which followed years of poverty and mental illness.

Despite his tragic life, van Gogh’s exceptional talent and painting style continue to captivate art enthusiasts worldwide.

In an intriguing blend of van Gogh’s artistic legacy and cutting-edge AI technology, these images capture the essence of van Gogh’s characteristic brushstrokes, color palette, and emotive quality, paying homage to his genius while showcasing the potential of AI in art.