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

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?"

Hermann Hesse | Vieni con me!

Vieni con me!

Devi affrettarti però -

sette lunghe miglia

io faccio ad ogni passo.

Dietro il bosco ed il colle

aspetta il mio cavallo rosso.

Gis de Maeyer

Hermann Hesse | Favola d'Amore...

Dalla unione della pittura e la scrittura nasce la "Favola d'amore", un libretto illustrato interamente a colori, in cui la narrazione ed i dipinti del premio Nobel Hermann Hesse (1877-1962) si fondono in un unicum inscindibile per descrivere la vicenda di un giovane pittore, Pictor.

Quest'ultimo, vagando per il Paradiso, incontra un uccello dai mille colori.

A lui Pictor pone la domanda delle domande: "Dov'è dunque la felicità"?, forza inspiegabile e misteriosa.

La "Favola d'Amore" è dedicata a Ruth Wenger, cantante lirica che diventò seconda moglie di Hesse due anni dopo la pubblicazione del manoscritto.

John Simmons (1823-1876) | Hermia and Lysander: A Midsummer Night's Dream, 1870 | Sotheby's

Gustave Poetzsch | Belle Époque painter

Swiss painter of the Belle Époque, Gustave Poetzsch (1870-1950) was born in Neuchâtel where he started to learn painting very young.

Swiss mountains and lakes were the first inspiring influence for the young painter turned to nature.

As he wanted to improve his technique, he went to Paris in 1892 and joined the Julian Academy.

He entered the Fine Art School in 1895 and studied in the class of Gustave Moreau near Henri Matisse, Charles Camoin and Paul de Frick.

Angelica Kauffmann | Neoclassical painter

Angelica Kauffmann (1741-1807) was a painter in the early Neoclassical style who is best known for her decorative wall paintings for residences designed by Robert Adam.

The daughter of Johann Joseph Kauffmann, a painter, Angelica was a precocious child and a talented musician and painter by her 12th year.

Her early paintings were influenced by the French Rococo works of Henri Gravelot and François Boucher.

Carl Schlesinger | Genre / Landscape painter

Carl Schlesinger (1825-1893) was a Swiss-German genre and landscape painter.

Schlesinger began his painting apprenticeship in Hamburg, with Gerdt Hardorff and Hermann Kauffmann and continued it in 1844 at the Prague Academy with Christian Ruben.

Adolfo Feragutti Visconti | Verist painter

Adolfo Feragutti Visconti (1850 in Pura, Canton Ticino - 1924 in Milan) was an Italian / Swiss painter, of eclectic styles and subjects, including orientalist themes, genre works and landscapes.

Orphan of father by the age of 16, Fergutti Visconti enrolled at the Brera Academy of Fine Arts when he was 18, where he studied with Luigi Bisi, and made his debut in 1873 as a perspective painter.

Attracted by the work of the Milanese Scapigliatura movement, he was one of the first members of the Famiglia Artistica.

Henri-Frédéric Amiel: "The masses will always be below the average".. 1871

Journal Intime / 12th June 1871: - "Numbers make law, but goodness has nothing to do with figures.

Every fiction is self-expiating, and democracy rests upon this legal fiction, that the majority has not only force but reason on its side - that it possesses not only the right to act but the wisdom necessary for action.

The fiction is dangerous because of its flattery; the demagogues have always flattered the private feelings of the masses.

René Magritte (1898-1967) | Le lieu commun, 1964 | Christie's

Jean-Etienne Liotard | Orientalist Pastel painter

Jean Etienne Liotard | Woman in Turkish Dress, Seated on a Sofa, 1752 | The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Jean-Etienne Liotard was a widely traveled artist whose French Huguenot family had settled in Geneva, where he was born, owing to the passage of the Edict of Nantes.

From 1738 to 1742 he lived in Istanbul (Constantinople) and thereafter painted genre scenes of non-Muslim women in Turkish costume, such as this one, which were greatly admired throughout western Europe.

In pastel, his technique is colorful and exceptionally smooth and flawless.

Jean Etienne Liotard | Woman in Turkish Dress, seated on a Sofa, 1752 (pastel over red chalk underdrawing on parchment) | The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Ottilie Roederstein | Portrait painter

Ottilie Wilhelmine Roederstein (22 April 1859 - 26 November 1937) was a German-Swiss painter.

She was the long-time companion of Elisabeth Winterhalter, one of the first female doctors in Germany.

Roederstein was born in Zürich, Switzerland.

Gustave François Barraud (Swiss, 1883-1964)

Gustave François Barraud (Geneva, 1883-1964) was an Swiss painter, illustrator and designer.

Is particularly well known for his still lifes, flowers, landscapes, portraits, female figures, wood engravings and lithographs.

Maurice Barraud (Swiss, 1889-1954)

Maurice Barraud (born on February 20, 1889 in Geneva and died on 11 novembre 1954 in the same city), was a Swiss painter and illustrator.

At a young age, Maurice Barraud, together with his brother, Gustave François, who later also established himself as a painter, led a studio for advertising graphics.

He also studied painting and modeling at the École des Beaux-Arts.

In 1914, he moved to painting and, together with his brother, Émile Bressler, Gustave Buchet and others, founded the artist group "Le Falot".

Gustave Buchet | Futurist painter

Gustave Louis Buchet (1888-1963) was a painter from the canton of Vaudv - Swiss Confederation, active in Paris during the interwar period, marked by Futurism and then Purism.

Gustave Buchet began his artistic training with four years of study at the École des Beaux-Arts in Geneva, where he was particularly influenced by Eugène Gilliard.

From 1910-11 he attended, for four months, the Académie de la Grande Chaumiere in Paris and then returned back to Geneva.

Eugenè Burnand (1850-1921) | Naturalist painter

Eugène Burnand was a prolific Swiss painter and illustrator from Moudon, Switzerland.

Born of prosperous parents who taught him to appreciate art and the countryside, he first trained as an architect but quickly realised his vocation was painting.

He studied art in Geneva and Paris then settled in Versailles.

In the course of his life he travelled widely and lived at various times in Florence, Montpellier, Seppey (Moudon) and Neuchâtel.

Carlo Bossoli | Orientalist painter

Carlo Bossoli (6 December 1815, in Lugano - 1 August 1884, in Turin) was a Swiss-born Italian painter and lithographer, who spent his early career in Russia. He is best known for historical scenes from the Risorgimento.

His father was a stonemason of Italian origin, working in Switzerland. In 1820, his family moved to accept work in Odessa.

Until 1826, he studied with the Capuchins. After graduating, he worked in a shop that sold antiquarian books and prints. It was there that he began to draw and sketch.

Ferdinand Hodler | Art Nouveau painter

Ferdinand Hodler (1853-1918) was one of the best-known Swiss painters of the nineteenth century. His early works were portraits, landscapes and genre paintings in a realistic style.

Later, he adopted a personal form of Symbolism which he called "Parallelism".

Hodler was born in Bern, the eldest of six children. His father, Jean Hodler, made a meager living as a carpenter; his mother, Marguerite (née Neukomm), was from a peasant family.

Johann Jakob Frey (1813-1865) | Paysages painter

Johann Jakob Frey, a Swiss landscape painter, a native of Basle, studied principally in Italy, and his views of that country are much valued.

He was first taught by his father, the painter and lithographer Samuel Frey (1785-1836). He later studied in Paris (1830) and in Munich (1834), the most vibrant artistic centre in Germany.

After travelling in Italy and Egypt, he settled in Rome where he specialised in landscape painting.

From Egypt, whither he accompanied Professor Lepsius, he brought many excellent sketches of the Pyramids, Labyrinths, ecc.

Albert Anker (1831-1910) | Genre painter

Albrecht Samuel Anker was a Swiss painter🎨 and illustrator who has been called the "national painter" of Switzerland because of his enduringly popular depictions of 19th-century Swiss village life.

Born in Ins as the son of veterinarian Samuel Anker (then a member of the constituent assembly of the Canton of Bern), Anker attended school in Neuchâtel, where he and Auguste Bachelin, later a fellow artist, took early drawing lessons with Louis Wallinger in 1845-48.

Jean-Jacques Pradier | Neoclassical Romantic sculptor

Jean Jacques Pradier (1792-1852), was a Swiss-born French sculptor🎨 best known for his work in the Neoclassical style.

Born in Geneva, Pradier was the son of a Protestant family from Toulouse. He left for Paris in 1807 to work with his elder brother, Charles-Simon Pradier, an engraver, and also attended the École des Beaux-Arts beginning in 1808.

He won a Prix de Rome that enabled him to study in Rome from 1814-1818 at the Villa Médicts.

Pradier made his debut at the Salon in 1819 and quickly acquired a reputation as a competent artist. He studied under Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres in Paris.