William B. Yeats | Quando sarai vecchia / When you are old

William Butler Yeats (1865-1939) è stato un poeta, drammaturgo e scrittore Irlandese, nonché una delle figure più importanti della letteratura del XX secolo.

Fu una forza trainante dietro l'Irish Literary Revival ed, insieme a Lady Gregory, fondò l'Abbey Theatre, di cui fu il direttore durante i primi anni.

Gli fu conferito il premio Nobel per la Letteratura nel 1923 ed in seguito ricoprì due mandati come senatore dello Stato libero d'Irlanda.

Quando tu sarai vecchia, tentennante

tra fuoco e veglia prendi questo libro,

leggilo senza fretta e sogna la dolcezza

dei tuoi occhi d’un tempo e le loro ombre.

Vincent van Gogh | A Pair of Lovers (Eglogue en Provence), 18888 | Sotheby's

Oscar Wilde | Flower of Love

Sweet, I blame you not, for mine the fault was, had I not been made of common clay

I had climbed the higher heights unclimbed yet, seen the fuller air, the larger day.

From the wildness of my wasted passion I had struck a better, clearer song,

Lit some lighter light of freer freedom, battled with some Hydra-headed wrong.

Had my lips been smitten into music by the kisses that but made them bleed,

You had walked with Bice and the angels on that verdant and enamelled meed.

Paul Cadmus

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

Cecilia Beaux | Sita and Sarita, 1894

This portrait by Cecilia Beaux (American Impressionist painter and portraitist, 1855-1942) portrays the artist's cousin, Sarah Allibone Leavitt, dressed in white with her black cat on her shoulder.

Beaux was recognized not only for her bold painting technique, but also for her ability to imbue her female subjects with wit and intelligence, rendering them more than just mere objects of beauty.

A student in Paris in the late 1880s, the artist was influenced by her firsthand exposure to French impressionism.

Her light-filled palette and gestural style invite comparisons with many of her contemporaries, including William Merritt Chase, James McNeill Whistler, John Singer Sargent and Mary Cassatt.

Cecilia Beaux | Sita and Sarita, 1894 | Musée d'Orsay, Paris

August Macke (1887-1914)

August Macke è stato un pittore Tedesco, uno degli esponenti principali del movimento espressionista tedesco Der Blaue Reiter (Il cavaliere blu).

Macke visse durante un periodo particolarmente innovativo per l'arte tedesca che vide lo sviluppo dei principali movimenti espressionisti tedeschi nonché l'arrivo dei successivi movimenti di avanguardia che si stavano formando nel resto d'Europa.

Come un vero artista del suo tempo, Macke sapeva come integrare nei suoi quadri gli elementi dell'avanguardia che più lo interessavano.