Jesus Navarro, 1952 | Hyperrealist painter

Jesús Navarro was born in Jerez, Cadiz, located in southern Spain.

By the age of twelve his artistic talents led him to the local school of arts and crafts -Escuela de Artes y Oficios de Jerez- where he studied painting and sculpture.

At this time He also became the apprentice of locally renowned painter, Ramírez Toro, under which Navarro learned the complex techniques of classical painting.

In 1971, Navarro moved to Barcelona where he began a phase of self-teaching, focusing on combining classical techniques along with his newly discovered self interests in detailed formation of compositions.

George Grie / Джордж Грие, 1962 | Neo-Surrealist painter

George Grie / Джордж Грие or Юрий Грибановский is a Russian-Canadian artist.

One of the first digital surrealism artists, Grie is known for numerous 3D, 2D, and matte painting images. Born in the USSR during the Soviet regime he did not adopt the conventional and politically correct socialist realism art style.

• Style

Grie's artistic style has been heavily influenced by famous surrealists such as René Magritte and Salvador Dalí, fantastic realists Zdzisław Beksiński and Wojciech Siudmak, and surreal photomanipulation artist Jerry Uelsmann. His neo-surrealist artwork is a combination of classic surrealist symbolism with modern fantasy, gothic and visionary arttendencies.

Arthur Frank Mathews | Tonalist painter

Arthur F. Mathews (1860-1945) was an American* Tonalist painter who was one of the founders of the American Arts and Crafts Movement*.

Trained as an architect and artist, he and his wife Lucia Kleinhans Mathews had a significant effect on the evolution of Californian art in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

His students include Granville Redmond, Xavier Martinez, Armin Hansen, Percy Gray, Gottardo Piazzoni, Ralph Stackpole, Mary Colter, Maynard Dixon, Rinaldo Cuneo and Francis McComas.

Pablo Neruda / Duy Huynh | Ode to the Happy Day / Ode al giorno felice

Let me be happy

nothing ha s happened to anybody

I am nowhere special

I am only

happy

through the four chambers

of my heart, I am strolling,

sleeping, or writing.

What canI do? I'm

happy.

Victoria Montesinos, 1944 | Flowers painter

Victoria Montesinos, Mexican painter, was born in Mexico City and has been exhibiting works since 1972 in the U.S., Europe, Mexico and Japan.

In late 1983, Victoria moved from Mexico to New York where she had a contract with one of the largest galleries in the United States to develop lithographic works.

While there, she studied and worked with a complicated technique to produce high-quality lithographs.

Giotto | The allegories of Virtues / Le allegorie delle Virtù, 1303-1305

The bottom tiers of the longer walls feature 14 allegories, in monochrome, symbolising Vices on the North wall and Virtues on the South wall.

The Vices are: Stultitia, Inconstantia, Ira, Iniusticia, Infidelitas, Invidia, Desperatio.

The Virtues are divided as follows: the four Cardinal Virtues: Prudentia, Iustitia, Temperantia, Fortitudo, followed by the three Theological ones: Fides, Karitas, Spes.

Each virtue and vice is embedded within a mirror-like marble frame.

The name of the vice or the virtue is written in Latin on top of each figure, indicating what these figures represent: the seventh day (the day between Jesus’s birth and the Final Judgement).

Temperanza e L'Ira

Paul Verlaine | Kiss! / Bacio! Rosa malva nel giardino delle carezze..

Kiss! Hollyhock in Love's luxuriant close!

Brisk music played on pearly little keys,

In tempo with the witching melodies

Love in the ardent heart repeating goes.

Sonorous, graceful Kiss, hail! Kiss divine!

Unequalled boon, unutterable bliss!

Man, bent o'er thine enthralling chalice, Kiss,

Grows drunken with a rapture only thine!

Jaroslav Seifert / George Grie | To be a Poet / Essere Poeta, 1983

To Be a Poet

Life taught me long ago

that music and poetry

are the most beautiful things on earth

that life can give us.

Except for love, of course.