Arnold Böcklin | Modern Visionary / Symbolist painter

From: Musée d'Orsay

A major artist of the late 19th century, the Swiss painter Arnold Böcklin (1827-1901) remains little-known in France, where his art was often reduced to the fascinating icon of only one of his many masterpieces, The Isle of the Dead.

Rediscovered in the 1910s by surrealist painters - Giorgio de Chirico and Max Ernst in particular - who found a powerful inspiration in his fantastic and iconoclastic vision of mythology.

Pietro Paolini | Baroque painter

Pietro Paolini, called il Lucchese (3 June 1603 - 12 April 1681) was an Italian painter** of the Baroque period**. Working in Rome, Venice and finally his native Lucca, he was a follower of Caravaggio** to whose work he responded in a very personal manner. He founded an Academy in his hometown, which formed the next generation of painters of Lucca.

• Life

Pietro Paolini was born in Lucca, as the youngest son of Tommaso Paolini and Ginevra Raffaelli. His family was well-off as his mother was a descendant of a prominent Lucchese family.

Paolini‘s father sent his son to Rome to the workshop of Angelo Caroselli when he was 16 years old.

Faustino Martin Gonzalez | Watercolour painter

Faustino Martin Gonzalez is an Spanish** watercolor painter. He lives in Avilés, a city in Principality of Asturias, Spain.

Martin Faustino Gonzalez feels a special passion for the image of the transition states of nature: the change of the seasons or the time of day. In his paintings, lots of light, air, dominated by low-key calm colors. This watercolor painting in the classic sense: the overlapping colors, a celebration of emotions and moods.

Rembrandt | Portrait drawing

• "Life etches itself onto our faces as we grow older, showing our violence, excesses or kindnesses".

• "I envy the poet. He is encouraged toward drunkenness and wallows with nubile wenches while the painter must endure wretchedness and pain for his art".

Rembrandt | Portraits / Self-Portraits

Because of his empathy for the human condition, Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn has been called "one of the great prophets of civilization".

Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn was a Dutch painter and etcher.

He is generally considered one of the greatest painters and printmakers in European art history and the most important in Dutch history.

His contributions to art came in a period of great wealth and cultural achievement that historians call the Dutch Golden Age, when Dutch Golden Age painting, although in many ways antithetical to the Baroque style that dominated Europe, was extremely prolific and innovative.

Rembrandt: "Senza l'atmosfera un dipinto non è nulla"

• "Try to put well in practice what you already know; and in so doing, you will in good time, discover the hidden things which you now inquire about. Practice what you know, and it will help to make clear what now you do not know".

• "Prova a mettere bene in pratica quello che già sai; così facendo sarai sempre in tempo, e scoprirai le cose nascoste che ora stai cercando. Metti in pratica quello che sai, e ciò ti aiuterà a rendere chiaro ciò che ora non conosci".

Rembrandt | La teoria del difetto di vista

In un articolo pubblicato il 16 settembre 2004 sul New England Journal of Medicine, Margaret S. Livingstone, docente di neurobiologia della facoltà di medicina dell'Università di Harvard, suggerisce che Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn (1606-1669), i cui occhi sembrano avere avuto un difetto nell'allineamento della vista, soffrisse di "perdita di stereopsi", una condizione in cui risulta difficile o impossibile percepire correttamente la profondità.

La studiosa è giunta a questa conclusione osservando 36 autoritratti dell'artista.

Dato che egli non possedeva una normale visione binoculare, il suo cervello automaticamente sceglieva di utilizzare un solo occhio per l'osservazione.

Antonietta Brandeis | Venice painting

Antonietta Brandeis (1848-1926), was a Czech-born Italian landscape, genre and portrait painter, as well as a painter of religious subjects for altarpieces.

Early Life and Initial Training

She was born on January 13, 1848, in Miskovice (near Kutná Hora) in Eastern Europe. The first bibliographical indication of Antonietta Brandeis dates from her teens, when she is mentioned as a pupil of the Czech artist Karel Javurek of Prague. After the death of Brandeis' father, her mother, Giuseppina Dravhozvall, married the Venetian Giovanni Nobile Scaramella; shortly afterward the family apparently moved to Venice.