Happy New Year! | Vintage Greeting Cards

New Year's Day, also called simply New Year's or New Year, is observed on January 1, the first day of the year on the modern Gregorian calendar as well as the Julian calendar.

In pre-Christian Rome under the Julian calendar, the day was dedicated to Janus, god of gateways and beginnings, for whom January is also named. As a date in the Gregorian calendar of Christendom, New Year's Day liturgically marked the Feast of the Naming and Circumcision of Jesus, which is still observed as such in the Anglican Church and Lutheran Church.

Claude Verlinde, 1927 | Fantastic Realism painter

Claude Verlinde is a French painter🎨 who works in the vein of “fantastic realism”, sometimes called “magic realism”, and his work shows the lineage of fantastical art from Bruegel🎨 and Bosch🎨 to the Surrealists🎨 and contemporary magic realism.

I would also suspect that a number of the Surrealists, and certainly contemporary magic realists, were influenced by his work (not to mention the production designers of the Harry Potter movies).

Claude Verlinde found his vocation very early and entered the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris at the Academy de la Grande Chaumiere at the age of twenty. Soon, the richness of his painting, its great sensitivity controlled by technique, made Verlinde undisputed master of visionary art of our time.

Distinctions: Chevalier of Arts and Letters 1986, Medal🎨 of the City of Paris.

Beethoven's love letters to his immortal beloved, 1812

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) was a German composer and pianist.

A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Classical music, he remains one of the most recognized and influential of all composers.

After his death in 1827, the following love letter was found amongst the personal papers of Ludwig van Beethoven, penned by the composer over the course of two days in July of 1812 while staying in Teplice.

Julius Schmid (Viennese painter, 1854-1935)| Beethoven's walk in nature

Richard Macneil, 1956 | Cityscape / Figurative painter

British painter🎨 Richard Macneil🎨 is a self taught artist who has always worked in the creative industry. Born in Worcester, UK in 1958, he started his working life at Worcester Royal Porcelain and has always worked in the fields of sculpture, ceramics and graphics both in the UK and internationally.

Richard spent many years in the USA where his company Bronn Fine Art, produced large, exclusive sculptures of American western art. One of his greatest achievements was seeing his artwork displayed in the Oval office of The White House.

Juliette Aristides, 1971 | Realist painter

American artist🎨 Juliette Aristides is a mid-career artist living in Seattle, Washington. She has studied at The National Academy of Design and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art. Aristides is an Elizabeth Greenshields Grant recipient. Juliette Aristides is actively dedicated to rebuilding a traditional arts education in the United States.

She was an original member of the Water Street Atelier and currently teaches at The Seattle Academy of Fine Art, where she founded the award winning🎨 Classical Atelier Program.

Founder and instructor of the Aristides Atelier at the Gage Academy of Art in Seattle, WA, Aristides teaches workshops both nationally and internationally and is author of:

• Classical Drawing Atelier;
• Classical Painting Atelier;
• Lessons in Classical Drawing with Watson-Guptill, NY.

Serge Marshennikov, 1971 | Realistic figurative painter

Cергей Маршенников was born in Ufa, Bashkiria, Russia. His grandfather was the general manager of a horse breeding company, his father, an electrical engineer and his mother was in pre-school education.

As long as he can remember, Serge was drawing, painting and sculpting from any material he could lay his hands on. His mother encouraged Serge to study and from early childhood he studied with private teachers and attended art studios.

After receiving several awards🎨 for his children’s watercolor and pastel paintings, Serge decided to become a professional painter.

In 1995 he finished the Ufa Art College and then continued education at one of the most prestigious art academies in the world, The Repin Academy of Fine Art in St. Petersburg, Russia.

Camille Pissarro | Autumn at Eragny

Camille Pissarro (1830-1903) was a Danish-French Impressionist and Neo-Impressionist painter.

His importance resides in his contributions to both Impressionism and Post-Impressionism.

Pissarro studied from great forerunners, including Gustave Courbet and Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot. He later studied and worked alongside Georges Seurat and Paul Signac when he took on the Neo-Impressionist style at the age of 54.

Hendrick Goltzius | Mannerist painter

Hendrik Goltzius, (born 1558, Mulebrecht, Neth. - died Jan. 1, 1617, Haarlem), printmaker and painter, the leading figure of the Mannerist school🎨 of Dutch🎨 engravers.

Through his engravings, he helped to introduce the style of such artists as Bartholomaeus Spranger🎨 and Annibale Carracci🎨 to the northern Netherlands.

Goltzius’s great-grandfather and grandfather were both painters, and his father was a stained-glass painter. He was taught the art by his father as a child and was then instructed in copperplate engraving by Dirck Volckertszoon Coornhert in Haarlem.

Goltzius’s marriage in 1579 to Margaretha Jansdr., a rich widow, enabled him to set up an independent business in Haarlem, where he spent the rest of his life except for a tour of Germany and Italy in 1590. Owing to his technical facility, he developed into one of the great masters of engraving in Holland.