Khalil Gibran | On pleasure / Il piacere

Pleasure is a freedom-song, But it is not freedom.

It is the blossoming of your desires,

But it is not their fruit.

It is a depth calling unto a height, But it is not the deep nor the high. It is the caged taking wing,

But it is not space encompassed.

Ay, in very truth, pleasure is a freedom song.

And I fain would have you sing it with fullness of heart; yet I would not have you lose your hearts in the singing.

Some of your youth seek pleasure as if it were all, and they are judged and rebuked.

I would not judge nor rebuke them. I would have them seek.

For they shall find pleasure, but not her alone;

Seven are her sisters, and the least of them is more beautiful than pleasure.

Have you not heard of the man who was digging in the earth for roots and found a treasure?

Ron Barsano, 1945 | Figurative / Abstract painter

American painter🎨 Ron Barsano, was born and raised in Chicago Illinois just two blocks from Wrigley Field. Immediately after High School he started a five year intense fine art program studying drawing and painting under the European taught masters William Mosby and Joseph Vanden Broucke at the American Academy of Art also in Chicago.

Ron moved to Taos, New Mexico in 1970 and became one of the co-founders of the famous "Taos Six".

He currently lives in Arroyo Hondo, New Mexico and shows his work at his Studio Gallery.

Ron Barsano🎨 is known and loved for his ability to capture the essence of life in his art. He ignites our imagination with his still life and transports us to places of wistful beauty with his landscapes.

He offers us the true glory of creation with his figure work and celebrates the human soul in each of his portraits. From the pain of a soul denied to the gentle beauty of a rose in bloom, from the graceful serenity of the human form to the spirit of the person in his portraits, Ron Barsano captures it all in his art.

Viatcheslav Plotnikov, 1962 | Glamour of Monte Carlo

Viatcheslav Plotnikov was born in Russia. Since a young boy, Plotnikov knew which road his professional life would take. He couldn't of course have foreseen the good fortune he would have, but was however reassured and encouraged by his teachers of the art school: they recognised in him a great pictorial energy and sensed his talent.

Plotnikov was sustained by an intense desire to know and by an unshakeable will to perfect his work: he knew how important it was to master every technique and every style, because from this knowledge he would have been able to germinate a new art.

The neoclassicism would have represented the foundations of a new structure. The dedication and great passion he put into his studies slowly guaranteed the acquisition of a fascinating new knowledge: his character was strengthened internalising the example of the great painters of the past.

Pablo Neruda | The Kiss / Il Bacio / El beso

I'll send you a kiss in the wind

and I know you feel,

you turn around without seeing me, but I'll be there

We are made ​​of the same stuff

of which dreams are made ​​of

I would like to be a white cloud

in an endless sky

to follow you everywhere and loving every moment.

If you are a dream, do not wake me

I would live in your breath

while you watch mad about you

Your dreams will be dreaming of me

I love you because you see reflected

in everything that is beautiful

Tell me where are you tonight

in my dreams again?

O Capitano! Mio Capitano! / O Captain! My Captain! | Walt Whitman, 1865

After Abraham Lincoln’s🎨 assassination in 1865, Walt Whitman (American🎨 poet, essayist and journalist, 1819-1892) wrote “O Captain My Captain”. The poem is written in a form of an elegy and is aimed to honor the sixteenth president of the United States.

The entire poem itself provides extended metaphor that implies comparisons between seemingly dissimilar things, for the U.S. after the Civil War and the killing of the President Lincoln.

O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done;

The ship has weather'd every rack, the prize we sought is won;

The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,

While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring:

But O heart! heart! heart!

O the bleeding drops of red,

Where on the deck my Captain lies,

Fallen cold and dead.

Thomas Eakins 1844-1916 | Sketch for the Portrait of Walt Whitman, 1887

Bill Mack, 1949 | Relief sculptor

The impact of Bill Mack's art is achieved not only by his dramatic portrayal of the human form, but also by the utilization of a wide variety of materials with which to execute his artistic vision.

The final work emerges as a classic example of the interplay of form and materials.

For over 35 years, American sculptor Bill Mack has created sculpture in relief and in the round for government, corporate and private collections.

His art hangs in galleries in four continents and he has had exhibits in Tokyo, England, France and Germany.

In reference to his interest in relief sculpture, Mack states, A lot of sculptors have no reason to do it and they just don't develop in that direction.

Andrey Belle, 1957 | Abstract / Mixed media painter

Aндрей Белле was born in Minsk, Bielorussia. Since his birth, he lived and studied in Leningrad, now St Petersburg. From 1975-1977, he served in the Soviet Army. In 1977, he went straight from the army into the V. I. Mukhina Leningrad Higher School of Commercial Art.

He began to exhibit his work while still at the institute. Upon graduating and being professionally assigned to the Lot Central Research Institute, he started work as an independent artist - a painter and graphic artist.

Troy Brooks, 1972 | Pop-Surrealist painter

Toronto-based artist Troy Brooks is a contemporary surrealist painter known for his elaborate oil paintings dominated by towering women enveloped in a landscape of visual metaphor.

His heroine plays out intimate scenes, usually caught in moments where something transformative has or is about to happen.