Léon Comerre | Orientalist / Academic painter

Léon François Comerre (1850-1916) was a French🎨 academic painter, famous for his portraits of beautiful women.

Comerre was born in Trélon, in the Département du Nord, the son of a schoolteacher. He moved to Lille with his family in 1853. From an early age he showed an interest in art and became a student of Alphonse Colas at the École des Beaux-Arts in Lille, winning a gold medal in 1867.

From 1868 a grant from the Département du Nord allowed him to continue his studies in Paris at the famous École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts in the studio of Alexandre Cabanel. There he came under the influence of Orientalism.

Comerre first exhibited at the Paris Salon in 1871 and went on to win prizes there in 1875 and 1881.

Mike Worrall, 1942 | Surrealist painter

Born in Matlock Derbyshire, UK, Mike Worrall is an British painter and designer, inspired by historical themes.

Now based in Australia, his massive oil paintings depicting dreamlike surreality hang in private collections and gallery.

As a child, Mike Worrall was always intrigued by the paintings that introduced a mystery element to them to draw in the viewer.

Since then, Worrall creates paintings that follow that similar direction.

Jeremy Lipking, 1975 | Figurative painter

In a remarkably short period of time, Jeremy Lipking🎨 has emerged as one of the country's premier Realist artists. His talent, which rivals that of the late nineteenth century painterly realists such as John Singer Sargent🎨, Joaquin Sorolla🎨 and Anders Zorn🎨, is outstanding for a painter of any age. It is all the more remarkable since he is only thirty years old.

Like these great painters of the past, Lipking is a virtuoso artist. His canvases convey the magical aura of convincing imagery emerging out of a field of paint. Realism has been misunderstood through most of the twentieth century as an art of imitation. In truth, when practiced by a painter like Jeremy Lipking🎨, realist painting is a powerful creative force. Many viewers are drawn to his art thinking that it looks just like a photograph.

Bruno Di Maio, 1944 | Fantasy / Figurative painter

Bruno Di Maio, one of the Italy’s best new figurative artists, lives and works in Tuscany, Italy.

His work reflects his great love for Renaissance paintings🎨, yet at the same time a strong desire for expressive autonomy. Di Maio tries, successfully, in his allegorical and surrealistic🎨 interpretation of present, to give life to the recollect quality of the past.

The originality of his vision is seen in the sumptuous subject matter, the quality of his chiaroscuro and the dramatic light effect on the figures and objects in his paintings.

His work is happy, carnal, rich in color and vibrant with light. In addition to paintings, his artistic training extends to sculpture, engraving, excellent watercolors as well as astounding trompe l’oeil mural paintings. His works can be found in private and public collections in Europe, Japan, Australia and in the United States.

Claude Monet ~ Snow Effect | Winter landscapes

Claude Monet - Snow Effect, The Street in Argentuil

Claude Monet - Amsterdam in the Snow

Édouard Manet, l'uomo che ha rimesso in discussione l'arte intera!

Amareggiato dalla virulenza delle critiche, nell'agosto del 1865 Manet decise di partire per la Spagna, patria di quel Velázquez che gli aveva ispirato così tanti quadri (a tal punto che iniziò a circolare il nomignolo «Don Manet y Courbetos y Zurbaran de las Batignolas»).

Dopo aver distrutto moltissime delle sue tele in un accesso di sconforto e di rabbia, l'artista si recò a Burgos, Valladolid e Madrid, ed al museo del Prado rimase incantato dai Velázquez (pittore che poté già ammirare de visu al museo spagnolo di Luigi Filippo) e dalla collezione dei dipinti antichi, italiani e nordici.

Il soggiorno spagnolo, d'altro canto, lo deluse, in quanto si rese conto di aver idealizzato troppo la Spagna, che sino ad allora era stato uno straripante repertorio di motivi (più volte dipinse scene legate alla corrida, senza d'altronde mai averne vista una).

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.