Giovanni Bellini (1433-1516)

Giovanni Bellini was an Italian Renaissance painter, probably the best known of the Bellini family of Venetian painters. His father was Jacopo Bellini, his brother was Gentile Bellini (who was more highly regarded than Giovanni during his lifetime, although the reverse is true today), and his brother-in-law was Andrea Mantegna.

He was considered to have revolutionized Venetian painting, moving it towards a more sensuous and colouristic style.

Through the use of clear, slow-drying oil paints, Giovanni created deep, rich tints and detailed shadings. His sumptuous coloring and fluent, atmospheric landscapes had a great effect on the Venetian painting school, especially on his pupils Giorgione and Titian.

Tilman Riemenschneider | Late Gothic sculptor

Tilman Riemenschneider, (born c. 1460, Heiligenstadt or Osterode, Domain of the Teutonic Order [Germany] - died July 7, 1531, Würzburg), master sculptor whose wood portrait carvings and statues made him one of the major artists of the late Gothic period in Germany; he was known as the leader of the Lower Franconia school.

Riemenschneider was the son of the mint master of Würzburg and opened a highly successful workshop there in 1483.

Emil Nolde | Flowers and Quotes

• "Every true artist creates new values, new beauty.. .When you notice anarchy, recklessness, or licentiousness in works of contemporary art, when you notice crass coarseness and brutality, then occupy yourself long and painstakingly precisely with these works, and you will suddenly recognize how the seeming recklessness transforms itself into freedom, the coarseness into high refinements. Harmless pictures are seldom worth anything".

• "A new day. Calm as seldom the beginning of such a one. Did I dream? No! Dream and contented pure was the night.. .It is the sure certainty of having found unity with nature, this calm causes one of the strongest experiences.

Man, air, trees, world are laid bare and are one!

Contented sleep releases the limbs. We await full moon. Await the dance"!

Antonio Balestra (1666-1740) | Baroque painter

Antonio Balestra was a painter and engraver from a merchant family in Verona, Italy.

He was an enthusiastic amateur painter, but at the age of 17, following the sudden death of his father, he had to interrupt his studies to take care of the family business with his brothers.

Subsequently, he decided to dedicate himself to painting and moved to Venice for three years.

Carol Cavalaris | Fantasy painter

Reality and fantasy blend together as she combines photo sources and painting techniques to create her unique mixed medium images that she calls 'living art'.

Carol Cavalaris lives in the middle of a forest in the high country of Colorado. It is the wild beauty of her surroundings that inspires her digital paintings of wildlife and nature.

She grew up in Southern California and has been creating since childhood, always drawing, painting or making something. She has enjoyed many creative adventures, including sculpting, stained glass art, being a display artist, an interior designer, a graphic artist, a copywriter, and a creative director. She owned an ad agency with husband, LJ, Heart, for years, doing everything from producing books to print ads to tv commercials.

Pietro Rotari | Baroque painter

Pietro Antonio Rotari (1707-1762) was an Italian painter and pastellist who was born in Verona.

Here he initially trained with Antonio Balestra, then moved to Venice and studied with Giovanni Battista Piazzetta.

In 1727, he went to Rome and in 1729 to Naples, where he worked with Francesco Solimena.

He later returned to Verona where he opened a private drawing academy and was made a count in 1749.

Fletcher Sibthorp, 1967 | Figurative painter

British painter Fletcher Sibthorp has worked as a full-time artist for the past twenty years, producing work in the commercial market, as well as selling paintings to private and corporate collectors.

Rank Xerox, British Telecom, Chase Manhatten Bank, Railtrack and Kirin Brewery are just a few of the companies that own his paintings as part of their collections. Initially, Fletcher was attracted by the concept of movement and its effect on the human form.

This naturally lead to his interest in sport and abstract portrayals of gymnasts and athletes, culminating in an exhibition 'In Motion' in London in 1992.

Nadar | The photographer of the Impressionists

Ringmaster, publicist, and performer in a highly theatrical life, the legendary Nadar (Gaspard-Félix Tournachon, 1820-1910) wore many hats - those of journalist, bohemian, left-wing agitator, playwright, caricaturist, and aeronaut.

He had success in all these roles, but what he did best was collect a pantheon of friends whom he honored with his generous and perceptive photographic portraits.

Born Gaspard-Félix Tournachon in 1820, the son of a liberal publisher, Nadar grew up in Paris in the heady ferment of Romanticism.

Alexandre Dumas, Victor Hugo, and Eugène Delacroix were his early heroes; Gérard de Nerval, Théophile Gautier, and Charles Baudelaire his maturing friends. Nadar’s imagination, wit, and spontaneity, like his passion for the colorful, unconventional, and free, were tendencies shared with both generations of Romantic writers and artists.

George Sand (French Romantic writer, 1804-1876) by Nadar, 1864