Camille Claudel | L'âge mûr / L'Età matura, 1902

The Age of Maturity/L'âge mûr is probably the work that most lends itself to an interpretation based on autobiographical narrative: the end of the relationship between Claudel🎨 and Rodin🎨.

In actual fact, the association of the three figures with Camille Claudel🎨, Auguste Rodin🎨 and Rose Beuret arose some time after the sculpture was first exhibited. The critics initially saw it as the “symbolic representation of Destiny, in which the ageing man is torn away from love, youth and life”.

Auguste Rodin | Victor Hugo et les Muses, 1890

After Victor Hugo’s death in 1885, it was decided to erect a monument in his honour in the Panthéon as a pendant to Injalbert’s statue of Mirabeau. Auguste Rodin🎨 was awarded🎨 the commission in 1889. The sculptor chose to depict Victor Hugo in exile, seated amongst the rocks of Guernsey, his arm outstretched as if to calm the waves. It was an image both of the poet lost in contemplation and of the champion of the Republican cause.

This first project, “which lacked clarity and whose silhouette was muddled”,was unanimously rejected. In 1891, the Ministry of Fine Arts found another site for it. It would eventually be erected in the gardens of Palais-Royal.

Édouard Manet | Le déjeuner sur l'Herbe, 1863

Rejected by the jury of the 1863 Salon, Manet🎨 exhibited Le déjeuner sur l’herbe under the title Le Bain at the Salon des Refusés (initiated the same year by Napoléon III) where it became the principal attraction, generating both laughter and scandal.

Yet in Le déjeuner sur l'herbe, Manet🎨 was paying tribute to Europe's artistic heritage, borrowing his subject from the Concert champêtre - a painting by Titian🎨 attributed at the time to Giorgione🎨 (Louvre) - and taking his inspiration for the composition of the central group from the Marcantonio Raimondi engraving after Raphael's Judgement of Paris🎨.

Mark Arian, 1947 | Romantic Figurative painter

"To me, art is an expression of the rapture of being… hopefully unveiling a fragment of the radiance within all form. I believe that art can awaken the soul to the timeless presence of beauty and truth" - Mark Missman🎨.

Born in Des Moines, Iowa, Mark Missman - Arian🎨 spent many hours throughout his youth in museums studying the painting techniques of the masters.

Ettore Tito (1859-1941)

Ettore Tito, pittore di formazione veneziana, ottenne all'inizio del secolo una fama europea e fu nominato nel 1929 Accademico d'Italia.

Ebbe a Napoli come primo maestro l’olandese Van Haanen, ma ben presto si recò a Venezia dove studiò con Pompeo Marino Molmenti.

Espose il suo primo quadro, Pescheria vecchia a Venezia, alla Biennale di Venezia del 1887, quadro che ebbe grande successo e fu acquistato dal Governo per la Galleria d’Arte Moderna di Roma.

Dosso Dossi | Lucrezia Borgia, Duchess of Ferrara, 1518

Artist: Dosso Dossi (Italian High Renaissance painter, ca.1490-1542) (attributed to).

Date: 1518.

Medium: Oil on wood panel.

Dimensions: 74.5 × 57.2 cm.

Current location: Collezione: National Gallery of Victoria, Australia.

The recent (2008) identification of the subject of this painting as Lucrezia Borgia (1480-1519) answered a long-running mystery.

This portrait had previously been considered to be that of a young man. This is largely on account of the dagger which is held in the sitter’s hands and the belief that no single Italian Renaissance🎨 portrait of a woman ever showed the sitter holding a weapon.

However, certain aspects of the painting indicate that the sitter is indeed a woman.

Pino Daeni | Romantic painter

Pino Daeni (November 8, 1939 - May 25, 2010) was an Italian / American book illustrator and painter.

He is known for his style of feminine, romantic women and strong men painted with loose but accurate brushwork.

Considered one of the highest paid book illustrators of his time, he created over 3.000 book covers, movie posters and magazine illustrations.

Claude Monet: "Il piacere più nobile è la gioia della comprensione"!

"Seguo la Natura senza poterla cogliere... forse il fatto di essere diventato pittore lo devo ai fiori".

"I am following Nature without being able to grasp her... I perhaps owe having become a painter to flowers".

"It took me time to understand my waterlilies. I had planted them for the pleasure of it; I grew them without ever thinking of painting them".

"Mi ci è voluto del tempo per capire le mie ninfee. Li avevo piantati per il piacere di farlo; Li ho coltivati senza mai pensare di dipingerli".