Pontormo | Mannerist painter

Jacopo da Pontormo*, original name Jacopo Carrucci (born May 24, 1494, Pontormo, near Empoli, Republic of Florence (Italy)-buried Jan. 2, 1557, Florence) Florentine painter who broke away from High Renaissance classicism to create a more personal, expressive style that is sometimes classified as early Mannerism.

Pontormo was the son of Bartolommeo Carrucci, a painter. According to the biographer Giorgio Vasari, he was apprenticed to Leonardo da Vinci and afterward to Mariotto Albertinelli and Piero di Cosimo.

At the age of 18 he entered the workshop of Andrea del Sarto, and it is this influence that is most apparent in his early works.

In 1518 he completed an altarpiece in the Church of San Michele Visdomini, Florence, that reflects in its agitated-almost neurotic-emotionalism a departure from the balance and tranquillity of the High Renaissance.

Henri Fantin-Latour: "L'uomo di talento dovrebbe camminare da solo.."

"Success can be harmful, it makes you relax, you sit on it and are distracted.

You alone should correct the faults, you know what I think of advice, correction.

The gifted man should walk alone, straight to his goal, what happens is nothing, rejection, success, selling pleasing, all that is nonsense".

Van Gogh | La Mousmé, 1888

The intention and determination that inform Van Gogh's art can be obscured by the sensational legends that have arisen about his life.

The artist's correspondence, particularly frdeom his brief mature period of 1888-1890, contradicts popular lore and attests to the deliberateness, sensitivity, and integrity of his work.

On July 29, 1888, Van Gogh wrote his younger brother Theo, an art dealer in a Parisian gallery, that "if you know what a 'mousmé' is (you will know when you have read Loti's Madame Chrysanthème), I have just painted one.

Shafira Yablonski, (Impressionist painter, 1938)

Ukrainian painter Shafira Yablonski was born in the city of Dneprodzerzhinsk.

When Shafira was 3 years old the world war II began and her family was evacuated to Kazakhstan.

When the war was over and the city of Dneprodzerzhinsk was liberated, they returned home to Ukraine.

There Shafira spent her childhood and adolescence and finished high school.

All her childhood she was fond of drawing. When Shafira was 15, she joined the art studio at the House of Culture and began learning to paint.

Henri Fantin-Latour, Il pittore di fiori che era stufo dei suoi capolavori..

Contemporaneo degli impressionisti, l'artista francese Henri Fantin-Latour si distinse per i suoi dipinti di fiori e per i ritratti di gruppo degli intellettuali parigini dell'epoca.

Figlio di Théodore Fantin-Latour, anch'egli artista, che lo iniziò all'arte della pittura, studiò all'École de Dessin di Parigi.

Tuttavia, trasse la sua vera formazione copiando le opere classiche dei Grandi Maestri del Museo del Louvre, in particolare Tiziano e Veronese.

Più tardi, nel 1861, fu per un certo periodo discepolo di Gustave Courbet, anche se il suo realismo intimo e discreto era molto diverso da quello del suo maestro e li fece ben presto separare.

Ludovic Alleaume | Academic painter

An excellent painter and draughtsman, Ludovic Alleaume (1859-1941) worked in an academic style that owed little to the more avant-garde trends in contemporary French art.

He exhibited regularly at the Salon des Artistes Français between 1883-1938, winning several prizes including a second prize in the category of lithography in 1896 and a second class medal for painting in 1905.

Alleaume also exhibited at the Salon des Humoristes and the Salon d'Hiver and, outside of Paris, took part in exhibitions in Angers, Nantes, Nice, Rouen and Toulouse, as well as London.

Tullius Heuer | Surrealist painter

"Hi, i’m Tullius Heuer and i live in a city called Maceió, located at the state of Alagoas, Brazil.

I’m a self-taught digital artist. I’m actually working with freelance works for living, including stuff like CD covers, posters, book covers, logos/branding/visual identity, advertisement etc.

My personal artworks consist in my thoughts and feelings about life and existence. I don’t have a specific theme to focus in my works, but most of them usually have strong emotional touches with positive messages.

Paul César Helleu | Belle Époque painter

Paul César Helleu (1859-1927) was a French oil painter, pastel artist, drypoint etcher, and designer, best known for his numerous portraits of beautiful society women of the Belle Époque.

He also conceived the ceiling mural of night sky constellations for Grand Central Terminal in New York City.

He was also the father of Jean Helleu and the grandfather of Jacques Helleu, both artistic directors for Parfums Chanel.

His work epitomises the charm and elegance of French culture at the time - the Belle Époque - with all its verve and focus on fashion.