Diego Velázquez | Italian period

In 1629, Spanish painter Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez (1599-1660) was given permission to spend a year and a half in Italy.

Though this first visit is recognized as a crucial chapter in the development of his style - and in the history of Spanish Royal Patronage, since Philip IV sponsored his trip - few details and specifics are known of what the painter saw, whom he met, how he was perceived and what innovations he hoped to introduce into his painting.

He traveled to Venice, Ferrara, Cento, Loreto, Bologna, and Rome.

Philip Wilson Steer | The Bridge, 1887

Artist: Philip Wilson Steer (1860-1942)
Medium: Oil paint on canvas;
Dimensions: Support: 495 × 655 × 20 mm / frame: 639 × 803 × 89 mm;
Collection: Tate;
Acquisition: Purchased 1941.

This picture was strongly attacked by the critics when it was first exhibited in 1887, and dismissed by one as 'either a deliberate daub or so much mere midsummer madness'.

Steer considered giving up painting in the wake of this disapproval.

Giorgio Vasari | Vita di Sandro Botticello - Pittor Fiorentino

Ne’ medesimi tempi del Magnifico Lorenzo Vecchio de’ Medici, che fu veramente per le persone d’ingegno un secol d’oro, fiorì ancora Alessandro, chiamato a l’uso nostro Sandro e detto di Botticello per la cagione che appresso vedremo.

Costui fu figliuolo di Mariano Filipepi, cittadino fiorentino dal quale diligentemente allevato e fatto instruire in tutte quelle cose che usanza è di insegnarsi a’ fanciulli in quella età, prima che e’ si ponghino a le botteghe, ancora che agevolmente apprendesse tutto quello che e’ voleva, era nientedimanco inquieto sempre; né si contentava di scuola alcuna, di leggere, di scrivere o di abbaco; di maniera che il padre infastidito di questo cervello sì stravagante, per disperato lo pose a lo orefice con un suo compare chiamato Botticello, assai competente maestro allora in quell’arte.

Coniglio 꼬닐리오 | A Girl and her Pet Rabbit | Whimsical Illustrator

Coniglio (en. Rabbit) is the pseudonym of a Korean artist who has lived in Italy for four years.

With a background in graphic design, Coniglio creates whimsical illustrations for children's books.

After graduating from the University in Korea, she left for Italy to participate in an internship program.

Coniglio, fascinated by the atmosphere that Italy conveyed to her, boarded the plane without having learned Italian well.

She currently lives in Milan and is majoring in visual design at the National Academy of Fine Arts (Accademia di Belle Arti).

Rob Hefferan, 1967 | True Romance

Rob Hefferan is an exceptionally talented figurative artist. His varied body of work celebrates the joyous and multifaceted forms that human beings express with limitless imagination and wit.

Rob captures the personality of each of his subjects with honesty, integrity and above all, a sacred appreciation for the unique spirit embodied within us all.

His heartfelt response to humanity is woven into the very fabric of each outstanding portrait, earning him the reputation of one of the finest contemporary realists of his generation.

Rob Hefferan

Walt Kuhn (1877-1949) | Modernist painter

Raised in Brooklyn, Walt Kuhn (born William but called Walt from a young age) developed an early interest in drawing and theater.

In 1893 Kuhn took art classes at the Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute. Six years later he was working in San Francisco as a cartoonist for The Wasp, a weekly satirical magazine. Kuhn returned to New York in the fall of 1900, but by March of 1901 he had left again to study art in Europe, first at the Academie Colarossi in Paris and then later that year at the Akademie der Bildenden Künste (Academy of Fine Arts) in Munich.

Michele Petrelli | Modern impressionist painter

Michele Petrelli contemporary Italian artist was keening about painting from when he was very young and he graduated from the Art School in 1991.

In 1999 he obtained the title of technical designer.

He says about himself: "I am an enceph in a glass vial. I am a visual-auditory-tactile artist. I do not despise the material thought wandering in the spirit and in the humour".

During the first part of his life he did not have much painting.