Virginia Woolf | Resta viva / Stay alive

Qualunque cosa succeda, resta viva.

Non morire prima di essere morta davvero.

Non perdere te stessa, non perdere la speranza, non perdere la direzione.

Resta viva, con tutta te stessa, con ogni cellula del tuo corpo, con ogni fibra della tua pelle.

Resta viva, impara, studia, pensa, costruisci, inventa, crea, parla, scrivi, sogna, progetta.

Erik Werenskiold | Mrs. Heimbeck Study for The Dinner Party, 1929

René Rousseau-Decelle | Le pesage de Longchamp, 1910

René Rousseau-Decelle studied with the master of French Academic painting, William Bouguereau, in the waning years of the older artist’s life.

It is clear that the young Rousseau-Decelle quickly moved away from the tightly-painted images of French peasant girls and threw himself headlong into the world of the haute bourgeoisie of fin-de-siècle Paris.

Like his master, Rousseau-Decelle found a very commercially successful niche and adhered to that formula throughout his career.

René Rousseau-Decelle | Le pesage de Longchamp, 1910 (detail)

Peter Ilsted | Copenhagen Interior School

Peter Ilsted (14 February 1861 - 16 April 1933) was a leading Danish artist and printmaker. He was most associated with domestic interior scenes.

Biography

Peter Vilhelm Ilsted was born at Sakskøbing in Guldborgsund, Denmark. He was the son of merchant Jens Peter Ilsted and Johanne Sophie Lund.

He was the brother-in-law of painter Vilhelm Hammershøi (1864-1916). He married Ingeborg Lovisa Petersen (1869-1945) in 1891.

He came to the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in 1878, completing his course of study in five years.

He made his debut at the Charlottenborg Spring Exhibition in 1883.

Hans Ole Brasen | Genre painter

Hans Ole Brasen (16 January 1849 - 24 February 1930) was a Danish painter. He won the Eckersberg Medal (an annual award of the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts) in 1894.

Brasen was born in Hillerød to a merchant father. His mother had painted some flower paintings as a young girl which inspired him to take up painting.

In 1863, he began an apprenticeship with master painter Ernst Schmiegelow, who supported his artistic talent and helped him get into the Art Academy.

Erik Henningsen | Genre painter

Erik Ludvig Henningsen (1855-1930) was a Danish painter and illustrator.

He is best known for his Social Realist paintings of poor and exposed groups in the 1880s and 1890s. He was the younger brother of Frants Henningsen who was also a painter.

Erik Henningsen was born in Copenhagen to Frants Ludvig Henningsen (1820-1869), a grocer, and Hilda Charlotte Christine née Schou (1824-1880).

He showed an early artistic talent and was articled to decorative painter A. Hellesen.

Erik Werenskiold | Realist painter

Erik Theodor Werenskiold (11 February 1855 - 23 November 1938) was a Norwegian painter and illustrator.

He is especially known for his drawings for the Asbjørnsen and Moe collection of Norske Folkeeventyr, and his illustrations for the Norwegian edition of the Snorri Sturlason Heimskringla.

Pierre Jean Edmond Castan | Genre painter

Pierre Jean Edmond Castan (1817-1892) was a French painter.

Born in Toulouse in Haute-Garonne, Castan quickly turns to the drawing, and follows the teaching of Drolling in Paris.

He is then a pupil of neoclassical painter François Pascal Simon Gérard (1770-1837), and begins in the Salon of French Artists in 1868.

Sir William Rothenstein | Portrait painter

Sir William Rothenstein (1872-1945) was an English painter, printmaker, draughtsman, lecturer and writer on art.

Emerging during the early 1890s, Rothenstein continued to make art right up until his death.

Though he covered many subjects - ranging from landscapes in France to representations of Jewish synagogues in London - he is perhaps best known for his work as a war artist in both world wars, his portraits, and his popular memoirs, written in the 1930s.

More than two hundred of Rothenstein's portraits of famous people can be found in the National Portrait Gallery collection.