Salvatore Quasimodo | Natale / Christmas

Natale. Guardo il presepe scolpito,

dove sono i pastori appena giunti

alla povera stalla di Betlemme.

Anche i Re Magi nelle lunghe vesti

salutano il potente Re del mondo.

Jacopo Tintoretto | The Madonna of the Stars, c. 1575-1585 | National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.

Ellen Thesleff | Expressionist painter

Ellen Thesleff (5 October 1869 - 12 January 1954) was an expressionist Finnish painter, regarded as one of the leading Finnish modernist painters.

Thesleff was born in Helsinki, the eldest daughter of five siblings and her father was an amateur painter.

She took private lessons and then, in 1887, studied for two years at the Finnish Art Society Drawing School (now known as the Finnish Academy of Fine Arts) with Gunnar Berndtson.

Harriet Backer | Impressionist painter

Biography from: Nasjonalmuseet, Oslo, Norvegia

Harriet Backer inspired a new generation of artists.

In Backer’s family, art and culture were part of how the children were raised.

Her older sister Agathe was musically gifted and wanted to become a pianist.

She had to go abroad to learn, and Harriet became her sister's traveling companion.

Asta Nørregaard | Portrait painter

Asta Nørregaard (13 August 1853 - 23 March 1933) was a Norwegian painter who is best known for her portraits.

Nørregaard was born in Christiania (now Oslo), Norway.

She was the daughter of Hans Peter Nørregaard (1818–1872) and Elise Jacobine Hesselberg (1821–1853).

Galileo Chini | Art Nouveau painter

One of the leading players in the Art Nouveau style, or Liberty style as it is known in Italy, the Tuscan painter Galileo Chini (1873-1956) - who was also a graphic artist and a ceramicist) - occupies a unique place in the panorama of Italian art.

Born in Florence, Galileo Chini pursued his artistic studies in a sporadic, desultory manner, attending the Scuola Libera di Nudo at the city's Accademia di Belle Arti for a while, but without ever gaining any kind of diploma from it, he was to break off his studies in order to work as an artisan in the workshop of his uncle, a restorer and decorator.

Giuseppe Amisani | Belle Époque painter

Italian portrait painter of the Belle Époque Giuseppe Amisani (1881-1941) was an important figure in his lifetime, though almost entirely forgotten today - his name is not included in the principal works of reference in the twenty-first century.

He was a close contemporary of Umberto Boccioni and of Pablo Picasso, but completely ignored currents such as Futurism and Cubism which changed the face of fine art in the twentieth century, preferring to satisfy the tastes of his clients, who were the noble, rich and the famous of his time.

His reputation was for elegance and for the fresh colours of his palette.

A retrospective exhibition of his work at the Castello Sforzesco of Vigevano in the province of Pavia in 2008 was the first dedicated to him in fifty years.

Robert Armetta | Classical realist painter

Armetta has studied extensively throughout the United States and Europe, at schools including Columbus College of Art and Design, the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art, Barnstone Studios, Atelier Lack, the Florence Academy of Art, the New York Academy of Art 1998 the Water Street Atelier.

He has exhibited widely, in both solo and group exhibitions, across the United States, at venues including the National Academy of Design, the Fort Wayne Museum of Art, the Susquehanna Museum of Art, Sotheby’s, the State University of New York at Farmingdale, St. John’s University, Messiah College, Arcadia Fine Art, John Pence Gallery, Century Gallery, and Seraphin Gallery.

La Belle Époque

La Belle Époque is a period of French and European history, usually considered to begin around 1871-1880 and to end with the outbreak of World War I in 1914.

Occurring during the era of the Third French Republic, it was a period characterised by optimism, regional peace, economic prosperity, colonial expansion, and technological, scientific, and cultural innovations.

In this era of France's cultural and artistic climate (particularly within Paris), the arts markedly flourished, with numerous masterpieces of literature, music, theatre, and visual art gaining extensive recognition.

Jean Béraud | Seaside Café, 1884 | The Clark Art Institute