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Rein Pol, 1949 | Magic Realism

Rein Pol is a Dutch artist.
Appearances can be deceptive. Everyone knows that. Sometimes though, appearance and reality are so insidiously close together that they can hardly be separated.
The painter Rein Pol addresses this whimsical phenomenon of deceptive reality in paintings showing a peculiar mixture of facts and fiction.
In a number of Pol's paintings, the Blue Angel rumbles past.
Initially, this train roamed only the landscapes of Groningen.


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Peter Tom-Petersen | Cityscape painter

Peter Tom-Petersen (5 March 1861 - 27 July 1926) was a Danish painter and graphic artist, known primarily for cityscapes, interiors and other architectural paintings.
His name was Peter Thomsen Petersen until 1920, when he had it legally changed to match his signature: "Tom P.".
Peter Thomsen Petersen was born at Thisted, Denmark.
He was the son of Christian Tullin Petersen and Maren Andrea Thomsen.
His father was a pharmacist.
He attended grammar school in Maribo until 1876.


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Thomas Lawrence | The Red Boy, 1825

This portrait of Charles William Lambton - aged six or seven - was commissioned by the boy's father John George Lambton, 1st Earl of Durham, a Whig politician and MP for County Durham.
Popularly known as The Red Boy, it remained in the Lambton family until it was acquired by the National Gallery in 2021.
It is acknowledged as one of Thomas Lawrence's (1769-1830) masterpieces and, a sign of the image's enduring popularity, it was the first painting to be reproduced on a British postage stamp in 1967.


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Johann Matthias Ranftl | Genre painter

Johann Matthias Ranftl (Vienna, 1804-1854) was a Viennese Biedermeier painter.
The artist's grandfather came to Vienna from Regensburg, where the painter Franz Anton Maulbertsch was his best man in 1766.
The parents, Johann Baptist Ranftl and Barbara Ranftl, née Kautz, ran an inn on the Favoritner Linien.
Johann Matthias Ranftl himself was born in the suburb of Wieden No. 125.


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Leopoldo Metlicovitz | Modern Poster artist

Leopoldo Metlicovitz (17 July 1868 - 19 October 1944) was an Italian painter, illustrator and poster designer.
Together with Leonetto Cappiello, Adolf Hohenstein, Giovanni Maria Mataloni and Marcello Dudovich, he is considered one of the fathers of modern Italian poster art.
Son of a merchant of Dalmatian origins (the family name was originally Metlicovich), he began working in the family business at a very young age and at fourteen years old he entered as an apprentice in a printing house in Udine, where he learned the technique of lithography.


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Ronald Soeliman | Plein-air painter

Dutch artist Ronald Soeliman (1965-2020) used palette knives when he painted.
The oil paints are thickly applied to the canvas whereby the use of a palette knife gives extra textural feel to the surface.
Sometimes he uses palette knives to suggest small branches in the wet paint.
Often it seems as if he models the paint straight on the canvas itself.


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Demelsa Haughton | The magic forest

Demelsa Haughton is a painter of whimsical and magical imagery.
From the bright setting of a tiny ladybird village (complete with corner shop) to the gloomy darkness of a forest filled with gnarly trees that were once children... her work creates a sense of wonder and gives a snapshot of imaginary worlds and characters, often with an injection of quirky, subtle humour.
With a lifelong love of traditional stories, and anything magical or supernatural, she is influenced by stories far removed from real life and endeavours to capture this in her paintings.


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Rita Levi-Montalcini: "Meglio aggiungere vita ai giorni, che non giorni alla vita"..

"Tutti dicono che il cervello sia l'organo più complesso del corpo umano, da medico potrei anche acconsentire.
Ma come donna vi assicuro che non vi è niente di più complesso del cuore, ancora oggi non si conoscono i suoi meccanismi. Nei ragionamenti del cervello c’è logica, nei ragionamenti del cuore ci sono le emozioni".

"Nella vita non bisogna mai rassegnarsi, arrendersi alla mediocrità, bensì uscire da quella zona grigia in cui tutto è abitudine e rassegnazione passiva, bisogna coltivare il coraggio di ribellarsi".

Vittorio Matteo Corcos | Dreams / Sogni, 1896 | Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna Roma