Wassily Kandinsky | VIII - Art and Artists

Concerning the Spiritual in Art, 1910

Part II: About painting

In an obscure and puzzling way, the artist develops a work of art. As it gains a life of its own, it becomes an entity, an independent spiritual life, which as a being, leads the life of material realism.

It is, therefore, not simply a phenomenon created casually and Inconsequentially indifferent to spiritual life.

Instead as a living being, it possesses creative active forces. It lives, has power, and actively forms the above-mentioned spiritual atmosphere.

From an innermost point of view, the question finally should be answered as to whether creation is strong or weak. If too weak in its form, it is impotent to cause any kind of spiritual vibration.

Wassily Kandinsky | Succession, 1935

André Lhote | Pittore Cubista

André Lhote (1885-1962) was a French Cubist painter of figure subjects, portraits, landscapes and still life. He was also very active and influential as a teacher and writer on art.

Early life and education

Lhote was born 5 July 1885 in Bordeaux, France and learned wood carving and sculpture from the age of 12, when his father apprenticed him to a local furniture maker to be trained as a sculptor in wood.

He enrolled at the École des Beaux-Arts in Bordeaux in 1898 and studied decorative sculpture until 1904.

Whilst there, he began to paint in his spare time and he left home in 1905, moving into his own studio to devote himself to painting.

He was influenced by Gauguin and Cézanne and held his first one-man exhibition at the Galerie Druet in 1910, four years after he had moved to Paris.

Paul Verlaine | Poichè l'alba si accende.. / Puisque l'aube grandit..

Poiché l'alba si accende, ed ecco l'aurora,

poiché, dopo avermi a lungo fuggito, la speranza consente

a ritornare a me che la chiamo e l'imploro,

poiché questa felicità consente ad esser mia,

facciamola finita coi pensieri funesti,

basta con i cattivi sogni, ah! Soprattutto

basta con l'ironia e le labbra strette

e parole in cui uno spirito senz'anima trionfava.

Lionel Noel Royer (French painter, 1852-1926) | Jeune Femme en Bord de Mer, 1928

Salvatore Quasimodo | Anno Domini MCMXLVII

Avete finito di battere i tamburi

a cadenza di morte su tutti gli orizzonti

dietro le bare strette alle bandiere,

di rendere piaghe e lacrime a pietà

nelle città distrutte, rovina su rovina.

Mikhail Y. Kugach / Михаил Юрьевич Кугач (Russian painter, 1939) | The Return

Sir George Clausen RA (1852-1944)

Landscape and mural painter in oil and watercolour, etcher, mezzotinter and occasional lithographer.

Born April 1852 in London, son of a Danish interior decorator.

1867-73 apprenticed in the drawing office of Messrs Trollope - a London firm of decorators - attending evening classes at the National Art Training Schools, South Kensington, London.

Worked in the studio of Edwin Long, classical painter (1829-91), visited Holland and Belgium in 1878.

Bruno Cerboni, 1948

Bruno Cerboni is an Italian artist who uses third millennium techniques and Artificial Intelligence to create his works.

Cerboni was born in Castel del Piano (GR) Italy.

Graduated in Engineering at "La Sapienza" - University of Rome, he has a 30-year career as manager of large companies and entrepreneur.

He has always been committed to the themes of innovation and information technology, and has been awarded the Italian National Innovation Award and the Red Herring 100 Europe.

Csaba Markus, 1953

Csaba Markus is a Hungarian-American artist, painter, sculptor and publisher. As an artist, he primarily works in the field of printmaking, with a particular focus on etching and serigraphy.

His work also includes oil painting, drawing, glass art, photography and sculpture. Markus's painting titled "Pure Love" has been selected as one of the World's 10 most sensual paintings by Toronto Sun newspaper.

Life and work

Markus was born in Budapest, Hungary.

His mother is Szőllős Erzsébet and father Károly Márkus. His childhood in Hungary, where he frequented museums, is an influence on his work.

He is also influenced by avant-garde art and abstraction.

Markus began his career as a sculptor. At the age of fourteen, he and his work were featured on international public television. He became increasingly frustrated with teachers and the confines of communism, realizing his Renaissance-inspired emphasis on the individual conflicted with Hungarian communist beliefs.

Gustave Jacquet | Portrait / Genre painter

During the 19th century, particularly in France, people developed a vivid fascination with the past and paintings of the bygone eras were in demand.

Jacquet specialised in painting figures, portraits and genre subjects in which he evoked the elegance of the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries. These works were exquisitely painted with every attention paid to detail; his use of colour is rich and vibrant and his rendition of luxurious cloth is outstanding.