Giacomo Leopardi | The Lonely Sparrow / Il Passero Solitario, 1835

D'in su la vetta della torre antica,

Passero solitario, alla campagna

Cantando vai finchè non more il giorno;

Ed erra l’armonia per questa valle.

Primavera dintorno

Brilla nell’aria, e per li campi esulta,

Caspar David Friedrich | Il sognatore, 1835 | Hermitage Museum St Petersburg

Pedro Salinas | Che allegria vivere / What a joy to live

Che allegria, vivere

e sentirsi vissuto.

Arrendersi

alla grande certezza, oscuramente,

che un altro essere fuori di me,

molto lontano,

mi sta vivendo.

Maria Amaral

Harvey Dinnerstein | Figurative painter

Harvey Dinnerstein (April 3, 1928 - June 21, 2022) was a figurative artist and educator.

A draftsman and painter in the realistic tradition, his work included genre paintings, contemporary narratives, complex figurative compositions, portraits, and intimate images of his family and friends.

Education

Dinnerstein was born in Brooklyn, New York, and studied with Moses Soyer, Yasuo Kuniyoshi, and Julian E. Levi at the Art Students League of New York.

Mary Quant | The Mother of the Miniskirt / La "Mamma della Minigonna"

"The sixties mini was the most self indulgent, optimistic 'look at me, isn't life wonderful' fashion ever devised. It expressed the sixties, the emancipation of women, the Pill and rock 'n' roll. ... It was the beginning of women's lib" - Mary Quant, 2012.

Dame Barbara Mary Quant, Mrs Plunket Greene, DBE, FCSD, RDI (1930-2023) is a British fashion designer and fashion icon.

She became an instrumental figure in the 1960s London-based Mod and youth fashion movements.

She was one of the designers who took credit for the miniskirt and hotpants.

Ernestine Carter wrote: "It is given to a fortunate few to be born at the right time, in the right place, with the right talents. In recent fashion there are three: Chanel, Dior and Mary Quant".

Philippe Mercier | Rococo painter

Philippe Mercier (also spelled Philip Mercier; 1689 - 18 July 1760) was an artist of French Huguenot descent from the German realm of Brandenburg-Prussia (later Kingdom of Prussia), usually defined to French school.

Active in England for most of his working life, Mercier is considered one of the first practitioners of the Rococo style, and is credited with influencing a new generation of 18th-century English artists.

Mercier was born c. 1689-1691 in Berlin, the son of Pierre Mercier (died 1729, Dresden), a Huguenot tapestry-worker.

Robert Högfeldt | Watercolor cartoonist

Gustaf Robert Högfeldt was born in 1894 in Eindhoven, Netherlands and died in 1986 in Stockholm.

He was a painter, primarily known for his watercolours.

His pictures often feature comical and fairytale-like narratives.

He studied in Paris, Düsseldorf and Stockholm and is represented at the Nationalmuseum and Moderna Museet in Stockholm.

Herbert Davis Richter | Floral still life painter

Herbert Davis Richter (1874-1955) was born in Brighton 10th May 1874. His family moved to Lansdown on the outskirts of Bath and it was at the Bath School of Art that Richter studied Furniture Design and Architecture.

He subsequently set up in business with his brother Charles, the Company Bath Cabinet Makers, with himself as Head of the Design Department.

In 1900, the Company was awarded Gold and Silver Medals at the Paris World Exhibition.

The Company was later awarded contracts for the furniture and fittings for the Cunard Liners, Queen Mary and the Queen Elizabeth.

Fritz Syberg | Naturalist painter

Christian Friedrich Wilhelm Heinrich Syberg, generally known as Fritz Syberg, (28 July 1862, Fåborg - 20 December 1939, Kerteminde) was a Danish painter and illustrator, one of the or Funen Painters (Fynboerne) living and working on the island of Funen.

Biography

Syberg, from a poor background in Fåborg, first served a house painter's apprenticeship under Syrak Hansen, the father of fellow artist Peter Hansen before attending the Copenhagen Technical School in 1882 where Holger Grønvold taught him drawing.

After a short period at the Danish Academy (spring 1884), he attended the Kunstnernes Frie Studieskoler (1885-1891) where he was the first of the Fynboerne to study under Kristian Zahrtmann.