Bright and Brilliant Painters around the world V.V.S.Manian

Contents

A.E.Kieren Adriaen Brouwer Adriaen van de Venne Armin Mersmann Arpita Singh Artemisia Gentileschi Bikash Bhattacharjee Canaletto Diego Rivera El Greco Emanuel Gottlieb Leutze Fares Cachoux Frederic Remington George Keyt Gustave Courbet Hassan Massoudy Henri Rousseau Heri Dono Hieronymus Bosch Honore Daumier Hossein Nuri & Nadia Ivan KonstantinovichAivazovsky Jacques –Louis David Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot Johan Vermeer Johann Michael Rottmayr Kara Walker Kole Idromeno Leonardo Da Vinci Master Mahmoud Farschchian Michelangelo Pablo Picasso Paolo Uccello Patrick Ching Pawel Kuczynski Peter McIntyre Philip Guston Porternari Quintus Pedius Rabindranath Tagore Raphael Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn Richard David Shepherd Sandro Botticelli

A.E.Kieren

A.E. Kieren is a free lance illustrator and performer. He is a specialist in on – location “sketch journalism” as well as events entertainment. He is famous for sketching human moments happening around him- on the train, in bars/restaurant and on the street. He is fast, operating on instinct to catch.

“You had to be there- moments of his subjects doing everything from chatting to staring into space”.

Kieren holds a BFA on Illustration from College for Creative Studies in Detroit, MI, and an MFS in Illustration and Visual Essay from School of Visual Arts in New York City. His ambition includes editorial illustration for magazines, book covers, theatre posters and wine labels.

Kieren’s clients include Target, Entertainment Weekly, John Hopkins Magazine and Refinery Hotel. He lives in New York.

Adriaen Brouwer

Adriaen Brouwer was a Flemish painter. Brouwer worked in Haarlem and Amsterdam before joining the Antwerp painters’ guild. His extraordinary flair for human comedy earned him the esteem of Ruben and Rembrandt. He contributed to the development of the genre of tronies, i.e. head or facial studies.

Adriaen Brouwer was an innovator. His paintings were vivid depictions of peasants, soldiers and other low class individuals engaged in drinking and smoking, card playing, fighting, music making in taverns or rural settings. Brouwer was an active painter in the Dutch Republic in the first half of the 17th century. He also produced few landscapes of tragic intensity, few years before his death.

Brouwer was born in Oudenaarde in Flanders in 1605. His father Adriaen worked as a tapestry designer in Oudenaarde. His father died in poverty when Brouwer was only 15 years old. Brouwer worked in Antwerp. By March 1625, he registered in Amsterdam where he lived with painter Barent Van Someren. Brouwer was very active in the Chamber of Rhetoric in Haarlem. The motto of this amateur literary circle was “In love above all else”.

In 1631, Brouwer returned to Flanders where he was registered as a master in the Antwerp Guild of St Luke. The artist continued to work in Antwerp and produced some of his best paintings. Yet, he got into bad times and incurred huge debts. The artist’s name regularly shows up in Antwerp records in connection with arrangements for his various debts. (WP).

In 1633 Brouwer was jailed in the Citadel of Antwerp for tax evasion. Some records say that he was arrested for political reasons because the local authorities may have considered him to be a spy for the Dutch Republic. The operation of the bakery in Antwerp citadel was in the hands of baker and painter Jos Van Caesbeeck. Caesbeeck genre scenes depict low-life figure as well as scenes of middle class people. Brouwer’s paintings have similarities to Caesbeeck’s paintings.

On 26th April 1634, Brouwer took up lodgings in the house of prominent engraver Paulus Pontius. Both joined the local Chamber of Rhetoric Violieren. Brouwer and his artist friends spent a lot of time partying in local pubs. Brouwer painted a tavern scene called “The Smokers”: which included a self –portrait together with Jan Cossiers, Jan Lievens, Caesbeeck and Jan Davidz. Brouwer was a highly respected admired painter by his colleagues and contemporaries. In fact Ruben owned 17 works of Brouwer. Even Rembrandt had paintings by Brouwer in his collection.

In January 1638, Brouwer died in Antwerp. A month after his death, his body was re-interred in the Carmelite Church on 1st February 1638.

Adriaen van de Venne

The world is still in the grip of barbarism and poverty. You can see it near Oxford campus in London or in Manhattan, NY city. Painters and writers have tried to focus on this evil in society from early times. Poverty persists. It pushes a woman to resort to immoral strides to feed the family, and the men to become thieves. All for survival, not of the fittest but the worst. Some painters, right from the 17th century tried to educate the society and the rulers on the need to eradicate poverty. Who cares?

Even the so-called champions of Dalits are the ones exploiting his own brothers and sisters for improving his social status and happy to see them struggling for decent living. It is a very sad truth that most of the people who are born in poverty, live and die in poverty. One of the earliest who focused on this topic was the 17th century Dutch painter Van de Venne. His painting showing a man in rags carrying a child on his back indicates that poverty rides on ones back and never leaves him until he dies. And the child continues to rot on earth and subsequently faces death due to starving.

Van de Venne was born in Delft in 1589. He learned to paint from the master goldsmith and painter Simon de Valk. He also learnt engraving from Jeronimus van Dies, a famous painter of grisailles. He moved to Middelburg in 1614, where he was influenced by Jan Brueghel and Pieter Brueghel. Both are Flemish painters and draughtsman. Van’s political painting “Fishing for Souls” in 1614 is an ironic commentary on Catholic and Protestant troubles of the Eighty Years War that split the border between Northern and Southern Netherlands along the Schuler river, close to his home in Middlebury(WP).

From 1620 until his death, Van de Venne made many grisailles and engravings featuring peasants, beggars, thieves and fools as illustrations of current proverbs and sayings by Jacob Cats (Where the wine is in, the wit is out; as you sow, so shall you reap: JC). These works made him very famous. Van de Venne also worked as a book illustrator and print designer. He moved to The Hague and joined the Guild of Saint Luke in 1625 and assumed office as Dean in 1637. He was a founding member of “Confrerie Pictura, a group devoted to improving the status and social position of artists in Dutch society. After a distinguished career as a great painter and engraver, Venne died on 12th November 1662 in The Hague at the age of 73.

Armin Mersmann

German artist Armin Mersmann is known for naturalistic graphite drawings. His work has been featured in more than 200 exhibitions. He also works in photography and encaustic wax which is more abstract than his drawings. He is a great technician who creates incredibly realistic images in graphic pencil with emotion and soul. His artworks are alive and they speak to “us in the language that words alone cannot express”.

Mersmann has won over 50 awards in juried exhibitions, both state wide and nationally. He has a massive following of artists who admire and respect his work as they strive to follow his footsteps. Early life

Armin was born in Remscheid, Germany in 1955. In 1962 his parents immigrated to US along with him. Armin had initial training in painting from his father Fritz who was also a painter. He spent six years in college and began a successful stint as portrait artist in Chicago. He soon stopped commission work and found more interest in the fine arts. He worked many long and hard years to become a master artist. He continues to challenge himself even further with every single artwork he creates.

Mersonn has taught drawing, the creative process, iPhonegraphy and advanced critique at the American Academy of Art, Chicago IL, the Colorado Academy of Art, Boulder Co, Northwood University, Midland MI and the Midland Center for Arts. He conducts regular workshops within the US. He lives in Midland MI where he is the Senior Visual Art Curator and Artist in Residence at Midland Center for Arts. He shares a studio with his wife Valeris Allen who is also an accomplished artist in her own right.

Arpita Singh

Arpita Singh is an Indian artist. She was born in 1937 at Baragnagar, Kolkata. She is well known for her creativity and ingenious presentation. Her paintings put across a contemporary woman’s point of view. “Her paintings reveal the inner world, their perspective and aspirations. Both comic and tragic (elements) are interchangeable and interwoven in her works. An element of tension inbuilt in them reflects a realm, part naïve and part real as she portrays the space of women in the social structure… The artist often deftly inserts simple objects, such as guns, flowers, telephones to convey her viewpoint”. Her work includes traditional Indian Art forms and aesthetics like miniaturist paintings and different forms of folk art employing them in her work regularly.

In 1946, Arpita’s mother with her son and daughter went to Kolkata when the country was in turmoil. In 1962, Arpita married a fellow artist Paramjit Singh. They have a daughter, artist Anjum Singh. Arpita Singh began her professional career in the 1960’s. She was a founder member of the artist group “The Unknown” with other members of the alumni of the department of Fine Arts of Delhi Polytechnic. A show of the Unknown was held at IENS in 1962. After graduation, she took up the job in New Delhi and Kolkata at the Weavers Service Centre. After graduation, she worked for the Indian Government Cottage Industries Restoration Program. In 1970, her paintings were exhibited nationally and internationally. Her first exhibition was held at Kunika Chemould Gallery, New Delhi. In 1972, she exhibited her work at Royal Academy of Arts at London, and later in Geneva, Paris and Sydney. In 1980’s she started Bengali folk paintings. She has painted a series on the subject “Women with a Girl Child” in the last decade of the 20th century. Her work has been exhibited at Modern and Contemporary Indian Art at Vadehra Art Gallery, New Delhi 2016. Her noteworthy participations were Art Celebrates 2010: “Sports and the City” to coincide with the Commonwealth Games, and “Modern India”. Her recent and select solo exhibitions include Work on paper at Vadhra Art Gallery 2016. Arpita Singh now lives in New Delhi.

Artemisia Gentileschi Artemisia Gentileschi was a Baroque –period painter known for such works as “Madonna and Child”, Susanna and the Elders, and Judith slaying Holofernes. Gentileschi is credited as one of the greatest female painters during her time. She managed to do unheard of things at that era. She thrived in a male dominated field. Today she remains as an inspiration not only for her powerful artwork but also for her ability to overcome prejudices against women. She was the first woman to study at the Florence Academy of Design. Gentileschi was born in Rome, Italy on July 8, 1593. Her father Orzia Gentileschi was a renowned painter. Gentileschi lost her mother when she was 12. She had a tragic experience in life when her father’s colleague Tassi raped her. Tassi refused to marry her and the court of Rome ordered his exile for his crime. After sometime, Gentileschi married a painter from Florence named Pietro Antonio. She moved to Florence with her husband. The couple had one daughter who died in adulthood.

Gentileschi's first signed and dated painting was "Susanna and the Elders," completed around 1610. Taken from the Bible, Susanna is a woman tormented by two elders who falsely accused her of adultery after she rejects them; Gentileschi's work manages to convey this conflict in a vivid, realistic manner. She created such works as "Madonna and Child, "Judith Slaying Holofernes" and "Cleopatra."

Around 1611, Gentileschi completed “Judith slaying Holofernes”. She painted “Judith and her Maidservant” which shows the pair after Holofernes death. In 1625, Gentileschi again revisited Judith’s story in the painting “Judith and her Maidservant and with the Head of Holofernes. She also painted scenes from mythology like Minerva and Cleopatra .She received a commission from King Philip IV of Spain. BY 1630, she painted one of her well known self portrait. In 1635, she completed another religious themed work” The Birth of St.John the Baptist”. In 1639, Gentileschi went to England where she was commissioned by Queen Henrietta Maria, the wife of King Charles I to create a series of paintings for her home in Greenwich. Gentileschi continued to paint for the rest of her days. She died in Circa, Naples in 1652.

Bikash Bhattacharjee What humans have not seen with their eyes, they see through their habits. Bikash Bhattacharjee was an Indian painter from Kolkata in West Bengal. He was famous for depicting the life of a common middle class Bengali, their aspirations, hypocrisy, corruption and violence that was common to Kolkata. He worked on all mediums-oil, acrylic, water colour, gouche, pastel and collage. His ability to penetrate and portray inner psychological undercurrent makes him one of India’s most powerful contemporary artist. His paintings in oil have drawn lot of attention and appreciation. In 2003, he was awarded the Lalit Kala Academy award and Lalit Akademi fellowship. Bikash was born in Kolkata in 1940. He lost his father at six. His mother had to seek refuge at her brother’s place. In his childhood, he would visit Sova bazaar Raibati where Durga images used to be created by artisans. These images and the crumbling places in the vicinity built up his sensibility and aesthetics. Bikash struggled hard in his early days and experienced hardships which got reflected in his works later. Talent and hard work helped him to graduate with a diploma in Fine Arts from Indian College of Arts and Draftsmanship. Bikash lived his entire life in Kolkata. He also taught in the same college from 1968-1972 (WP). He also became a member of the Society of Contemporary Artists. Bikash achieved commercial success in 1960’s with his Doll series. This was followed by another success story - the Durga series. Bikash’s first solo exhibition was held at Kolkata in 1965. In 1980, Bikash painted illustrations for a novel on the Life of Ram Kinker Baij (renowned painter and sculptor). The novel by Samaresh Basu was never completed due to the sudden demise of the author. Bikash’s work for the book is considered to be the best among his creations.

Soon his paintings were exhibited in shows outside India. His paintings had the appreciation of connoisseurs of painting in shows in Pairs, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Hungary and London. His works were exhibited in shows in New York in 1985. Bikash was also known for brilliant portraits. He painted portraits of Tagore, Satyajit Ray and Samaresh Basu. He also produced a series of works about the Naxal movement and group paintings of prostitutes. In 2000, Bikash suffered a paralytic stroke. He died in Kolkata on 18th December 2006, survived by his wife Parbati, a son and a daughter. It was a great loss for the citizens of Calcutta (Kolkata). The Town Hall was renovated with the money gathered by auctioning his paintings of the heroes of the Bengal Renaissance in 1992.

Canaletto

Giovanni Antonio Canal known as Canaletto was a great Italian artist who produced wonderful topographical paintings of Venice, London, and the English countryside. He significantly influenced landscape paintings.

Canaletto was born on October 18, 1697 in Venice, Italy. His father painted backdrops for theatrical productions and Canaletto assisted him. Canaletto began painting topographical paintings and lived on commissions from foreign markets. He became famous for landscape paintings. His views fetched high prices and as early as the 19th century, Catherine the great and other European monarchs vied for his grandest paintings. The record paid at an auction for Canaletto’s is 18.6 million pounds for a view of the Grand Canal of Palazzo Balbi to the Rialto set at Sotheby’s in London in July 2005.

Early and later works

Canaletto’s early artwork was painted from nature, differing from the customary practice of complete paintings in the studio. His paintings are notable for their accuracy. One of his early pieces “The stonemasons yard” (1729) depicts the humble working area of the city. It is considered to be his finest work. Later Canaletto painted grand scenes of the canals of Venice and the Doge’s palace. His large scale landscapes portrayed the city’s pageantry and waning traditions making innovative use of atmospheric effects and strong local colours (WP). His graphic print SA Giustina in Pra della Vale was found in 2012 in Nazi loot discovery.

In the 1740’s Canaletto’s market was disrupted when the War of Austrian Succession resulted in depleted inflow of tourists to Venice. In 1746, Canaletto moved to London where he thought there was a ready market for his paintings. He remained in London until 1755, producing views of London and of his patrons’ castles and houses. The 1754 paintings of Old Walton Bridge includes image of Canaletto himself. Here Canaletto suffered humiliation when the great art critic George Vertue suggested that Canaletto was an imposter. Canaletto gave public paintings demonstrations to prove the art critic was wrong. After his return to Venice, Canaletto was elected to the Venetian Academy n 1763. He continued painting until his death in 1768.

Diego Rivera

We live in a society of anxiety. We are all uncivilized, in civilized garb. The world has turned out to be one big garbage bin, stinking of ethnic wars, racial prejudices, and eccentric political leaders. People are swaying between pain and poverty as they are compromising for a one time gain to long term suffering. This is happening in India today where majority are illiterate voters, who blunder and elect the worst person to the best office and pay a heavy price. This sinful scenario is however universal whether it is Trump’s US or Kim Jong of North Korea. Who then will draw a true picture of what is happening to send a wakeup call to the people? Sometimes visual conveys more than written words.

It is the artists who have a leading role to play. This has happened down the ages too. Some artists have assumed the role to bring about changes in society. Many artists have painted pictures of what humanity is suffering from. Many have tried to paint the lives of the working class. In this back ground it is interesting to study the life of Diego Rivera.

Painter and muralist Diego Rivera did a lot of paintings that reflected the lives of the working class and native people of Mexico. The Mexican painter started a series of murals in public buildings. Some were very controversial like Man at the Crossroads in New York City’s RCA building which featured the portrait of Vladimir Lenin. This was stopped and destroyed by the Rockefeller family. He is considered to be one of the leading artists of the 20th century.

Early life

Rivera was born on December 8, 1886 in Guanajuato, Mexico. He began drawing at the age of 10. He went to study art at the San Carlo Academy of Fine Arts, Mexico. In 1970, he went to Europe and was influenced by the painting of Pablo Picasso, Paul Gauguin and Henri Matisse.

Rivera was strongly inspired by the political ideals of the Mexican Revolution (1914-15) and the Russian Revolution. (1917). The Mexican Revolution was a major armed struggle radically transforming Mexican culture and government. The Russian Revolution was one of the most explosive political events of the twentieth century. Rivera wanted to make art that reflected the lives of the working class and native people of Mexico. He created a series of murals in Mexico which reflected the country’s people and history. In 1922, the first murals were completed at the Escuela Nacional Preparatoria in Mexico City funded by the government.

In 1929, River married a fellow artist Freda Kahlo. Both shared an interest in radical politics and Marxism. In 1930, Rivero painted several murals in the US. The most controversial was the “Man at the Crossroads” which featured Vladimir Lenin. The artist included Lenin in his piece to portray the turbulent political atmosphere which was defined by conflicting capitalist and socialist ideologies. At that time there was a terrible fear of the communist party. In 1934, Nelson Rockefeller thought it wise to demolish the portrait “Man at the Crossroads”. Rivera made a mural for the Golden Gate International Exposition held in San Francisco in 1940. From 1945-51, he worked on a series o f murals known as “From the Pre-Hispanic Civilization to the Conquest”. His last mural was called “Popular History of Mexico”.

Diego Rivera lost his wife Freda Kahlo in 1954. Later he married Emma Hurtado, his art dealer. By this time, his health was deteriorating due to cancer. He died on November 24, 1957 in Mexico City. His childhood home is now a museum in Mexico. The 1999 movie “Cradle will Rock, “portrays the life of the painter. In 2002, Alfred Molina brought Rivera back to life, co-starring with Salma Hayek in the 2002 biographical film “Freda”.

Flower carrier

El Greco

You must study the Maters but guard the original style that beats within your soul and put to sword those who would try to steal it. El Greco. Domenikos Theotokopous is also known as El Greco. He was a great artist of Greek Origin. He was a leading figure of the Spanish Renaissance of the 15th and 16th century. He excelled as a painter of religious subjects. He was also equally adept in portraits and landscapes. He is considered a forerunner of both Expressionism and Cubism. His famous paintings include the view of Toledo, Laocoon, Fifth Seal and The Burial of the Count of Orgaz.

El Greco was born in 1541 in Fodele or Candia in Create. He belonged to a wealthy family. He had his initial training at the Cretan School, Venice. In 1570, he moved to Rome and produced a series of works reflecting his studies in Venice. El Greco was invited to Palazzo Farnese, a vibrant art center. There he met many elite scholars including Fulvio Orsini.

El Greco became famous for his style of inventing new and rare interpretations of traditional religious themes. His works exemplified the Venetian Renaissance style with elongated figures, chromatic framework and sometimes multi-figured compositions in beautiful backdrops of landscapes.

In 1577, El Greco relocated to Toledo with a view to catch the attention of King Philip to gain royal commission. But the king was not happy with his two paintings for which he was commissioned. Despite this setback, El Greco was hailed as a great painter. In 1586, he was commissioned to paint ‘The Burial of the Count of Orgaz which is regarded as his masterpiece. From 1597 to 1607, the artist was busy and engaged in many major works. His workshop produced illustrative and sculptural pieces for many religious institutions.

From 1585, onwards El Greco lived in a luxurious complex belonging to the Marquis de Villena where he also housed his workshop. Here he lived with an artist Jeronima de Las Cuevas. The couple had a son Jorge Manuel who became a painter. While working on a commission for the hospital Tavera, El Greco fell ill and passed away on April7, 1614.

To commemorate the 400th anniversary of the death of El Greco, the MET at New York arranged an exhibition of his paintings from November 4, 2014 to February 2015. It was a mini retrospective of the artist’s best sixteen paintings.

Emanuel Gottlieb Leutze

Emanuel Gottlieb Leutze was a German American painter recognized for his painting ‘Washington- Crossing the Delaware’. Emanuel grew up in America. His parents settled first in Fredericksburg VA before moving to Philadelphia. Emanuel was a great supporter of European Revolutions in 1848.He tried to encourage the revolutionaries by showing them examples of American’s success and painted ‘Washington- Crossing the Delaware’. He continued his work on historical painting till his last days. Emanuel Gottlieb Leutze was born in 1816 in southern Germany and came to America at the age of 15. He was initially not interested in arts. He started painting when he was bored sitting next to his sick father. He began to sell portraits for $5 and that is how he supported himself after his father’s death. He soon became very skilled through the instruction of a local portrait painter in Philadelphia.

In 1840, one of his paintings drew the attention of art connoisseurs and orders started coming in. He soon earned enough money to go to Kunst Akademie Dusseldorf. The Academy received painters from all over the world as it was the “hot spot” for studying art.

Leutze’s studies in Germany and Italy turned him into a historical painter. His work was greatly admired and earned many prizes and praises. He settled down in Dusseldorf and married there. He worked for 14 years in Germany and was an active networker and leader of artists. He was a vehement supporter of the 1848 revolutions in Europe. This affiliation to revolution inspired him to create the famous painting ‘Washington Crossing the Delaware’ in 1850.

In 1859, he came back to the US and began spending time between New York and Washington DC. He painted portraits for the sake of patriotic emotionalism. In 1860, the US Congress commissioned him to decorate the stairway of the Capitol Building. This provided him an opportunity to create some brilliant paintings like the ‘Westwards, the course of the Empire Takes Its way,

Fares Cachoux Fares Cachoux was born in Homs. He studied in Syria and obtained his PhD in Arts and Visual Communication from France. He is a professor of Media Communications in UAE. He has held a solo exhibition in Paris. He also participated in many events about Syria. Cachoux makes political posters and digital prints to express his views on what is happening in Syria. Fares is half French and half Syrian. He was forced to leave Syria through the French Embassy at the outbreak of war. He witnessed the going on in his hometown. He saw traumatizing footage of his best friend’s body being dragged through the streets of his hometown Homs. This incident sparked his desire to do something about the revolution. In a series of posters, he wants to preserve the memory of the places, the people and the tragedies of ongoing conflict in Syria. In 2011, all six Syrian UNESCO World Heritage sites were destroyed due to the conflict which began in March2011. In 2014, ISIS blew up the Armenian Genocide Memorial Syria in Deir-ez-Zor. Many sacred buildings and museum artifacts have been destroyed. These developments motivated Cachoux to create visuals to project the real state of affairs.

In 2012, he created his first piece of art- A poster depicting a silhouette of President Assad holding a knife behind his back in front of four trembling children on homage to the Al Houla Massacre. Through his pieces he depicts horrific and brutal stories so that people see and understand the deplorable state of Syria. His work is being used by a major text book publisher in France for a course in visual communication. His posters have been reproduced on the walls of Syria’s liberated zones.

Cachou also designed the logo for the newspaper “Taleh al hurrieh’ (I aspire Freedom), one of the newspapers that have appeared in Syria since the outbreak of revolution. Cachoux is also practicing photography, taking portraits of people in Syria and France. He is currently working on his second film, “in a ceaseless pursuit to capture the essence of the Syrian revolution via art”.

Gustave Courbet Gustave Courbet was a leading figure of realism and a great revolutionary. He was one of the primary figures in the Realist movement. Courbet believed that beauty is achieved when an artist represents the purest reality without artifice. His paintings featured nudes, still lives, hunting scenes and landscapes. He was one of the most remarkable artists during the 19th century. His unique style became a source and inspiration among the cubists and impressionists.

Early life

Gustave Courbet was born in Ornans, in 1819. His parents were Regis and Sylvie, and they had a thriving farming business. The young boy was drawn to art due to the inspiration of his sisters Juliette, Zelie and Zoe.

In 1839, he moved to Paris to undergo training at the Steuben and Hesse studio. However he left the studio soon, as he was more interested in perfecting his individual style. He became fascinated with the paintings of some of the French, Flemish and Spanish art masters in the Louvre.

One of Courbet's first masterpieces was an Odalisque, which was largely inspired by the works of Lelia and Victor Hugo. Soon, he became more enthused to create paintings based on realistic themes. In the early 1840s, he created a number of self portraits including the Desperate Man, The Sculptor, The Wounded Man and The Man with a Pipe, among a few others.

By 1846, he began touring Belgium and the Netherlands, and his adventures made him realize the value of portraying images that happen in day to day. It was only in 1849 that Courbet obtained his initial success at the Salon with his masterpiece entitled "After Dinner at Ornans". This painting earned him a gold medal, which meant he was exempted from jury approval until 1857.

Another great painting by Courbet was the Stone-Breakers, which he created in 1849. Art critics considered this fine piece of art as a model of peasant life. Eventually, Courbet started introducing social issues and imageries in his artworks. Soon, his work was labeled as realism, as he presented the reality and harshness occurring in day to day situations. One of Courbet's most sensational works was ‘The Artist's Studio’. It was considered a masterpiece by several artists including Baudelaire and Eugene Delacroix. According to the artist, this masterpiece presented his life and the world around him. He explained that there were various elements in society where he lived including wealth, poverty, misery and sufferings. Thus, there were several figures included in the painting such as a grave digger, prostitute and priest among a few others. After serving a prison sentence in 1872, Courbet experienced additional problems despite the end of the Vendome Column. A year after his sentence was over, President Patrice Mac-Mahon decided to have the column rebuilt, and the cost of reconstruction was to be settled by Courbet. Unfortunately, the artist did not have enough means to pay for the expenses, which made him decide to go on a self-imposed exile. He settled in Switzerland, and he became active in national and regional exhibitions. Soon, he became the head of a Swiss realist school, which inspired a number of artists including Ferdinand Hodler and Auguste Baud-Bovy. During his life in exile, he was able to create magnificent works of art which he claimed to symbolize his own life. In addition to painting, he became fascinated with sculpting. In fact, one of his finest sculptures was called ‘The Fisherman of Chavots’, which he completed in the 1860s. He donated this sculpture to Ornans. It was removed after the arrest of the artist. In 1877, Courbet died in La Tour-de-Peilz, in Switzerland. He suffered from a liver disease, which was caused by heavy drinking.

Courbet was as an inspiration to many, despite his personal trials and challenges. His ingenuity and craftsmanship made him one of the most revered artists in history, and his legacies continue to live on, years after his death.

Hassan Massoudy

“Hassan inflamed with desire to express his thoughts and an ideal has aerated vibrant, brilliant and balanced art with letters and lines that are awfully communicate poems and proverbs are wonderfully depicted in the dip of pen on paper. His style is unique in imagination and his use of fine blend of strong, soft and light colours is simply adorable.” Hassan was born in 1944 in NAJAF Southern Iraq. He moved to Bagdad in 1961. He studied calligraphy, graphic design and fine arts. He went to Paris in1969 where he enrolled at the Ecole Des Buaux –Arts. Hassan was greatly influenced by famous Arabic masters like Soulages and Picasso.

From 1971, he toured Eurped for thirteen years with Arabesque Performance combining music, poetry and calligraphy. He chose the theme “Peace and Tolerance” which became an instant hit. He had the opportunity to work with Amnesty International and other human welfare and right organizations.

In 1995, he was involved in the design of the stage set for the Ballet “Selim” with dancer Kader Belabri from Opera De Paris and singer Houria Aichi on a choreography form Kalaements. In 2005, he coordinated with dancer and choreographer Carolyn Carlson and musician Kudsi Erguner and created the show “Metaphore”. His work was exhibited and used as primary promotional image for the British Museum in 2006.

Massoudy has also written over 20 books which help the new generation of call graffiti artists. He lives in Paris.

Henri Rousseau

“Cities are the sinks of the human race.” Henri Rousseau

Henri Julien Felix Rousseau was a French Post-Impressionist famed for his lushly painted jungle scenes. Rousseau used ‘a subtle palette of sage green, earthen reds and rich blacks to produce interlocking forms that appear to emanate light from within.’ Rousseau’s work exerted extensive influence on several generations of avant-garde artists.

Rousseau was born in Laval, Maylene, France in 1844 in a family of tinsmith. He was forced to work there as a small kid. He attended Laval High School as a day student. He won some prizes for drawing and music.

Rousseau’s parents were in debt and forced to leave the town. Rousseau, after school, worked for a lawyer when he attempted a small perjury and sought refuge in the army. He moved to Paris in 1868, to support his widowed mother as a government employee.

In 1868, he married Clemence Boitard, a 15-year-old with whom he had six children. In 1871, he was appointed as a collector of the octroi in Paris. His wife died in 1888 and he married Josephine Noury in 1888. From 1886, he exhibited regularly in the Salon des independents. It drew enough attraction and good reviews. ‘Tiger in a Tropical Storm’ was exhibited in 1891 and received his first serious review. In 1893, Rousseau moved to a studio in Montparnasse where he produced the famous painting “The Sleeping Gypsy”. In 1905, Rousseau’s ‘large jungle scene’, ‘The Hungry Lion Throws itself on the Antelope’ was exhibited at the Salon des Independents.

The great painter Pablo Picasso accidentally saw a painting by Rousseau being sold on the street as a canvass to be painted over and immediately grasped the painter’s genius. Picasso met Rosseau. Later in 1908, Picasso held a half serious, half burlesque banquet in his studio at Le Bateau - Lavoir in Rousseau’s honour.

Rousseau retired in 1893. He supplemented his small pension with part- time jobs and work such as playing violin in the streets. He also worked at Le petit journal where he produced several its covers. In 1910, he exhibited his famous painting “The Dream” at the Salon des Indpendants.

Rousseau suddenly suffered a phlegmon in his leg. He was admitted to the Necker Hospital in Paris. He died on September 2, 1910 after an operation. Seven friends stood at his grave in the Cimetiere de Bageux- the painters Paul Signac, Otiz de Zarate, Robert Delaunay, Sonia Terk, the Sculptor Brancusi and Rousseau’s land lord Armand Queval and Guillaume Apollinaire who wrote the epitaph put on the tombstone.

‘We salute you Gentle Rousseau, you can hear us: Delaunay his wife Monsieur Queval and myself Let our luggage pass duty free through the gates of heaven We will bring you brushes paints and canvass That you may spend your sacred leisure in the Light of truth painting As once you did my portrait.

Heri Dono Heri Dono is a world renowned Indonesian visual artist, painter, sculptor and installation artist. “His figurative paintings give a complicated picture of Indonesian society and politics that is intertwined with larger international issues and concerns”. He grew up at a time of tumultuous period of Indonesian history. He is known for his creative acumen in shadow puppetry incorporating puppets in his installation and drawings to probe darker elements of human experience. He has a knack of conveying the moral responsibility of rulers and also makes people understand injustices. He blends humour and subtly conveys opinions though his highly imaginative drawings. Dono was born in Jakarta on June 12, 1960. He studied at the Indonesian Art Institute, Yogyakarta. He won the prize for the best painting in 1981 and 1985. He is an installation artist and works with materials that come from different places in the world. Don has a gift of mixing humoristic comments in his work on political and social problems in Indonesia. In 1998, he won a Prince Claus Award. His style is often placed in the art form of ‘new internationalism’. This is the latest art form that challenges the Western hegemony of art in contrast to the New Art Movement of the seventies and eighties that chose in favour of Western expressions in art. Dono’s knowledge of puppetry has greatly influenced his works. He depicts and re- crafts the puppets which were traditionally made of leather in paintings or installations with fantastic funny characters. His ‘Blooming in Arms’ installation featuring half-men, half-tree figures carrying guns and standing on prosthetic legs is a great attraction. The piece represents the environmental policy of government headed by President Suharto, the military man who ruled Indonesia from 1967- 1998. He encouraged people of Indonesia to plant a tree and at the same time allowed multinationals to cut down trees in the jungles of Kalimantan and Sumatra. Dono also focuses on global issues in his works. In his painting “The Last Sarimin” (2008), he depicts a King Kong like character standing on a skyscraper with planes swarming overhead. The character’s face resembles a Balinese mask. The painting is a commentary on the many species that face extinction, despite improved knowledge of their habitats and advances in technology. Dono is one among Indonesian contemporary artists from the late 1980’s generation that are best known to contemporary art international community. Despite his international fame and name, Dono leads a simple life in Yogyakarta. He rides a bicycle and zips around the city in T-shirt, sarong and sandals. He is an active supporter of the city’s cultural life.

Hieronymus Bosch

And what is the potential man, after all? Is he not the sum of all that is human? Divine, in other words? Hieronymus Bosch

Hieronymus Bosch is one of the cryptic artistic figures of the Northern Renaissance. His paintings baffled art experts and critics and defied rational interpretations, for centuries. He is a painter from the middle Ages. His most famous works are ‘The Garden of Earthly Delights’ and ‘The Temptation of St.Anthony’. The Garden of Earthly Delights is Bosch’s most complex and enigmatic creation. It is all about man’s inner life. He is a genius in visualizing and painting complicated themes in an astounding colour. Throughout his career he used art to portray the sins and follies of mankind and to show the consequences of these actions. Perhaps he harped on the concept that we create our fate every day.

Hieronymus Bosch was born in Brabant in Netherlands around 1450. He came from an artistic family. His father, brothers and uncles were all painters by trade. Bosch is said to have been trained by a relative while growing up. Around 1480, he married Alety Goyaerts den Meervenne. His wife came from a wealthy family. The marriage provided him with a comfortable life and social status. Bosch joined the Brotherhood of Our Lady, a local religious organization devoted to Virgin Mary, around 1486. He painted painful happenings around the world at that time.

Bosch took a critical look at the world which is seen in several of his works. With “The Cure of Folly” (1475-80), he poked fun of the misguided medical practices of the day. He also rebuked those who spent their lives seeking earthly pleasures in “The Ship of Fools” (1490). He continued focus on exploring religious themes.

Bosch painted “The Last Judgment” which illustrated the fall of humanity. The “Temptation of Saint Anthony” (1505) shows the saint resisting the efforts of the devil to make him surrender to evil. His paintings can be seen in Google images.

Bosch died in Hertogenbosch in August 1516.A mass funeral was held for him on August 9th. His paintings attracted many connoisseurs of art after his death. King Philip II of Spain became a serious collector of his works. The Garden of Delight is said to have hung in his bedroom to remind the Spanish monarch to stay on the righteous path. Today it can be seen in the Museo Nacional Del Prado in Madrid. The MIT in NY also holds Bosch’s works.

Honore Daumier

Honore Daumier was a painter, printmaker, caricaturist and sculptor whose works invariably offered commentary on social and political life in France in the 19th century. He is best known as the nimble caricaturist of French politics and habits of the bourgeois. He landed in jail for insulting the reigning monarch. He is famous for producing lithographs, drawings, and oil and water colour paintings. He pioneered a style of Realism that focused on people of all echelons of society. He spared the poor and exposed the rich and affluent. He lived in Paris during the period of political and social unrest which included two revolutions, frequent regime change, a war and siege. These occurrences in France, gave him ample opportunity to expose economic consequences of the turmoil. His greatest contribution to modern art was his ability to capture even the simplest moments in life and infuse them with emotion.

He produced over 500 paintings and 4000 lithographs, 1000 wood engravings, 1000 drawings and 100 sculptures. He was known for his caricatures on political figures and satires on the behavior of his countrymen.

Early life

Honore Victorin Daumier was born in Marseilles on 26th February 1808. His parents were Jean Baptiste Louis Daumier and Cecile Catherine Philippe. In 1816, his father Jean who was a glazier moved to Paris for better prospects. In 1816, young Daumier and his mother also moved to Paris. In 1822, young Daumier became a protégé of Alexander Lenoir, the famous artist and archeologist. In 1823, Daumier entered the Academie Suisse. At the same time, he also worked for a publisher and lithographer named Belliard and tried his hand at lithography.

Daumier began his artistic career by producing plates for music publishers and illustrations for advertisements. He also did a lot of work for publishers in anonymity. He emulated the style of Nicolas Toussaint Charlet, the French designer and painter. Daumier evinced particular interest in Napoleonic legend and the revolution. After the revolution of 1830, he created art which expressed his political preferences. He became almost blind in 1873. During the reign of Louis Philippe, Charles Philipon launched the comic journal La Caricature. Daumier joined the comic journal and commenced pictorial campaign of satire, targeting the eccentricities of the bourgeoisie, the corruption of law and the incompetence of blundering government. His caricature of the King as Gargantuan, (The giant Gargantua emerges at his mother's left ear, calling for ale, while 17,913 cows were required for the provision of his daily milk) drew wide attention.

After some indifferent education at home, he was sent to Paris where the crowds so annoyed him that he drowned thousands of them in a flood of urine (the survivors laugh so much, the city is renamed "Par Ris (source: WP). Infuriated, the King sent him to jail for six months at St Pelagie in 1832. After the closure of La Caricature, Philipon started a journal called Le Charivari, which provided ample opportunity for Daumier to dig at Robert Macaire the hero of a popular melodrama. In 1848, Daumier embarked on a political campaign, still in the service of the Le Charivari.

In mid-1840, Daumier started publishing his famous caricatures depicting members of the legal profession , known as Les Gens de Justice, a scathing satire about judges, defendants, attorneys, corrupt and greedy lawyers in general. In 1834, he produced the lithograph Rue Transnonain depicting the massacre in the rue transonic which was part of the April 1834 riot in Paris. The proceeds of this were used to promote freedom of the press and defrayed legal costs of a law suit against the satirical politically progressive journal Le Charivari.

Daumier also produced a number of sculptures in unbaked clay. He produced 36 busts of French members of Parliament in unbaked clay. (Imagine the members of the Parliament of India today. They are too “unbaked” even for producing a bust of unbaked clay). One of Daumier’s well known figurines were entitled “The Heavy Burden” and it featured a woman and her child.

As a painter, Daumier, painted realistic subjects. He was not recognized for his paintings until 1878, a year before his death when Paul Durand Ruel collected his works for an exhibition at his galleries and soon Daumier was called “Michelangelo of caricature”. At the time of the exhibition, Daumier was blind and living in a cottage at Valmondois. He died on 20th February 1879 in Valmondois, France.

Today Daumier’s works are found in the world’s best art museums. His drawings depicting the life of Don Quixote, is a great attraction among art lovers.

Hossein Nuri & Nadia

Hossein Nuri is an Iranian painter, dramatist and film maker.

Hossein was born in 1954 in Iran. He lost his father at the age of six. He was raised by his mother. From his early teens he showed interest in painting. He finished his elementary school and got a scholarship to continue his studies in Farah Industrial School, Tehran.

At that time, Farah School was closely monitored by SAVAK, Iran’s pre-revolution secret service. Hossein wrote a play expressing the nation’s dissatisfaction of Shah’s policy. Few minutes after the play was staged, it was interrupted by the military forces present at the school.

Hossein was jailed and tortured badly. He was questioned and pressurized to confess if he had any relations with the opposition. SAVAK tortured him so much that Nuri lost his ability to move his hands and legs. His health failed and SAVAK allowed him to go only when he was almost dead.

Nuri came back home at Tobat –e Jam. Then he started painting. He held his brush with his mouth and continued painting. When the revolution was over, Nuri pursued writing plays which were staged in many places in Iran. He met Nadia Maftoni, a student of Applied Physics in Sharif University of Technology. Nadia fell in love with him and proposed to him. They were married and settled down in Torbat-e Jam. They have two sons, Abolfazl Nuri and Mahmoud Nuri. Nuri later moved to Mashhad and afterwards to Tehran.

Maftoni is also a painter and contributes articles on philosophy and allied topics.

In 2004, Nuri introduced a new style in painting in an exhibition held in Paris. The style was appreciated for its creativity in conceiving design out of abstract process. French painters suggested the name “Reflection” for the style. Nuri does this process with oil-colour and acrylic in large canvass. Nuri was known to use brightness of colours and recurrence of butterflies which is his inimitable style. He continues painting with his mouth. He has organized more than a hundred exhibitions in Iran, France, China, Germany, Algeria, Lebanon and Austria. He also made many documentary films. He was also a producer and director of films. The Congener, Pashiz, and Disconnection are his production.He won best playwright and the best director awards in stage festivals several times.

The Iranian filmmaker Panabharkhoda Rezaee has made a documentary about life and works of Hossein Nouri. The documentary” Song of the Light “depicts the physically dabbled painter’s style, his artistic portrayal of religious themes using bright colours and the recurrence of butterflies in his works.

Nuri , a paraplegic painter had painted a portrait of the Virgin Mary in front of the Danish embassy during the protest over the publication of cartoon depicting Prophet Mohammad in several newspapers in Tehran in Feb 2006.

Nuri lives in Tehran with his family.

Quotes  It’s not like opportunity brings about work; work brings about opportunity.  What does despair have that hope doesn’t?  Lie contains truth, but truth contains no lie.

Ivan KonstantinovichAivazovsky Ivan Aivazovsky was a Russian Romantic painter. He is considered as one of the greatest Master of Marine art. His closeness to sea as a youngster is perhaps the reason for his wonderful painting of sea and storm. He was born in an American family in the Black Sea port of Feodosia in Crimea and spent his time there. Ivan had close ties with the military and political elite of the Russian Empire. He attended many military man oeuvres. He was also sponsored by the state and well respected and regarded during his entire life. The saying “worthy of Aivazovsky’s brush’’ was used in Russia for describing something lovely and wonderful! Aivazovsky held several solo exhibitions in Europe and the US. During his 60 -year career, he created over 6000 paintings. Most of his works are seascapes. He also depicted battle scenes, Armenian themes and portraits. His works are kept in Russia, Ukrainian and Armenian museums and many in private collections. Early life Aivazovsky was born on 17 July 1817 in the city of Feodosia, Crimea. His father Konstantin was an American merchant from Polish region of Galicia. His family had migrated to Europe and settled in Feodosia in the early 1800’s. Aivazovsky was initially known as Gevorg Aivazian but changed his name to Gaivazovsky. He had three sisters and two brothers. His elder brother Gabriel was a well-known historian and an Armenian Apostolic archbishop. Aivazovsky received parochial education at Feodosia’s St. Sargis Armenian Church. He was taught drawing by Jacob Koch, a local architect. Aivozosky moved to Simferopol and attended the gymnasium. In 1833, he moved to the Russian capital, St. Petersburg to join the Imperial Academy of Arts in Maxim. In 1837, he joined the battle -painting class of Alexander Sauerweid and participated in Baltic Fleet exercises in the Gulf of Finland. In 1837, he graduated from the Imperial Academy with a gold medal. He finished the course two years earlier than intended. He came back to Feodosia in 1838 and spent two years there. In 1839, he took part in military exercises in the shore of Crimea where he got acquainted with Russian admirals Mikhail Lazarev, Pavel Nakhimov and Vladimir Kornilov. In 1840, he was sent by the Imperial Academy of Arts to study in Europe. He visited many important places in Europe like Venice, Vienna, and San Lazzaro degli Armenia. He studied Armenian manuscripts and became familiar with Armenian art. He remained in Naples and Rome between 1840 and 1842. His successful exhibitions got him recognition and Pope Gregory XVI awarded him with a gold medal. He then visited Switzerland, Germany and Netherlands. In Britain he met the English painter J M W Tuner who was stuck by Aivazovsky’s picture “The Bay of Naples on a Moonlit night”. The painter dedicated rhymed eulogy in Italian to Aivazosky. In France, he received a gold medal from the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture. After a tour of Naples, Portugal Spain and Malta, he came back to Russia in 1844. In 1845 and 1846, he attended the manoeuvres of the Black Sea Fleet and the Baltic Sea Fleet and the battle of Fleet at Petergof. In 1847, he was given the title of professor of seascape painting by the Imperial Academy of Art. He was elected to the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 1848, he married Julia Graves and had four daughters. They separated in 1860. He held an exhibition at London’s Pall Mall which was attended by Edward VII, Prince of Wales and painter John Everett Millais. He then got married to Anna Burnazian, 40 years his junior. In 1882, he visited Moscow and St. Petersburg and took a boat ride along the Volga River to see the countryside in 1884. In 1885, he was promoted to the rank of Privy councilor. He was also giv en an honorary membership in the Imperial Academy of Fine Arts. In 1892, he made a trip to US visiting Niagara Falls, and Washington DC.

Aivazovsky was shocked and deeply affected by the Hamidian massacres (1894- 96). They were the massacres of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire that resulted in the death of 3, 00,000 and 50,000 orphaned children. He painted many pictures on the subject such as ‘The Expulsion of Turkish Ship’ and ‘The Armenian Massacre of Trebizond’. With rage and hatred, he threw the medals given to him by the Ottoman Sultan.

Aivazovsky spent his final days in Feodosia. He died on 19 April 1900 in Feodosia. He was buried at the courtyard of St. Sargis Armenian Church. A quote from History of Armenia by Movses Khorenati which is engraved on his tombstone reads: “He was born a mortal, left an immortal legacy“.

Jacques –Louis David Jacques-Louis David was born in Paris in 1748. He was the son of an iron merchant who was killed in a duel when the boy was nine years old. His mother, Geneviève Buron, came from a family of builders and architects. He was related to the painter François Boucher (1703-1770). Under the guardianship of maternal uncles, Louis received sound classical education. His guardians wished for him to become an architect, but he insisted on learning painting. Jacques was placed in the studio of Joseph-Marie Vien (1716-1809), the leading promoter of the neoclassical reaction against the Rococo. David competed four times for the Rome Prize, beginning in 1771 but failed. His fourth attempt, ANTIOCHUS AND STRATONICE (1774), finally won him the prize.

In Rome from 1775 to 1780, the overwhelming impression of the masters of the Italian High Renaissance and early baroque caused him to purge his work radically of all traces of the modern "French," The French Academy admitted him with the rank of associate. At the Salon of 1781, the exhibition of his Italian canvases produced a strong impression on critics and public. His marriage in 1782 to Charlotte Pécoul, daughter of the supervisor of royal buildings, brought him influence and financial security. He was admitted to full academy membership the following year, offering as his reception the piece ANDROMACHE MOURNING HECTOR. Awarded a royal commission to execute a painting on the subject of HORATIUS DEFENDING HIS SON BEFORE THE PEOPLE for the Salon of 1783, David changed its subject to the OATH OF THE HORATII. David traveled to Italy and finished the picture in eleven months. Exhibited at the Paris Salon of 1785, its Spartan severity excited general admiration and founded David's reputation as France's foremost painter. He followed this success with a private commission for the financier Trudaine, THE DEATH OF SOCRATES (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York), which won praise at the Salon of 1787. His entry in 1789, BRUTUS IN THE ATRIUM OF HIS HOUSE, AFTER THE EXECUTION OF HIS SONS, based on a play by Voltaire, was, like the HORATII, a royal commission, but its moral lesson--that family ties must yield to the demands of patriotism--was stated with an unyielding hardness that foretold the Terror.

Political affliction David's political activity was at first confined to the Academy. He managed to dismantle the privileges of the academy one by one. As a member of the Committee of Public Instruction in 1793, he voted for the beheading of the king and the queen (1793) and briefly presided over the Convention. During his years of Revolutionary activity, he did not produce moralizing history paintings. As the leading member of the Committee of Public Instruction, David designed their settings of artificial mountains, symbolic sculptures, and monumental altars, sketched the costumes and organized the ceremonial for the Translation of Voltaire's Ashes to the Pantheon (1791), the celebration of the Mutinous Swiss Guards (1792), the Festival of Brotherhood (1793), and the Feast of the Supreme Being (1794), and volunteered to paint the memorial portraits of the Revolution's "martyrs.

In July 1794, David was denounced as "tyrant of the arts" and had to defend himself before the hostile Convention. He was imprisoned for several months in 1794 and again in 1795 .While in prison, his thoughts turned again to themes from antiquity.

Impoverished after years without adequate income, he made his peace with the new order. The academy was reestablished under a new name and he became a member. He also organized his studio as a place of instruction through which in time some four hundred students passed, causing it to become, identified simply as "the French School”.

Meeting with Bonaparte

David first met Bonaparte in the winter of 1797 and was eager to ally with him. Bonaparte, preparing his ascent to power, sensed that the master propagandist might prove of future use. A closer relationship developed in 1799. David celebrated the victory of Marengo, "calm on a fiery horse," as Bonaparte himself had specified. When Napoleon made himself emperor of France in 1804, he appointed David as his First Painter and commissioned him to commemorate the empire's inaugural ceremonies in four paintings of very large size. After Napoleon's first abdication in April 1814 and the restoration of Louis XVIII, David remained undisturbed and was able to arrange a private exhibition of his LEONIDAS. In March 1815 Napoleon returned from Elba, and reconfirmed David as First Painter. David now signed a declaration of loyalty to Napoleon--an act of courage, since he foresaw the emperor's ultimate defeat.

On the reinstatement of Louis XVIII after Waterloo, David was banished from France. He settled in Brussels in 1816 and, at sixty-eight, prepared for a new life. The portraits he painted in these last years’s proved that his sense of composition and vigor of execution remained almost undiminished. David ended his days in bourgeois comfort in Brussels, cared for by affectionate pupils and friends. A heart ailment brought on his death in December 1825. He was given a Christian burial.

Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot

Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot was born on 17 July 1796 in Paris. He was a pivotal figure in landscape painting. He produced over 3000 works during his life time inspiring countless number of forgeries and copies.

Corot was the son of a cloth merchant and a millionaire. At a young age, he was not inclined towards art or painting. He was a businessman till the age of 26. Suddenly he started to focus on two types of landscapes- historical and realistic. He initially studied with the landscapist Achiille Etna Michallon. He later studied under Jean – Victor Bertin.

Between 1825 and 1828 Corot made a trip to Italy spending time in Rome and the Campagna before travelling to Naples. In this period Corot sent his first painting to Paris Salon, Paris. He visited Italy twice, and undertook a journey to France, Belgium, Holland, Switzerland and London. During this trip, Corot painted in the open air and filled numerous notebooks with drawings. During winter, he worked in the studio on ambitious mythological and religious landscapes destined for the salon. “Hagar in the wilderness” in MET, NY is a characteristic of his early work. He became famous by the 1850’s. His style and popularity came to be admired by the younger artists. He also encouraged young artists to copy his pictures as a learning exercise or for sale. This practice resulted in numerous forgeries and imitation as well as difficulties of attribution.

At the Exposition Universelle of 1855, Corot showed six paintings and won a gold medal. His influence on later 19th century landscapes painting was immense especially in his portrayal of light on the landscape.

Corot died on February 22, 1875 at the age of 78. In 2018, the artist’s ‘Venisevue du Quai des Esclavons’ (1845) was sold at Christie’s for $9, 009, 844, an auction record for Corot. His works are held in MET, New York, the Hermitage in St. Petersburg, the National Gallery in London and the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. (Sauce WP).

Johannes Vermeer

Johannes Vermeer rose to fame during the Dutch Golden Age era. He was a famous painter who was exceptionally known for his elegant use of light and color. In his painting career, Vermeer produced 14 masterpieces in a career that lasted for only 24 years. This makes him one of the legendary personalities in the field of art.

Johannes Vermeer was born on October 31st, 1632. His father’s name was Reijnier Janszoon, and his mother was called Digna Baltus. Little information is known regarding Johannes Vermeer's painting apprenticeship. Nonetheless, sources claim that Carel Fabritius initially trained him. In later 1653, Vermeer signed up with 'Guild of Saint Luke.' This was a group of painters. During this period, he lacked sufficient funds that would enable him successfully enroll with the painting group.

In 1964, the 'Delft Thunderclap' explosion occurred leaving the nation in economic turmoil. It was during this period that Vermeer produced some of his best paintings. In 1656 for example, he painted The Procuress. The following year, Vermeer received financial assistance from Pieter van Ruijven who was an art dealer.

In the period from 1657 to 1658, Johannes Vermeer released some of the best paintings that he got high acclaim for such as The Milkmaid and The Little Street. The latter painting is currently showcased at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. The Milkmaid painting is also showcased in the same museum. Both paintings are regarded as some of the most exquisite pieces of art that Vermeer worked on during his career.

The period from 1659 to 1661 saw Vermeer producing other two incredible paintings, i.e., The Girl with the Wine Glass and View of Delft. The former painting is showcased at the Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum whereas the latter is at Mauritshuis, The Hague. With his remarkable artistic prowess, Vermeer soon became the head of the 'Guild of Saint Luke.' This occurred around 1662 to 1671.

Around the same period, Johannes Vermeer went ahead and released another one of his highly acclaimed artwork called Girl with a Pearl Earring – 1665. This painting is showcased at Mauritshuis, The Hague. This work was later recognized as one of his best artwork as compared to his previous paintings.

Johannes Vermeer wedded Catharina Bolenes, and together they had 15 children in their marriage. Bolenes was also a Catholic. She was from a wealthy family. Sadly, four of their 15 children died even before being baptized.

Johannes Vermeer passed away on December 15th, 1675. He died at the age of 43.

Johann Michael Rottmayr

Johann Michael Rottmayr was an Austrian painter and draughtsman. He was the first notable baroque painter, north of Italy. He was one of the best Austrian painters who stand at the beginning of the great tradition of Rococo decoratio of the Austro –Hungarian empire. Johann had a natural talent for accommodating architecture with decorations. He is known for large scale religious and secular decoration schemes. He was the son of an organist, Friedrich Rottmayr and Maria Magdalena. He got inspiration to paint from his mother who was a painter of wooden sculpture. Johann started learning painting in Venice along with Hans Adam Weissenkircher under the famous Johann Karl Loth in 1675. Loth was a renowned German Baroque painter who lived in Venice. Loth’s workshop mixes the Neapolitan school and Venetian school. Johann returned to Passu in 1688 and settled there. He was appointed as a painter of the Prince Bishop’s Court. He also undertook assignments for Count von Althann. Johann married Helene Reichpekh in 1696 and settled in Vienna. At this time, Johann undertook various commissions in many places including Melk where he carried out extensive work at the great abbey church built in 1702-14. Johann was primarily famous for his frescos, and proved to be great with his easel pictures. His vigorous and colorful style was strongly influenced by Rubens. He meticulously followed Ruben’s practice of making oil sketches for major works. Johann was titled Rosenbrunn in 1703. His wife died and he remarried Theresia Nassner in 1727. Johann died on 25th October 1730. He was buried at St.Stephen’s Cathedral in Vienna.

Kara Walker

Kara Walker is an African American artist who rose to fame for her use of large paper silhouettes to explore social issues surrounding gender, race and black history. In her recent drawings, Kara Walker traces American histories of Christianity and racism. Her riotous charcoal drawings enshrine an unsolved “US narrative” filled with racism, martyrdom and political violence.

Kara was born on November 26, 1969 in Stockton, California. Her father was a painter. Walker knew at a very young age, that she wanted to become an artist. At a young age, Walker moved with her family to Atlanta, Georgia and later attended the Atlanta College of Art. She earned a Bachelor degree in Fine Arts in painting and print making in 1991. In 1994, she got a Master of Fine Arts degree from Rhode Island School of Design in Providence.

At the Rhode Island School of Design, Walker began working in the silhouette form. In 1994, her work appeared in a show at the Drawing Center, NY. She became a superstar instantly. In 1997, she got John D and Catherine T MacArthur Foundation “genius grant”. Since then, Walker’s work has been exhibited in galleries and museums worldwide.

Revolutionary venture

Walker’s ambition was always to create pieces to tell a story or make a statement rather than achieve beauty of perfection. Walker debuted a mural at the Drawing Center in New York City entitled “Gone: A Historical Romance of a Civil War as it occurred between the Dusky Thighs of One Young Negress and her heart”. It was an instant attention getter and came under criticism. The controversial piece of art made her a champion raising voice on the subject of race and racism.

Walker had organized solo exhibitions at various institutions including MET in New York. She became a celebrity worldwide for her creative ability to explore truth in drawing.

In 2007, Time magazine named Walker to its prestigious “TIME 100” list. In December 2012, the Newark Library in New Jersey covered up a large Walker drawing, part of which depicted a white man holding the head of a naked black woman to his groin.

In 2015, Walker began a five year term at Tepper Chair Visual Arts at Rutgers Mason School of the Arts. She currently teaches at Columbia University and lives and works in New York.

Kole Idromeno

Painter, photographer and architect, Kole Idromeno is one of the best known early figures of Albanian painting. He was referred to as Michelangelo of Albania. His well known work is “Motra Tone”. He was the first landscape painter in the Modern Albanian Painting School and specialized in secular painting. His works were represented in international exhibitions in Budapest, New York, Rome and Bari. He is also remembered as a sculptor and an architect of public buildings of Shkodra.

Kole Idromeno was born on 15th August 1860 in Shkoder in the Northwest. With the help of Pjeter Marubi, he learnt the art of photography. He travelled to Venice in 1875 to attend the Academy of Fine Arts. He could not survive the rigours of formal training and gave up. However, he worked in Venice for two years as the assistant to a Venetian painter. He returned to Albania in 1878. In 1883, he opened a photo studio and was the first person in Albania to import moving picture equipment. He was also the first painter to show motion pictures in Albania in 1912.

Famous paintings

Idromeno preferred urban subjects such as “Dasma shkodrane (Wedding in Shkodra). He also did portraits of intellectuals and nationalist figures. His famous portrait was the half-veiled “Montra Tone” done in 1883. He has also painted many landscapes and religious subjects. One of his best works is the portrait of Gjergi Kastriot Skenderbeu, a painting which has never been in public. His paintings include “The Big coffee Shop’, Church of Shiroke, Mosque of Parruce and the villas along the main boulevard in the northern district of Shkodra.

Kole Idromeno was the initiator of the first art exhibition in Shkoder (1923). He was represented in the first national art exhibition in Tirana in 1931. He died on 12 December 1939 in Tirana, Albania.

Pablo Picasso

Pablo Picasso was one of the greatest artists of the 20th century and the creator of Cubism. A Spanish expatriate painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist and stage designer, Picasso was considered radical in his work. Picasso was also renowned for endlessly reinventing himself, switching between styles so radically different that his life's work seems to be the product of five or six great artists rather than just one.

Early Life

Picasso was born on October 25, 1881, in Málaga, Spain. Picasso's mother was Doña Maria Picasso y Lopez. His father was Don José Ruiz Blasco, a painter and art teacher. Young Picasso was a relatively poor student. But he displayed a prodigious talent for drawing. According to legend, his first words were "piz, piz," his childish attempt at saying "lápiz," the Spanish word for pencil. Picasso's father began teaching him to draw and paint when he was a child. When he was 13 years old, his skill level had surpassed his father's.

In 1895, when Picasso was 14, the family moved to Barcelona. There, he applied to the city's prestigious School of Fine Arts. Although the school typically only accepted students several years his senior, Picasso's entrance exam was so extraordinary that he was granted exception and admitted. Nevertheless, Picasso chafed at the School of Fine Arts' strict rules and formalities, and began skipping classes so that he could roam the streets of Barcelona, sketching the city scenes he observed.

In 1897, a 16-year-old Picasso moved to Madrid to attend the Royal Academy of San Fernando. However, he again became frustrated with his school's singular focus on classical subjects and techniques. Once again, Picasso began skipping classes to wander through the city and paint what he observed: gypsies, beggars and prostitutes, among other things.

In 1899, Picasso moved back to Barcelona and fell in with a crowd of artists and intellectuals who made their headquarters at a café called El Quatre Gats ("The Four Cats"). Inspired by the anarchists and radicals he met there, Picasso made his decisive break from the classical methods in which he had been trained, and began a process of experimentation and innovation.

At the turn of the 20th century, Pablo Picasso moved to Paris, France to open his studio. Art critics and historians break Picasso's career into distinct periods, the first of which lasted from 1901 to 1904 and is called his "Blue Period," after the color that dominated nearly all of his paintings over these years. Lonely and deeply depressed over the death of his close friend, Carlos Casagemas, he painted scenes of poverty, isolation and anguish, almost exclusively in shades of blue and green. Picasso's most famous paintings from the Blue Period include "Blue Nude," "La Vie" and "The Old Guitarist," all three of which were completed in 1903.

By 1905, he madly fell in love with a beautiful model, Fernande Olivier. He enjoyed the generous patronage of art dealer Ambroise Vollard. The artistic manifestation of Picasso's improved spirits was the introduction of warmer colors—including beiges, pinks and reds—in what is known as his "Rose Period" (1904-06). His most famous paintings from these years include "Family at Saltimbanques" (1905), "Gertrude Stein" (1905-06) and "Two Nudes" (1906).

In 1907, Pablo Picasso produced a painting unlike anything he or anyone else had ever painted before, a work that would profoundly influence the direction of art in the 20th century: "Les Demoiselles d'Avignon," a chilling depiction of five nude prostitutes, abstracted and distorted with sharp geometric features and stark blotches of blues, greens and grays.

In Cubist paintings, objects are broken apart and reassembled in an abstracted form, highlighting their composite geometric shapes and depicting them from multiple, simultaneous viewpoints in order to create a physics-defying, collage-like effects. At once destructive and creative, Cubism shocked, appalled and fascinated the art world. "

Picasso's early Cubist paintings, include "Three Women" (1907), "Bread and Fruit Dish on a Table" (1909) and "Girl with Mandolin" (1910). His later Cubist works are distinguished as "Synthetic Cubism" for moving even further away from artistic typicality’s of the time, creating vast collages out of a great number of tiny, individual fragments. These paintings include "Still Life with Chair Caning" (1912), "Card Player" (1913-14) and "Three Musicians" (1921).

The outbreak of World War I ushered in the next great change in Picasso's art. His works between 1918 and 1927 are categorized as part of his "Classical Period," a brief return to Realism in a career otherwise dominated by experimentation. His interesting works from this period include "Three Women at the Spring" (1921), "Two Women Running on the Beach/The Race" (1922) and "The Pipes of Pan" (1923).

From 1927 onward, Picasso became caught in a new philosophical and cultural movement known as Surrealism, the artistic manifestation of which was a product of his own Cubism. Picasso's most well-known Surrealist painting, deemed one of the greatest paintings of all time, and was completed in 1937, during the Spanish Civil War. After German bombers supporting Francisco Franco's Nationalist forces carried out a devastating aerial attack on the Basque town of Guernica on April 26, 1937, Picasso, outraged by the bombing and the inhumanity of war, painted "Guernica." Painted in black, white and grays, the work is a Surrealist testament to the horrors of war, and features a Minotaur and several human-like figures in various states of anguish and terror. "Guernica" remains one of the most moving and powerful anti-war paintings in history.

After World War II, Picasso became more overtly political. He joined the Communist Party and was twice honored with the International Lenin Peace Prize, first in 1950 and again in 1961. By this point in his life, he was also an international celebrity, the world's most famous living artist.

Picasso's later paintings display simple, childlike imagery and crude technique. Picasso created the epitome of his later work, "Self Portrait Facing Death," using pencil and crayon, a year before his death. The autobiographical subject, drawn with crude technique, appears as something between a human and an ape, with a green face and pink hair.

Pablo Picasso continued to create art and maintain an ambitious schedule in his later years, superstitiously believing that work would keep him alive. He died on April 8, 1973, at the age of 91, in Mougins, France. Cubism was a truly revolutionary style of modern art developed by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque’s. It was the first style of abstract art which evolved at the beginning of the 20th century in response to a world that was changing with unprecedented speed.

Massacre in Korea

Paolo Uccello

Polo Uccello, original name Paolo di Dono was born on 13th December 1397 in Pratovecchio near Florence. His father, Donodi Paolo was a barber surgeon, and his mother Antonia was a high born Florentine. Uccello was an Italian painter and mathematician who was famous for his pioneering work on visual perspective in art. Uccello combined an international Gothic figure style and love of decorative effects with a profound interest in linear perspective. He has exhibited this aspect of painting in his “The Battle of Romano” piece. Uccello had training under sculptor Ghiberti from 1407- 1414. He worked as a designer of mosaics from 1425 to 30. He executed major frescoes (Italian word for fresh, a type of wall painting). His equestrian painting “Sir John Hawk wood” in Florence Cathedral, manipulates perspective for sake of illusionism. His painting, “The Flood” in the cloister of Santa Maria Novella (1447) uses it to enhance expression.

Uccello had taken to painting when he was 10 years old as an apprentice in the workshop of the sculptor Lorenzo, the great Italian sculptor. His “Gates of Paradise” for the Baptistery for the cathedral of Florence is considered as one of the greatest masterpieces of Italian art in the Quattro cento. The door consists of 28 panels illustrating New Testament scenes of the life of Christ.

In 1414, Uccello joined the confraternity of painters and became a member of the Arte dei Medici e delgi Speziali, the official painter’s guild in Florence. From 1425 to 1431, Uccello worked in Venice as a master mosaicist. In 1436, in the Florence cathedral, Uccello completed the monochrome fresco of an equestrian monument of Sir John Hawk wood, an English mercenary who had commanded Florentine troops at the end of the 14th century. In 1443, he completed four heads of prophets around a colossal clock on the interior of the west façade of the cathedral. Between 1443 and 1445, he contributed the designs for two stained glass windows in the cupola.

In 1447, Uccello returned to the Chiostro Verde of Santa Maria Novella, where he did a fresco illustrating the flood and the recession of water. The painting illustrates the artist’s love for perspective. His most famous paintings are three panels representing the Battle of San Romana.

In 1469, he declared that “I find myself old and ailing. My wife is ill and I can no longer work”. In his last years, he was lonesome, a forgotten man, and afraid of hardship in life. His last work was the Hunt in 1470. He made his testament on 11 November 1475 and died shortly afterwards at the age of 78 on 10 December 1475. He was buried near his father’s tomb in the Florentine church of Santo Spirito. Uccello will be ever remembered for his precise, analytical mind and his acumen to depict objects scientifically in three dimensional spaces. The perspective of his paintings has influenced famous painters such as Albrecht Durer and Leonard da Vinci to name a few. His daughter Antonio Uccello was a Carmelite nun and a painter. Quotes This knowledge I pursue is the finest pleasure I have ever known. I could no sooner give it up that I could the very air that I breathe. O what a lovely thing this perspective is!

Patrick Ching

Patrick Ching is known as Hawaii’s nature artist. His flair for wild life and training he had at Otis, Parsons School of Design in Los Angeles has given him name and fame as painter. He is a Hawaiian conversationalist and wildlife artist, ornithological illustrator and author of children’s books.

Early life

Ching was born in in Oahu in 1962. His early education was in Oahu. While in school, he was an avid athlete. He has participated in league baseball, wrestling, professional boxing and the dangerous job of a rodeo clown. He enjoyed outdoors and was fond of surfing, fishing, riding, and hand gliding. After his training in Otis College, he advanced his talents by working in the field for the US Fish and Wildlife Service. This field work provided him an opportunity to explore remote areas of the islands. He was fascinated by different creatures and places that inspired him to work. He started painting them. Soon he gained international reputation due to his paintings which had a striking resemblance to photography.

Ching’s works of art was admired throughout the world. His art can be seen on 1986 Hawaiian Telephone Book Cover featuring Haley’s Comet. His first wildlife Conservator stamp, featuring the Hawaii state bird the nene (goose) is a great work. A hundred foot mural of the Salt Lake Public Library depicting the historic scenes from the Salt Lake area on the island of Oahu also dons Ching’s work. Ching has been celebrated as the “feature Artist for 2008 Haleiwa Arts Festival and the celebrations of the Sea “Arts Miles Murals

Project, Hawaii in 2008. His artwork has been featured in various newspapers and television shows. His work appeared in magazines like Wildlife Art News, Audubon and Birders World. He is the prolific author of many detailed books on Hawaiian wildlife. Ching continues to dedicate his life in preserving and capturing the essence of the islands through art by donating his time and talents. In 1996, Ching opened the Naturally Hawaiian Gallery and Gifts in Waimanalo.

He conducts regular art classes from his gallery via Skype for students in many countries. Ching’s commissioned artwork can be seen at the home of celebrities and art collectors around the world. His works can be seen in Hawaii’ Bishop Museum and the Smithsonian Museum in New York. He has also authored many award winning books including Sea Turtles of Hawaii, The Hawaiian Monk Seal and Honu and Hina. Ching now travels internationally, painting and conducting realistic painting workshops.

Pawel Kuczynski

Pawel Kuczynski is a Polish artist who specialized in satirical illustration. He was born in 1976 in Szczecin, Poland. He graduated with graphics degree from the Fine Arts Academy in Pozan. Pawel has been focusing on satire since 2004 and has got over a hundred prizes and distinctions.

Pawel deals with serious themes such as poverty, greed, politics and mortality. He adds flavour and life to these themes with his unique style which is whimsical and cartoonish. In 2004, he received the “Eryk” prize from the Association of Polish Cartoonists. He has won a record number of awards in international competitions. His brilliant pieces can be seen in the Toon Pool where he has over 88 works of art.

Peter McIntyre

Confidence comes not from always being right but from not fearing to be wrong… Peter McIntyre

Peter MaIntyre provided ‘an intimate impression of the drama, the colour, the humour and the tragedy of war’ through his paintings. His work features changing territories: The North African desert, Mediterranean port town and mountain scrub. In his paintings, McIntyre recreates the lurid hellishness of war. His work serves as a historical record. “His paintings of Crete- where over 7000 New Zealand soldiers were involved fighting German invasion is extremely valuable as no official photographs accompany the Allied Forces. MaIntyre also captures hundreds of faces from privates to generals.

Peter McIntyre was born in Dunedin on 4 July 1910. He was the son of Peter McIntyre and his wife Isabella Edith Cubitt. His father was a co-founder of the Caxton Printing Company.

Peter McIntyre was educated at Otago Boys High School. His father encouraged him to receive instruction in art from Alfred O ‘Keefee, a local artist of repute. He then went to the University of Otago to study journalism. He quit the course and went to London where he attended Slade School of fine Art for a bachelor’s degree. He also found time to visit Europe and painted scenes in France, Germany, Italy and Spain. In 1934, his final year of studies at Slade, he won many prizes for his drawings.

In London, he worked as a free-lance commercial artist. In 1937, he married an English woman, Lillian nee Wellborn, a painter. On the outbreak of the Second World War, he joined a unit of the 2nd New Zealand Expeditionary Force (2NZEF). In 1940, the unit left for Egypt and the unit was based at the outskirts of Cairo. Here, McIntyre provided drawings for Parade, a military magazine. He was also invited to prepare artwork to form the basis of a security poster. In his spare time, he also executed landscapes, and portraits of fellow soldiers. His paintings attracted the attention of Major General Bernard Freyberg. In July 1941, the Major General appointed him as official New Zealand war artist and promoted him to lieutenant rank. In this new position, McIntyre recorded the activities of the 2NZEF during its engagement in Crete, North Africa and Italy.

In 1943, he established contact with the New Zealand publishing company AH Reed Ltd., providing illustrations for Passage to Tobruk, a memoir by Francis Jackson.

At the end of the war, he had been promoted to Major. He returned to Dunedin in February 1946 and set up a studio. He started working full time and produced portraits and landscapes.

In 1949, he divorced his wife and married Patrician nee Miles and moved to Wellington. He also shot up to fame as a painter in Australia and United States. In 1962, he was approached by Reed Company who requested McIntyre to write a book on his career. This book, ‘The Painted Years’, his first book proved a success. This motivated him to write Peter McIntyre’s New Zealand in 1964 and Peter McIntyre’s Pacific in 1966.In 1970, he recorded scenes from Western states in his book ‘Peter McIntyre’s West’. Further books followed with titles McIntyre’s Country (1979) and Peter McIntyre: War Artist (1981).

Peter was appointed as an officer of the Order of the British Empire for services to the arts in 1970 New Year Honours. He died on 11 September 1995 and survived by his wife and two children.

A retrospective show of McIntyre’s paintings was held at the Wellington City Gallery in 1995 to popular acclaim. His collections can be seen in the National Army Museum in Waiouru, Auckland War Memorial Museum. However, it is McIntyre’s paintings of New Zealand cities and landscape which continue to make him one of the most recognizable and respected New Zealand artists of the twentieth century.

PETER MCINTYRE, Venice The Barge from Crete -1941 Philip Guston

To paint is possessing rather than picturing… Guston

Philp Guston was an iconic American painter. He was considered as one of the greatest luminaries of the 20 th century art. He transitioned from abstract expressionism to idiosyncratic lexicon characterized by painterly forms, cartoonish drawing style and a predominantly pink palette. His legendary career spanned half a century from 1930 to 1980. His paintings continue to exert a powerful influence on younger generation of contemporary painters.

Guston was born in 1913 in Montreal. His family moved to Los Angeles. His Ukranian Jewish Parents had escaped persecution when they moved to Canada from Odessa, Ukraine. In 1923 due to difficulty in securing income, his father hanged himself in the shed. Guston’s mother supported his artistic inclination seeing his drawings in a small closet lit by a hanging bulb.

Guston began painting in 1927 at the young age of 14, when he enrolled in the Los Angeles Manual Arts High School. Both he and Jackson Pollock studied under Frederick John de St Vrain Schakowsky and were introduced to European modern art, philosophy and mystic literature.

In 1930, Guston moved to New York and was enrolled in the Works of Progress Administration. He produced impressive murals inspired by Mexican muralists and Italian Renaissance paintings. In 1931, the 18-year-old Guston produced mural with Reuben Kodish to fund raise for defendants in the Scottsboro Boys Trial. The mural was defaced by local police force known as ‘Red squads’.

In 1934, Guston along with Reuben Kadish and Jules Langsner went to Mexico. The trio was given a 1000 square foot wall in the palace of Emperor Maximillian in the state capital of Morelia to produce an impressive mural. They produced the famous “The struggle against terror,” an antifascist mural.

In September 1935 Guston moved to New York where he worked as an artist in the WPA program during the Great Depression.

In 1937, he married artist and poet Musa McKim and the couple produced several WPA murals. During this period, his works included strong references to Renaissance painters. He was also influenced by American and Mexican mural painters. In 1938, he painted post office murals in the US post office in Commerce, Georgia.

Guston also undertook assignment to teach at the School of Art and Art History at the University of Iowa from 1941-45. He completed a mural for the Social Security building in Washington DC. He had his first solo exhibition in 1944. He also continued his teaching at the New York University and at Pratt Institute Brooklyn. He also conducted regular monthly graduate seminars at Boston University. Guston shot to fame for featuring recurring imagery such as hooded Klansmen and President Richard Nixon.

In 1967, Guston moved to Woodstock, NY. He was disappointed with the abstracts and began painting representationally again but in a rather personal cartoonish manner. Guston died in 1980 at the age of 66, of a heart attack in Woodstock, NY. After his death, he was elected into the National Academy of Design as an Associate Academician.Guston’s works can be seen in the MET, New York, Art Institute, Chicago and Tate Gallery in London. Porternari

Portinari was born to Italian parents, but his outlook and influences were thoroughly Brazilian. The same is true of his legacy, and his work entitled Futebol (Football), painted in 1958.

Portinari's parents had emigrated from Italy to Brazil as children and worked as laborers on a coffee plantation in the São Paulo district, on the outskirts of a town called Brodosqui. They had twelve sons, all of whom were expected to work on the coffee plantation with their parents as soon as they were strong enough to do so (F. Horn, Portinari of Brazil, 'The Bulletin of the Museum of Modern Art', vol.7, no.6, 1940, p.3). Portinari would, no doubt, have been expected to continue with this work had he not been inspired to a life as a painter when he assisted some travelling artists in the redecoration of the local church. His parents managed to save enough money to buy him a ticket to Rio de Janeiro where he, in turn, worked hard to pay his way through the National School of Fine Arts.

Although Portinari went on to gain a scholarship in Europe and was party to the breakthroughs in Modern Art that were happening in the developed Western world, it is through paintings such as Futebol that he expressed his true inspirations. According to Rockwell Kent in 1940, 'he went back to his old birthplace and renewed contact with his old setting. His oils spoke grandly of the red earth of the coffee plantations, of the children's football in the local main square, where, when still a child, Portinari had broken his right leg – an accident which gave him a permanent limp' (R. Kent, Portinari - His Life and Art, Chicago, 1940, p.3). Indeed, it is possible that Futebol recreates a scene from Portinari's own childhood, played by children of the coffee plantation (or the coffee workers themselves) in a moment of leisure.

As is typical of Portinari's work, the legs and feet of the players are exaggerated as is the sense of activity and vigour that the viewer finds in so many of his paintings. In fact, the characteristic exaggerated legs and feet in his paintings have been attributed by some critics to his own limp following a footballing accident (F. Horn, Portinari of Brazil, 'The Bulletin of the Museum of Modern Art', vol.7, no.6, 1940, p.3).

Introducing a catalogue to the 1939 exhibition of Portinari's works in Rio de Janeiro, after which he was acclaimed as a great master, the writer Mario de Andrade noted that the 'two dominant characteristics of Portinari's personality as a painter are an enormous technical wealth and a variety of expression' (R. Kent, Portinari - His Life and Art, Chicago, 1940, p.4). Others have described him as being 'technically ... more daring than his Mexican contemporary [Rivera], employing Picasso-like sculptural effects, the impressionism of a Seurat, and the peculiar distortions of a Matisse' (M. H., Books Abroad, University of Oklahoma, vol.15, no.4, 1941, p.477). One constant, though, was Portinari's desire to capture the everyday life of indigenous Brazil, picking as his subject matter whatever seemed to him to be newsworthy – whether happy or sad – at that moment. Indeed, it is noteworthy that Futebol was painted in the same year as Brazil's interest in football reached unprecedented levels as the country won the first of its five World Cup titles in 1958. The sense of movement in the bustling group of football players at the centre of the composition is made more effective by the stillness and linearity of the landscape in the remaining areas of the picture and gives a hint of the excitement that 1958 brought the people of Brazil.

The artist's obituary in The Times on 8 February 1962 recorded him as being 'probably one of the most important artists that Latin America has yet produced'.

Quintus Pedius

Quintus Pedius (died late 43BC) was a Roman who lived during the late Republic. He was the son of Marcus Pedius and a grand nephew of Dictator Julius Caesar. He was the first deaf person in recorded history known by his name. He is the first recorded deaf painter and his education is the first education of a deaf child. Some details were available in a single passage of Natural History by the Roman author Plinthy the Elder (WP).

On the advice of his paternal great uncle Corvinus and with permission from Augustus, Pedius was taught to paint. He became a very talented painter but died late 43 BC when he was very young.

Rabindranath Tagore

“Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high, where knowledge is free. Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls Where words come out from the depth of truth, Where tireless striving stretches its arms toward perfection Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever widening thought and action. In to that heaven of freedom, my father LET MY COUNTRY AWAKE!”

The name Rabindranath Tagore is synonymous with poetry, novel writing, music and great painting. He was the first non-European writer to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913.Tagore wrote the national anthem for India and Bangladesh. Tagore began painting when he was in his sixties. He produced thousands of works which were exhibited in Europe, Russia and the United States in 1930. His painting style was very individualistic and of rhythmic quality. His initial paintings focused on animals and imaginary creatures. His paintings of human figures were depicted either as individuals with expressions or in groups in theatrical settings. Landscape subjects were not his strong forte although he produced a few.

Early life

Tagore was born on 7 May1861 in Jorasanko mansion in Calcutta to Debendranath Tagore and Sarada Devi. He was the youngest of thirteen children. He was mostly raised by servants as his mother died in his early childhood. He was educated at home. His father sent him to England for formal schooling. He did not finish his studies in UK.

Debendranath Tagore, travelled extensively as the family was at the forefront of the Bengal renaissance. The family hosted literary publication, magazines, theatres and recitals of Bengali and Western classical music. Tagore’s father invited professional Dhrupad musicians to stay in the house and teach Indian classical music to the children. The Tagore family contributed large sums of money for the introduction of Western Education including colleges for the study of science and medicine. This influenced Tagore’s attitude to life.

After his multilevel education at home, Tagore took active interest in Hinduism. Tagore took keen interest in Brahmo Samaj, a Hindu reform movement. The movement attempted a revival of the ultimate monistic basis of Hinduism as laid down in the Upanishads. As he grew up, he engaged in many literary activities and also managed the family estates. It was here, that Tagore got in touch with the common man and resorted to advocate social reforms. He also started an experimental school at Shantiniketan where he tried his Upanishadic ideals of education. He also participated in the Indian Nationalist movement though in his own non sentimental style. It was during this time, he became a friend of Gandhi. For his varied contributions, Tagore was knighted by the ruling British Government in 1915. Later, he resigned the honour as a protest against British policies in India.

Tagore shot to international fame for his writings, poems and paintings. Westerners became familiar with his poems and stories. He also became renowned for his musical dramas, dance dramas, essays of all types, travel diaries and two autobiographies. His contribution as a painter has been recognized world over. He attained a luminous height which took him across continents on lecture tours and tours of friendship. He virtually became a voice of India’s spiritual heritage. In Bengal, he became a great living institution.

Tagore wrote successfully in all literary genres. Among his fifty and odd volumes of poetry are Manasi (The Ideal One), Sonar Tari (the golden boat), Gitanjali (Song Offerings), Gitimalya (Wreath of Songs) and Balaka (The Flight of Cranes). His English poetry includes The Gardener Fruit-Gathering and The Fugitive. Gitanjali or Song Offerings, the most acclaimed of them, contains poems from other works besides its namesake. Tagore's major plays are Raja, Dak ghar (The Post Office), Achalayatan (The immovable), Miltadjara (Waterfall) and Raltarla ravi. He is also author of many novels like Gora, GhareBaire, Yogayog (Cross currents). Rabindranath Tagore died in 1941. Death

O thou the last fulfillment of life, Death, my death, come and whisper to me! Day after day I have kept watch for thee; For thee have I borne the joys and pangs of life. All that I am, that I have, that I hope and all my love Have ever flowed towards thee in depth of secrecy. One final glance from thine eyes and my life will be ever thine own. The flowers have been woven and the garland is ready for the bridegroom. After the wedding the bride shall leave her home and meet her lord alone in the solitude of night. The Judgment of Solomon

Raphael

Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino, known as Raphael, was one of the three great masters of High Renaissance art along with Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci. He was a master in realistically depicting emotions in great detail which brought his paintings to life. Raphael is regarded as the ideal balanced painter and many of his paintings are considered masterpieces. Though he died at 37, Raphael’s example as a paragon of classicism dominated the academic tradition of European painting until the mid 19th century. Raphael was enormously productive and, a large body of his work remains, especially in the Vatican. He was extremely influential in his lifetime. Raphael (Raffaello Santi) was born in Urbino where his father, Giovanni Santi, was a court painter. He began his training there nd was influenced by the works of Mantegna, Uccello and Piero della Francesca from his early age. Raphael was greatly influenced by Perugino. From 1500 he became an independent master in Italy. He soon got recognition as portraitist and painter of Madonnas. At the age of 25, he was called to the court of Pope Julius II to help with the redecoration of the papal apartments. In Rome, he evolved as a portraitist and became one of the greatest of all. In 1508, he went to Rome, and lived there the rest of his life. In 1510, he was commissioned by Pope Julius II to paint the Pope’s personal library. There were four frescoes altogether: philosophy, law, poetry, and theology. The most well known is THE SCHOOL OF ATHENS, which represents Philosophy. This work portrays the Renaissance as the new classical age. Pope Julius II died in 1513, but that didn’t stop the work from being completed. The next Pope, Medici Pope Leo X, befriended Raphael, and gave him even more commissions. In 1513, he painted GALATEA, based on several mythological characters. It shows Polyphemus, a one eyed consort (Cyclops) to Galatea, fleeing. The painting incorporates DaVinci’s triangular composition, which shows how Raphael was being influenced by other artists. Two years later, he finished another significant painting- THE SACRIFICE AT LYSTRA. This work displays two men, Paul and Barnabas, journeying, to preach the word of God. Raphael was an accomplished architect as well. During his lifetime, he was made ‘Groom of the Chamber’, which means he just waits for the Pope to help him, or in Raphael’s case, he received “favours” from Pope Leo. He was knighted of the Papal Order of the Golden Spur, recognizing his contribution to the glory of the Catholic Church. Both titles help increase one’s income. Raphael was supposed to marry Maria Bibbiena, his fiancée, but he never did. Speculation had it that he was thinking about becoming a Cardinal, and if you’re with the Church, marriage was not allowed. He had a mistress, whom he nicknamed “La Fornarina”, but her real name was Margherita Luti. Maria actually died only a month or two before Raphael. The last painting by Raphael was ‘THE TRANSFIGURATION’ in 1520. He died on April 6, 1520. His death was caused by a long night of excessive sex with his mistress, and he fell into a fever. He was given the wrong cure by his doctors, and he died. He was 37 years old. Raphael’s funeral was grand, and he was interred at the Pantheon. On his sarcophagus, it says, “Here lies that famous Raphael by whom nature feared to be conquered while he lived, and when he was dying, feared herself to die.”

Belshazzar’s Feast -1635

Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn

A soldier can reckon his success in victories, a merchant in money. I live a beautiful blinding, swirling mist.... Rembrandt Rembrandt was a Dutch painter and etcher. He is considered as one of the greatest painters. It was during his days that Netherlands enjoyed a Golden Age. It was also a flourishing age for art and artists. Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn was born on July 15, 1606 in an affluent family. After attending the University of Leiden, he took up painting instead of Latin. From 1621 to 1624, he studied with a history painter in his hometown of Leiden. He then left for Amsterdam where he studied under Peter Lastman. Lastman was a famous painter of historical pieces and he paid considerable attention to faces, hands and feet. Within a short span of time Rembrandt surpassed his teacher. He then returned to Leiden, where he was recognized as a professional artist and taught during the years 1625 to 1632. The rich adored his paintings and were willing to pay a fair price. Rembrandt was commissioned by officials of group portraits and important achievements. One such painting, (Doctor Nicolaes Tulp's Demonstration of the Anatomy of the Arm) was hung in the Hall of the Surgeon's Guild. This remarkable piece was completed in 1632 when Rembrandt was only 26 years old. Rembrandt married the beautiful and devoted Saskia van Uylenburgin 1634. Due to Saskia's generous dowry, they bought a large house and were able to live an affluent lifestyle. Saskia became a frequent model for Rembrandt as he painted her in many scenes of biblical and mythological subjects. Rembrandt married life was full of tragedy. He lost his first child at two months of age. A second and then third child, both girls, also died in infancy. It can be seen that Rembrandt’s work gradually became more sober during these years. In September 1641, they rejoiced at the birth of their son, Titus Rembrandt’s beloved wife died of tuberculosis on June 14, 1642, less than a year after Titus’ birth. The series of catastrophe plunged him into his work and he produced an innovative masterpiece of art, ‘The Night watch’. Rembrandt reached new heights in his experiments with light and focus in his composition. Although the city officials who had commissioned the piece were disappointed that Rembrandt had not followed the established tradition of more static poses, it was a landmark painting. . By this time, Rembrandt was struggling with severe financial difficulty which forced him to declare bankruptcy in 1656.He found solace and love again in his devoted mistress, Hendrickje. She died during a plague epidemic in 1663. In 1668, Titus died. Heartbroken, Rembrandt passed away on October 4, 1669. Quotes Painting is the grandchild of nature. It is related to God. Sincerity is the eventual deception of all great men. Without atmosphere a painting is nothing. Practice what you know, and it will help to make clear what now you do not know. Life etches itself onto our faces as we grow older, showing our violence, excesses or kindnesses Choose only one master, Nature

Richard David Shepherd

“You can always build another steam loco, but you can’t build another tiger.” David Shepherd David Shepherd, the British artist was known for his wildlife paintings. His paintings such as Wise Old Elephant and Elephants at Amboseli made him internationally famous. He raised huge funds for wildlife conservation and set up ‘The David Shepherd Wildlife Charitable Foundation’. He is also renowned for his landscape portraits and locomotives. In 1969, he was commissioned to paint Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth. In the 1960’s, his work was extremely popular. He published five books about art and also his autobiography. David was born on 25th April 1931 in Hendon, London, UK. At the age of eight, he won a children’s competition in a magazine called Nursery World. He then attended Stowe School in Buckinghamshire. After completing his schooling, he went to Kenya with the aspiration to become a game ware but was not successful. He tried to enter the Slade School of Fine Arts but was turned down. He was taken in by the professional artist Robin Godwin who trained him for three years. Shepherd got interested in conservation during an expedition into the African bush where he saw many dead Zebras due to poisoned water holes. He became an active campaigner of wildlife preservation. He was also a railway steam engine enthusiastic. Priced Paintings Shepherd’s best-known painting “Tiger in The Sun (1977) was an instant success. The painting fetched huge sums for conservation. His painting “Tiger Fire” raised £ 127,000 for Indira Gandhi’s Project Tiger in 1973. Project tiger was a tiger conservation programme launched by the Indian government during Indira Gandhi’s tenure. Shepherd was also famous for his paintings of elephants. His paintings The Ivory and Wise Old Elephant has won world acclaim. Shepherd was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 1980 for his services to the conservation of wildlife. He was also appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for his service to charity and wildlife conservation. Shepherd was fond of steam locomotives. He bought both the Green Knight. Green Knight is a standard locomotive built in Swindon in 1956. The locomotive is fitted with a large double chimney painted in green. He also bought all the African locomotives which were British built. One of the locomotives, City of Germiston carried his wife’s name Avril. He also owned locomotives form the Mulobezi Railway given to him by President Kenneth Kaunda. (WP). He donated one of the locomotives of South Africa to the National Railway Museum in UK. He was involved in founding a heritage steam railway in UK. He was the President of the “Railway Ramblers”. Shepard’s parents gave him a Victorian cottage, in Frankham Surrey to encourage him to marry his future wife Avril. The couple had four daughters and lived in West Sussex. Their daughter Mandy is also a wildlife and military artist. David Shepherd died on 19th September 2017, after a 10-week fight in hospital with Parkinson’s disease. The world lost a great wildlife and steam train artist. The Telegraph (20/9/2017) wrote: “he worked indefatigably, ceaselessly producing paintings to immense commercial success and supporting animal causes through his wildlife charity. His paintings often depict proud elephants which have appeared in prints, table mats, posters and commutative plates, all of them enjoying a magic of high theatrically combined with bold, dazzling paint work”.

Frederic Remington

Indians in general, are most enlightened, for they have at least one distinct impression regarding government. They know that it never keeps it word. Any old chief will tell you that white men were all liars, and if you press him regarding it, he will prove it, and the only exception he will make is the white soldier. “Indians as Irregular Cavalry,” Harper’s Weekly, (Dec. 27, 1890) Remington Frederic Remington is one of the main artists who portrayed the old American West emphasizing the Native Americans, the cowboys and the US Cavalry. He was a painter and illustrator and also a sculptor. Remington was an only child born in Canton, New York in October 1861. He was not a bright academic student in school but energetic in outdoor activities. He spent his time in outdoor camps, riding horses and swimming. At the age of 11, he was enrolled in the Vermont Episcopal Institute and his father had high hopes for his son to become an army man. Remington resisted the idea and instead became a journalist, but still working with his favorite art on the side. In 1878, Remington entered the Yale University in New Haven under the teachings of well known John Henry Niemeyer. In the university, he was keen to observe and portray sports players in action. He also joined the Yale football team. In 1879, he quit the university to attend to his ailing father. His father died in 1880. His father left him a fortune which provided him with the means to spend time with nature and observe. At the age of 19, Remington took his first trip to the West, to Montana. His journey resulted in the first publication in Harper’s weekly. He attempted to do mining business and failed. Remington focused on the vast prairies and unfenced cattle. The scenario at that time changed with the number of buffaloes rapidly reducing and the Native American tribes were getting into conflict with the US Cavalry. Being on the spot to see the development, Remington was able to portray a clear and authentic picture of what went in the west. Remington got married and had a rough patch in his married life. He returned to New York to join the Art Students League in 1886. At that time, the press was very keen on portraying the dying west and this helped Remington who had an authentic but a bit exaggerated view of the west. He designed the cover publication in Harper’s weekly. The magazine provided an opportunity for him to travel on its behalf to portray landscapes. In 1890, Remington had his first solo art exhibit in the American Art Galleies. The paintings were enjoyed both by the art critics and public. “The artist picked up on the cowboy style and mannerisms”. Remington died on December 26, 1909 in Ridgefield. Today his works are held in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, The Art Institute of Chicago and the Frederic Remington Art Museum in New York among others.

George Keyt George Keyt was a Sri Lankan artist, prolific poet and author. He was famous for his richly coloured Cubist-like figure paintings. He was Sri Lanka’s most celebrated 20 th century artist. His subject matter was rooted in local tradition, depicting dancers, shepherdess and gods. He is inspired by Hindu and Buddhist mythology. George Keyt was born on April 17, 1901 in Ceylon, Sri Lanka. He studied at Trinity College in Kandy. His first published work was in 1925. He strayed from the conservative approach and invented many variations for different subjects and presented his works. He lived in seclusion near Kandy with his second wife Pillawela Manike. In 1939, he came to India to see the culture and people. He returned to Sri Lanka and formed the Colombo 4, a group whose tenants attempted to merge trends in European Modern movements. The group also included fellow Sri Lankan painters Ivan Peiris and Harold Peiris. In 1947, his 12 line drawings of his translation of Gita Govinda (love of Lord Krishna and Radha) became a great hit. Millions of copies were sold across the world. It is said that even the pirated version were sold in thousands. Keyt used to see the firs Viscount Soulbury, Governor General of Ceylon from 1949 to 1954. Both of them used to discuss classical literature in “somewhat ribald manner” to the amusement of many. Keyt was also good at writing poetry since his teens. After his conversion to Buddhism, he contributed articles, poems on Buddhism and Hinduism to English newspapers in Ceylon. Works Five books have been published solely about Keyt. The librarian of Hai Goonetileka has listed 78 books, poems and articles by Keyt. Keyt paintings were exhibited in more than 25 exhibitions. His works are held in the collections of Victoria and Albert Museum in London and the National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi. Frescoes In the 1960’s Keyt began to product murals resulting from public and private commissions. He painted the decorative frescoes in the temple of Gothami Mawatha in Borelli. It is considered a landmark site, displaying contemporary Buddhist temple frescoes. Each frescoes displayed a particular theme related to Buddhism and history of Sri Lanka. The artist died on July 31, 1993 in Colombo, Sri Lanka. After his death, his body lay in state in the National Art Gallery for two days before cremation. There were Buddhist rites, the recitation of Hindu gatas and a requiem of mass at the Church of St. Michael and All Angels. He leaves three wives, Ruth, Manike and Kusum and many grandchildren. His important collection of work is owned by George Keyt Foundation, Colombo.

Michelangelo

It was on this date, March 6, 1475, that Italian Renaissance sculptor, painter, and architect Michelangelo was born., His father was still Podestà of Chiusi and Caprese, a charge he fulfilled until 30 March of the same year, after which the family returned to Settignano, not far from Florence. His mother was Francesca di Neri del Miniato del Sera, who died in 1481, while Michelangelo was still a child. In 1482 Michelangelo began to attend the Grammar school of Francesco da Urbino, known as “The Greek”, due to his knowledge of that language. He was not a brilliant student, preferring to skip class and attend drawing lessons, to the exasperation of both his father and the schoolmaster. Around this time he became a friend of Francesco Granacci (1469-1543) a pupil of Ghirlandaio, who would bring him in secret drawings by the master, so Michelangelo could copy them. At last, in 1488, his father gave in and, realizing his son’s interest for painting could not be quenched, enrolled him in the workshop of Domenico Ghirlandaio for a period of three years, where, against the normal practice of the times, Michelangelo received a salary. Apparently it was during this period he began his career as a sculptor. He had access to the collection of Sculptures in the Medici Garden, a connection which eventually drew him into the Medici circle. Michelangelo learned the basics of fresco technique at the Ghirlandaio’s workshop, where he also had the opportunity to copy some of the great masters of the past. In 1490 he worked as part of Ghirlandaio’s workshop in the decoration of the central chapel of the Church of Santa Maria Novella. Also in 1490 Lorenzo the Magnificent asked Ghirlandaio for two youths to be housed at San Marco, to learn the secrets of sculpture. The chosen ones were Michelangelo and Francesco Granacci. Lorenzo was so impressed with Michelangelo’s ability that he asked Ludovico, the future sculptor’s father, if he might take the child to the Medici Palace as an adoptive son and receiving a small allowance, an arrangement which lasted till the death of Lorenzo in 1492.

Quotes

 A great sculpture can roll down a hill without breaking.

 A man paints with his brains and not with his hands.

 After four tortured years, more than 400 over life-sized figures, I felt as old and as weary as Jeremiah. I was only 37, yet friends did not recognize the old man I had become.

 Already at sixteen, my mind was a battlefield: my love of pagan beauty, the male nude, at war with my religious faith. A polarity of themes and forms: one spiritual, the other earthly.  An artist must have his measuring tools not in the hand, but in the eye.

 And who is so barbarous as not to understand that the foot of a man is nobler than his shoe, and his skin nobler than that of the sheep with which he is clothed.

Beauty is the purgation of superfluities.

 Carving is easy; you just go down to the skin and stop.

 Critique by creating.

 Death and love are the two wings that bear the good man to heaven.

 Do you know that women who are chaste remain much fresher than those who are not?

 Even if you are divine, you don't disdain male consorts. Every beauty which is seen here by persons of perception resembles more than anything else that celestial source from which we all are come.

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The dying slave (C 1514)

Moses-1513 The Deposition 1547

The ceiling of the Sistine Chapel

Leonardo Da Vinci

Leonardo Da Vinci is still one of the most famous people on earth; almost 560 years after his death. He was an Italian Renaissance polymath: painter, sculptor, architect, musician, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist, cartographer, botanist, and writer. Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci was born on 15 April 1452 in Anchino, close to the town of Vinci.

Leonardo da Vinci was a natural genius who crossed so many disciplines that he epitomized the term “Renaissance man.” He is best known for his art, including two great paintings, Mona Lisa and The Last Supper. Though he was lauded in his time as a great artist, his contemporaries did not fully appreciate his genius—the combination of intellect and imagination that allowed him to create, at least on paper, such inventions as the bicycle, the helicopter and an airplane based on the physiology and flying capability of a bat.

Leonardo da Vinci’s father, an attorney and notary, and his peasant mother were never married to one another. Leonardo was the only child they had together. Da Vinci received no formal education beyond basic reading, writing and math. His father appreciated his artistic talent and apprenticed him at around age 15 to the noted sculptor and painter Andrea del Verrocchio, of Florence. For about a decade, Da Vinci refined his painting and sculpting techniques and trained in mechanical arts. When he was 20, in 1472, the painters’ guild of Florence offered Da Vinci membership, but he remained with Verrocchio until he became an independent master in 1478. Around 1482, he began to paint his first commissioned work, The Adoration of the Magi, for Florence’s San Donato, a Scope to monastery. Da Vinci never completed that piece. He relocated to Milan to work for the ruling Sforza clan, serving as an engineer, painter, architect, designer of court festivals and sculptor.

The first was Da Vinci’s “The Last Supper,” painted during his time in Milan, from about 1495 to 1498, a tempera and oil mural on plaster. “The Last Supper” was created for the Monastery of Santa Maria delle Grazie. Also known as “The Cenacle,” this work measures about 15 feet by 29 feet and is the artist’s only surviving fresco. It depicts the Passover dinner during which Jesus Christ addresses the Apostles and says, “One of you shall betray me.” One of the painting’s stellar features is each Apostle’s distinct emotive expression and body language. Its composition, in which Jesus is centered among, yet isolated from the Apostles, has influenced generations of painters. When Milan was invaded by the French in 1499, the Sforza family fled, to Florence. There, Da Vinci painted a series of portraits that included “La Gioconda,” a 21-by-31-inch work that’s best known today as “Mona Lisa.” Painted between 1503 and 1506, the woman depicted, especially because of her mysterious slight smile— has been the subject of speculation for centuries. The portrait is housed at the Louvre Museum in Paris, France. Da Vinci also studied nature, mechanics, anatomy, physics, architecture, weaponry and more, often creating accurate, workable designs for machines like the bicycle, helicopter, submarine and military tank that would not come to fruition for centuries. He saw science and art as complementary rather than distinct disciplines. Due to his diverse interests, Da Vinci failed to complete a significant number of his paintings and projects. He spent a great deal of time, immersing himself in nature, testing scientific laws, dissecting bodies (human and animal) and thinking and writing about his observations. In 1490s, Da Vinci began filling notebooks about painting, architecture, mechanics and human anatomy—creating thousands of pages of neatly drawn illustrations and densely penned commentary, some of which was indecipherable to others. The notebooks contained Da Vinci’s anatomical studies of the human skeleton, muscles, brain, digestive and reproductive systems, which brought new understanding of the human body to a wider audience. However, because they weren’t published in the 1500s, da Vinci’s notebooks had little influence on scientific advancement in the Renaissance period. Da Vinci’s final years may not have been very happy. Da Vinci died at Cloux (now Clos-Lucé) in 1519 at age 67. He was buried nearby in the palace church of Saint- Florentin.

Quotes

 Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.  A well-spent day brings happy sleep.  The greatest deception men suffer is from their own opinions.  Nature is the source of all true knowledge. She has her own logic, her own laws; she has no effect without cause nor invention without necessity.  Nothing strengthens authority so much as silence.  There are three classes of people: those who see, those who see when they are shown, those who do not see.  Time stays long enough for anyone who will use it.  Wherever good fortune enters, envy lays siege to the place and attacks it; and when it departs, sorrow and repentance remain behind.  Learning never exhausts the mind.  The noblest pleasure is the joy of understanding.

Master Mahmoud Farschchian

Master Mahmoud Farshchian was born in Isfahan on January 24,1930. When he was a boy, he was surrounded by many architectural masterpieces that gradually and subliminally sharpened awareness of proportion, colour and form. At the age of five, it became evident that his life would be devoted at art and painting. His art is based on Persian classical poetry from great masters such as Hafez, Rumi, Ferdowsi and Khayyam. His theme is classical Persian poetry. He mixes and portrays various human emotions, feelings, and desires in his beautiful unique artistic art. He is famous for his expertise in the area of miniatures. This is sort initially founded in Ancient Persia.

Farshchian currently resided in the New York metropolitan area has received many awards throughout his life including a doctorate in fine arts. He also received much praise from the European academies and museums. Farshchian is the founder of his own school in Iranian painting which adheres to classical from while making use of new techniques to broaden the scope of Iranian painting. He has brought new life to his art form while making use of new techniques to broaden the scope of Iranian painting. His powerful and innovative paintings are dynamic, expensive and vibrant canvases with an appealing fusion of the traditional and the modern which are constituents of his unique style of paintings.

Master Farshchian has played a deceive role in introducing Iranian art to international art scene. He has been invited to speak and exhibit at numerous universities and art institutes. There have been six books and countless articles published about Farshchian’s works.

Michelangelo

My death must come; but when, I do not know: Life's short, and little life remains for me: Fain would my flesh abide; my soul would flee Heavenward, for still she calls on me to go.

Blind is the world; and evil here below O'erwhelms and triumphs over honesty: The light is quenched; quenched too is bravery: Lies reign, and truth hath ceased her face to show. When will that day dawn, Lord, for which he waits Who trusts in Thee? Lo, this prolonged delay Destroys all hope and robs the soul of life.

Why streams the light from those celestial gates, If death prevent the day of grace, and stay Our souls forever in the toils of strife? Michelangelo

Painter, sculptor, architect and poet Michelangelo was born in Caprese, Italy on March 6, 1475. He was very young when his family moved to Florence. When he was six years old when his mother died. Growing up in Florence during the Italian Renaissance, kid Michelangelo showed extraordinary interest in painting and not keen to go school. At the age of thirteen, he was apprenticed to Domenico Ghirlandaio, a renowned painter and artist. Michelangelo’s talent came to limelight as he worked for Ghirlandaio. Within a year he was sent to Medici family to continue his training under the sculptor Bertoldo di Giovanni. Michelangelo had opportunity to work with some of the finest artists and philosophers of the time. In the next few years, he produced many sculptures including “Madonna of the Steps”, Battle of the Centaurs and Bacchus. The Pieta In 1496, Michelangelo move to Rome. In 1497, he received a commission to make a sculpture “The Pieta”. It was considered as one of the masterpieces of Renaissance Art. The sculpture shows Jesus after he was crucified lying on the lap of his mother Mary. Michelangelo got recognition as the greatest artist. He returned to Florence and received another commission to create large statue of David. It took him two years to finish the big statue. The statue became his most famous work of art. It is thirteen feet tall and was the largest statue made since Ancient Rome. In 1505, Michelangelo returned to Rome. He was commissioned by the Pope in 1508 to paint the ceiling of Sistine Chapel. He worked for four years, painting upside down on the scaffold in order complete the painting. The painting was huge and contained nine sciences form Bible down its center and over 300 people. The most admired of all the scenes is “The Creation of Adam.” At the centre of the scene, God’s hand and Adam’s hand nearly touch. This is one of the most famous paintings in the history. Michelangelo was a brilliant man with multiple talents He worked as an architect and proved that he was true” Renaissance Man”. He worked on the Medici Chapel, the Laurentian Library and the military fortifications of the city of Florence. His most famous work was St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. Michelangelo died on February 18, 1564 at his home in Macel de’ Corvi, Rome. “The father and master of all the arts “was laid to rest at the Basilica de Santa Croce- his chosen place of burial.

Quotes

There is no greater harm than that of time wasted A man paints with his brains and not with his hands. “The true work of art is but a shadow of the divine perfection” “Every block of stone has a statue inside it and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it” Patience is eternal genius” “The level of our success is limited only by our imagination and no act of kindness, however small, is ever wasted.” Michelangelo

The Sistine Chapel Ceiling

Sandro Botticelli Sandra Botticelli was an Italian painter and draughtsman. He was one of the most acclaimed painters of Italy during his time. He took part in the decoration of the Sistine Chapel of Rome which earned him fame. He was the favorite painter of leading families of Florence including the Medici.

Sandra Botticelli was born in Florence around 1445. His original name was Alessandro di Mariano di Vanni Filippi, a long name difficult to pronounce and mouthful. Alessandaro became shortened to Sandro.

There is no detail of Sandro’s childhood available. He grew up in Florence with his three brothers in the shadow of the masonry of Santa Maria Novella. Sandro’s father Mariano di Vanni was a tanner and lived with his wife Smeralda in the same district as the Vespucci family who became important patrons of the artist’s work.

Sandro is said to have been trained as a goldsmith by his brother Antonio. Sandro started his career as a painter at the age of eighteen when he was apprenticed to Fra Filippo Lippi, a famous Florence artist. Sandro learnt the techniques of composition and fresco paintings and also the technique of mixing various colours. In 1470, Botticelli had his own workshop. He also became a member of St.lukes Guild. His adoration of the Magi painted in 1475 includes several of the Media family within the picture and emphasizes the importance of the Medici as patrons of the arts.

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Botticelli’s fame got him many commissions from outside the city of Florence. Pope Sixtus IV summoned some of the greatest painters of the day to decorate the walls of the papel electoral chapel that bore his name. Up to 1482, Botticelli worked on the decoration of the chapel; his contribution was a series of frescos on the left wall. He also worked on the printed version of the Inferno by Dante. In 1482, Botticelli embarked on a series of mythological works. These paintings are excellent examples of renaissance work.

Primavera painting His painting “Primavera” is hailed as one of the artists’ greatest works. His famous work was the Birth of Venus in 1485. Botticelli turned a follower of Dominican preaching monk Savonarola who believed in destroying the paintings, manuscripts, books and records.

Botticelli is also said to have thrown some of his paintings into the fire. Savonarola was strangled and burned to death for his sins in 1498. In 1504, the artist was appointed to the committee to decide on a site for Michelangelo’s statue of David. He also served on the committee to decide the façade for the Cathedral in Florence.

In the middle of the 16th century, Botticelli’s painting faded to obscurity at an alarming rate. He was a forgotten artist until the 19th century. However, the revival of interest in the Renaissance gave him fame.

Sandro died on May 17, 1510 in Florence. The details of the last part of his life remain a mystery.

. V.V.S.Manian

V.V.S. Manian has had an extremely successful and unique career in the fields of Marketing, Communication, Journalism and Teaching. He started off as Project and Chief Marketing Manager, Modern Bakeries Ltd., New Delhi, a role which Took him across the length and breadth of India. He moved from the public Sector to advertising and media and has worked at leading organizations like W. S. Industries and Efficient Publicities, Chennai As a journalist, he has worked as freelance journalist and photographer for “The Mail,” Madras and contributed regularly to The Hindu, Deccan Herald, and Trinity Mirror. He was the founder/editor of two weeklies, Blue Streak and Jana Mitran and currently runs the Asian News and Features Syndicate, Chennai. V.V.S. Manian was also the Principal for the evening College of Bhavan's Rajaji College of Communication and Management, Chennai and has taught Marketing and Journalism for nearly three decades. He has also served as Assistant to Honorary Consul for Canada (Tamil Nadu and Pondicherry) from 1992-2003. He has interpreted and translated slokas like the Abhirami Andadhi, Shiva Sahasaranamam, Vishnu Sahasaranam, Lalitha Sahasaranam and Neeti Sathgam. . He has written several books including the Dictionary on Journalism and Mass Communication and Significance of Hindu marriage rituals. Manian holds an MBA from the PSG Arts College and PSG College of Technology, Coimbatore and a Diploma in Public Relations and Journalism from The Rajendra Prasad Institute of Communication Studies, Mumbai. He has also done certificate courses with Harvard, Columbia and Oxford University on literature and journalism. V.V.S. Manian is also actively involved in politics and is now the Vice President, Intellectual Cell, South Chennai for the BJP.