Leonardo da Vinci - High Renaissance Artist - 1452-1519 b. Italy

Leonardo da Vinci,
Universal Man























Portrait of Ginevra de' Benci
























The Madonna of the Carnation

Leonardo da Vinci was a Florentine artist, one of the great masters of the High Renaissance, who was also celebrated as a painter, sculptor, architect, engineer, and scientist. Leonardo da Vinci was born on April 15, 1452, in the small Tuscan town of Vinci, near Florence. He was the son of a wealthy Florentine notary and a peasant woman. In the mid-1460s the family settled in Florence, where Leonardo was given the best education that Florence could offer. In his teens Leonardo was sent to apprentice as a painter under Andrea del Verrocchio where he quickly developed his own artistic style which was unique and contrary to tradition, even going so far as to devise his own special formula of paint. Later da Vinci became the court artist for the duke of Milan. Throughout his life he also served various other roles, including civil engineer and architect and military planner and weapons designer. Although Leonardo produced a relatively small number of paintings, many of which remained unfinished, he was nevertheless an extraordinarily innovative and influential artist. The Mona Lisa, Leonardo's most famous work, is as well known for its mastery of technical innovations as for the mysteriousness of its legendary smiling subject. This work is a consummate example of two techniques—sfumato and chiaroscuro—of which Leonardo was one of the first great masters. Leonardo deserves, perhaps more than anyone, the title of Homo Universalis, Universal Man.

Leonardo da Vinci

Leonardo da Vinci was a Florentine artist, one of the great masters of the High Renaissance, who was also celebrated as a painter, sculptor, architect, engineer, and scientist.

Leonardo da Vinci was born on April 15, 1452, in the small Tuscan town of Vinci, near Florence. He was the son of a wealthy Florentine notary and a peasant woman. In the mid-1460s the family settled in Florence, where Leonardo was given the best education that Florence could offer. In his teens Leonardo was sent to apprentice as a painter under Andrea del Verrocchio where he quickly developed his own artistic style which was unique and contrary to tradition, even going so far as to devise his own special formula of paint.

Later da Vinci became the court artist for the duke of Milan. Throughout his life he also served various other roles, including civil engineer and architect and military planner and weapons designer. Although Leonardo produced a relatively small number of paintings, many of which remained unfinished, he was nevertheless an extraordinarily innovative and influential artist.

The Mona Lisa, Leonardo's most famous work, is as well known for its mastery of technical innovations as for the mysteriousness of its legendary smiling subject. This work is a consummate example of two techniques—sfumato and chiaroscuro—of which Leonardo was one of the first great masters. Leonardo deserves, perhaps more than anyone, the title of Homo Universalis, Universal Man.

John William Waterhouse - Pre-Raphaelite Painter, 1849 - 1917 b, Rome

Tristan and Isolda

(Above)
The Enchanted Garden

The lady of Shalott

John William Waterhouse was an English Pre-Raphaelite painter most famous for his paintings of female characters from mythology and literature. He belonged to the later phase of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.Waterhouse was born in Rome on the 6th of April, 1849. Both of his parents were English painters who moved to Italy in pursuit of art. Waterhouse and his parents eventually moved back to England in the late 1850's. While growing up, Waterhouse assisted his father in art studio where the young Waterhouse developed his talents for sculpting and painting.

Claude Monet - Inspirational Quotes & Beautiful Oil Paintings

(Above)

La Japonaise by Claude Monet

(Below)

Water Lilies (The Clouds) by Claude Monet

(Above)

Water Lilies by Claude Monet

I have chosen these inspirational art quotes and oil paintings by the famous French Artist Claude Monet Claude Oscar Monet for their sentiment and true beauty. It is wonderful that the words and art of Monet can bring joy and warmth to us even now.

~ The Art Diva of Paintingstogo

- My garden is my most beautiful masterpiece.

- I can only draw what I see.

- Everything I have earned has gone into these gardens.

- Colour is my day-long obsession, joy and torment.

- It took me time to understand my waterlilies. I had planted them for the pleasure of it; I grew them without ever thinking of painting them

- I know that to paint the sea really well, you need to look at it every hour of every day in the same place so that you can understand its way in that particular spot and that is why I am working on the same motifs over and over again, four or six times even.

- It's on the strength of observation and reflection that one finds a way. So we must dig and delve unceasingly.

Michael Jackson - King of POP

The King Of Pop Michael Jackson

He has gone through personal scandal, family squabbles and numerous career quakes but Michael Joseph Jackson remains one of the planet's best known figures.
Born in 1958, Jackson has spent his whole life in the public eye as he began performing at the age of four.
Though the youngest member of the Jackson Five, he became the group's lead vocalist, projecting a self-confident image which belies the private personality he shows today.
Despite his age, he managed to make chart-toppers like I Want You Back and I'll Be There completely credible.
By the time he was 10, the Jackson Five had signed to Motown Records and were well on the road to US success, bullied into fame by their father Joe.
"There is a lot of sadness in my past life," Jackson told Oprah Winfrey in 1993.

Animals and Toys

Rumours began of slightly odd behaviour at this time, with Michael said to be seeking solace in the Scarecrow role and going home at night with his make-up still on.
He was really launched as an adult star with Off The Wall in 1979, a collaboration with legendary producer Quincy Jones.

The album topped the UK and US charts and had the singles Don't Stop Till You Get Enough, for which Jackson won a Grammy, and Rock With You.
But the rumours about Jackson's behaviour grew.
He seemed to be trying to capture the youth he never had, surrounding himself with animals and toys.

In 1982 he released the very adult album Thriller, the most successful album of all time, selling more than 47m copies and winning seven Grammys.
It produced a run of hits such as The Girl Is Mine - a duet with Paul McCartney - Billie Jean, Beat It and Thriller.

He landed the largest individual sponsorship deal in history from Pepsi in 1983 and his involvement in the 1984 Victory tour sparked the greatest demand for concert tickets in history.
Michael Jackson had become a myth and as his career headed for the stratosphere, rumours about him started to gain mythical proportions too.

Michael Jackson - The King of POP

Michael Jackson - The King of POP












The King Of PopMichael Jackson

He has gone through personal scandal, family squabbles and numerous career quakes but Michael Joseph Jackson remains one of the planet's best known figures.

Born in 1958, Jackson has spent his whole life in the public eye as he began performing at the age of four.
Though the youngest member of the Jackson Five, he became the group's lead vocalist, projecting a self-confident image which belies the private personality he shows today. Despite his age, he managed to make chart-toppers like I Want You Back and I'll Be There completely credible. By the time he was 10, the Jackson Five had signed to Motown Records and were well on the road to US success, bullied into fame by their father Joe.

"There is a lot of sadness in my past life," Jackson told Oprah Winfrey in 1993.
Solo success "My father beat me. It was difficult to take being beaten and then going onstage.
"He was strict; very hard and stern."

Michael Jackson's first solo release was the ballad Got to Be There.
As a cute child singing sentimental but catchy ballads, he was a hit.
But eclipsed by their biggest star, the Jackson Five's fortunes began to slip.
In 1978, Jackson starred as the Scarecrow in an all-black pop version of The Wizard of Oz, called The Wiz, which starred Diana Ross as Dorothy. But it was a box office disaster.
Animals and toys Rumours began of slightly odd behaviour at this time, with Michael said to be seeking solace in the Scarecrow role and going home at night with his make-up still on.
He was really launched as an adult star with Off The Wall in 1979, a collaboration with legendary producer Quincy Jones.

The album topped the UK and US charts and had the singles Don't Stop Till You Get Enough, for which Jackson won a Grammy, and Rock With You.
But the rumours about Jackson's behaviour grew.
He seemed to be trying to capture the youth he never had, surrounding himself with animals and toys.

In 1982 he released the very adult album Thriller, the most successful album of all time, selling more than 47m copies and winning seven Grammys.
It produced a run of hits such as The Girl Is Mine - a duet with Paul McCartney - Billie Jean, Beat It and Thriller.
He landed the largest individual sponsorship deal in history from Pepsi in 1983 and his involvement in the 1984 Victory tour sparked the greatest demand for concert tickets in history.
Michael Jackson had become a myth and as his career headed for the stratosphere, rumours about him started to gain mythical proportions too.

Marriage

He was said to be trying to change his appearance with plastic surgery, to be taking drugs to make his skin white and to be obsessed with his own ageing process.
Later, he would blame his changing appearance on a skin pigmentation deficiency.
But at the time Jackson seemed to do nothing to stop the rumours and got on with his own life, recording Bad, which appeared in 1987.
His next release was Dangerous in 1992, which received more critical acclaim than Bad.
But in 1993, allegation of sexual abuse were made by a 13-year-old friend of Jackson's, and police were called in.

Jackson settled with the boy's family a year later, for an estimated $20m, and the criminal investigation was dropped in 1994.
Despite his categorical denials of any wrong-doing, there was a media frenzy, heightened by Jackson's 1994 marriage to Lisa Marie Presley, Elvis' daughter, which some claimed was a publicity stunt. The marriage soon collapsed. Jackson remarried in 1997, this time to a 37-year-old nurse called Debbie Rowe. The couple have two children; Prince Michael Junior, born in 1997 and Paris Michael Katherine, born in 1998. Rowe filed for divorce in 1999, leaving Jackson with the children at his huge Neverland ranch in California. He marked 30 years in showbusiness in 2001 with a huge concert, starring Britney Spears, N'Sync, and a reunion of the Jackson Five.
A new album, Invincible, met with a lukewarm reception. In 2002, his third child, Prince Michael II, was born to a mystery mother.

But the first time the world saw him threw Jackson into yet more controversy - as he dangled the infant out of a hotel window in Berlin, causing an international outcry.
There, the seeds were sown for yet further trouble. British journalist Martin Bashir filmed the scenes in Berlin for a documentary, transmitted in February 2003.
In it, Jackson admitted to sleeping in the same room as children at his Neverland ranch, and a 12-year-old boy who had survived cancer was seen cuddling up to him.
The film sparked another international storm - although he received a more sympathetic reception from fans in the US - and Jackson claimed he had been "betrayed" by Bashir.
He even went as far as to release his own film showing Bashir praising his "spectacular" relationship with his children.

2003 has since brought more upheaval for the famously secretive star.
He has been hit by a flurry of lawsuits by former aides and promoters amid rumours that he is on the verge of bankruptcy - a claim his current advisers deny.
Whatever the truth of Jackson's life, his musical career seems doomed to be eclipsed by the myths and legends surrounding him.Source:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/2809465.stm

Andy Warhol - Pop Artist - Art and Quotes

Birth Name
Andrew Warhola
Born August 6, 1928 (1928-06) Pittsburgh
Died February 22, 1987 (aged 58) b. United States









Pepsi Cola

(Above) Turquoise-Marilyn

Campbell's Soup Can

Personal Quotes

- I would rather watch somebody buy their underwear than read a book they wrote.
- In the future everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes.
- I am a deeply superficial person.
- Success is when the checks don't bounce.
- (His advice about audiences, to) "The Velvet Underground" Always leave them wanting less.
- Living in New York City gives people real incentives to want things that nobody else wants.

Warhol's First Paintings
1960, Warhol began to make his first paintings. They were based on comic strips in the likes of Dick Tracy, Popeye, Superman, and two of Coca-Cola bottles. In 1961, using the Dick Tracy comic strip, he designed a window display for Lord & Taylor, at this time, major art galleries around the nation begin noticing his work. In 1962, Warhol made paintings of dollar bills and Campbell soup cans, and his work was included in an important exhibition of pop art, The New Realists, held at Sidney Janis Gallery, New York. In November of this year, Elanor Ward showed his paintings at Stable Gallery, and the exhibition began a sensation. In 1963, he rented a studio in a firehouse on East 87th Street. He met his assistant, Gerard Malanga, and started making his first film, Tarzan and Jane Regained... Sort of (1964). Later, he drove to Los Angeles for his second exhibition at the Ferus Gallery. In November of that year, he found a loft at 231 East 47th Street, which became his main studio, The Factory. In December, he began production of Red Jackie, the first of the Jackie series. In 1964, his first solo exhibition in Europe, held at the Galerie Ileana Sonnebend in Paris, featured the Flower series. He received a commission from architect Philip Johnson to make a mural, entitled Thirteen Most Wanted Men for the New York State Pavilion in the New York World's Fair. In April, he received an Independent Film Award from Film Culture magazine. In November, his first solo exhibition in the US was held at Leo Castelli Gallery. And at this time, he began his self portrait series.

Pablo Picasso - Personal Life

Pablo Picasso

Dora Maar au Chat, 1941

Personal life

In the early 20th century, Picasso divided his time between Barcelona and Paris. In 1904, in the middle of a storm, he met Fernande Olivier, a Bohemian artist who became his mistress. Olivier appears in many of his Rose period paintings. After acquiring fame and some fortune, Picasso left Olivier for Marcelle Humbert, whom he called Eva Gouel. Picasso included declarations of his love for Eva in many Cubist works. Picasso was devastated by her premature death from illness at the age of 30 in 1915.

He maintained a number of mistresses in addition to his wife or primary partner. Picasso was married twice and had four children by three women. In the summer of 1918, Picasso married Olga a ballerina with Sergei troupe, for whom Picasso was designing a ballet, in Rome; and they spent their honeymoon in the villa near Biarritz of the glamorous Chilean art patron. Khokhlova introduced Picasso to high society, formal dinner parties, and all the social niceties attendant on the life of the rich in 1920s Paris. The two had a son, Paulo, who would grow up to be a dissolute motorcycle racer and chauffeur to his father. Khokhlova’s insistence on social propriety clashed with Picasso’s tendencies and the two lived in a state of constant conflict. During the same period that Picasso collaborated with Diaghilev’s troup, he and Igor collaborated on Pulcinella in 1920. Picasso took the opportunity to make several sketches of the composer.

In 1927 Picasso met 17-year-old Marie-Thérèse Walter and began a secret affair with her. Picasso’s marriage to Khokhlova soon ended in separation rather than divorce, as French law required an even division of property in the case of divorce, and Picasso did not want Khokhlova to have half his wealth. The two remained legally married until Khokhlova’s death in 1955. Picasso carried on a long-standing affair with Marie-Thérèse Walter and fathered a daughter, Maia, with her. Marie-Thérèse lived in the vain hope that Picasso would one day marry her, and hanged herself four years after Picasso’s death.

Dora Maar au Chat, 1941
The photographer and painter Dora Maar was also a constant companion and lover of Picasso. The two were closest in the late 1930s and early 1940s and it was Maar who documented the painting of Guernica.

War years

During the Second World War, Picasso remained in Paris while the Germans occupied the city. Picasso’s artistic style did not fit the Nazi views of art, so he was not able to show his works during this time. Retreating to his studio, he continued to paint all the while. Although the Germans outlawed bronze casting in Paris, Picasso continued regardless, using bronze smuggled to him by the French resistance.

After the liberation of Paris in 1944, Picasso began to keep company with a young art student, Françoise Gilot. The two eventually became lovers, and had two children together, Claude and Paloma. Unique among Picasso’s women, Gilot left Picasso in 1953, allegedly because of abusive treatment and infidelities. This was a severe blow to Picasso.

He went through a difficult period after Gilot’s departure, coming to terms with his advancing age and his perception that, now in his 70s, he was no longer attractive, but rather grotesque to young women. A number of ink drawings from this period explore this theme of the hideous old dwarf as buffoonish counterpoint to the beautiful young girl, including several from a six-week affair with Geneviève Laporte, who in June 2005 auctioned off the drawings Picasso made of her.

Picasso was not long in finding another lover, Jacqueline Roque. She worked at the Madoura Pottery in Vallauris on the French Riviera, where Picasso made and painted ceramics. The two remained together for the rest of Picasso’s life, marrying in 1961. Their marriage was also the means of one last act of revenge against Gilot. Gilot had been seeking a legal means to legitimize her children with Picasso, Claude and Paloma. With Picasso’s encouragement, she had arranged to divorce her then husband, Luc Simon, and marry Picasso to secure her children’s rights. Picasso then secretly married Roque after Gilot had filed for divorce in order to exact his revenge for her leaving him.

Picasso had constructed a huge gothic structure and could afford large villas in the south of France, at Notre-dame-de-vie on the outskirts of Mougins, in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur. By this time he was a celebrity, and there was often as much interest in his personal life as his art.

In addition to his manifold artistic accomplishments, Picasso had a film career, including a cameo appearance in Jean Cocteau’s Testament of Orpheus. Picasso always played himself in his film appearances. In 1955 he helped make the film Le Mystère Picasso (The Mystery of Picasso) directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot.

Leonardo da Vinci - Portrait of Mona Lisa

Portrait of Mona Lisa (1479-1528), also known as La Gioconda, the wife of Francesco del Giocondo; 1503-06 (150 Kb); Oil on wood, 77 x 53 cm (30 x 20 7/8 in)

Musee du Louvre, Paris
This figure of a woman, dressed in the Florentine fashion of her day and seated in a visionary, mountainous landscape, is a remarkable instance of Leonardo's sfumato technique of soft, heavily shaded modeling. The Mona Lisa's enigmatic expression, which seems both alluring and aloof, has given the portrait universal fame.

Reams have been written about this small masterpiece by Leonardo, and the gentle woman who is its subject has been adapted in turn as an aesthetic, philosophical and advertising symbol, entering eventually into the irreverent parodies of the Dada and Surrealist artists. The history of the panel has been much discussed, although it remains in part uncertain. According to Vasari, the subject is a young Florentine woman, Monna (or Mona) Lisa, who in 1495 married the well-known figure, Francesco del Giocondo, and thus came to be known as ``La Gioconda''. The work should probably be dated during Leonardo's second Florentine period, that is between 1503 and 1505. Leonardo himself loved the portrait, so much so that he always carried it with him until eventually in France it was sold to François I, either by Leonardo or by Melzi.

From the beginning it was greatly admired and much copied, and it came to be considered the prototype of the Renaissance portrait. It became even more famous in 1911, when it was stolen from the Salon Carré in the Louvre, being rediscovered in a hotel in Florence two years later. It is difficult to discuss such a work briefly because of the complex stylistic motifs which are part of it. In the essay ``On the perfect beauty of a woman'', by the 16th-century writer Firenzuola, we learn that the slight opening of the lips at the corners of the mouth was considered in that period a sign of elegance. Thus Mona Lisa has that slight smile which enters into the gentle, delicate atmosphere pervading the whole painting. To achieve this effect, Leonardo uses the sfumato technique, a gradual dissolving of the forms themselves, continuous interaction between light and shade and an uncertain sense of the time of day.

Leonardo da Vinci - Portrait of La Gioconda

Portrait of Mona Lisa (1479-1528), also known as La Gioconda, the wife of Francesco del Giocondo; 1503-06 (150 Kb); Oil on wood, 77 x 53 cm (30 x 20 7/8 in); Musee du Louvre, Paris
This figure of a woman, dressed in the Florentine fashion of her day and seated in a visionary, mountainous landscape, is a remarkable instance of Leonardo's sfumato technique of soft, heavily shaded modeling. The Mona Lisa's enigmatic expression, which seems both alluring and aloof, has given the portrait universal fame.

Reams have been written about this small masterpiece by Leonardo, and the gentle woman who is its subject has been adapted in turn as an aesthetic, philosophical and advertising symbol, entering eventually into the irreverent parodies of the Dada and Surrealist artists. The history of the panel has been much discussed, although it remains in part uncertain. According to Vasari, the subject is a young Florentine woman, Monna (or Mona) Lisa, who in 1495 married the well-known figure, Francesco del Giocondo, and thus came to be known as ``La Gioconda''. The work should probably be dated during Leonardo's second Florentine period, that is between 1503 and 1505. Leonardo himself loved the portrait, so much so that he always carried it with him until eventually in France it was sold to François I, either by Leonardo or by Melzi.

From the beginning it was greatly admired and much copied, and it came to be considered the prototype of the Renaissance portrait. It became even more famous in 1911, when it was stolen from the Salon Carré in the Louvre, being rediscovered in a hotel in Florence two years later. It is difficult to discuss such a work briefly because of the complex stylistic motifs which are part of it. In the essay ``On the perfect beauty of a woman'', by the 16th-century writer Firenzuola, we learn that the slight opening of the lips at the corners of the mouth was considered in that period a sign of elegance. Thus Mona Lisa has that slight smile which enters into the gentle, delicate atmosphere pervading the whole painting. To achieve this effect, Leonardo uses the sfumato technique, a gradual dissolving of the forms themselves, continuous interaction between light and shade and an uncertain sense of the time of day.

Marc Chagall Quotes

+ Will God or someone else give me the strength to breathe the breath of prayer and mourning into my paintings, the breath of prayer for redemption and resurrection?

+ Only love interests me, and I am only in contact with things I love.

+ I am out to introduce a psychic shock into my painting, one that is always motivated by pictorial reasoning: that is to say, a fourth dimension.

+ The habit of ignoring Nature is deeply implanted in our times. This attitude reminds me of people who never look you in the ye; I find them disturbing and always have to look away.

+ If a symbol should be discovered in a painting of mine, it was not my intention. It is a result I did not seek. It is something that may be found afterwards, and which can be interpreted according to taste.

+ Changes in societal structure and in art would possess more credibility if they had their origins in the soul and spirit. If people read the words of the prophets with closer attention, they would find the keys to life.

+ My hands were too soft.. I had to find some special occupation, some kind of work that would not force me to turn away from the sky and the stars, that would allow me to discover the meaning of life.

+ In our life there is a single color, as on an artist's palette, which provides the meaning of life and art. It is the color of love.

+ My name is Marc, my emotional life is sensitive and my purse is empty, but they say I have talent.

+ But perhaps my art is the art of a lunatic, I thought, mere glittering quicksilver, a blue soul breaking in upon my pictures.

+ Great art picks up where nature ends.

ING Art Collection

ING Group Collection

You see art everywhere at ING offices: in corridors, meeting rooms and restaurants. You can come across works from the ING Collection around the world as ING lends artworks to museums and organises exhibitions. The international art collection of the ING Group, consists of national collections world wide. From the description of the origins and development of the different collections, one seeks how the various collections complete each other, not only in terms of art history but also thematically.

Different Country Collections Works of art represented in or purchased for the ING Group Collection connect the collections of:
ING Collection Belgium
ING Collection Mexico
ING Collection Netherlands
ING Collection Poland
ING Collection United KingdomWorks of art by artists as Anja Schrey, Karel Appel, Don Brown, Michael Raedecker and Wilhelm Sasnal are valuable additions that connect the different collections.

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