Gustave Courbet - "son of revolution"
The name Courbet means for the art of the XIX century no less than Rembrandt and Velázquez for the XVII century. After all, he openly proclaimed realism as his creative…

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Venetian landscape painters of the 18th century
By the beginning of the 18th century, the once mighty Venice had lost its importance as the political center of the Mediterranean, becoming a peculiar center of pilgrimage. Rich travelers…

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Landscape poetry
My lessons in art history are different. I give lectures to adults, and I try to talk more with the children, to play, to bring about “co-creation” in them. Especially…

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to the United States

Konstantin Meunier – an artist who glorified the proletariat

The life of the Belgian master Constantin Meunier is not eventful. But his creative biography is unusual. He began as a sculptor, attending a class at the Academy of Fine Arts in Brussels and the workshop of Sh. O. Freken, a follower of classicism. Then for many years engaged in painting. Continue reading

Camille Corot: “I write with my heart”

The large, half a century long, creative life of the French artist Camille Corot (1796–1875) was, as it were, subject to the change of seasons. In the winter months he worked in the Paris workshop, often visiting the opera and the conservatory. But the happiness of communicating with wildlife meant for the master incomparably more than visiting museums and concert halls. Every year with the onset of spring, he set off on a journey through various regions of France to write etudes. Many of them have become pearls of plein-air painting. Continue reading

Anton Refrezhier – born in Moscow

Refrege was born in Moscow in the year of the first Russian revolution. This fact would seem irrelevant to the biography of an American artist: after all, his father took him to his homeland, to France, when he was still a teenager. In Paris, the boy’s artistic inclinations, inherited from his Russian ancestors, appeared: his maternal grandfather was a famous violinist, his grandmother was a ballerina of the Mariinsky Theater, and Anton himself became interested in the sculptor’s craft. Continue reading

Hubert Robert - "Painter of Ruins"
Antique ruins, then reflected in calm waters, then almost hidden by thickets of climbing plants, shrubs. Peaceful rural nature, almost always clear sky. Through the gaps of the trees, the…

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Honore Fragonard - "Solar Brush Provence"
Attraction to the poetry of life, its emotional richness distinguishes Fragonard among the brilliant artists of France of the XVIII century. The destiny of the master initially developed happily. Even…

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