O.Wilde, Preface to 'The Picture of Dorian Gray'

The artist is the creator of beautiful things. (...)
Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming. This is a fault.
Those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things are the cultivated. For these there is hope.
They are the elect to whom beautiful things mean only Beauty.
There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all. (...)

No artist is ever morbid. The artist can express everything. (...)
All art is at once surface and symbol. Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril.
Those who read the symbol do so at their peril.
It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors.
Diversity of opinion about a work of art shows that the work is new, complex, and vital.
When critics disagree the artist is in accord with himself...


O. Wilde (1854-1900),
Preface to 'The Picture of Dorian Gray'


Thursday, January 25, 2018

Virginia Woolf

born on 25th January 1882 

"Big Ben was beginning to strike, first the warning,musical; then the hour, irrevocable"
(Mrs. Dalloway, 1925)


 

Virginia Woolf

born on January 25,  136 years ago

 

"Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself. For Lucy had her work cut out of her. The doors would be taken off their hinges; Rumpelmayer's men were coming. And then, thought Clarissa Dalloway, what a morning - fresh as if issued to children on a beach."  (Mrs. Dalloway, 1925)

 

Tuesday, November 17, 2015

La Rue de la Paix, ca. 1907

Aprés la faute (vers 1885-1890) - Jean Béraud

Aprés la faute (vers 1885-1890)

Jean Béraud



Jean Béraud è stato un pittore francese dell’Impressionismo conosciuto per i suoi dipinti riguardanti la vita quotidiana  Parigi durante la Belle Epoque. Il suo stile è permeato da un vivo realismo e i suoi soggetti preferiti sono, oltre all'ambiente borghese, anche i piccoli mestieri e l'ambientazione dei café, dei bistrot e le strade parigine. 
 
Nacque a San Pietroburgo il 12 gennaio 1849. Dopo la morte prematura di suo padre (che lavorava come scultore alle opere della cattedrale di Sant'Isacco), la famiglia si trasferì a Parigi. Qui incontrò il famoso pittore Léon Bonnat (1833-1922) di cui divenne discepolo e quindi  iniziò a sua volta la carriera di pittore. 

Fu ammesso al Salon parigino nel 1872, ma gli fu riconosciuto un certo successo solo quattro anni più tardi quando, nel 1876, presentò il suo dipinto Il Ritorno dalla sepoltura. Nel 1889 partecipò con La Società degli Acquerellisti Francesi all’Esposizione Mondiale di Parigi. Nel 1894 ricevette la Legion d’Onore.

Jean Béraud morì a Parigi il 4 ottobre 1935 all’età di 86 anni. È sepolto accanto alla madre nel cimitero di Montparnasse.

Jean Béraud



Jean Béraud was a French painter who became famous for his paintings concerning daily life in Paris during the Belle Époque. Throughout his life his style gradually shifted from academic to impressionism. 


He was born in Saint Petersburg on January 12, 1849. His father was a sculptor who died when Jean was a boy. Following his death, the family moved to Paris.

There he met the famous painter Léon Bonnat (1833-1922) and began his career as a painter, too. His first exhibition was in 1872. 

He became famous in 1876 thanks to his painting On the Way Back from the Funeral. In 1889 he exhibited with the Society of French Watercolorists at the World’s Fair in Paris. He received the Légion d’Honneur in 1894.


Jean Béraud died in Paris on October 4, 1935 at the age of 86. He is buried in Montparnasse Cemetery beside his mother. 

On the Way Back From the Funeral, 1876

Paris by Jean Béraud

Jeune femme traversant le boulevard (1897)