01 Paintings, PORTRAIT OF A LADY, of the 18th & 19th C., with Footnotes. #22

Sir John Everett Millais, Bt 1829–1896

Mariana, c. 1851

Oil paint on mahogany

597 x 495 x 15 mm

Tate

Rejected by her fiancé, Angelo, after her dowry was lost in a shipwreck, Mariana leads a lonely existence in a moated grange. She is still in love with Angelo - now Deputy to the Duke of Vienna - and longs to be reunited with him. 

In the picture the autumn leaves scattered on the ground mark the passage of time. Mariana has been working at some embroidery and pauses to stretch her back. Her longing for Angelo is suggested by her pose and the needle thrust fiercely into her embroidery. The stained-glass windows in front of her show the Annunciation, contrasting the Virgin's fulfilment with Mariana's frustration and longing. Millais copied the scene from the window of the Chapel of Merton College, Oxford. However, the heraldic design appears to have been his own invention. The motto 'In coelo quies' means 'In Heaven there is rest' and clearly refers to Mariana's desire to be dead. The snowdrop symbolises 'consolation' and is also the birthday flower for 20 January, St Agnes' Eve, when young girls put herbs in their shoes and pray to St Agnes to send them a vision of their future husband. It may also refer indirectly to John Keats's narrative. More on this painting

Sir John Everett Millais, 1st Baronet, (8 June 1829 – 13 August 1896) was an English painter and illustrator. he was one of the founders of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.

A child prodigy, at the age of eleven Millais became the youngest student to enter the Royal Academy Schools. The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was founded at his family home in London. Millais became the most famous exponent of the style, his painting Christ in the House of His Parents (1850) generating considerable controversy. By the mid-1850s Millais was moving away from the Pre-Raphaelite style and developing a new and powerful form of realism in his art. His later works were enormously successful, making Millais one of the wealthiest artists of his day. While early 20th-century critics, reading art through the lens of Modernism, viewed much of his later production as wanting, this perspective has changed in recent decades, as his later works have come to be seen in the context of wider changes and advanced tendencies in the broader late-nineteenth-century art world.

Millais's personal life has also played a significant role in his reputation. His wife Effie was formerly married to the critic John Ruskin, who had supported Millais's early work. The annulment of the marriage and her wedding to Millais have sometimes been linked to his change of style, but she became a powerful promoter of his work and they worked in concert to secure commissions and expand their social and intellectual circles. More on Sir John Everett Millais

Acknowledgement: Tate, and others

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01 Paintings, PORTRAIT OF A LADY, of the 18th & 19th C., with Footnotes. #21

Abel Dominique Boye, 1864-1934, FRENCH

LA ROUSSE/ The redhead

Oil on canvas

39 3/8 by 29 in., 100 by 73.5 cm

Private collection

Abel-Dominique Boyé (6 May 1864–1934) was a French painter. He was decorated with the Legion of Honor. His principal works include: Nymph of Diana (bronze medal, 1888); Pit Sawyer (Agen, 1889); Twilight (1891); Sunday in Seville (1893); and Blind Man (silver medal, purchased by the state, 1895). 

A portraitist and painter of oriental subjects very vogue in its time. Boyé was a frequent attendant at official exhibitions. He produced mythological works, nude themes and other pieces of academic genre, in accordance with the taste that prevailed at the Salons . He was awarded the National Order of the Legion of Honor. He exhibited at the Salon des Artistes Français until his death.

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01 Paintings, PORTRAIT OF A LADY, of the 18th & 19th C., with Footnotes. #26

Mimmo Frassineti, Italy

Marlene Dietrich

Acrylic, Ink and Paper on Canvas

23.6 H x 15.7 W x 0.8 in

Private collection

Marie Magdalene "Marlene" Dietrich (27 December 1901 – 6 May 1992) was a German actress and singer who held both German and American citizenship. Throughout her long career, (which spanned from the 1910s to the 1980s) she maintained popularity by continually reinventing herself.

In 1920s Berlin, Dietrich acted on the stage and in silent films. Her performance as Lola-Lola in The Blue Angel (1930) brought her international fame and a contract with Paramount Pictures. Dietrich starred in Hollywood films such as Morocco (1930), Shanghai Express (1932), and Desire (1936). She successfully traded on her glamorous persona and "exotic" looks, and became one of the highest-paid actresses of the era. Throughout World War II, she was a high-profile entertainer in the United States. Although she still made occasional films after the war, Dietrich spent most of the 1950s to the 1970s touring the world as a marquee live-show performer.

Dietrich was noted for her humanitarian efforts during the war, housing German and French exiles, providing financial support and even advocating their US citizenship. For her work on improving morale on the front lines during the war, she received several honors from the United States, France, Belgium, and Israel. In 1999, the American Film Institute named Dietrich the ninth-greatest female star of classic Hollywood cinema. More on Marlene Dietrich

Mimmo Frassineti was born in Castel San Pietro, a small town in the North of Italy, near Bologna. He studied in Rome and graduated in History of modern art. He first workerd as a designer in film and television and as an illustrator for some magazines. Then he devoted himself to photography and journalism following a desire to travel. He also taight journalism, graphics and photography. 

The journey through space and time is also the focus of his painting: distant dreamed lands, under a sky that evokes at the same time day and night. Cities with towers, steeples and domes of brilliant colors, over which opens a cosmos crossed by stars, planets, galaxies. 

Mimmo also went in search of great personages that had marked his life, such as Charles Baudelaire, Antoine de Saint-Exupery, Giovanna d'Arco, Wassily Kandinskij or Edgard Allan Poe. He tries to approach them with the penetrating gaze of the photographer and the invention of the painter, in the attempt to grasp their essence. More on Mimmo Frassineti

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01 Paintings, PORTRAIT OF A LADY, of the 18th & 19th C., with Footnotes. #25

Giovanni Boldini,  (1842–1931)

Luisa Casati, (1881-1957), c. 1908

Oil on canvas

Private collection

Over the centuries, many powerful monarchs, eccentric aristocrats and fabulously wealthy burghers have commissioned portraits of themselves, arrayed in all their finery, standing, life-size and full-length. This prestigious format was primarily reserved for monarchs and members of the aristocracy. It was not until some time later that it was used for high society in general. More on this painting

Luisa, Marchesa Casati Stampa di Soncino (23 January 1881 – 1 June 1957), also known as Luisa Casati, was an Italian heiress, muse, and patroness of the arts in early 20th-century Europe.

Luisa was born in Milan, younger of two daughters of Alberto Amman. Her father was made a count by King Umberto I. Her mother died when Luisa was thirteen, and her father died two years later, making his daughters, reportedly, the wealthiest women in Italy.

In 1900, she married Camillo, Marchese Casati Stampa di Soncino (Muggiò, 12 August 1877 – Roma, 18 September 1946). The couple's only child, Cristina Casati Stampa di Soncino. The Casatis maintained separate residences for the duration of their marriage. They were legally separated in 1914. They remained married until Marchese Casati's death in 1946.

A celebrity, the Marchesa was famed for eccentricities that dominated and delighted European society for nearly three decades. The beautiful and extravagant hostess was something of a legend among her contemporaries. She astonished society by parading with a pair of leashed cheetahs and wearing live snakes as jewellery.

Her numerous portraits were painted and sculpted by artists as various as Giovanni Boldini, Paolo Troubetzkoy, Adolph de Meyer Romaine Brooks, Kees van Dongen, and Man Ray; many of them she paid for, as a wish to "commission her own immortality". She was muse to Italian Futurists such as F. T. Marinetti, Fortunato Depero, and Umberto Boccioni. Augustus John's portrait of her is one of the most popular paintings at the Art Gallery of Ontario; Jack Kerouac wrote poems about it and Robert Fulford was impressed by it as a schoolboy.

By 1930, Casati had amassed a personal debt of $25 million. As she was unable to pay her creditors, her personal possessions were auctioned off. Designer Coco Chanel was reportedly one of the bidders.

Casati fled to London, where she lived in comparative poverty in a one-room flat. On 1 June 1957, Marchesa Casati died of a stroke at aged 76. More on Marquise de Casati

Giovanni Boldini (31 December 1842 in Ferrara, Italy – 11 July 1931 in Paris, France) was an Italian genre and portrait painter. According to a 1933 article in Time magazine, he was known as the "Master of Swish" because of his flowing style of painting. Boldini was born in Ferrara, the son of a painter of religious subjects, and in 1862 went to Florence for six years to study and pursue painting. He only infrequently attended classes at the Academy of Fine Arts, but in Florence, met other realist painters known as the Macchiaioli, who were Italian precursors to Impressionism. 

Moving to London, Boldini attained success as a portraitist. He completed portraits of premier members of society. From 1872 he lived in Paris, where he became a friend of Edgar Degas. He also became the most fashionable portrait painter in Paris in the late 19th century. He was nominated commissioner of the Italian section of the Paris Exposition in 1889, and received the Légion d'honneur for this appointment.

A Boldini portrait of his former muse Marthe de Florian, a French actress, was discovered in a Paris flat in late 2010, hidden away from view on the premises that were unvisited for 70 years. The portrait has never been listed, exhibited or published and the flat belonged to de Florian's granddaughter who went to live in the South of France at the outbreak of the Second World War and never returned. A love-note and a biographical reference to the work painted in 1888, when the actress was 24, cemented its authenticity. The full length portrait of the lady in the same clothing and accessories, but less provocative, hangs in the New Orleans Museum of Art. More on Giovanni Boldini

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06 Paintings, PORTRAIT OF A LADY, Cecilia Green and Sir William Russell Flint, , with Footnotes. # 25

Sir William Russell Flint, R.A., P.R.W.S., 1880-1969
CECILIA INSPECTING HER ARTIST'S HANDIWORK
Model: Cecilia Green
Watercolour
25 by 36 cm., 10 by 14 in.
Private collection

Signed l.l.: W. RUSSELL FLINT-; further signed and inscribed on the backboard: Cecilia Inspecting her Artist's Handiwork/ by Sir William Russell Flint. R.A./ This little picture is for Cecilia's own dear John/ with deep affection from Willie/ Oct. 1959

Sir William Russell Flint RA (4 April 1880 – 30 December 1969) was a Scottish artist and illustrator who was known especially for his watercolour paintings of women. He also worked in oils, tempera, and printmaking. He was educated at Daniel Stewart's College and then Edinburgh Institution. From 1894 to 1900 Flint apprenticed as a lithographic draughtsman while taking classes at the Royal Institute of Art, Edinburgh. From 1900 to 1902 he worked as a medical illustrator in London while studying part-time at Heatherley's Art School. He furthered his art education by studying independently at the British Museum. He was an artist for The Illustrated London News from 1903 to 1907, and produced illustrations for editions of several books.

After Sir William Russell Flint, 1880 - 1969
The Red Portfolio
Coloured Print
Model: Cecilia Green
10 x 15 inches
Private collection

Flint was elected president of Britain's Royal Society of Painters in Watercolours (now the Royal Watercolour Society) in 1936 to 1956, and knighted in 1947.

After Sir William Russell Flint, 1880 - 1969
NEW MODEL INSPECTING DRAWINGS OF HER PREDECESSOR
Coloured Print
Model: Cecilia Green
13"x21.5" (33x54.5cm)
Private collection

During visits to Spain, Flint was impressed by Spanish dancers, and he depicted them frequently throughout his career. He enjoyed considerable commercial success but little respect from art critics, who were disturbed by a perceived crassness in his eroticized treatment of the female figure.

Sir William Russell Flint, 1880 - 1969
Model and Critic
Coloured Print
Model: Cecilia Green
14.5" x 21.75"
Private collection

On the other hand, complete strangers kept recognizing Cecilia Green. She was a beautiful young woman, and this might have been a chat-upline, but they kept asking the same thing. Was she Sir Russell Flint's model? It was an embarrassing enough question, particularly for one who had never heard of the Scottish artist, let alone seen anything of his work.

Sir William Russell Flint, R.A., P.R.W.S., 1880 - 1969
THE TURQUOISE RIBBON
Model: Cecilia Green
Watercolour
23 by 37 cm.; 9 by 14½ in.

Someone showed her a published album, and she thought that Flint's plates were ''absolutely brilliant''. She was captivated, and yes there were some resemblances between Cecilia and the figures in pictures like Three Gypsies in Languedoc, or between her and the Spanish dancer Consuelito Carmona, one of the models acknowledged by name in the compositions.

Sir William Russell Flint, R.A., P.R.W.S., 1880-1969

CECILIA

Watercolour

33 by 59cm., 13 by 23¼in.

Private collection

Cecilia Green's career as a soloist with the Festival Ballet in London had ended abruptly when she contracted tuberculosis at the age of 21. She had been two years in hospital. She didn't know what to do with herself. She had nothing else to fall back upon. 

She looked Flint up in Who's Who. She found his phone number in the book. At the station she went into a phone box and rang his number. He answered himself and he was obviously nervous about using the telephone, so he sounded very brusque. A bit rude and unpleasant. she told him she was a model. He said he didn't want a model. ''I told him, well, I'm just round the corner. Could you just see me for a minute? He said, 'You can come if you like. But I don't want a model.' Bang -- the phone. "I thought, I'm not going. But I decided I'd come all this way. I'd go and see him. He couldn't kill me. I found a taxi.''

71 year old Sir William Russell Flint answered the door of his London studio. What Russell Flint saw when he opened the door was a stunningly attractive 21 year old former ballet dancer, of whom he later commented ‘I had adapted faces to make them look like hers years and years before I met her’. She remained with him as model, muse and critic until 1966.

Their association lasted for some 15 years, but she was much more than his model and his inspiration. Flint's wife was confined to a nursing home with arthritis, and Cecilia took over many additional duties, such as dealing with agents, acting as his hostess, and even manicuring his fingernails.

Although Russell Flint was very fond of her their relationship was always most proper. When painting he always observed great formality , forever correctly attired in a waistcoat, collar and tie, and as often as not he would not even remove his jacket whilst at work. For her own part Cecilia looked upon him as a kindly uncle.

Cecilia Green was the only child of garment workers of Russian extraction, she was born at Hackney, in the East End of London, on August 29 1931. In childhood she suffered from malnutrition, which caused rickets in the legs and thighs. That her legs in adulthood were extremely shapely, as Flint showed, must be attributed rather to her later ballet training than to early treatment, for no one could persuade her to keep her splints on.

In 1958 she married, but continued to model for Flint until 1966, when she and her husband were "adopted" by Baron Leo Bensilum, an ebullient and dominating oil company executive. Cecilia found his extrovert personality the very opposite of the shy, retiring Flint, and was to work for him as his personal assistant until he retired.

Flint was active as an artist until his death in London on 30 December 1969

Acknowledgement: Wikipedia, Sir William Russell Flint, Herald & Times Group, Telegraph Media Group,  , and others

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04 Paintings, PORTRAIT OF A LADY, of the 18th & 19th C., with Footnotes. #20

John Wesley Jarvis, (American, 1780-1838)

Maria Holmes, American 1780-1834)

Oil on canvas

28 1/4" x 24 1/4"

Private collection

The subject is depicted in a black dress with lace shawl, her body angled slightly to her right, with part of a red painted chair visible behind her. 

Mary Jane Holmes (April 5, 1825 – October 6, 1907) was a bestselling and prolific American author who published 39 popular novels, as well as short stories. Her first novel sold 250,000 copies; and she had total sales of 2 million books in her lifetime, second only to Harriet Beecher Stowe.

Portraying domestic life in small-town and rural settings, she examined gender relationships, as well as those of class and race. She also dealt with slavery and the American Civil War with a strong sense of moral justice. Since the late 20th century she has received fresh recognition and reappraisal, although her popular work was excluded from most 19th-century literary histories. More on Mary Jane Holmes 

John Wesley Jarvis (1780 or 1781 – January 14, 1839) was an American painter, born at South Shields, England. His father was an American mariner, who moved his family to the United States in the mid-1780s. The Jarvis family settled in Philadelphia; there he spent his childhood and began his artistic training. His formal instruction began around 1796.

Jarvis moved to New York in 1801. Within a year he was working on his own as an engraver. In 1803 he entered into a partnership with Joseph Wood. His partnership with Wood lasted seven years. Together they executed engravings, miniatures, and larger portraits. He enjoyed great popularity, though his conviviality and eccentric mode of life affected his work. General Andrew Jackson was one of his sitters. 

While New York always remained his home base, he continued his habit of extended residences in other cities for most of the rest of his life. 

Jarvis rose to the top of his profession by 1814, when he took over an unprecedented commission for six full-length portraits of the naval heroes of the War of 1812 for the City of New York. For over a decade, he remained the premier portrait painter in New York./

As early as the 1820s, however, he received some personal setbacks. In 1823 he was sued successfully by his apprentice John Quidor for breach of contract, and the following year he lost custody of his children in a court battle with his estranged second wife. A decade later, in 1834, he suffered a debilitating stroke while in New Orleans. Partially paralyzed and mentally incapacitated, he spent the rest of his life in New York City, cared for by his sister. He died there in 1840, in poverty. More on John Wesley Jarvis 

JUSTUS SUSTERMANS, (ANTWERP 1597-1681 FLORENCE)

Portrait of Vittoria della Rovere, (1622-1694)

Oil on canvas 

66.8 x 52 cm.

Private collection

Vittoria della Rovere, Grand Duchess of Tuscany (1622-1694) was the wife of Ferdinando II de’ Medici. She was the daughter of Federigo-Ubaldo della Rovere (1604–1648) and Claudia de’ Medici.

She is best known as the last heir of the art collection assembled by her family in Urbino and as the person who, through marriage, passed them on to the Grand Duchy of Tuscany.  Always interested in worldly and cultural affairs, she spoke Spanish and French, knew Latin and sponsored a variety of literati, becoming patroness in 1654 of a literary academy in Siena called Le Assicurate, devoted exclusively to women. More on Vittoria della Rovere

Justus Sustermans (28 September 1597 – 23 April 1681) also known as Giusto Sustermans, was a Flemish painter working in the Baroque style. He was born in Antwerp and died in Florence.

Sustermans is chiefly notable for his portraits of members of the Medici family as he was their court painter. His work can be found in both the Palatina Gallery and the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, and in many other galleries around the globe. During his lifetime he was fêted as the finest portrait painter in Italy.

He first studied in Antwerp under Willem de Vos (a nephew of the painter Maerten de Vos), becoming his assistant in 1609. He then spent three and a half years in Paris, where he studied and collaborated with Frans Pourbus the younger. He was eventually invited to Florence under the patronage of the Medici family where he studied Italian portraitists such as Il Guercino, the Spanish Diego Velázquez and France’s Pierre Mignard. While in Italy he also became influenced by the Venetian artists. More on Justus Sustermans

Pablo Picasso, 1881–1973

Dora Maar assise

Ink, gouache and oil paint on paper on canvas

689 x 625 mm

Tate

Henriette Theodora Markovitch, pseudonym Dora Maar (November 22, 1907 in the 6th arrondissement of Paris – July 16, 1997 in Paris) was a painter who exhibited with the Surrealist group, before becoming a photographer and reporter. She was Picasso's mistress in the late 1930s and the war years, and one of his most important models during that period. A formidable personality, she was instrumental in encouraging Picasso's political awareness. He also admitted to being somewhat afraid of her. This work shows Dora as a smart, independent French woman, with her hands crossed elegantly in her lap. More on this painting

Pablo Ruiz y Picasso, also known as Pablo Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973), was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, stage designer, poet and playwright who spent most of his adult life in France. Regarded as one of the greatest and most influential artists of the 20th century, he is known for co-founding the Cubist movement, the invention of constructed sculpture, the co-invention of collage, and for the wide variety of styles that he helped develop and explore. One of his most famous works are the proto-Cubist Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (1907).

Picasso demonstrated extraordinary artistic talent in his early years, painting in a naturalistic manner through his childhood and adolescence. During the first decade of the 20th century, his style changed as he experimented with different theories, techniques, and ideas. His work is often categorized into periods. While the names of many of his later periods are debated, the most commonly accepted periods in his work are the Blue Period (1901–1904), the Rose Period (1904–1906), the African-influenced Period (1907–1909), Analytic Cubism (1909–1912), and Synthetic Cubism (1912–1919), also referred to as the Crystal period.

Exceptionally prolific throughout the course of his long life, Picasso achieved universal renown and immense fortune for his revolutionary artistic accomplishments, and became one of the best-known figures in 20th-century art. More on Pablo Picasso

Man Ray, 1890 - 1976

Portrait of Dora Maar, 1936

In 1935, Maar was commissioned to photograph the set of Jean Renoir's The Crime of Monsieur Lange. It was here that Maar was introduced to Picasso. Two years later, after the breakup of his relationship with Marie-Thérèse Walter with whom he had his daughter Maya, Maar photographed Picasso in his studio as he painted one of the greatest works of his life and indeed the 20th century, Guernica. More on Dora Mar 

Man Ray (born Emmanuel Radnitzky; August 27, 1890 – November 18, 1976) was an American visual artist who spent most of his career in France. He was a significant contributor to the Dada and Surrealist movements, although his ties to each were informal. He produced major works in a variety of media but considered himself a painter above all. He was best known for his photography, and he was a renowned fashion and portrait photographer. Man Ray is also noted for his work with photograms, which he called "rayographs" in reference to himself. More on Man Ray

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01 Paintings, PORTRAIT OF A LADY, of the 18th & 19th C., with Footnotes. #24

Richard Avedon, (May 15, 1923 – October 1, 2004)

Veruschka von Lehndorff, 1966

Countess Vera von Lehndorff-Steinort (born 14 May 1939), also known as Veruschka von Lehndorff, is a German model, actress, and artist who was popular during the 1960s. She is known professionally as Veruschka.

Veruschka was born Vera Gottliebe Anna Gräfin von Lehndorff-Steinort on 14 May 1939, in Königsberg, East Prussia, now known as Kaliningrad, Russia. She grew up at Steinort, an estate in East Prussia, which had been in her family for centuries. Her mother was Countess Gottliebe von Kalnein (b. 1913). Her father was a German aristocrat and army reserve officer who became a key member of the German Resistance. When Veruschka was five years old, her father was executed for allegedly attempting to assassinate Adolf Hitler in the 20 July Plot. After his death, the remaining family members spent their times in labor camps until the end of World War II. By the end of the war, her family was left homeless. As a young girl, she attended 13 schools.

She studied art in Hamburg and then moved to Florence, where she was discovered at age 20 by the photographer Ugo Mulas and became a full-time model. In 1961 she moved to New York City, but soon returned to Munich. She had also garnered attention when she made a brief five-minute appearance in the 1966 cult film Blow Up by Michelangelo Antonioni. Veruschka appeared on the cover of Life magazine's August 1967 issue and various times on all four major Vogue magazines' (American, Italian, French and British) covers throughout the 1960s.


She once worked with Salvador Dalí and photographer Peter Beard, who took her to Kenya. At her peak, she earned as much as $10,000 a day. In 1975, however, she departed from the fashion industry due to disagreements with Grace Mirabella, the newly appointed editor-in-chief of Vogue. In a 1999 interview, Veruschka said about their disagreements, "She wanted me to be bourgeois, and I didn't want to be that. More on Veruschka von Lehndorff


Richard Avedon (May 15, 1923 – October 1, 2004) was an American fashion and portrait photographer. An obituary published in The New York Times said that "his fashion and portrait photographs helped define America's image of style, beauty and culture for the last half-century".

Although Richard Avedon’s celebrated fashion photographs have graced the pages of Harper’s Bazaar, Vogue, and Life, the artist primarily referred to himself as a portrait photographer. Avedon’s fashion shots are profoundly dramatic and dynamic, often capturing the model in motion. Along with his own acquaintances and various ordinary people, Avedon took photographs of celebrities, politicians, and other public figures ranging from Bertrand Russell to Marilyn Monroe. In both his commercial assignments and his portrait work, Avedon’s meticulous approach and penetrating gaze sought to capture the essence of each unique subject and moment in time. More on Richard Avedon

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01 Paintings, PORTRAIT OF A LADY, of the 18th & 19th C., with Footnotes. #23

Marco Battaglini, Costa Rica

God Save The Queen

Oil on canvas

Size: 51.2 H x 41.3 W x 0 in

Private collection

Through an interplay of multiple realities overlapping in the chronotope, Battaglini evidences the contradictions in mental models about the temporal contrast (chronological), and the cultural and linguistic barriers.

Battaglini invites us to think that in today's global village, with the 'democratization' of culture, the evolution of knowledge, information immediacy, immersed in the heterogeneity, the Patchwork Culture forces us to confront with a need understanding beyond our geographical boundaries of time.

Probably the uniqueness is to conceptualize the possible coexistence of the ideals of classical beauty with the anti-aesthetic, the combination of the divine and refined with the vulgar, through a composition that can complement different realities in an eternal instant. Multidimensionality leads him to overlap different temporal, spatial and cultural realities, where everything seems to make sense… More on this painting

Costa Rican artist Marco Battaglini uses his artwork to explore the evolution of culture and knowledge. In some works, he combines classical paintings with modern pop-art references and graffiti for a modern renaissance look.  While the imagery appears almost collaged at first glance, looking at the paintings I find subtle details that really add to the ideas behind the pieces, like finding brand names tattooed on the cherubic figures that frequent these scenes. More on Marco Battaglini 

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