Flavio Costantini
Flavio Costantini (21 September 1926 – 20 May 2013) was an Italian painter and illustrator. Costantini created portraits of writers and artists for newspapers, and illustrated several novels. His early works were inspired by the novelist Franz Kafka, and by literary, utopian and anarchist ideals. His later work presented a pessimistic view of civilization. He created series of paintings exploring historical themes: anarchy, the wreck of the ''Titanic'', alchemy, Mozart, the French Revolution and its victims, Yekaterinburg and the murder of Nicholas II and his family. His last series offered a dark reading of ''Pinocchio'', which he considered one of the three or four greatest Italian novels. Biography In September 1926 he was born in Rome to middle-class parents. His father was an amateur painter, and as a child, Costantini was crafty, and kept a diary accompanied with newspaper cut-outs, collages, photos and drawings. He was forced to drop out of the first high school he atte ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Genoa
Genoa ( ; ; ) is a city in and the capital of the Italian region of Liguria, and the sixth-largest city in Italy. As of 2025, 563,947 people live within the city's administrative limits. While its metropolitan city has 818,651 inhabitants, more than 1.5 million people live in the wider metropolitan area stretching along the Italian Riviera. On the Gulf of Genoa in the Ligurian Sea, Genoa has historically been one of the most important ports on the Mediterranean: it is the busiest city in Italy and in the Mediterranean Sea and twelfth-busiest in the European Union. Genoa was the capital of one of the most powerful maritime republics for over seven centuries, from the 11th century to 1797. Particularly from the 12th century to the 15th century, the city played a leading role in the history of commerce and trade in Europe, becoming one of the largest naval powers of the continent and considered among the wealthiest cities in the world. It was also nicknamed ''la S ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Art Nouveau
Art Nouveau ( ; ; ), Jugendstil and Sezessionstil in German, is an international style of art, architecture, and applied art, especially the decorative arts. It was often inspired by natural forms such as the sinuous curves of plants and flowers. Other characteristics of Art Nouveau were a sense of dynamism and movement, often given by asymmetry or whiplash lines, and the use of modern materials, particularly iron, glass, ceramics and later concrete, to create unusual forms and larger open spaces.Sembach, Klaus-Jürgen, ''L'Art Nouveau'' (2013), pp. 8–30 It was popular between 1890 and 1910 during the Belle Époque period, and was a reaction against the academicism, eclecticism and historicism of 19th century architecture and decorative art. One major objective of Art Nouveau was to break down the traditional distinction between fine arts (especially painting and sculpture) and applied arts. It was most widely used in interior design, graphic arts, furniture, glass ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Vanishing Point
A vanishing point is a point (geometry), point on the projection plane, image plane of a graphical perspective, perspective rendering where the two-dimensional perspective projections of parallel (geometry), parallel lines in three-dimensional space appear to converge. When the set of parallel lines is perpendicular to a picture plane, the construction is known as one-point perspective, and their vanishing point corresponds to the station point, oculus, or "eye point", from which the image should be viewed for correct perspective geometry.Kirsti Andersen (2007) ''Geometry of an Art'', p. xxx, Springer, Traditional linear drawings use objects with one to three sets of parallels, defining one to three vanishing points. Italian Renaissance humanism, humanist polymath and architect Leon Battista Alberti first introduced the concept in his treatise on perspective in art, ''De pictura'', written in 1435. Straight Track geometry, railroad tracks are a familiar modern example. Vector ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Perspective (graphical)
Linear or point-projection perspective () is one of two types of graphical projection perspective in the graphic arts; the other is parallel projection. Linear perspective is an approximate representation, generally on a flat surface, of an image as it is seen by the eye. Perspective drawing is useful for representing a three-dimensional scene in a two-dimensional medium, like paper. It is based on the optical fact that for a person an object looks N times (linearly) smaller if it has been moved N times further from the eye than the original distance was. The most characteristic features of linear perspective are that objects appear smaller as their distance from the observer increases, and that they are subject to , meaning that an object's dimensions parallel to the line of sight appear shorter than its dimensions perpendicular to the line of sight. All objects will recede to points in the distance, usually along the horizon line, but also above and below the horiz ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Realism (arts)
Realism in the arts is generally the attempt to Representation (arts), represent subject-matter truthfully, without artificiality, exaggeration, or speculative fiction, speculative or supernatural elements. The term is often used interchangeably with naturalism, although these terms are not necessarily synonymous. Naturalism, as an idea relating to visual representation in Western art, seeks to depict objects with the least possible amount of distortion and is tied to the development of linear perspective and illusionism in Renaissance Europe. Realism, while predicated upon naturalistic representation and a departure from the idealization of earlier academic art, often refers to a Realism (art movement), specific art historical movement that originated in France in the aftermath of the French Revolution of 1848. With artists like Gustave Courbet capitalizing on the mundane, ugly or sordid, realism was motivated by the renewed interest in the commoner and the rise of leftist polit ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Tempera
Tempera (), also known as egg tempera, is a permanent, fast-drying painting medium consisting of pigments mixed with a water-soluble binder medium, usually glutinous material such as egg yolk. ''Tempera'' also refers to the paintings done in this medium. Tempera paintings are very long-lasting, and examples from the first century AD still exist. Egg tempera was a primary method of painting until after 1500 when it was superseded by oil painting. A paint consisting of pigment and binder commonly used in the United States as poster paint is also often referred to as "tempera paint", although the binders in this paint are different from traditional tempera paint. Etymology The term ''tempera'' is derived from the Italian ''dipingere a tempera'' ("paint in distemper"), from the Late Latin ''distemperare'' ("mix thoroughly"). History Tempera painting has been found on early Egyptian sarcophagus decorations. Many of the Fayum mummy portraits use tempera, sometimes in comb ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Anarchism In France
Anarchism in France can trace its roots to thinker Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, who grew up during the Restoration and was the first self-described anarchist. French anarchists fought in the Spanish Civil War as volunteers in the International Brigades. According to journalist Brian Doherty, "The number of people who subscribed to the anarchist movement's many publications was in the tens of thousands in France alone." History The origins of the modern anarchist movement lie in the events of the French Revolution, which the historian Thomas Carlyle characterized as the "open violent Rebellion, and Victory, of disimprisoned Anarchy against corrupt worn-out Authority". Immediately following the storming of the Bastille, the communes of France began to organize themselves into systems of local self-government, maintaining their independence from the State and organizing unity between communes through federalist principles. Direct democracy was implemented in the local districts of ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Memoirs Of A Revolutionary, 1901–1941
''Memoirs of a Revolutionary, 1901–1941'' is a 1951 memoir by Victor Serge. Posted posthumously in French as ''Mémoires d'un révolutionnaire'', Peter Sedgwick translated an abridged version into English in 1963 with Oxford University Press. A longer version of the translation, with index, glossary and foreword by Adam Hochschild was issued by NYRB Classics New York Review Books (NYRB) is the publishing division of ''The New York Review of Books''. Its imprints are New York Review Books Classics, New York Review Books Collections, The New York Review Children's Collection, New York Review Comics, ... in 2012. References Further reading * * * * * * * * External links * 1951 non-fiction books French-language non-fiction books NYRB Classics {{DEFAULTSORT:Memoirs of a Revolutionary, 1901-1941 ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Victor Serge
Victor Serge (; born Viktor Lvovich Kibalchich, ; 30 December 1890 – 17 November 1947) was a Belgian-born Russian revolutionary, novelist, poet, historian, journalist, and translator. Originally an anarchist, he joined the Bolsheviks in January 1919 after arriving in Petrograd (Saint Petersburg) at the height of the Russian Civil War. He worked for the Comintern as a journalist, editor, and translator and was an early critic of the emerging Stalinist regime. Serge joined the Left Opposition in 1923 and was expelled from the Communist Party in late 1927 or early 1928. He was imprisoned by the Soviet regime in 1928 and again from 1933 to 1936. Following an international campaign by prominent intellectuals, Serge was released from deportation in Orenburg and allowed to leave the Soviet Union in April 1936. During his subsequent exiles in France and Mexico, he continued to write extensively, producing critical analyses of the Soviet Union, several acclaimed novels depicting ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Utopia
A utopia ( ) typically describes an imagined community or society that possesses highly desirable or near-perfect qualities for its members. It was coined by Sir Thomas More for his 1516 book ''Utopia (book), Utopia'', which describes a fictional island society in the New World. Hypothetical utopias focus on, among other things, equality in categories such as economics, government and justice, with the method and structure of proposed implementation varying according to ideology. Lyman Tower Sargent argues that the nature of a utopia is inherently contradictory because societies are not homogeneous and have desires which conflict and therefore cannot simultaneously be satisfied. To quote: The opposite of a utopia is a dystopia. Utopian and dystopian fiction has become a popular literary category. Despite being common parlance for something imaginary, utopianism inspired and was inspired by some reality-based fields and concepts such as utopian architecture, architecture, Cyber-ut ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |