Marie-Henri Beyle, better known by his pen name Stendhal, was a French writer. Best known for the novels Le Rouge et le Noir and La Chartreuse de Parme, he is highly regarded for the acute analysis of his characters' psychology and considered one of the early and foremost practitioners of realism. A self-proclaimed egotist, he coined the same characteristic in his characters' "Beylism".
Prosper Mérimée was a French writer in the movement of Romanticism, one of the pioneers of the novella, a short novel or long short story. He was also a noted archaeologist and historian, an important figure in the history of architectural preservation. He is best known for his novella Carmen, which became the basis of Bizet's opera Carmen. He learned Russian, a language for which he had great affection, before translating the work of several notable Russian writers, including Pushkin and Gogol, into French. From 1830 until 1860 he was the inspector of French historical monuments, responsible for the protection of many historic sites, including the medieval citadel of Carcassonne and the restoration of the façade of the cathedral of Notre-Dame de Paris. Along with the writer George Sand, he discovered the series of tapestries called The Lady and the Unicorn, arranging for their preservation. He was instrumental in the creation of Musée national du Moyen Âge in Paris, where the tapestries now are displayed. The official database of French monuments, the Base Mérimée, bears his name.
Giovanni Antonio Canal, commonly known as Canaletto, was an Italian painter from the Republic of Venice, considered an important member of the 18th-century Venetian school.
A personal name, full name or prosoponym is the set of names by which an individual person or animal is known. When taken together as a word-group, they all relate to that one individual. In many cultures, the term is synonymous with the birth name or legal name of the individual. In linguistic classification, personal names are studied within a specific onomastic discipline, called anthroponymy. As of 2023, aside from humans, dolphins and elephants have been known to use personal names.
Bernardo Bellotto, was an Italian urban landscape painter or vedutista, and printmaker in etching famous for his vedute of European cities – Dresden, Vienna, Turin, and Warsaw. He was the student and nephew of the renowned Giovanni Antonio Canal, known as Canaletto, and sometimes used the latter's illustrious name, signing himself as Bernardo Canaletto. In Germany and Poland, Bellotto called himself by his uncle's name, Canaletto. This caused some confusion, however Bellotto’s work is more sombre in color than Canaletto's and his depiction of clouds and shadows brings him closer to Dutch painting.
Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz, commonly known as Witkacy, was a Polish writer, painter, philosopher, theorist, playwright, novelist, and photographer active before World War I and during the interwar period.
Stanisław Witkiewicz was a Polish painter of Lithuanian origin, art theoretician, and amateur architect, known for his creation of "Zakopane Style".
Klephts were highwaymen turned self-appointed armatoloi, anti-Ottoman insurgents, and warlike mountain-folk who lived in the countryside when Greece was a part of the Ottoman Empire. They were the descendants of Greeks who retreated into the mountains during the 15th century in order to avoid Ottoman rule. Klepht bands also included many ethnic Albanians. They carried on a continuous war against Ottoman rule and remained active as brigands until the 19th century.
Helena Modrzejewska, known professionally as Helena Modjeska, was a Polish-American actress who specialized in Shakespearean and tragic roles.
Johann Froben, in Latin: Johannes Frobenius, was a famous printer, publisher and learned Renaissance humanist in Basel. He was a close friend of Erasmus and cooperated closely with Hans Holbein the Younger. He made Basel one of the world's leading centres of the book trade. He passed his printing business on to his son, Hieronymus, and grandson, Ambrosius Frobenius.
Teller is an American magician. He is half of the comedy magic duo Penn & Teller, along with Penn Jillette, and usually does not speak during performances. Teller is a H.L. Mencken Fellow at the Cato Institute.
The Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister in Dresden, Germany, displays around 750 paintings from the 15th to the 18th centuries. It includes major Italian Renaissance works as well as Dutch and Flemish paintings. Outstanding works by German, French, and Spanish painters of the period are also among the gallery's attractions.
A veduta is a highly detailed, usually large-scale painting or, more often, print of a cityscape or some other vista. The painters of vedute are referred to as vedutisti.
Insatiability is a speculative fiction novel by the Polish writer, dramatist, philosopher, painter and photographer, Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz (Witkacy). Nienasycenie was written in 1927 and was first published in 1930. It is Witkiewicz's third novel, considered by some to be his best. The novel consists of two parts: Przebudzenie (Awakening) and Obłęd.
Krakowskie Przedmieście is one of the best known streets of Poland's capital Warsaw, surrounded by historic palaces, churches and manor-houses. It constitutes the northernmost part of Warsaw's Royal Route, and links the Old Town and Royal Castle with some of the most notable institutions in Warsaw, including, proceeding southward, the Presidential Palace, Warsaw University, and the Polish Academy of Sciences headquartered in the Staszic Palace. The immediate southward extension of the street along the Royal Route is New World Street.
Ernest François Eugène Douwes Dekker also known as Setyabudi or Setiabudi was an Indonesian-Dutch nationalist and politician of Indo descent. He was related to the famous Dutch anti-colonialism writer Multatuli, whose real name was Eduard Douwes Dekker. In his youth, he fought in the Second Boer War in South Africa on the Boer side. His thoughts were highly influential in the early years of the Indonesian freedom movement.
Venetian painting was a major force in Italian Renaissance painting and beyond. Beginning with the work of Giovanni Bellini and his brother Gentile Bellini and their workshops, the major artists of the Venetian school included Giorgione, Titian, Tintoretto (1518–1594), Paolo Veronese (1528–1588) and Jacopo Bassano (1510–1592) and his sons. Considered to give primacy to colour over line, the tradition of the Venetian school contrasted with the Mannerism prevalent in the rest of Italy. The Venetian style exerted great influence upon the subsequent development of Western painting.
The Grand Canal in Venice from Palazzo Flangini to Campo San Marcuola is a painting by Canaletto in the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, California. Painted around 1738, it may have been commissioned by the English merchant and art collector Joseph Smith (1682–1770).
The Canaletto Blick of Vienna in Austria is a famous perspective of the city center of Vienna, as seen from the Upper Belvedere Palace. It was popularized by a painting from Bernardo Bellotto, who sometimes used the name of his famous uncle, Canaletto.
