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One way to enter de Chirico's mind can be observing the chronological series of self-portraits, in which the artist has captured himself in various clothes and in different years of life. Probably, de Chirico tried to follow the example of Rembrandt, who created his "chronicle in self-portraits". His experiments in trying various masks on himself - the gypsy thief, the artist on the easel or, finally, the nobleman in 17th century costume) also speak in favor of this hypothesis: the mirror becomes the only way, ironic and terribly finished, to observe one's disguise. In his hundred self-portraits, there is never a generic pose but he is always posed as someone (as "born under Saturn", like Raphael, as a Renaissance gentleman). It is precisely in the self-portrait that the value of Metaphysics is enhanced.

Balla is an inventor, a magician and a prophet: one of the protagonists of the Italian and international culture of the 20th century. He compares himself to Leonardo and Titian. He insults the passatists in the limelight of his time. Balla is unable to give up research, even if it is polite: "After having worked, the artist must feel tired, excited, sometimes happy and almost always dissatisfied".

Among six "huge pastel portraits, all of American ladies" painted in the early months of 1888, Boldini included that of Miss Emiliana Concha de Ossa, "a young girl of 18 as beautiful as a love", the youngest of the diplomat's three nieces and nephews and Chilean fine art lover Ramón Subercaseaux.

Giovanni Boldini's marked propensity for an almost constant mobility, combined with the sensuality of female movements and manners, sees in this extraordinary painting of 1900 one of his best results.

Considered by many to be an absolute masterpiece, Homage to Seurat was created at the invitation of the organizers of the exhibition Homage to the Old Masters held in 1954 at the Galleria d'Arte Moderna in Milan.

Già di collezione Enzo Biagi, questa opera è la rappresentazione più naturale di molteplici formalizzazioni stilistiche.

In 1904, Giacomo Balla moved to a monastery on the corner of Via Paisiello and Via Nicolò Porpora in Rome, on the northeast edge of the park of Villa Borghese.

After his return to Paris in 1873, Giuseppe De Nittis felt reborn. He and other avant-garde artists began to experiment with new forms of expression, inspired by the boulevards designed by Baron George Haussmann, the crowded squares crossed by carriages and horses.

When Giuseppe De Nittis returned to Paris in 1873, he abandoned genre painting and began doing cityscapes depicting famous corners of the capital and its greener surroundings.

Longoni's paintings in the series of works collected under the title of La voce del ruscello (The Voice of the Stream), are absolute masterpieces of his symbolist period. Executed between 1901 and 1904 at high altitude, precisely on the Bernina massif, they stand independent of each other in their exhibition history, market and critical fortune.

The nature of the pictorial 'Stil Novo' that Antonio Mancini invented is complex. Part of this complexity is due to the harmonic juxtaposition of Mancini’s colours and to his particular way of painting: a rare and subtle amalgam composed of a careful choice of tones and a personal method of employing them.

In a series of canvases dedicated to the universe of adolescent dancers, Angelo Morbelli bears witness to his artistic maturity, a pinnacle not reached before now. Here we find a daring layout and a simple and natural nobility of order and attitude.

I rarely happen to be completely enraptured by a work of art at first sight, but this happened to me with "The Kiss", an extraordinary masterpiece by Gaetano Previati dated 1889-1892.

In Dancer at La Scala Angelo Morbelli proves to be an unsurpassed master of light and shadow as he portrays, in a classic style, a shy teenager wrapped in a transparent dust that hovers in a timeless space.

The twentieth century opens for Zandomeneghi with the sign of continuity. Works are produced quickly as we see from the great number of compositions and pastels made during the first decade.

In January 1894, Federico Zandomeneghi signed an exclusive contract with Durand-Ruel, who was more in need than ever of a talented figure painter; Degas and Renoir had abandoned him to operate in full autonomy.