I found Davide Eron Salvadei on the Saatchi Online website.  I think this picture takes you back to the innocence of childhood and also makes you think of the here and now in equal measures.  Its innocent yet, not.

Ged Quinn specialises in allegorical paintings that include contemporary images (generally on controversial topics in Western cultural history) in idyllic scenes based on classical paintings such as the pastoral works of Claude Lorrain and Caspar David Friedrich  

I saw an exhibition of Ged Quinn’s work at the Wilkinson Gallery in 2008, titled ‘My Great Unhappiness Gives Me A Right To Your Benevolence’. Since then I see his work everywhere.   His work stands out, in the fact that you can appreciate his painterly skills as well as his concepts without having to read pages and pages of text to understand it.  They emanate a slightly sinister atmosphere but are also very inviting, making you want to understand them more deeply.  For me, I have to be engaged with the picture at first sight to want to learn more.

This picture, I think was the best picture from Alice Neel’s exhibition at The Whitechapel gallery in London 2010.  It’s a picture that made me want to rush home and paint a portrait.  The more I looked at these two old men the more I imagined their characters and their relationship with each other.  I really felt their minds working, as if they were judging me.  I love it when art does this to you.  My Blog is about only putting up these moments for me, so I can remember them for the rest of my life.

Alice Neel's portrait of the Soyer brothers says it all. There they are, Raphael and Moses, venerable, venerated, the golden boys of Thirties' art and social realism in America. The portrait captures their myth perfectly. The two little old men sit like elves, as picturesque as an American tradition should be.

Zdzisław Beksiński (Polish pronunciation: [ˈzd͡ʑiswaf bɛkˈɕiɲski]; 24 February 1929 – 21 February 2005) was a renowned Polish painter, photographer, and sculptor who is best known as a fantasy artist. Beksiński executed his paintings and drawings either in what he called a 'Baroque' or a 'Gothic' manner. The first style is dominated by representation, with the best-known examples coming from his 'fantastic realism' period when he painted disturbing images of a surrealistic, nightmarish environment. The second style is more abstract, being dominated by form, and is typified by Beksiński's later paintings. Beksiński was murdered in 2005.   

 People will always assume that people who created dark imagery must be mentally disturbed and unhappy. Although Beksiński's art was often grim, he himself was known to be a pleasant person who took enjoyment from conversation and had a keen sense of humor.  I believe that people who are in tune with the darker elements of life and don’t fear it are generally more at peace within themselves.

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Source: The official site of Inka Essenhigh (http://www.inka-essenhigh.com/)