Juan Sanchez Cotan Still Life with Hanging Cabbage c.1600

INSPIRATION - for STUDIO FRIDAY
"I am curious to see/hear/read who everyone takes their inspiration from - an artist of traditional media, multimedia, craft world, living or dead. Who would we like to have the chance to meet and speak with, or to thank for inspiring us?"

My first thought is to feel overwhelmed by the scope of this question. We are all constantly influenced by each other and by our image-laden society. By life itself! Anyway, there is no one person I look at as my sole source of inspiration and too many people to list properly. But I can name a few names if pressed:
STILL-LIFE: Spanish still life painters of the 16th and 17th century like Juan Sanchez Cotan and Francisco Zurbaran, also Raphael Peale, Giorgio Morandi and Wayne Thiebaud.
FIGURATIVE: some influences include the Flemish masters like Memling and Petrus Christus, Grant Wood, Balthus, Georges de la Tour, and the scandinavian painters of the late 19th century, including the Skagen colony. Plus probably the guy I would most love to meet (were he still alive) and humbly take lessons from: Jules Bastien-Lepage.