Tuesday, August 30, 2011
Ernest William Christmas (1863-1918) was an Australian painter. He was born near Adelaide, South Australia in 1863 and studied art in Adelaide, Sydney and in London. He painted broadly in England, exhibiting in the early years of the century at the Royal Academy, the Royal Institute of Oil Painters, the Royal Society of British Artists, and the Royal Glasgow Institute of Fine Arts and in the provinces.
He was elected to the British Royal British Academy in 1909. In 1910-11, he painted mountains and lakes in Argentina and Chile. He lived in San Francisco around 1900 and again around 1915.
He was an avid traveler, but spent the last two years of his life in Hawaii, where he painted landscapes including dramatic volcano scenes. Ernest William Christmas died in Honolulu in 1918.
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
Beauty is a characteristic of a person, animal, place, object, or idea that provides a perceptual experience of pleasure, meaning, or satisfaction. Beauty is studied as part of aesthetics, sociology, social psychology, and culture. An "ideal beauty" is an entity which is admired, or possesses features widely attributed to beauty in a particular culture, for perfection.
The experience of "beauty" often involves the interpretation of some entity as being in balance and harmony with nature, which may lead to feelings of attraction and emotional well-being. Because this is a subjective experience, it is often said that "beauty is in the eye of the beholder." In its most profound sense, beauty may engender a salient experience of positive reflection about the meaning of one's own existence. A subject of beauty is anything that resonates with personal meaning.
Historical view of beauty:
There is evidence that a preference for beautiful faces emerges early in child development, and that the standards of good looks are similar across different genders and cultures. Symmetry is also important because it suggests the absence of genetic or acquired defects.
There is evidence that a preference for beautiful faces emerges early in child development, and that the standards of good looks are similar across different genders and cultures. Symmetry is also important because it suggests the absence of genetic or acquired defects.
Although style and fashion vary widely, cross-cultural research has found a variety of commonalities in people's perception of beauty. The earliest Western theory of beauty can be found in the works of early Greek philosophers from the pre-Socratic period, such as Pythagoras. The Pythagorean School saw a strong connection between mathematics and beauty. In particular, they noted that objects proportioned according to the golden ratio seemed more attractive. Ancient Greek architecture is based on this view of symmetry and proportion.
In the Romantic period, Edmund Burke pointed out the differences between beauty in its classical meaning and Sublime. The concept of the Sublime by Burke and Kant permitted us to understand that even if Gothic art and architecture are not always "symmetrical" or adherent to classical standard of beauty as the other style, gothic art is by no mean "ugly" or ridiculous: it's just another aesthetic category, the Sublime category.
In the Romantic period, Edmund Burke pointed out the differences between beauty in its classical meaning and Sublime. The concept of the Sublime by Burke and Kant permitted us to understand that even if Gothic art and architecture are not always "symmetrical" or adherent to classical standard of beauty as the other style, gothic art is by no mean "ugly" or ridiculous: it's just another aesthetic category, the Sublime category.
The 20th century saw an increasing rejection of beauty by artists and philosophers alike, culminating in postmodernism's anti-aesthetics. This is despite beauty being a central concern of one of postmodernism's main influences, Friedrich Nietzsche, who argued that the Will to Power was the Will to Beauty.
In the aftermath of postmodernism's rejection of beauty, thinkers such as Roger Scrutiny and Frederick Turner have returned to beauty as an important value. Elaine Scarry also argues that beauty is related to justice.
Saturday, August 20, 2011
Inge King is a prominent Australian sculptor, who has many significant public, commercial and private sculpture commissions to her credit.
Inge Studied sculpture with Hermann Nonnenmacher (1892–1988) during 1936-37, and in October 1937 she was admitted to the Berlin Academy of Fine Arts. She was forced to leave the academy a year later, shortly before Kristallnacht. In 1939 Inge travelled to England, and spent two terms at the Royal Academy London until it was closed due to war-time bombing. Inge joined that sculpture classes of Benno Schotz at the Glasgow School of Art in 1941 and stayed until 1943. Inge met her husband, the Australian artist Grahame King, at The Abbey Arts Centre in Hertfordshire, England and they were married in 1950. Grahame and Inge returned to Australia and the settled in Melbourne in 1951.
Mrs. King has been at the forefront of developing non-figurative sculpture in Australia. She was a member of The Centre 5 group of sculptors grew from a 1961 meeting convened by Julius Kane in Melbourne to, 'help foster greater public awareness in contemporary sculpture in Australia'. Members of the Centre 5 group are included Lenton Parr, Inge King, Norma Redpath, Julius Kane, Vincas Jomantas, Clifford Last and Teisutis Zikaras.
Many of her large scale works are found in public plazas, including Forward Surge, 1974 at the Victorian Arts Centre and on numerous university campuses. Inge has held over 26 solo exhibitions including a retrospective at the National Gallery of Victoria in 1992, and has participated in over 60 group shows in London, New York, Australia and New Zealand.
Forward Surge :
Inge's most famous sculpture is the monumental Forward Surge at the Melbourne Art Centre. It is made from 50mm mild steel and stands 5.2m high, 15.1m wide and 13.7m deep. The sculpture was commissioned by the Victorian Arts Centre in 1974; construction was completed in 1976 and the work was installed in its present position in 1981. More images
Forward Surge is the major sculptural draw card for the Arts Centre precinct and one of our most prominent and valued works of art. It has been listed on the National Trust Register since 1992, and is noted by the National Trust as King's "most monumental work of art, and probably most significant"
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
Automat (1927) is a painting by Edward Hopper which portrays alone woman staring into a cup of coffee in an Automat at night. The mirror image of identical rows of light fixtures stretches out through the night-blackened window.
As often happens in Hopper's paintings, both the circumstances of the woman and her mood is mixed. She is well dressed and wearing makeup, which could indicate that she is on her way to or from work in a job where personal appearance is important, or is en route to or from a social event. Was removed one glove, which may indicate that she is distracted, in a hurry and can stop for a moment, or simply just arrived from abroad, and has not yet warmed up.
The time of year—late autumn or winter—is evident from the fact that the woman is affectionately dressed. But the time of day is unclear, since days are short at this time of year. It is possible, for example, that it is just after sunset, and early enough in the evening that the automat could be the spot at which she has arranged to rendezvous with a friend. Or it could be late at night, after the woman has completed a shift at work. Or again, it could be early in the morning, before sunrise, as a shift is about to start.
Whatever the hour, the restaurant appears to be largely empty and there are no signs of activity) on the street outside. This adds to the sense of loneliness, and has caused the painting to be popularly associated with the concept of urban alienation. One critic has observed that, in a pose typical of Hopper's melancholic subjects, "the woman's eyes are downcast and her thoughts turned inward."
Another critic has described her as "gazing at her coffee cup as if it were the last thing in the world she could hold on to." In 1995, Time magazine used Automat as the cover image for a story about stress and depression in the 20th century
Wednesday, July 27, 2011
A couple who only wants a child living next to a garden belonging to a witch. The woman, who experience the anxiety associated with the arrival of his long-awaited pregnancy announcements Rapunzel plant planted in the garden and longs desperate to death. In each of two nights, the husband breaks into the garden to pick some of their. In a third night, as the scales of the wall to return home, the enchantress, "Dame Gothel" catches him and accuses him of theft. He begs for mercy, and the old promises to be lenient, on condition that the unborn child is then given to her at birth.
At these words, Rapunzel is covered with long hair, just around a hook by the window, falling down to the witch, who then would raise the hair to the tower room of Rapunzel. One day a prince walks through the woods and hears the song of Rapunzel's tower.
Desperate, the man agrees. When the baby is born, the sorceress takes up like yours, naming her Rapunzel.
When Rapunzel reached her twelfth year, the enchantress shut her into a tower in the woods or on the stairs or doors, and only one room and a window. When the witch visits Rapunzel, which is below the tower and says aloud: Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair, so you can climb the ladder of gold.
Fascinated by her ethereal voices, find the girl and discover the tower, but, of course, cannot enter. Come back often to hear beautiful singing, and one day visit Gothel Give me see, and he learns to have access to Rapunzel. Give Gothel when it's gone, offers Rapunzel let her hair down. When it does, go up, make your acquaintance, and finally asks her to marry him. Rapunzel agreed.
Together they plan an escape route, which come every night and bring silk, Rapunzel weave slowly on a ladder. Before the plan can come to fruition, however, Rapunzel foolishly gives away Prince.
Saturday, July 23, 2011
Landscape with the Fall of Icarus is a painting in oil on canvas long consideration to be by Pieter Bruegel, although following technical examinations in 1996, that attribution is regarded as very doubtful. It is probably a version of a lost original by Bruegel, however, probably from the 1560s or soon after.
It is in oils whereas Bruegel's other paintings on canvas are in tempera. Based on the mythological situation by Ovid, the painting itself became the subject of a poem of the same name by William Carlos Williams and is described in W.H. Auden's poem Musee des Beaux-Arts, named after the museum in which the painting is housed in Brussels.
It is in oils whereas Bruegel's other paintings on canvas are in tempera. Based on the mythological situation by Ovid, the painting itself became the subject of a poem of the same name by William Carlos Williams and is described in W.H. Auden's poem Musee des Beaux-Arts, named after the museum in which the painting is housed in Brussels.
In Greek mythology, Icarus succeeded in flying, with wings made by his father Daedal us, using feathers protected with wax. Ignoring his father's warnings, Icarus chose to fly too close to the sun, melting the wax, and fell into the sea and drowned. His legs can be seen in the water just below the ship. The sun, already half-set on the horizon, is a long way away; the flight did not reach anywhere near it.
Though landscape paintings with the title subject represented by small figures in the distance were an established type in Early Netherlandish painting, pioneered by Joachim Patiner, to have a much larger unrelated "genre" figure in the foreground is original and represents something of a blow against the emerging hierarchy of genres. Other landscapes by Bruegel, for example The Hunters in the Snow (1565) and others in that series of paintings showing the seasons, show genre figures in a raised foreground, but not so large relative to the size of the image, nor with a subject from a "higher" class of painting in the background.
Thursday, July 14, 2011
Princess Aurora was born from King Stefan and his wife, Queen Leah. At her christening, she was given gifts by two of the three fairies that showed up. Following this, the bad fairy named Maleficent showed up, angry at not being invited, and put a curse on Aurora stating that at the age of sixteen, she would prick her finger on the spindle from the spinning wheel and die. Luckily the third good fairy, named merry weather, had not presented a gift yet and is able to change the curse to sleep instead of death. Concerned, the three good fairies take Aurora to a secluded cottage in the wood and change her name to Briar Rose.
When Aurora grows to be a teenager, she is dancing and singing in the forest when she meets a handsome man who happened to hear her singing. Briar Rose does not realize he is Prince Phillip, and they agree to meet again that evening.
Meanwhile the three good fairies are preparing for her birthday and to surprise her with the news that she is a princess. But when Briar Rose returns with the news of meeting a strange but enchanting man, the fairies must tell her she can never see him again. The three fairies tell her about the future that is set for her and that night they take her back to the palace. Aurora is saddened that she will never see the man from the forest and asks to be left alone. The three fairies oblige.
Aurora suddenly sees a floating spark of light cast by Maleficent and, in a trance, follows the spark to a spinning wheel. All the three good fairies try to stop her, but Maleficent spell is too strong and Aurora touches the spindle, pricking her finger. She has been put in a bed by the fairies where she can sleep peacefully. To prevent further hurt in the kingdom, the fairies put the whole kingdom to sleep.
They discover that Prince Phillip is the man in the forest and he's walking in to a trap, and they help him confront Maleficent. After Prince Phillip fights and seemingly kills Maleficent, who transformed into a dragon, he moves upstairs to Aurora's bedroom and kisses her; she wakes up from the spell and smiles. They dance at the ball announcing her betrothal.
Saturday, July 9, 2011
Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There (1871) is a work of literature by Lewis Carroll. It is the follow-up to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865). The themes and settings of Through the Looking-Glass make it a kind of mirror reflection of Wonderland: the first book begins outdoors, in the warm month of May (4 May), uses frequent changes in size as a plot device, and draws on the imagery of playing cards; the second opens indoors on a snowy, freezing night exactly six months later, sees frequent changes in time and spatial directions as a plot device, and draws on the imagery of chess. In it, there are many mirror themes, including opposites, time running backwards, and so on.
Alice is playing with a white kitten (whom she calls "Snowdrop") and a black kitten (whom she calls "Kitty")—the offspring of Dinah, Alice's cat in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland—when she ponders what the world is like on the other side of a mirror's reflection. Climbing up on the fireplace mantel, she pokes at the wall-hung mirror behind the fireplace and discovers, to her surprise, that she is able to step through it to a different world.
In this reflected version of her own house, she finds a book with looking-glass poetry, "Jabberwocky", whose reversed printing she can read only by holding it up to the mirror. She also observes that the chess pieces have come to life, though they remain small enough for her to pick up.
Upon leaving the house, she enters a sunny spring garden where the flowers have the power of human speech; they perceive Alice as being a "flower that can move about." Elsewhere in the garden, Alice meets the Red Queen (now human-sized), who impresses Alice with her ability to run at amazing speeds—a reference to the chess rule that queens are able to move up to seven spaces at once, and in any direction, making them the most "agile" of the pieces.
The Red Queen reveals to Alice that the entire countryside is laid out in squares like a gigantic chessboard, and offers to make Alice a queen if she can move all the way to the eighth rank/row in a chess match. Alice is placed in the second rank as one of the White Queen's pawns, and begins her journey across the chessboard by boarding a train that literally jumps over the third row and directly into the fourth rank, acting on the rule that pawns can advance two spaces on their first move.
Monday, July 4, 2011
Women artists have been concerned in making art in most times and places, even though difficulties in training, travelling and trading their work, and gaining recognition. In the West the Middle Ages were possibly a better period for women artists than most of the early modern period; the later introduction of drawing from life models made it far harder, for reasons of decorum, for women to obtain the specialized training required for a professional artist.
In the latter part of the 20th Century, historians have endeavored to rediscover the artistic accomplishments of women and to give these artists their due place in the narrative of art history.
There are no records of who the artists of the prehistoric eras were, but the studies of many early ethnographers and cultural anthropologists indicate that women often were the principal artisans in the cultures considered as Neolithic, creating their pottery, textiles, baskets, and jewelry.
Collaboration on large projects was typical. Extrapolation to the artwork and skills of the Paleolithic follows the same understanding of the cultures known and studied through archaeology. Cave paintings exist that bear the handprints of women and children as well as those with the handprints of men.
Sunday, June 26, 2011
Antonie or Anton Sminck Pitloo was a Dutch painter. His original name was Pitlo, but he added the extra "o" because he was often mistaken for an Italian while resident in Italy. In Italian he is also known as Antonio van Pitloo..
Pitloo started studying painting first at Paris and then at Rome, where there was already an international artistic colony, in 1811. He took advantage of a scholarship offered by Louis Bonaparte, the King of Holland. In 1815, after the fall of Bonaparte, the scholarship payments ceased. He was then invited to Naples by the Russian diplomat and art connoisseur Count Gregory Vladimirovich Orloff (1777 – 22 June 1826).
In 1820 he married Giulia Mori and thus became a citizen of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. He became a lecturer at the Art Institute of Art at Naples where he specialized in pastoral painting.
Around 1826 he was living in Nicolette Del Vast 15, with Carl Gotzloff, Giacinto Gigante and Teodoro Duclere.
He remained in Naples until his death during a cholera epidemic. He was buried in the English Cemetery there.
He was considered a leading exponent of the "Posillipo School" of painting. His paintings have been compared to precursors of Impressionism, some sixty years before this was invented.
Sunday, June 19, 2011
The treasure, which represents the high point of Visigothic goldsmith's work, was dug between 1858 and 1861 in an orchard called Guarrazar, in Guadamur, very close to Toledo, Spain. The treasure was divided, with some objects going to the Musee de Cluny in Paris and the rest to the armouries of the Palacio Real in Madrid. Subsequently most of the Treasure of Guarrazar was stolen and has disappeared.
History:
The Visigothic period (409-711) provides an interesting chapter in the history of Guadamur.In August 1858, heavy storms in Guadamur uncovered a series of tombs at the site of the gardens of Guarrazar. These remains were found by neighbours Francisco Morales and Maria Perez.
About Treasure of Guarrazar:
The jewellery found at Guarrazar is part of a continuous tradition of Iberian metalworking that goes back to prehistoric times. These Visigothic works were influenced heavily by the Byzantines, but the techniques of gem encrustation found at Guarrazar were practised throughout the Germanic world and the style of the lettering was Germanic too. The crowns, however, were purely Byzantine in form and never meant to be worn. They were gifts to the church, to be hung above the altar.
These findings, together with other of some neighbors and with the archaeological excavation of the Ministry of Public Works and the Royal Academy of History (April 1859), formed a group consisting of:
- National Archaeological Museum of Spain: six crowns, five crosses, a pendant and remnants of foil and channel.
- Royal Palace of Madrid: a crown and a gold cross and a stone engraved with the Annunciation. A crown, and other fragments of a tiller with a crystal ball were stolen from the Royal Palace of Madrid in 1921 and its whereabouts are still unknown.
- National Museum of the middle Ages, Paris: three crowns, two crosses, links and gold pendants.
There were also many fragments of sculptures and the remains of a building, perhaps a Roman sanctuary or place of purification. After its dedication to Christian worship as a church or oratory, it housed a number of graves. A skeleton lying on a bed of lime and sand was found in the best preserved grave. This slate is now in the National Archeological Museum of Spain in Madrid. The inscription on the Sonnica cross, a piece preserved in Paris, gives an indication about the name of this church.
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
The Heart of the Andes is a large oil-on-canvas landscape painting by the American artist Frederic Edwin Church (1826–1900). More than five feet (1.7 meters) high and almost ten feet (3 meters) wide, it depicts an idealized landscape in the South American Andes, where Church traveled on two occasions. Its exhibition in 1859 was a sensation, and the painting established Church as the foremost landscape painter in the United States. It has been in the collection of New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art since 1909, and is among Church's most renowned works.
The Heart of the Andes is a composite of the South American landscape observed by Church during his travels. At the center right of the mountain landscape is a shimmering pool served by a waterfall. The snow-capped, majestic Mount Chimborazo of Ecuador appears in the distance; the viewer's eye is led to it by the darker, closer slopes that decline from right to left.
The evidence of human presence consists of a lightly worn path that fades away, a hamlet and church lying in the central plain, and closer to the foreground, two natives are seen before a cross.
The church, a trademark detail in Church's paintings, is Catholic and Spanish-colonial, and seemingly inaccessible from the viewer's location. Church's signature appears cut into the bark of the highlighted foreground tree at left. The play of light on his signature has been interpreted as the artist's statement of man's ability to tame nature—yet the tree appears in poor health compared to the vivid jungle surrounding it.
The Heart of the Andes is a composite of the South American landscape observed by Church during his travels. At the center right of the mountain landscape is a shimmering pool served by a waterfall. The snow-capped, majestic Mount Chimborazo of Ecuador appears in the distance; the viewer's eye is led to it by the darker, closer slopes that decline from right to left.
The evidence of human presence consists of a lightly worn path that fades away, a hamlet and church lying in the central plain, and closer to the foreground, two natives are seen before a cross.
The church, a trademark detail in Church's paintings, is Catholic and Spanish-colonial, and seemingly inaccessible from the viewer's location. Church's signature appears cut into the bark of the highlighted foreground tree at left. The play of light on his signature has been interpreted as the artist's statement of man's ability to tame nature—yet the tree appears in poor health compared to the vivid jungle surrounding it.
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
The Areopagus or Areios Pagos is the 'Rock of Ares', north-west of the Acropolis, which in classical times functioned as the high Court of Appeal for criminal and civil cases in Athens. Ares was supposed to have been tried here by the gods for the murder of Poseidon's son Alirrothios (a typical example of an aetiological myth).
The origin of its name is not clear. In Greek pagos means big piece of rock. Areios could have come from Ares or from the Erinyes, as on its foot was erected a temple dedicated to the Erinyes where murderers used to find shelter so as not to face the consequences of their actions. Later, the Romans referred to the rocky hill as "Mars Hill," after Mars, the Roman God of War. Near the Areopagus was also constructed the basilica of Dionysius Areopagites.
In pre-classical times (before the 5th century BC), the Areopagus was the council of elders of the city, similar to the Roman Senate. Like the Senate, its membership was restricted to those who had held high public office, in this case that of Archon. In 594 BC, the Areopagus agreed to hand over its functions to Solon for reform. He instituted democratic reforms, reconstituted its membership and returned control to the organization.
In 462 BC, Ephialtes put through reforms which deprived the Areopagus of almost all its functions except that of a murder tribunal in favor of Heliaia.
In The Eumenides of Aeschylus (458 BC), the Areopagus is the site of the trial of Orestes for killing his mother (Clytemnestra) and her lover (Aegisthus).
Phryne, the hetaera from 4th century BC Greece and famed for her beauty, appeared before the Areopagus accused of profaning the Eleusinian mysteries. Legend has it that she let her cloak drop, so impressing the judges with her approximately divine form that she was summarily acquitted.
In an unusual development, the Areopagus acquired a new function in the 4th century BC, investigating corruption, although conviction powers remained with the Ecclesia.
The term "Areopagus" also refers to the judicial body of aristocratic origin that subsequently formed the higher court of modern Greece.
Monday, April 11, 2011
The Sydney Opera House is a multi-venue performing arts centre in the Australian city of Sydney. It was conceived and largely built by Danish designer Jorn Utzon in 1973. Utzon received the Pritzker Prize, architecture's highest honour, in 2003.
The Pritzker Prize citation stated:
There is no doubt that the Sydney Opera House is his masterpiece. It is one of the great iconic buildings of the 20th century, an image of great beauty that has become known throughout the world – a symbol for not only a city, but a entire country and continent.
The Sydney Opera House was made a UNESCO World Heritage Site on 28 June 2007. It is one of the 20th century's most distinctive buildings and one of the most famous performing arts centres in the world.
The Sydney Opera House is situated on Bennelong Point in Sydney Harbor, close to the Sydney Harbor Bridge. It sits at the northeastern tip of the Sydney central business district (the CBD), surrounded on three sides by the harbor (Sydney Cove and Farm Cove) and neighbored by the Royal Botanic Gardens.
Contrary to its name, the building houses multiple performance venues. As one of the busiest performing arts centres in the world, hosting over 1,500 performances each year attended by some 1.2 million people, the Sydney Opera House provides a venue for many performing arts companies including the four key resident companies Opera Australia, The Australian Ballet, the Sydney Theatre Company and the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, and presents a wide range of productions on its own account. It is also one of the most popular visitor attractions in Australia, with more than seven million people visiting the site each year, 300,000 of whom take a guided tour.
The Sydney Opera House is administered by the Sydney Opera House Trust, under the New South Wales Ministry of the Arts.
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
Most early landscapes are clearly imaginary, although from very early on townscape views are clearly intended to represent actual cities, with varying degrees of accuracy. Various techniques were used to simulate the randomness of natural forms in invented compositions: the medieval advice of Cennino Cennini to copy ragged crags from small rough rocks was apparently followed by both Poussin and Thomas Gainsborough, while Degas copied cloud forms from a crumpled handkerchief held up against the light.
The system of Alexander Cozens used random ink blots to give the basic shape of an invented landscape, to be elaborated by the artist.
The distinctive background view across Lake Geneva to the Le Mole peak in The Miraculous Draught of Fishes by Konrad Witz (1444) is often cited as the first Western rural landscape to show a specific scene. The landscape studies by Durer clearly represent actual scenes, which can be identified in many cases, and were at least partly made on the spot; the drawings by Fra Bartolomeo also seem clearly sketched from nature.
Durer's finished works seem generally to use invented landscapes, although the spectacular bird's-eye view in his engraving Nemesis shows an actual view in the Alps, with additional elements. Several landscapists are known to have made drawings and watercolour sketches from nature, but the evidence for early oil painting being done outside is limited.
The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood made special efforts in this direction, but it was not until the introduction of ready-mixed oil paints in tubes in the 1870s, followed by the portable "box easel", that painting en plein air became widely practiced.
The system of Alexander Cozens used random ink blots to give the basic shape of an invented landscape, to be elaborated by the artist.
The distinctive background view across Lake Geneva to the Le Mole peak in The Miraculous Draught of Fishes by Konrad Witz (1444) is often cited as the first Western rural landscape to show a specific scene. The landscape studies by Durer clearly represent actual scenes, which can be identified in many cases, and were at least partly made on the spot; the drawings by Fra Bartolomeo also seem clearly sketched from nature.
Durer's finished works seem generally to use invented landscapes, although the spectacular bird's-eye view in his engraving Nemesis shows an actual view in the Alps, with additional elements. Several landscapists are known to have made drawings and watercolour sketches from nature, but the evidence for early oil painting being done outside is limited.
The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood made special efforts in this direction, but it was not until the introduction of ready-mixed oil paints in tubes in the 1870s, followed by the portable "box easel", that painting en plein air became widely practiced.
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Since the Renaissance the Pantheon has been used as a tomb. Among those buried there are the painters Raphael and Annibale Carracci, the composer Arcangelo Corelli, and the architect Baldassare Peruzzi. In the 15th century, the Pantheon was adorned with paintings: The best-known is the Annunciation by Melozzo da Forlì. Architects, like Brunelleschi, who used the Pantheon as help when designing the Cathedral of Florence's dome, looked to the Pantheon as inspiration for their works.
Pope Urban VIII (1623 to 1644) ordered the bronze ceiling of the Pantheon's portico melted down. Most of the bronze was used to make bombards for the fortification of Castel Sant'Angelo, with the remaining amount used by the Apostolic Camera for various other works. It is also said that the bronze was used by Bernini in creating his famous baldachin above the high altar of St.
Peter's Basilica, but, according to at least one expert, the Pope's accounts state that about 90% of the bronze was used for the cannon, and that the bronze for the baldachin came from Venice. This led the Roman satirical figure Pasquino to issue the famous proverb: Quod non fecerunt barbari fecerunt Barberini.
In 1747, the broad frieze below the dome with its false windows was “restored,” but bore little resemblance to the original. In the early decades of the twentieth century, a piece of the original, as could be reconstructed from Renaissance drawings and paintings, was recreated in one of the panels.
Pope Urban VIII (1623 to 1644) ordered the bronze ceiling of the Pantheon's portico melted down. Most of the bronze was used to make bombards for the fortification of Castel Sant'Angelo, with the remaining amount used by the Apostolic Camera for various other works. It is also said that the bronze was used by Bernini in creating his famous baldachin above the high altar of St.
Peter's Basilica, but, according to at least one expert, the Pope's accounts state that about 90% of the bronze was used for the cannon, and that the bronze for the baldachin came from Venice. This led the Roman satirical figure Pasquino to issue the famous proverb: Quod non fecerunt barbari fecerunt Barberini.
In 1747, the broad frieze below the dome with its false windows was “restored,” but bore little resemblance to the original. In the early decades of the twentieth century, a piece of the original, as could be reconstructed from Renaissance drawings and paintings, was recreated in one of the panels.
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Born to a Jewish family of Murdoch (Max) Halsman, a dentist, and Ita Grintuch, a grammar school principal, in Riga, Halsman studied electrical engineering in Dresden.
In September 1928, Halsman went on a mountaineering tour in the Austrian Alps with his father, Murdoch. During this tour, Murdoch died from severe head injuries. The circumstances were never completely clarified and Halsman was sentenced to four years' custody for patricide. The case provoked anti-Jewish propaganda and thus gained international publicity, and Albert Einstein and Thomas Mann wrote in support of Halsman. Halsman was released in 1931, under the condition that he leaves Austria for good, never to return.
Halsman consequently left Austria for France. He began contributing to fashion magazines such as fashion and soon gained a reputation as one of the best portrait photographers in France, renowned for his sharp and closely cropped images that shunned the old soft focus look. When France was invaded, Halsman fled to Marseille and he eventually managed to obtain a U.S. visa, aided by family friend Albert Einstein.
Halsman had his first success in America when the cosmetics firm Elizabeth Arden used his image of model Constance Ford against the American flag in an advertising campaign for "Victory Red" lipstick. A year later in 1942 he found work with Life, photographing hat designs, one of which, a portrait of a model in a Lilly Daché hat, was his first of the many covers he would do for Life.
In 1941 Halsman met the surrealist artist Salvador Dali and they began to collaborate in the late 1940s. The 1948 work Dali Atomicus explores the idea of suspension, depicting three cats flying, a bucket of thrown water, and Salvador Dali in mid air. The title of the photograph is a reference to Dali’s work Leda Atomica which can be seen in the right of the photograph behind the two cats. Halsman reported that it took 28 attempts to be fulfilled with the result. Halsman and Dali eventually released a compendium of their collaborations in the 1954 book Dali's Mustache, which features 36 different views of the artist's distinctive mustache.
Another famous collaboration between the two was In Voluptas Mors, a surrealistic portrait of Dali beside a large skull, in fact a tableau vivant composed of seven nudes. Halsman took three hours to arrange the models according to a sketch by Dali. A version of In Voluptas Mors was used subtly in the poster for the film The Silence of The Lambs, and recreated in a poster for the film The Descent.
Monday, March 14, 2011
In 1822 the Co burg Theatre, now the Old Vic in London, offered Roberts a job as a pretty designer and stage painter. He sailed from Leigh with his wife and the six-month-old Christine and settled in London. After working for a while at the Co burg Theatre, Roberts moved to the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane to create dioramas and panoramas with Stanfield.
A miniature by Roberts from this time shows Margaret as a delicate woman with blonde ringlets, holding the smiling three-year-old Christine. But Roberts' family life was not as idyllic as this picture suggests: Margaret had become an alcoholic, and eventually, in 1831, Roberts sent her back to Scotland to be cared for by friends. Roberts may have burned some letters from this period in shame at his wife's drinking problem, but he was unusually frank in a letter to a friend, David Ramsay Hay. Roberts and Hay had been apprentices together, and Hay had been seeing a mistress since his own wife had started drinking.
If you do not know our cases are approximately parallel. Yours is not as bad as mine, having some consolation. The state of my nerves is such I can scarcely write.
While he built his reputation as a fine artist, Roberts's stage work had also been commercially successful. Commissions from Covent Garden included the sets for the London premiere of Mozart’s Die Entführung aus dem Serail in 1827, scenery for a pantomime depicting the naval victory of Navarino, and two panoramas that he executed jointly with Stanfield.
By 1829 he was working full-time as a fine artist. That year, he exhibited the Departure of the Israelites from Egypt, in which his style first became apparent. In 1831, the Society of British Artists elected him as their president, the next year he traveled in Spain and Tangiers. He returned at the end of 1833 with a supply of sketches that he elaborated into attractive and popular paintings. The British Institution exhibited his Interior of Seville Cathedral in 1834, and he sold it for £300. He executed a fine series of Spanish illustrations for the Landscape Annual of 1836. Then in 1837 a selection of his Picturesque Sketches in Spain was reproduced by lithography.
Friday, March 11, 2011
A nuclear powered icebreaker is a purpose-built ship for use in waters constantly covered with ice. Icebreakers are ships capable of cruising on ice-covered water by breaking through the ice with their strong, heavy, steel bows.
Nuclear powered icebreakers are faraway more powerful than their diesel powered counterparts, and have been constructed by Russia primarily to aid shipping in the frozen Arctic waterways in the north of Siberia.
During the winter, the ice along the northern seaways varies in thickness from (1.2 to 2.0 meters). The ice in central parts of the Arctic Ocean is on average 2.5 meters (8.2 ft) thick. Nuclear-powered icebreakers can power through this ice at speeds up to 10 knots (19 km/h, 12 mph).
In ice-free waters the maximum speed of the nuclear-powered icebreakers is as much as 21 knots (35 km/h, 24 mph).
Monday, March 7, 2011
From the 3rd century BC, a specific genre known as Triumphal Paintings appeared, as indicated by Pliny (XXXV, 22). These were paintings which showed triumphal entries after military victories, represented episodes from the war, and occupied regions and cities. Summary maps were drawn to highlight key points of the movement. Josephus describes the painting executed on the occasion of Vespasian and Titus's sack of Jerusalem:
There was also shaped gold and ivory fastened about them all; and many resemblances of the war, and those in several ways, and variety of contrivances, affording a most lively portraiture of it. For there was to be seen a joyful country laid waste, and entire squadrons of enemies slain; while some of them ran away, and some were carried into captivity; with walls of great altitude and magnitude overthrown and ruined by machines; with the strongest defenses taken, and the walls of most populous cities upon the tops of hills seized on, and an army pouring itself within the walls; as also every place full of slaughter, and supplications of the enemies, when they were no longer able to lift up their hands in way of opposition..
Fire also sent upon temples was here represented, and houses overthrown, and falling upon their owners: rivers also, after they came out of a large and melancholy desert, ran down, not into a land cultivated, nor as drink for men, or for cattle, but through a land still on fire upon every side; for the Jews related that such a thing they had undergone during this war.
Now the workmanship of these representations was so magnificent and lively in the construction of the things, which it exhibited what had been done to such ads did not see it, as if they had been there really present. On the top of every one of these pageants was placed the commander of the city that was taken, and the manner wherein he was taken.
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