Artwork: Equestrian Portrait of Louis XIV

Artist: Charles Lebrun

Created: c. 1668

Medium: Oil on canvas

Dimensions: 329 x 187 cm

Location: Musée de la Chartreuse, Douai, France

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‘’When Charles Lebrun (1619-90) was appointed First Painter to France’s King Louis XIV in 1662, it marked his ascension to a virtual dictatorship over French art.

Lebrun’s version of classicism was imposed as the rule of taste through the Academy, which he also headed, and he controlled the vast building projects of the Sun King’s reign, including the royal palace at Versailles. Lebrun’s talent, however, was in no way diminished by being devoted to the glorification of royal authority. This fine portrait shows the king as an energetic monarch in his early thirties, sitting out to prove himself through leadership in the first of the many wars that would mark his reign. The shiny black armour relevais his material intent, but it is the pose of the horse that contributes most to the dynamic effect.

The portrayal of a ruler on a rearing horse was not unprecedented Louis’s father-in-law Philip IV of Spain was painted in the similar pose by Rubens, but the French king is presented as surprisingly relaxed an confident on his steed. He is looking away to the side, rather than fixing the viewer with a haughty stare as might have been expected. Handsome and stylish, he shows his authority through the firmness with which he controls his lively mount. Light floods in form the left to illuminate the horse’s exaggerated barrel chest and the rider’s three-quarter profile. The backdrop of landscape, curtain, and pillars is little more than a formal sitting for man and horse. This is a portrait devoid of pomposity, full of dash and boldness, showcasing a ruler in the springtime of his reign. (RG)

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PARTHENON (432 BCE)

Architects: Iktinos, Kallikrates, Phidias

Location: Athens, Greece

Style: Ancient Greek

Material: Marble

“The sumptuous temple of Athena stands out and is well worth a look.”

Heracleides of Crete, geographer

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“The silhouette of the ruined Parthenon has become a symbol of Western couture. Originally built as a pagan temple to goddess Athena and funded by the profits of Athenas’s empire, it was not the largest temple of antiquity, but certainly the most richly adorned. The surviving sculpture (controversially divided between Athens and London since the nineteenth century) came from the building’s exterior and celebrated the religious tradition, myth, and history of Athens. The most important piece, however, has long been destroyed: a 40-foot-high (12 m) gold-and-ivory “cult statue” of the goddess that stood inside. In fact, the function of the Parthenon was not congregational. The purpose of the building (which comprised just two simple chambers) was to house this statue and other Athenian treasures.

Historians do not know exactly who was responsible for the design. The sculptor Pheidias is associated with the statue of Athena and he may have has some control over the architecture too. The name of Kallikrates and Iktinos are also mentioned. But whoever played the leading part, the architectural details have been praised and minutely examined since the nineteenth century — especially the so-called “optical refinements,” those tiny adjustments in its dimensions to make the building appear perfectly regular to the naked eye. Calculations show that the columns at either end, if continued upward, would actually meet 31 miles (50 km) above ground.

The Parthenon was used long after the end of antiquity — converted first into a church and in the fifteenth century into a splendid mosque. It became a ruin only after a Venetian cannonball hit it in 1687. Since then it has inspired imitations worldwide, from Ludwig I’s Walhalla in Bavaria to an exact replica in Nashville, Tennessee, and the unfinished “Parthenon” on Calton Hill, Edinburgh.”

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A brilliant film, If you don’t seen before, you must to see it, because is a masterpiece of Milos in my opinion.

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AMADEUS by Milos Forman, 1984

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“Milos Forman’s casting of American Tom Hulce (who had spots in Animal House [1978] and Tv series St. Elsewhere under his belt)as the giggling German composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart contrast with the period sets and details on display throughout this epic biopic. But Hulce’s over-the-top performance as the brilliant enfant terrible jibes with the theory that larger-than-life music must flow from a larger-than-life personality. He cavorts and parades around as if acknowledging the silliness of his frilly frocks and colored wigs. Nevertheless, he propels the film at such a pace that his clownish attitude and incongruous accent hardly matter.

Adapted by Peter Shaffer (in whose Equus Hulce had appeared on stage) from his own play, Amadeus sets Mozart’s effortless creative strides against the simplistic compositions of his envy-ridden rival Salieri (played by an appropriately sour F. Murray Abraham). Salieri’s bitterness is introduced for laughs, whereas Mozart is depicted as a womanizing fool. Yet the proof is the latter’s achievements, as revealed via the film’s thunderous score and a generous staging of Don Giovanni. Although seeing even a portion of such a stirring work in the context of what amounts to a piece of pop art may seem strange, that may be the point. Forman seems nothing if not intent on contemporizing the life and accomplishments of one of history’s greatest fonts of genius.” (JKI)

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Temple at Luxor

Built: (1408 BCE)

Patron: Amenhotep III

Location: Luxor, Egypt

Style: Ancient Egyptian

Material: Stone

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“The Temple at Luxor is an ancient Egyptian temple complex that lies on the east bank of the Nile, at what is now called Luxor, and what was the ancient city of the Thebes. It was dedicated to the Theban triad of gods — Amun, his wife Mut, and their son Chons — and was built on the site of a smaller Middle Kingdom structure for the god Amun. The earliest parts of the temple existing today date from 1408 BCE and were built during the reign of Amenhotep III of the Eighteenth Dynasty of the New Kingdom. Access to the temple is via the Avenue of Sphinxes, built by Nectanebo I, which replaced the ram-headed sphinxes built by Amenophis III. The avenue once stretched the 1.86 miles (3 km) from the Temple at Luxor to the Temple of Karnak in the north. A 78-foot-high (24 m) obelisk built by Ramesses II of the Nineteenth Dynasty in 1300 BCE lies at the end of the avenue at the entrance to the temple. Originally were two obelisks, but the second obelisk was given to France’s King Louis-Philippe in 1829 and now stands in the Place de la Concorde in Paris. The gateway leads into a peristyle courtyard, also built by Ramesses II. Both it and the obelisk were built at an oblique angle to the rest of the temple. The courtyard leads into a processional colonnade, 328 feet (100 m) long, built by Amenhotep III, and lined by fourteen papyrus-capital columns. A second peristyle courtyard lies beyond the colonnade. The inner part of the temple is acceded via a hypostyle court with thirty-two columns. This inner sanctum comprises an antechamber that contains a mix of both Egyptian carvings and Roman stuccoes,

reflecting the fact that at one time the Romans also used the site as a place of worship. The temple also has a shrine dedicated to Amun, and the Birth Room of Amenhotep III, which contains reliefs depicting the pharaoh’s birth.” (CMK)

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Temple of Hatshepsut

Created: 1458 BCE

Architect: Senenmut

Location: Deir el-Bahri, Egypt

Style: Ancient Egyptian

Material: Stone

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“Senenmut built one of the most beautiful monuments of ancient Egypt, the style . . . never repeated.”

John Julius Norwich, historian

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“Queen Hatshepsut was the fifth pharaoh of the Eighteenth Dynasty of ancient Egypt. She founded a vast number of buildings during her reign, the most spectacular of which is her own funerary temple at Deir el-Bahri, a site on the west bank of the Nile opposite Luxor. It is positioned in a straight line from the tomb she commissioned for herself in the Valley of Kings that lies on the other side of the mountain. Archaeologists estimate that is took fifteen years to build the temple — between the seventh and the twenty-second years of her reign. They have also suggested that originally the approach to the temple was along a 121-foot-wide (37 m) causeway lined with sphinxes. The focal point of the temple is the Djeser-Djeseru or “The Sublime of Sublimes,” which consists of three elegant colonnaded terraces standing 97 feet (29.5 m) high, and dramatically built into a high mountain face that rises above it. It is notable for its perfect symmetry, which predates Greece’s Parthenon by 1,000 years. Djeser-Djeseru is reached by two ascending ramps that were once planted as gardens. The second ramp leads to the upper terrace, and the Punt Portico that is supposed by two rows of square columns. It is decorated with statues of Queen Hatshepsut sculpted to appear as the god Osiris, and its walls bear reliefs depicting a trading expedition to Punt, which is thought to be a region in what now known as Ethiopia or northern Somalia.” (CMK)

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Song name: La javanaise

Singer: Juliette Gréco

Year: 1963

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Writer: Serge Gainsbourg

Producer: Uncredited

Label: Philips

Album: Juliette Gréco No. 8; (1963)

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“Outside of his home country, Serge Gainsbourg is known, if at all, for embodying the stereotype of a certain kind of Gallic manhood: truculent, unshaven, permanently smoking, and lecherous. Gainsbourg released few low-selling solo albums in the late Fifties and early Sixties, but did not find fame until he began to write for others, teaming up with Beat poet and jazz singer Juliette Gréco on an EP of his songs in 1959. An habituée of the bohemian cafés of Saint-Germain-des-Prés in Paris, where she drank with Jean Cocteau and Miles David, Gréco was a formidable presence – when they first met, Gainsbourg was too shy to speak.

“La javanaise” proved to be Gainsbourg’s first real masterpiece as a songwriter. Based around an exotic jazz theme, it might seem to English speakers to be a simple lament for lost live in the typical French chanson style. Actually, Gainsbourg was attempting something far more ambitious. The song’s title is a play on “javanais,” a type of French slang popular during the 1950s where the extra syllable “av” is placed into the middle of words to render them almost incomprehensible. Accordingly, the song’s lyrics cram as many words containing the “av” sound into them as possible. Non-Francophones need not worry about failing to get Gainsbourg’s joke, though — Gréco’s winningly sultry delivery and André Popp’s lush arrangement make this a gorgeous song regardless.” (PL)

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Artwork: Scene of Initiation into the Cult of Demeter

Artist: Unknown

Created: 60-50 BCE

Medium: Fresco (detail)

Location: Villa dei Misteri, North Wall, Pompeii, Italy

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‘’This panel is part of a larger mural that was discovered in the Villa dei Misteri, near Pompeii in Italy. Like much of the art from this period, it was constructed using the fresco technique. The eruption of Vesuvius in 79 CE destroyed many works of art in this region, but some were protected by lava or by their location in tombs and houses. Located in a large chamber, known as the triclineum or dining room, at the front of the villa, this fresco cycle comprises twenty-nine figures and runs continuously around the chamber. The composition of the frieze is typical of the Second Style (80-20 BCE), which is marked by its representational style and creates the illusion of receding space. The startled woman on the far right is an initiate engaged in a dance step with her purple veil. The type of ritual has been hotly debated, but most agree that it depicts the initiation of a woman into rites associated with pleasure, probably sex or mariage, also called bacchanalia. Some people speculate that the scene depicts one of the mystery cults that was concerned exclusively with the lives and experiences of women. What has startled the woman is uncertain, but it is though likely to be linked to the apprehension of hearing Silenus (center, playing the lyre) divining her future. The seated woman (far left) is a priestess and appears to be preparing to cleanse her hands. The rich color scheme includes blues and greens. These would have been very costly pigments for a fresco of this size, which suggest that the proprietor of the villa spared no expense. (PS)

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Artwork: Europa on a Bull

Artist: Unknown

Created: c. 20 BCE-45 CE

Medium: Fresco (detail)

Location: Museo Archeologico Nazionale Di Napoli, Naples, Italy

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‘’This fresco from Pompeii is painted in the Third Style or ornamental style of ancient Roman wall paintings, but is now housed in a Naples museum rather than being located in situ in Pompeii. The painting, which was part of a larger collection, was probably copied from a Greek original. According to the myth, Zeus became enamoured by the lovely Europa, a Phoenician princess. Zeus disguised himself as a bull and infiltrated her father’s herd. While looking after the herd with her friends, Europa innocently caresses the bull and sits on him only to be carried off over the sea to Crete. Europa gives birth to three sons, becomes the first Queen of Crete, and Zeus puts the image of a bull in the heavens for her — we know it as the constellation Taurus. She also gave her name to the continent of Europe. In the Pompeii fresco, the artist depicts Europa soon after she has unknowingly straddled the bull, which is the focal point of the scene. Sexual innuendo is confined to the exposure of Europa’s breasts as she has raised her cloak with her right hand. Surprisingly, there is little motion represented in the image, nor any feeling of violence or fear among Europa and her onlookers. Europa’s three friends seem quite calm, one girl even pets the bull. It perhaps marks the moment of calm just before Zeus bolts away with his prize. This painting and the myth of the abduction of Europa have inspired artists throughout history — Veronese, Gustave Moreau, Titian, Rembrandt, and Matisse — to paint their renditions of the tale.’’ (SW)

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Artwork: Goldsmiths at Work

Artist: Unknown

Created: 1411-1375 BCE

Medium: Wallpainting (detail)

Location: Tomb 181, Valley of the Nobles, Sheikh Abd el-Qurna, Egypt

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Goldsmiths at Work is a fragment of a wallpainting from the tomb of Ipuki and Nebamun who were craftsmen and sculptors who worked in the royal necropolis at Thebes during the region of Amenhotep II. The eighteenth dynasty of ancient Egypt – often combined with nineteenth and twentieth dynasties under the group title ‘’New Kingdom’’ – was a time of great artistic flowering in ancient Egypt. Ipuki and Nebamun were involved in the royal building project of the New Kingdom. Despite Nebamun’s modest title of ‘’scribe and counter of grain,’’ he artfully prepared his own burial tomb to be shared by Ipuki, combining their skills to make a tomb as equally well crafted as any of the nobles’ tombs surrounding it. A least one wall of these tomb chambers was reserved for celebrating the work of deceased. Goldsmiths at Work portrays eleven craft workers engaged in various activities from the initial weighing of gold to the creation of gold objects. Gold was used to decorate temples dedicated by the pharaoh, and was placed alongside the kings in their tombs for use in the afterlife. Goldsmiths at Work is an elegant portrayal of work, with many hands animated in diverse actions. It also provides important historical information about ancient Egyptian workshops, and the high degree of skill required by goldsmiths. Nebamun and Ipuki, who were possibly brothers, or related through marriage, are two artists who cannot resist providing an intimate portrait of their vocation, and of the artistic process at large.’’ (SWW)

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Film: DRACULA

Producer: Tod Browning

Date: 1931

Language: English/Hungarian

Music: Franz Schubert, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Richard Wagner

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‘’Bela Lugosi creates one of the most unique and powerful roles of the screen.’’ The Film Daily, 1931

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‘’Although Bram Stoker’s seminal 1897 vampire novel had been filmed by F.W. Murnau in 1922 as Nosferatu and director Tod Browning had cast Lon Chaney as a bogus vampire in the silent London After Midnight, this early talkie was the true beginning of the horror film as a distinct genre and the vampire movie as its most popular subgenre.

Cinematographer Karl Freund had a solid grounding in German Expressionist shadowmaking, whereas Browning was the carnival barker king of American grotesquerie, so the film represents a synthesis of the two major strains of silent chills. Like such major American horror properties as The Cat and the Canary and The Bat, this Dracula cones to the screen not from the pages of classic gothic literature but directly from the stage: the primary sources of the screenplay are a pair of theatrical takes on Stoker’s novel, from Hamilton Deane and John L. Balderston. The brake-out star of the new genre was Bela Lugosi, who had played Dracula on Broadway and was finally cast in the film after the early death of Browning’s favoured star, Chaney. It may be that the loss of Chaney took some of the spark out of Browning’s direction, which is actually less inspired than George Melford’s work on the simultaneously shot (on the same sets, no less) Spanish version — though the latter suffers from the lack of an iconic Dracula and the fact that it represents exactly the shooting script, whereas the English-language Dracula was considerably tightened by an edit that took out twenty minutes of flab.

Prehistoric in technique and stuck with a drawing-room-centred script Browning’s film nevertheless retrains much of its creaky, sinister power, spotlighting (literally, via tiny pinlights aimed at his evil eyes) Lugosi’s star-making turn as the vampire, squeezing Hungarian menace out of every syllable of phrases such as ‘’Cheeldren of the night, leesten to thaim’’ or ‘In nevair dreenk vine!’’ The film opens magnificently, with a snatch of Swan Lake and a rickety stagecoach taking us and estate agent Renfield (Dwight Frye) to Lugosi’s cobwebbed and vermin-haunted castle. Dracula strides through a curtain of cobwebs, the vampire twitching with bloodlust as his guest cuts his finger while carving bread, and three soulless vampire brides descend upon the unwary visitor.

Once the story hops disappointingly over a dangerous sea voyage and the Count relocates to London, Lugosi calms down. But Edward Van Sloan is staunch as the vampire-killing Professor Abraham Van Helsing, the forgotten Helen Chandler is frailly charming as the bled-dry and semivampurized heroine Mina, and Frye steals every scene that isn’t nailed down when Renfield transforms into a fly-eating, giggling maniac. Castle Dracula, with its five-story Gothic windows, is the art direction highlight, but the London scenes offer an impressive staircase and catacombs for Dracula’s English lair. Browning falters at the last, however with a weak climax in which a weak climax in in which the Count is defeated far too easily, his death conveyed by an offscreen groan as he is impaled.’’ (KN)

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QUEEN VICTORIA AND PRINCE ALBERT ——————————————————-

JOHN JABEZ EDWIN MAYALL

Genre: Portrait

Date: 1860

Location: UK

Format: Carte de visite “On 28 July 1855, Queen Victoria wrote in her journal: ‘From 10 to 12 was occupied in being photographed by Mr. Mayall, who is the oddest man ever saw, but an excellent photographer.’ John Mayall (1810-1901) made his reputation in the United State, but returned to his native England in 1846. In 1860, the queen, who had not forgotten her earlier photos hoot, asked Mayall to take a series of miniature carte de visite portraits of members of the royal family, which would be for sale to public. Being allowed to purchase such photographs made the monarch seem more accessible to her subjects, resulting in a boost to her popularity.” (CHpbyd)

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Artwork: Chica in a Bar

Artist: Ramón Casas

Created: 1892

Medium: Oil on canvas

Dimensions: 117 x 90 cm

Location: Museo de la Abadia, Montserrat, Spain

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“Ramón Casas (1866-1932) was one of the foremost painters of Modernisme, a cultural moment striving to bring Catalan art on a par with the rest of Europe. Casas was also well known as a portraitist who sketched and painted the cultural and economic elite of Barcelona, Paris, and the rest of the world. In the first half of the 1890s he exhibited in Paris, Berlin, Madrid, and Chicago. Chica in a Bar is typical of his style at the time. The painting seems to lie somewhere between the French Impressionists and an academic style. The red of the girl’s hair matches the strong color of her blouse and her drink. This is offset by the white of the skirt and black wall. The girl’s expression gives away little: perhaps she is shy, perhaps miserable, or maybe merely bored although she looks too involved with her surroundings for that to be the case. Either way, this is a fine example of Casas’s gift for portraiture.” (OR)

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BUILDING

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Newgrange Burial Chamber (3200 BCE)

Source of photography: Wikipedia

Architect: Unknown

Location: Brú na Bóinne, Donore, Country Meath, Ireland

Style: Neolithic

Materials: Stone slabs, turf, quartz pebbles

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“Newgrange, a UNESCO World Heritage Sit, is one of the finest examples in Western Europe of a passage grave. It consists of a 36-foot-high (11 m) stone and turf mound, through which a narrow, slab-lined passage leads to a burial chamber. At the winter solstice on December 21, a shaft of light shines through a roofbox at the entrance and along the passage to the tomb’s furthest recesses. The complexity of carvings on the stone walls suggest a religious significance; the design may be evidence of sun worship. The cremated remains of four or five people, laid on large stone basins and found when the tomb was evacuated, suggest that only persist and rules were buried there. The passage tomb is surrounded by ninety-seven curbstones; the most impressive is the large entrance stone, which is covered in swirls and designs. Inside the large mound, there is a long passage leading into a chamber that branches of three ways. The corbeled roof inside the burial chamber is still watertight and supports an estimated 200,000 tons. Newgrange predates the pyramids of Egypt by 400 years. Excavation has revealed evidence of human occupation in the area as early as the fourth millennium BCE. The immediate area is known as Brú na Bóinne — the Bend of the Boyne. The mounds at Newgrange, Knowth, and Dowth dominate the are, which is to be designated a National Archeological Park.” (BMC)

————————————————————————“This is Europe’s largest and most important concentration of prehistoric megalithic art.” (UNESCO)

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Photography

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SWIMSUITS IN THE SAND

CLIFFORD COFFIN

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Genre: Fashion

Date: 1949

Location: Los Angeles, California, USA

Format: Médium format

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“This painterly image was a shot by Clifford Coffin (1913-72) for the June 1949 issue of American Vogue.

Tending towards the surreal, it is presents repetition of form through angular bodies and coloured swimming caps, in a trial towards the horizon.

Coffin was an immensely prolific postwar fashion photographer, and thus striking composition is typical on his work. He was known to be a perfectionist, directing every detail of the work, including models’ make-up and clothes, as well as the location. His fastidious attention to detail meant very little was left to chance. Coffin pioneered the use of ringflash lighting: wrapping a circular bulb around the camera lents allowed light to flow all directions, thus minimizing the distortion of shadow. This worked well for fashion, highlighting shiny fabrics and make-up while detracting from creases and blemishes.” (ML)

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PHOTOGRAPHY

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INGRID BERGMAN,

STROMBOLI

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GORDON PARKS

Genre: Portrait

Date: 1949

Location: Stromboli, Italy

Format: 35mm

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“A couple of years before this image was taken, Ingrid Bergman had written to Roberto Rossellini, expressing a deep admiration for his Neorealist films, with led Rossellini to cast her in Stromboli (1950). While working on the film in Italy, director and star began an affair; Bergman left her husband and child, thus causing a scandal. Gordon Parks (1912-2006) was sent by Life magazine to cover the story. Rossellini was reluctant to engage with the press, but Bergman was aware of Parks’s reputation as a photographer who could be trusted.

After Parks refrained from taking a photograph of the couple in an embrace off set, Bergman gave him unguarded access. This haunting image was taken while out on a walk. Parks recalled how three women, ‘clad in back, and resembling ominous birds. . . stared at her curiously. Aware of their presence, Ingrid waited for them to leave. I allowed my camera to record this sardonic moment.’ “ (EC)

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Métamorphoses

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Ovid

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Lifespan: b. 43 BCE (Italy), d. 17 BCE

First Published: 1488 by Antonius Nebrissensis

First Composed: Between c. 2-8

Original Language: Latin

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“Ovid’s Metamorphoses, which assembles some two hundred and fifty stories from classical antiquity into one continuous narrative, is a mythological history of the world, begging with the Creation and ending with the foundation of Rome and the apotheosis of Julius Caesar. The constant questioning of tradition and power is something encountered in many of Ovid’s narratives: Arachne challenges the goddess Athene to a tapestry-making contest; Phaethon insist on taking the reins of the sun chariot from his father; Daphne escapes from Apollo’s clutches by praying to a river god, who changes her into a tree. When Ovid retells stories of heroism, it is in a comic, deflating way, reminiscent of mock-epic. Whenever Perseus kills his enemies by turning them to stone with the head of the Medusa which he carries in a bag, it is not the heroic that we see, but the use of a disproportionate force not unlike employing nuclear weapons in a pub brawl.

The Metamorphoses’ incorporation of dialogue within a narrative, along with its wit, playfulness, and sheer sense of fu, exemplifies much of what we now associate with the novel. Today Ovid’s work continues to be metamorphosed, and has had an impact on a dazzling array of contemporary novelists, from Salman Rushdie and A.S. Byatt, to Cees Nooteboom and Marina Warner.” (PT)

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Cygnus is transformed into a swan and Phaeton’s sisters turn into popular trees in an engraved illustration of the Metamorphoses.

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Book: Aesop’s Fables

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Aesopus

Lifespan: b. c.620 BCE (Greece), d. 560 BCE

First Edition: 4 BCE, compiled by rhetorician

First Published: c. 1475 ( L. Symoneli & others, Paris)

Original Title: Fabulae Aesopi

The illustration is from artis Walter Crane’s 1887 Baby’s Own Aesop — subtitled Portable Morals Pictorially Pointed.

“Aesop, according to legend, was a tongue-tied slave living on the Greek island of Samos, who miraculously received the power of speech, and subsequently won his freedom, only to be thrown to his death by the citizens of Delphi for insulting their oracle. But what we know as Aesop’s Fables, is in reality a body of work from a huge variety of sources.

Among the earliest recorded narratives, these stories have became embedded in the Western psyche, like the stories of Oedipus and Narcissus. Who isn’t familiar, for exemple, for the story of “The Hare and the Tortoise,” where the lazy hare is outrun, despite his speed, by the diligent tortoise? As well as stories about animals, Aesop’s Fables contains tales about everyday people, as in the story of the boy who cried “wolf,” and is also gathers together jokes, paradoxes, parables, and “just so” stories; whatever the actual characters, the tone is always didactic. “Zeus and the Camel” tells how, when the camel saw another animal’s horns, she begged Zeus to give her horns as well, but Zeus was so angry at the camel’s greediness, that instead he cropped her ears. In the story, “Jupiter and the Frogs,” a famous parable about pawer, the frogs ask Jupiter for a king. Not content with the king he sends them at first, an easy-going log, they ask for a more powerful ruler, only to be sent a water-snake, who kills them off one by one.

The Fables remain very popular today, having been translated into languages all around the world, and the great many subsequent works of literature develop ideas first explored in them. Without the exemple of Aesop, the world would never have had The Romance of Reynard the Fox, and Kafka’s The Metamorphosis would be inconceivable. There would be no Just So Stories by Kipling, and Orwell would never have written Nineteen Eighty-Four.” (PT)

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Category: Song

Name: Strange Fruit

Singer: Billie Holiday (1939)

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Writer: Abel Meeropol (credited as Lewis Allan)

Producer: Uncredited

Label: Commodore

Album: N/A

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“Strange Fruit” began life not as a song but as a photograph. When high-school teacher Abel Meeropol saw an image of two black men hanging from a tree, ringed by a crowd of white onlookers, he was moved to pen a poem protesting against the lynching of African-Americans by white vigilantes. “Southern trees bear a strange fruit,” wrote Meeropol, nodding to the scale of the problem in the Deep South but seemingly unaware that the photograph had been taken in the northern town of Marion, Indiana.

Meeropol’s poem came to the attention of Billie Holiday, who added the song to her repertoire. Her first attempt at recording it fell foul of executives at Columbia Records, for whom the subject proved a little too hot to handle. But rival label Commodore stepped in where Columbia feared to tread. And, despite the best efforts of some radio stations, which refused to play it, and concert promoters, who stopped the singer from performing it, Holiday had an unlikely hit in her hands.

Meeropol’s poem and Holiday’s recording are deeply affecting, their message amplified by the simplicity of its transmission: a twelve-line extended metaphor filtered through an unvarnished vocal and a stark accompaniment. The song’s influence has been profound, by it’s still not heard often on the radio. “Strange Fruit” remains a deeply discomfiting listen.” (WF-J)

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0mO92ll_q0k&feature=share

Category: Song

St. Louis Blues

Bessie Smith (1925)

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Writer: W. C. Handy

Producer: Uncredited

Label: Columbia

Album: N/A

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“St. Louis Blues” was, and remains, a phenomenon — a fully composed (rather than traditional hand-me-down) blues song that became a massive hit. W. C. Handy wrote it in 1913, at a time when there were no charts to register a song’s popularity. Yet some measure of its success comes from the income it generated through sheet-music sales. For more than forty years, the song brought in an annual sum of around $25,000, making Handy a multimillionaire by today’s reckoning.

The song has been recorded by many blues and jazz musicians, but no finer version exists than the one by Bessie Smith. Accompanied by just Fred Longshaw on harmonium and a magisterial Louis Armstrong on cornet, Smith mournfully relates the tale of how her love has run away with a chic St. Louis woman. Handy said he was inspired to write the song after meeting a woman in St. Louis bemoaning the absence of her husband. “Ma man’s got a heart like a rock cast in da sea,” she remarked — a line Handy wrote into the song.

Handy’s skill is evident in the way in which he alters the traditional twelve-bar blues structure by introducing a sixteen-bar bridge in the habanera rhythm — an irregularity accented beat known as the “Spanish Tinge” — after the second verse. It adds contrast to the song into one of the most heartfelt laments of the century.” (SA)

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3rd9IaA_uJI&feature=share

Artwork: Memory

Artist: Frida Kahlo

Created: 1937

Medium: Oil on canvas

Dimensions: 48.2 x 38 cm

Location: Private Collection

“Frida Kahlo ( 1907-54) produced more than fifty-five self-portraits all delaying with issues of identity. In self-portraiture, the artist enters into a conspiracy with the mirror and their is either a conscious construction of a persona or, to varying degrees, an honest investigation. Memory contains clues to the artist’s state of mind. Here she has shown herself three times, once in a white dress and jacket, with cropped hair, and without arms and hands. She appears twice more represented by contemporary and Mexican clothes, empty except for the missing limb. An arrow pierces the chest where the heart should e. The enlarged heart lies on the shore, bleeding into the sea. The cropped hair and the displaced heart refer to her husband Diego Rivera’s infidelities. The clothing signifies her place in the world as a contemporary artist with a strong link to her Mexican-Indian heritage. (WO)

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Artwork: Side Portal of Como Cathedral

Artist: Rudolph von Alt

Created: 1850

Medium: Oil on cardboard

Dimensions: 25 x 21.5 cm

Location: Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg, Germany

“Rudolph von Alt (1812-1905) began painting in the Biedermeier era, a movement that focused on everyday scenes and objects. On trips around Austria and Italy, he produced landscapes, cityscapes, and interiors noted for their realism and attention to detail. Although watercolor was becoming his preferred medium by the time of this mature study, its golden depiction of late afternoon shade demonstrates the masterful rendering of light and atmosphere that still characterized his oil works. The rich, earthly palette differs form the cool crispness of his Alpine Watercolors. In 1861, he helped establish the Knustlerhaus, a conservative art society; but his own style continued to evolve, later works demonstrating a freedom akin to Impressionism. In 1897, he left the Knustlerhaus and joined the Viennese Secession, embracing the avant-garde alongside Gustav Klimt, foreshadowing Austrian Expressionism.” (SLF)

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Artwork: The Sower

Artist: Jean-François Millet

Created: 1850

Medium: Oil on canvas

Dimensions: 101.6 x 82.6 cm

Location: Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA, USA

“The Sower was one of Jean-François Millet’s (1814-75) most influential pictures, produced at a time when the Realist style was causing ripples in the art world.

Images of peasant life had been popular for centuries, usually small and picturesque, presenting the town-dweller with an unthreatening view of the countryside.

But Millet’s peasants were unidealized and shocked the critics with their heroic scale, normality reserved for classical deities or historical celebrities. The Revolution had swept away the old order, leaving the future uncertain and, as a result, any large-scale canvases of peasants were bound to seem inflammatory. The revolutionary intentions of such works by Gustave Courbet, leader of the Realists, were undoubtedly intentional, though Millet’s own politics are far less clear. Nonetheless, The Sower was greeted enthusiastically by republican critics, but negatively by conservatives.” (IZ)

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Photography: GENERAL FRANCO TAKES THE OATH AS HEAD OF STATE

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UNKNOWN

Genre: News

Date: 1936

Location: Burgos, Spain

Format: 35mm

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“With his arm in the air in an authoritative salute, and adopting commanding stance, General Francisco Franco takes the oath of office upon being declared the head of state in Spain. In the ceremonial scene, supporters cheer, and some raise their arms, too.

Franco led a military rebellion of right-wing insurgents who overthrew the left-wing Republican government and established a Nationalist regime in its place. His appointment was the culmination of an uprising that had lasted for several months. Long-term instability and deep political divisions within the country had contributed to the disintegration of the political system, allowing the rebels to seize power.

Following Franco’s appointment, a bloody civil war ensued, which lasted for three years and saw Republicans and their supporters fight to end Fascism and restore democracy. But they were defeated, and Franco remained in power until his death in 1975.” GP

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Photography: PHAN THỊ KIM PHÚC WITH BABY

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JOE MCNALLY

Genre: Documentary portrait

Date: 1995

Location: Toronto, Canada

Format: 35mm

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“When she was nine years old, Phan Thị Kim Phúc’s village of Trang Bang, Vietnam, was hit by a US napalm attack. Associated Press photographer Nick Ut, who was just outside the village in June 1972, captured a terrifying image of the burned child running at the camera. This fateful encounter was a pivotal moment in both their lives. Ut helped to save Phúc’s life, getting her the medical attention she urgently needed, and the image he took on that day is believed to have has tended the end of the Vietnam War. It won every major photographic award of 1973, although editors hesitated to publish the image because of its full-frontal nudity.

In this photo, taken decades later by Joe McNally (born 1952), the grown up ‘napalm girl’ is seen with her baby son in Toronto, where she resides. In their close embrace, the baby seems sealed by his mother’s protection. Her back remains heavily scarred, but Phúc is cradling new life in her arms and the image ultimately is one of survival. People familiar with Nick Ut’s iconic image might think of the subject as being frozen in time, but McNally reveals Phúc to be living a happy life far removed from the horrors of her childhood. Only her scars tell a different story.” EC

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CORCOVADO (photography)

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MARC FERREZ

Genre: Landscape

Date: 1870

Location: Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Format: Panoramic

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“French émigré Marc Ferrez (1843-1923) documented the emergence of his adopted homeland of Brazil as a nation-state. He was one of the first artists to use the panorama, an experimental technique new to photographers of his era.

Ferrez became known for his depiction of the urban landscapes of Rio de Janeiro. After a fire destroyed his studio in 1873, he returned to Paris, where he purchased the panoramic camera that could capture 180-degree views and that would become a hallmark of his style.

In 1870, Ferrez took this photograph of the Corcovado (meaning‘hunchback’ in Portuguese) that reads ‘Entrance to Rio’ in French. The Corcovado is now known mainly for the statue of Christ the Redeemer, which was installed on the mountaintop in 1931, but Ferrez’s view provides an early insight into the imposting position of the mountain above the developing city on the sheltered bay.” SY

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Artwork: Last Supper Altarpiece

Artist: Dierec Bouts

Created: 1467-67

Medium: Oil on wood

Dimensions: 185 x 284 cm

Location: Church of Saint Peter, Leuven, Belgium

Dieric Bouts (c. 1415-75), originally from Haarlem, settled in Leuven around 1444. In 1464, four members of the Brotherhood of the Holy Sacrement of Saint Peter’s Church in Leuven commissioned an altarpiece from Bouts. The contract, which has survived, stipulates that two theologians act as advisers on subject matter. The Last Supper is a rare theme for Netherlandish panel painting. Bouts set the scene in the central panel the moment when Christ announces that the host, or bread, is his body in a Flemish interior. The twelve apostles sît stiffly around a square table that dominates the room. The Christ figure is the exact center of the composition. The angle of vision is high, allowing us to look down on the spacious hall. The windows afford glimpses of city outside, two cooks looking in from the kitchen, and a garden. Bouts was a master of spatial recession, which is particularly evident in the side panels. These wings each depict two relatively obscure scenes from the Old Testament that relate to the Eucharist. Their subjects are the Meeting of Abraham and Melchizedek (Genesis 14) the first offering of bread wine by a priest. … Bouts employed an innovative way of placing figures along diagonal axes that lead the viewer’s eye into distance. (Source from 1001beforeyoudiepaintings by EG)

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Artwork: Still Life of Fruit

Artist: David de Heem

Created: c. 1670

Medium: Oil on canvas

Dimensions: 28 x 23 cm

Location: Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, UK

“On a stone still before a niche lie grapes, apricots, cherries, blackberries,, and a peach devoured by ants, with a cabbage-white butterfly and a bumblebee. This rich visual composition combines an elegant harmony of color with hyper-accurate renderings of objects, very much in keeping with the Dutch Masters, including the artist’s most famous grandfather Jan Davidsz de Heem (1606-84) — one of the greatest painters of still life in the Netherlands.

This painting is signed on the edge on the still on left: “D.De Heem”. The form of the signature recalls the large letters with which David de Heem’s (c. 1663-1701) father — Cornelis de Heem — signed his name.

A letter “J” would be added on some paintings to give the impression that the painting was by Jan Davidsz.

This painting has been attributed to the grandfather, probably thanks to clerical confusion soon after the painting’s completion. It is likely to have been begun by Jan Davidsz, but was almost certainly completed by his grandson, using his grandfather’s style as a model and his barley-begun canvas as a foundation.

The work must have been painted early in De Heem’s career but is difficult to date because it is not known when he died and he did not date any of his known paintings. But it is known that De Heem was born in Antwerp, Belgium, and that he moved latter to Holland and was married in the Hague in 1690.

His lineage is known but not the date of his death.

Remarkably also, all known works by him are still life paintings of fruit and flowers.” JH

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Category: ARCHITECTURE▫️COLOSSEUM

69-81 CE (2500 BCE-1100) AMPHITHEATRE ROME, ITALY

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ARCHITECT UNKNOWN

Photography credit, AM in Rome , Italy, in 2011

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“IN ANCIENT ROME, perhaps the most popular entertainments were the gladiatorial games, in which men fought one another to the death, or wrestled with wild animals, such as lions and tigers. These games were held in amphitheaters, often vast structures which rows of tiered seats surrounding the arena, the central combat area named after the sand used to cover the surface and absorb the victims’ blood. The construction of the greatest of these amphitheatres, the Colosseum in Rome, was begun during the region of emperor Vespasian (69-79 CE) and completed during that of his son Titus (79-81 CE).

The Colosseum probably got its name from the nearby colossal statue of the emperor Nero, but the name could also refer to the building’s size – the enormous elliptical structure measures 188 by 156m (617 by 512ft) and seats up to 55,000 spectators. From the outside, the amphitheatre’s huge ellipse, with a travertine façade, is made up of three of 80 arches with a plain wall above them. The lower row of arches leads into a large network of entrance passageways and stairs beneath the vaults that support the amphitheatre’s stone seats. The whole building was designed so that the huge audience could get to their seats quickly and wold have an uninterrupted view of the spectacle once they were seated.

Constructing the Colosseum was a formidable task. As well as some 100,000 cubic metres (3.5 million cubic feet) of travertine for the façade, the builders used great quantities of concrete for the foundations and vaults, together with bricks and tufa for some of the concealed walls. Although only about half of the outer walls have survived intact, together with many of the entrance passages and the area under the arena, these are enough to reveal the magnificent scale of the building and the great engineering skill that went into the construction of its walls, arches, and vaults.” (Great Buildings MEE)

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Artwork: Madame Moitessier

Artist: Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres

Genre: Portrait

Created: 1856

Medium: Oil on canvas

Dimensions: 120 x 92 cm

Location: National Gallery, London, UK

Photography by @art_love_enjoy_life at @nationalgallery

“Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres (1780-1867), a pupil of Jaques-Louis David, painted some of the world’s most memorable and admired portraits, yet as an academician he considered the genre inferior to history painting. He wrote that expression on painting demands a great science in drawing, and believed that the best way to achieve this skill was to copy from classical sources and continue in the tradition of Raphael. This set him against the artists such as Delacroix, who beloved in expression through color. For Ingres there should be not visible brushstroke; the paint should be “as smooth as an onion skin.” This portrait of Marie-Clotilde-Inès Moitessier, the wife of a banker, was begun in 1844. It did not leave his studio until many years later, during which time her clothing changed several times. The pose is taken from a Roman wall painting in Herculaneum. The huge mirror is a statement of wealth, along with the vase, the furniture, and the sitter’s jewelry and sumptuous dress. It is also a technical device to create depth, and to recreate Madame Moitessier in profile. Ingres frequently framed women with mirrors, displaying them as beautiful, decorative objects. This doubling also enabled him to demonstrate his skills by painting the reflected image. Many nineteenth-century painters such as Whistler and Manet adopted this device for different reasons. Ingres’s successor was Degas, who admired and emulated his skills of draftsmanship. Matisse and Picasso took his legacy into the twentieth century.” WO

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I will talk today about a painter for whom, I have a particular admiration, it is about a painter with the Italian origin named Masaccio.

Although, he lived very little, in his short life he created a lot and was appreciated for his innovation. Tommaso di Ser Giovanni di Simone (1401 – 1428) known as by Masaccio was the first great Italian painter of the Quattrocento period of the Renaissance. The Virgin and Child originally formed the central panel of an altarpiece that had been commissioned by the notary Ser Giuliano degli Scarsi for his family chapel in Santa Maria del Carmine in Pisa.

Artwork: Virgin and Child

Genre: Religions art

Artist: Masaccio

Created: 1426

Medium: Egg tempera on wood

Dimensions: 135 x 73.5 cm

Location: National Gallery, London, UK

Photography by @art_love_enjoy_life at @nationalgallery

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Artwork: Portrait of Becuccio Bicchieraio

Artist: Andrea del Sarto

Created: c. 1528-30

Medium: Oil on panel

Dimensions: 86 x 67 cm

Location: National Museums of Scotland, UK

“Andrea del Sarto (c. 1486-1530) was working in Florence at a time when the Style of the Italian High Renaissance was starting to develop into Mannerism, and his art can be seen to fall between the two. His work is characterized by a subtle use of color, which was beyond his Florentine contemporaries, combined with a convincing handling of line that makes his figures realistically three-dimensional. This work was for a long time thought to be a self-portrait, but has now been identified as a painting of the artist’s friend, Becuccio Bicchieraio, who was a glassmaker. In the foreground, del Sarto ha included a glass bowl that alludes to his friend’s profession, and also servers to demonstrate his skill at depicting texture. This is also seen in the sleeve, which is a study of light and dark, and the dark material of the cloak set off against the brilliant white of his collar.” TP

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Artwork: Portrait of Jeanne Hébuterne

Artist: Amedeo Modigliani

Created: 1919

Medium and support: Oil on canvas

Dimensions: 100 x 64.7 cm

Location: Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY, USA

“In 1917, Amedeo Modigliani (1884-1920) met Jeanne Hébuterne, a student who worked as an artist’ model.

Their relationship led her to be renounced by her Roman Catholic family – Modigliani was famous for living a debauched life. In 1918 the couple moved fro Paris to Nice , where Hébuterne gave birth to girl. When the artist died in 1920 from tubercular meningitis, Jeanne was heavily pregnant; she committed suicide two days after his death. Here, the influence of primitive art on Modigliani’s work is clear. The face – with almond eyes and its elongated neck and nose – recalls African masks, an aesthetic being explored by avant-garde artists at the time. The emphasis on Jeanne’s large hips and thighs alludes to the form of fertility goddess.

There is a somber overtone to the work – the warm colors of the woman and her sweater, deeply contrast with the gray interior in which she is depicted.” JJ

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Artwork: The Ambassadors

Artist: Hans Holbein the Younger

Created: 1533

Medium: Oil on oak panel

Dimensions: 207 x 209.5 cm

Location: National Gallery, London, UK

Photography credit: @art_love_enjoy_life (#1essco) “One of the most staggeringly impressive portraits in Renaissance art, this famous painting by Hans Holbein the Younger (c. 1497-1543) is full of hidden meanings and fascinating contradictions. The meticulous realism of Holbein’s immaculate technique is breathtaking in itself, but virtually every object of symbolic meaning too. The painting celebrates human achievement, but at the same time Holbein is reminding us that worldly success is ultimately meaningless- no matter what we achieve, we all must die. The full-length double portrait shows two French courtiers: Jean de Dinteville (on the left), ambassador to the court of Henri VIII, and his friend Georges de Selve, the young Bishop of Lavaur, whose visit to London in April 1533 the painting commemorates. The objects laid out between them include navigational, astrological, and musical instruments, a sundial (shoring the date of April 11, 1533), and a hymn book. These objects reflect the two cultured men’s interest and achievements, but the broken lute string, for example, is a traditional symbol of death, and may also refer to the Protestant split from the Church of Rome, something that the ambassadors were trying to prevent. Many portraits at this time contained an image of the skull as a memento mori, but none is more unusual that the one seen – or not seen – here. Holbein has distorted the perspective so that when the painting is viewed fro a certain angle on the right-hand side, the strange shape is the foreground re-forms itself into a skull-the age-old reminder of death.” (JWpbyd)

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Artwork: Girls on the Jetty

Artist: Edvard Munch

Created: 1899

Medium: Oil on canvas

Dimensions: 136 x 125.5 cm

Location: Munch Museum, Oslo, Norway “Edvard Munch’s (1863-1944) art is so associated with themes of anguish and despair that it is easy to forget that he also painted scenes of great lyrical beauty. The scene is set on a bridge leading steamship pier at Åsgårdstrandin Norway, where Munch rented a house during the summer. This is an early version of the subject but, as was his costum when he was happy with an image, Munch reworked the theme endlessly, experimenting with different arrangements of the figures. He also tried it out in different media: along with several paintings of this subject, he also produced lithograph and woodcut versions. On one level, Munch’s painting is a celebration of the long summer nights in Norway, when it never got completely dark. Indeed, the original title of this picture was Summer Night. In addition, though, it is also about the sexual awakening of the girls.” IZ

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