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The poilu's holiday December 25 and 26, 1915, a French World War I poster depicting a poilu's Christmas leave from the war. "Poilu", literally meaning "hairy one", is a nickname for French infantrymen. The word carries the sense of the infantryman's typically rural, agricultural background. Beards and bushy moustaches were often worn. The image of the dogged, bearded French soldier was widely used in propaganda and war memorials.
T H E A R T S P O R T A L
An artist's palette
The arts refers to the theory, human application and physical expression of creativity found in human cultures and societies through skills and imagination in order to produce objects, environments and experiences. Major constituents of the arts include visual arts (including architecture, ceramics, drawing, filmmaking, painting, photography, and sculpting), literary arts (including fiction, drama, poetry, and prose), performing arts (including dance, music, and theatre), and culinary arts (including cooking, chocolate making and winemaking).
Some art forms combine a visual element with performance (e.g. cinematography), or artwork with the written word (e.g. comics). From prehistoric cave paintings to modern-day films, art serves as a vessel for storytelling and conveying humankind's relationship with the environment. (Full article...)
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Three Beauties of the Present Day (当時三美人, Tōji San Bijin) is a nishiki-e colour woodblock print from c. 1792–93 by Japanese ukiyo-e artist Kitagawa Utamaro (c. 1753–1806). The triangular composition depicts the profiles of three celebrity beauties of the time: geisha Tomimoto Toyohina, and teahouse waitresses Naniwaya Kita and Takashima Hisa. The print is also known under the titles Three Beauties of the Kansei Era (寛政三美人, Kansei San Bijin) and Three Famous Beauties (高名三美人, Kōmei San Bijin).
First printing, in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Left: Takashima Hisa; middle: Tomimoto Toyohina; right: Naniwaya Kita
Utamaro was the leading ukiyo-e artist in the 1790s in the bijin-ga genre of pictures of female beauties. He was known for his ōkubi-e, which focus on the heads. The three models in Three Beauties of the Present Day were frequent subjects of Utamaro's portraiture. Each figure in the work is adorned with an identifying family crest. The portraits are idealized, and at first glance their faces seem similar, but subtle differences in their features and expressions can be detected—a level of realism at the time unusual in ukiyo-e, and a contrast with the stereotyped beauties in earlier masters such as Harunobu and Kiyonaga. The luxurious print was published by Tsutaya Jūzaburō and made with multiple woodblocks—one for each colour—and the background was dusted with muscovite to produce a glimmering effect. It is believed to have been quite popular, and the triangular positioning became a vogue in the 1790s. Utamaro produced several other pictures with the same arrangement of the same three beauties, and all three appeared in numerous other portraits by Utamaro and other artists. (Full article...)
"To Autumn" is a poem by English Romantic poet John Keats (31 October 1795 – 23 February 1821). The work was composed on 19 September 1819 and published in 1820 in a volume of Keats's poetry that included Lamia and The Eve of St. Agnes. "To Autumn" is the final work in a group of poems known as Keats's "1819 odes". Although personal problems left him little time to devote to poetry in 1819, he composed "To Autumn" after a walk near Winchester one autumnal evening. The work marks the end of his poetic career, as he needed to earn money and could no longer devote himself to the lifestyle of a poet. A little over a year after the publication of "To Autumn", Keats died in Rome.
The poem has three eleven-line stanzas which describe a progression through the season, from the late maturation of the crops to the harvest and to the last days of autumn when winter is nearing. The imagery is richly achieved through the personification of Autumn, and the description of its bounty, its sights and sounds. It has parallels in the work of English landscape artists, with Keats himself describing the fields of stubble that he saw on his walk as conveying the warmth of "some pictures". (Full article...)
Geology Hall, formerly Geological Hall, also known as the Rutgers Geology Museum, is a building located in the historic Queens Campus section of Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey's College Avenue Campus in New Brunswick, New Jersey, United States.
When Rutgers was selected as New Jersey's only land grant college in 1864, the college began to expand its curriculum to include instruction in science and agriculture. Rutgers president William Henry Campbell raised funds to construct a building to accommodate this expansion, and Geology Hall, designed by architect Henry Janeway Hardenbergh, was built in 1872. (Full article...)
Concept design for act 1, part of Nicholas Roerich's designs for Diaghilev's 1913 production of Le Sacre du printemps
The Rite of Spring (Russian: Весна священная, romanized: Vesna svyashchennaya, lit. 'sacred spring'; French: Le Sacre du printemps) is a ballet and orchestral concert work by the Russian composer Igor Stravinsky. It was written for the 1913 Paris season of Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes company; the original choreography was by Vaslav Nijinsky with stage designs and costumes by Nicholas Roerich. When first performed at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées on 29 May 1913, the avant-garde nature of the music and choreography caused a sensation. Many have called the first-night reaction a "riot" or "near-riot", though this wording did not come about until reviews of later performances in 1924, over a decade later. Although designed as a work for the stage, with specific passages accompanying characters and action, the music achieved equal if not greater recognition as a concert piece and is widely considered to be one of the most influential musical works of the 20th century.
Stravinsky was a young, virtually unknown composer when Diaghilev recruited him to create works for the Ballets Russes. The Rite was the third such project, after the acclaimed Firebird (1910) and Petrushka (1911). The concept behind The Rite of Spring, developed by Roerich from Stravinsky's outline idea, is suggested by its subtitle, "Pictures of Pagan Russia in Two Parts"; the scenario depicts various primitive rituals celebrating the advent of spring, after which a young girl is chosen as a sacrificial victim and dances herself to death. After a mixed critical reception for its original run and a short London tour, the ballet was not performed again until the 1920s, when a version choreographed by Léonide Massine replaced Nijinsky's original, which saw only eight performances. Massine's was the forerunner of many innovative productions directed by the world's leading ballet-masters, gaining the work worldwide acceptance. In the 1980s, Nijinsky's original choreography, long believed lost, was reconstructed by the Joffrey Ballet in Los Angeles. (Full article...)- "Episode 14", also known as "Lonely Souls", is the seventh episode of the second season of the American mystery television series Twin Peaks. The episode was written by series co-creator Mark Frost and directed by series co-creator David Lynch. It features series regulars Kyle MacLachlan, Michael Ontkean, Ray Wise and Richard Beymer; and guest stars Frank Silva (uncredited) as Killer BOB, Hank Worden as The Waiter, Julee Cruise as Singer, and David Lynch as Gordon Cole.
Twin Peaks centers on the investigation into the murder of schoolgirl Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee) in the small rural town in Washington state after which the series is named. In this episode, during the ongoing investigation into Laura's death, FBI special agent Dale Cooper (MacLachlan) and Sheriff Truman (Ontkean) continue to search for her killer, the demonic BOB, who has possessed a human host. Aided by Mike (Al Strobel), Cooper and Truman arrest Benjamin Horne (Beymer), believing him to be inhabited by BOB. Later that night, The Giant (Carel Struycken) warns Cooper "it is happening again," while BOB's real host, Leland Palmer (Wise), murders Madeline Ferguson (Lee). (Full article...)
The Ford Piquette Avenue Plant is a former factory located within the Milwaukee Junction area of Detroit, Michigan, in the United States. Built in 1904, it was the second center of automobile production for the Ford Motor Company, after the Ford Mack Avenue Plant. At the Piquette Avenue Plant, the company created and first produced the Ford Model T, the car credited with initiating the mass use of automobiles in the United States. Prior to the Model T, several other car models were assembled at the factory. Early experiments using a moving assembly line to make cars were also conducted there. It was also the first factory where more than 100 cars were assembled in one day. While it was headquartered at the Piquette Avenue Plant, Ford Motor Company became the biggest U.S.-based automaker, and it would remain so until the mid-1920s. The factory was used by the company until 1910, when its car production activity was relocated to the new, bigger Highland Park Ford Plant.
Studebaker bought the factory in 1911, using it to assemble cars until 1933. The building was sold in 1936, going through a series of owners for the rest of the 20th century before becoming a museum in 2001. The Piquette Avenue Plant is the oldest purpose-built automotive factory building open to the public. The museum, which was visited by over 31,000 people in 2018, has exhibits that primarily focus on the beginning of the United States automotive industry. The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2002, became a Michigan State Historic Site in 2003, and was designated a National Historic Landmark in 2006. (Full article...)
First American edition of The Open Boat, illustrated by Will H. Bradley
"The Open Boat" is a short story by American author Stephen Crane (1871–1900). First published in 1897, it was based on Crane's experience of surviving a shipwreck off the coast of Florida earlier that year while traveling to Cuba to work as a newspaper correspondent. Crane was stranded at sea for thirty hours when his ship, the SS Commodore, sank after hitting a sandbar. He and three other men were forced to navigate their way to shore in a small boat; one of the men, an oiler named Billie Higgins, drowned after the boat overturned. Crane's personal account of the shipwreck and the men's survival, titled "Stephen Crane's Own Story", was first published a few days after his rescue.
Crane subsequently adapted his report into narrative form, and the resulting short story "The Open Boat" was published in Scribner's Magazine. The story is told from the point of view of an anonymous correspondent, with Crane as the implied author, the action closely resembles the author's experiences after the shipwreck. A volume titled The Open Boat and Other Tales of Adventure was published in the United States in 1898; an edition entitled The Open Boat and Other Stories was published simultaneously in England. Praised for its innovation by contemporary critics, the story is considered an exemplary work of literary Naturalism, and is one of the most frequently discussed works in Crane's canon. It is notable for its use of imagery, irony, symbolism, and the exploration of such themes as survival, solidarity, and the conflict between man and nature. H. G. Wells considered "The Open Boat" to be "beyond all question, the crown of all [Crane's] work". (Full article...)- Good Girl Gone Bad: Reloaded is the reissue of Barbadian singer Rihanna's third studio album Good Girl Gone Bad (2007). It was first released digitally in selected countries on June 2, 2008, by Def Jam Recordings and SRP Records. Launched to mark the first anniversary of the original album, Good Girl Gone Bad: Reloaded features three newly recorded songs and a DVD showing exclusive behind-the-scenes footage of Rihanna's worldwide tour, the Good Girl Gone Bad Tour (2007–2009). For the new material, she worked with past collaborators Ne-Yo, Stargate, and C. "Tricky" Stewart, as well as Brian Kennedy, Mark Endert, Mike Elizondo, Mark "Spike" Stent and Maroon 5.
Good Girl Gone Bad: Reloaded received generally positive reviews from music critics, who praised the sound and production of the newly added material. However, other critics felt that the album was not worthy of re-release with only three new songs. Among other awards and achievements, the reissue's songs earned two Grammy nominations at the 2009 ceremony; "Disturbia" was nominated for Best Dance Recording, while "If I Never See Your Face Again" received a nomination for Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals. (Full article...)
The Statue of Liberty (Liberty Enlightening the World; French: La Liberté éclairant le monde) is a colossal neoclassical sculpture on Liberty Island in New York Harbor within New York City, in the United States. The copper statue, a gift from the people of France to the people of the United States, was designed by French sculptor Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi and its metal framework was built by Gustave Eiffel. The statue was dedicated on October 28, 1886.
The statue is a figure of Libertas, a robed Roman liberty goddess. She holds a torch above her head with her right hand, and in her left hand carries a tabula ansata inscribed JULY IV MDCCLXXVI (July 4, 1776 in Roman numerals), the date of the U.S. Declaration of Independence. A broken shackle and chain lie at her feet as she walks forward, commemorating the recent national abolition of slavery. After its dedication, the statue became an icon of freedom and of the United States, seen as a symbol of welcome to immigrants arriving by sea. (Full article...)
Philip Seymour Hoffman (July 23, 1967 – February 2, 2014) was an American actor, director, and producer. Best known for his distinctive supporting and character roles—typically lowlifes, eccentrics, bullies and misfits—he acted in many films, including leading roles, from the early 1990s until his death in 2014.
Born and raised in Fairport, New York, Hoffman was drawn to theater in his youth after attending a stage production of Arthur Miller's All My Sons at age 12. Hoffman studied acting at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, and began his screen career in a 1991 episode of Law & Order and started to appear in films in 1992. He gained recognition for his supporting work, notably in Scent of a Woman (1992), Twister (1996), Boogie Nights (1997), Happiness (1998), Patch Adams (1998), The Big Lebowski (1998), Magnolia (1999), The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999), Almost Famous (2000), Punch-Drunk Love (2002) and Along Came Polly (2004). He began to occasionally play leading roles, and for his portrayal of the author Truman Capote in Capote (2005), won multiple accolades, including the Academy Award for Best Actor. Hoffman's profile continued to grow and he received three more Oscar nominations for his supporting work as a brutally frank CIA officer in Charlie Wilson's War (2007), a Catholic priest accused of pedophilia in Doubt (2008), and the charismatic leader of a Scientology-type movement in The Master (2012). (Full article...)
photographed by George C. Beresford in 1926
Imogen Clare Holst CBE (née von Holst; 12 April 1907 – 9 March 1984) was a British composer, arranger, conductor, teacher, musicologist, and festival administrator. The only child of the composer Gustav Holst, she is particularly known for her educational work at Dartington Hall in the 1940s, and for her 20 years as joint artistic director of the Aldeburgh Festival. In addition to composing music, she wrote composer biographies, much educational material, and several books on the life and works of her father.
From a young age, Holst showed precocious talent in composing and performance. After attending Eothen School and St Paul's Girls' School, she entered the Royal College of Music, where she developed her skills as a conductor and won several prizes for composing. Unable to follow her initial ambitions to be a pianist or a dancer due to health reasons, Holst spent most of the 1930s teaching, and as a full-time organiser for the English Folk Dance and Song Society. These duties reduced her compositional activities, although she made many arrangements of folksongs. After serving as an organiser for the Council for the Encouragement of Music and the Arts at the start of the Second World War, in 1942 she began working at Dartington. In her nine years there she established Dartington as a major centre of music education and activity. (Full article...)- Omayra Sánchez Garzón (August 28, 1972 – November 16, 1985) was a 13-year-old Colombian girl killed in Armero, Tolima, by the 1985 eruption of the Nevado del Ruiz volcano. Volcanic debris mixed with ice to form massive lahars (volcanically induced mudflows, landslides, and debris flows), which rushed into the river valleys below the mountain, killing more than 25,000 people and destroying Armero and 13 other villages.
After a lahar demolished her home, Sánchez was pinned beneath the debris of her house, where she remained trapped in water for three days. Her plight was documented as she descended from calmness into agony. Her courage and dignity touched journalists and relief workers, who put great efforts into comforting her. After 60 hours of struggling, she died, likely as a result of either gangrene or hypothermia. Her death highlighted the failure of officials to respond correctly to the threat of the volcano, contrasted with the efforts of volunteer rescue workers to reach and treat trapped victims, despite inadequate supplies and equipment. (Full article...)
Little Moreton Hall, also known as Old Moreton Hall, is a moated half-timbered manor house 4.5 miles (7.2 km) southwest of Congleton in Cheshire, England. The earliest parts of the house were built for the prosperous Cheshire landowner William Moreton in about 1504–08, and the remainder was constructed in stages by successive generations of the family until about 1610. The building is highly irregular, with three asymmetrical ranges forming a small, rectangular cobbled courtyard. A National Trust guidebook describes Little Moreton Hall as being "lifted straight from a fairy story, a gingerbread house". The house's top-heavy appearance, "like a stranded Noah's Ark", is due to the Long Gallery that runs the length of the south range's upper floor.
The house remained in the possession of the Moreton family for almost 450 years, until ownership was transferred to the National Trust in 1938. Little Moreton Hall and its sandstone bridge across the moat are recorded in the National Heritage List for England as a designated Grade I listed building, and the ground on which Little Moreton Hall stands is protected as a Scheduled Monument. The house has been fully restored and is open to the public from April to December each year. (Full article...)- Robert Underdunk Terwilliger Jr., PhD, better known as Sideshow Bob, is a guest character in the animated television series The Simpsons. He is voiced by Kelsey Grammer and first appeared briefly in the episode "The Telltale Head". Bob is a self-proclaimed genius who is a graduate of Yale University, a member of the Republican Party, and a champion of high culture. He began his career as a sidekick on Krusty the Clown's television show, but after enduring constant abuse, Bob attempted to frame his employer for armed robbery in "Krusty Gets Busted". The plan was foiled by his arch-enemy, Bart Simpson, and Sideshow Bob was sent to prison.
Bob made his second major appearance in season three's "Black Widower"; the writers echoed the premise of Wile E. Coyote chasing the Road Runner by having Bob unexpectedly insert himself into Bart's life, threatening to disrupt—and sometimes end—it. Starting with that appearance and thereafter, Bob has assumed the role on The Simpsons of an evil genius. Episodes in which he is a central character typically involve Sideshow Bob being released from prison and executing an elaborate revenge plan, usually foiled by Bart and Lisa. His plans often involve murder and destruction, usually targeted at Bart or, less often, Krusty, though he starts targeting the entire Simpson family in season 17. In 2015, however, during the "Treehouse of Horror" segment, "Wanted: Dead, Then Alive", Bob finally gets his wish of killing Bart, commenting that he spent 24 years trying to kill a ten-year-old child; however, he becomes bored with Bart dead, so he brings him back to life so that he can repeatedly kill Bart over and over again. (Full article...)
The Marciana Library or Library of Saint Mark (Italian: Biblioteca Marciana, but in historical documents commonly referred to as Libreria pubblica di san Marco) is a public library in Venice, Italy. It is one of the earliest surviving public libraries and repositories for manuscripts in Italy and holds one the world's most significant collections of classical texts. It is named after St Mark, the patron saint of the city.
The library was founded in 1468 when the humanist scholar Cardinal Bessarion, bishop of Tusculum and titular Latin patriarch of Constantinople, donated his collection of Greek and Latin manuscripts to the Republic of Venice, with the stipulation that a library of public utility be established. The collection was the result of Bessarion's concerted effort to locate rare manuscripts throughout Greece and Italy and then acquire or copy them as a means of preserving the writings of the classical Greek authors and the literature of Byzantium after the fall of Constantinople in 1453. His choice of Venice was primarily due to the city's large community of Greek refugees and its historical ties to the Byzantine Empire. The Venetian government was slow, however, to honour its commitment to suitably house the manuscripts with decades of discussion and indecision, owing to a series of military conflicts in the late-fifteenth and early-sixteenth centuries and the resulting climate of political uncertainty. The library was ultimately built during the period of recovery as part of a vast programme of urban renewal aimed at glorifying the republic through architecture and affirming its international prestige as a centre of wisdom and learning. (Full article...)
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Did you know...
- ... that Culver Randel manufactured pianos at his mill (pictured) in Florida, New York?
- ... that Down Among the Z Men (1952) is the only film starring all four original members of The Goons: Peter Sellers, Spike Milligan, Harry Secombe and Michael Bentine?
- ... that Engine Co. No. 27 served a dual function as a movie location and an operating firehouse serving the Hollywood studios?
In this month
- 11 March 1970 – American novelist Erle Stanley Gardner, creator of the Perry Mason detective stories, dies in Temecula, California
- 12 March 1945 – The Vienna State Opera is set on fire by wartime bombardment.
- 20 March 1828 – Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen, often called the "father of modern drama", is born in Skien, Norway
- 24 March 1905 – Frank Van der Stucken conducts the United States premiere of Mahler's Symphony No. 5
- 30 March 1746 – Spanish painter Francisco Goya, known for his painting The Naked Maja (pictured), is born in Fuendetodos, Aragon
News
- February 10: Disney to shut down Blue Sky Studios, animation studio behind 'Ice Age'
- February 7: New Zealand announces new Matariki public holiday
- February 6: Country singer Morgan Wallen's recording contract cancelled following use of racial slur
- October 8: Guitarist Eddie Van Halen dies, aged 65
- September 2: Tributes paid to recently deceased US actor Chadwick Boseman
Featured biography
Robert Peake the Elder (c. 1551–1619) was an English painter active in the later part of Elizabeth I's reign and for most of the reign of James I. In 1604, he was appointed picture maker to the heir to the throne, Prince Henry, and in 1607, serjeant-painter to King James I, a post he shared with John De Critz. Peake is often called "the elder", to distinguish him from his son, the painter and print seller William Peake (c. 1580–1639) and from his grandson, Sir Robert Peake (c. 1605–1667), who followed his father into the family print-selling business. Peake was the only English-born painter of a group of four artists whose workshops were closely connected. The others were De Critz, Marcus Gheeraerts the Younger, and the miniature-painter Isaac Oliver. Between 1590 and about 1625, they specialised in brilliantly coloured, full-length "costume pieces" (example pictured) that are unique to England at this time. It is not always possible to attribute authorship among Peake, De Critz, Gheeraerts and their assistants with certainty. (Full article...)
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"Lo, How a Rose E'er Blooming", an 1894 English translation of the 16th-century German Christmas carol, "Es ist ein Ros entsprungen". Performed by the chorus of the U.S. Army Band, c. 2010.
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| “ | That there is a social problem presented by obscenity is attested by the expression of the legislatures of the forty-eight States, as well as the Congress. To recognize the existence of a problem, however, does not require that we sustain any and all measures adopted to meet that problem. The history of the application of laws designed to suppress the obscene demonstrates convincingly that the power of government can be invoked under them against great art or literature, scientific treatises, or works exciting social controversy. Mistakes of the past prove that there is a strong countervailing interest to be considered in the freedoms guaranteed by the First and Fourteenth Amendments. | ” |
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