GODDESS DURGA

Goddess Durga, fighting Mahishasura, the buffalo-demon (Hindu Mythology)

Rajput painting

Rajput painting, a style of Indian painting, evolved and flourished, during the 18th century, in the royal courts of Rajputana, India. Each Rajput kingdom evolved a distinct style, but with certain common features. Rajput paintings depict a number of themes, events of epics like the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, Krishna’s life, beautiful landscapes, and humans. Miniatures were the preferred medium of Rajput painting, but several manuscripts also contain Rajput paintings, and paintings were even done on the walls of palaces, inner chambers of the forts, havelies, particularly, the havelis of Shekhawait.

The colors extracted from certain minerals, plant sources, conch shells, and were even derived by processing precious stones, gold and silver were used. The preparation of desired colors was a lengthy process, sometimes taking weeks. Brushes used were very fine.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_painting

GODDESS DURGA

HISTORY OF PAINTING

The history of painting reaches back in time to artifacts from pre-historic humans, and spans all cultures. The history of painting represents a continuous, though disrupted, tradition from Antiquity. Across cultures, and spanning continents and millennia, the history of painting is an ongoing river of creativity, that continues into the 21st century. Until the early 20th century it relied primarily on representational, Religious and Classical motifs, after which time more purely abstract and conceptual approaches gained favor.

Developments in Eastern painting historically parallel those in Western painting, in general a few centuries earlier. African art, Islamic art, Indian art, Chinese art, and Japanese art each had significant influence on Western art, and, eventually, vice-versa.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_painting

HISTORY OF PAINTING

DYNAMIC ARCHITECTURE - ROTATIN TOWER

Visionary architect Dr. David Fisher is the creator of the revolutionary Dynamic Tower, the world's first building in motion. The Dynamic Tower heralds a new era of architecture: Buildings in motion will challenge traditional architecture, becoming the symbol of a new philosophy that will change the look of our cities and the concept of living.

The Dynamic Tower offers infinite design possibilities, as each floor rotates independently at different speeds, resulting in a unique and ever evolving shape that introduces a fourth dimension to architecture, Time.

The Dynamic Tower is environmentally friendly, with the ability to generate electricity for itself as well as other buildings nearby making it the first building designed to be self-powered, it achieves this feat with wind turbines fitted between each rotating floor. An 80-story building will have up to 79 wind turbines, making it a true green power plant.

The Dynamic Tower is also the first skyscraper to be built entirely from prefabricated parts that are custom made in a workshop, resulting of fast construction and of substantial cost savings . this approach known as the Fisher Method, also requires far less workers on construction site while each floor of the building can be completed in only seven days, units can also be customized according to the owners needs and styles.

Dr. Fisher states, “Today's life is dynamic, so the space we are living in should be dynamic as well, adjustable to our needs that change continuously, to our concept of design and to our mood, buildings will follow the rhythms of nature, they will change direction and shape from spring to summer, from sunrise to sunset, and adjust themselves to the weather, buildings will be alive.

“From now on, buildings will have four dimensions, the fourth dimension is ‘Time' to become part of architecture,” Dr. Fisher added. “Buildings in motion will shape the sky line of our cities.

By combining motion, green energy and efficient construction, the Dynamic Tower will change architecture as we know it, and will start a new era of Dynamic Living.

Dr. David Fisher the visionary architect and creator of the Dynamic Tower, the world's first building in motion, began his career in Florence Italy, after graduating with honour in architecture from the University of Florence, he became later a lecturer of Architecture and Structural Engineering at the same university.

Over the last three decades, he have been passionately designing buildings in harmony with nature, as well as redefining the technical and technological extremes of buildings, particularly in major cities like London, Moscow, Hong Kong, Paris and Dubai.

At the same time, Dr. Fisher have been involved in restoring ancient monuments and in designing public buildings through the New York office of Fiteco Ltd, which he launched in the 1980s.

Dr. Fisher becomes involved in the prefabrication and construction technologies as well as in the building and development of various hotel projects.

Among the technologies he developed was the “Smart Marble bathrooms” by Leonardo Da Vinci system, a completely pre-assembled marble construction for luxury hotels and homes.

The Smart Bathroom is the first mechanical approach to civil construction and the only existing factory produced and integrated bathroom system, Dr. Fisher's LDV Group first incorporated this system into the Le Meridian hotel in Dubai, where he extended his work to construction sites in different locations throughout the world, such as Milan, London, Moscow, Paris and Hong Kong.

INFINITY Design company is Dr. Fisher's architectural office that is located in Florence however Dr. Fisher cannot be considered an architect in the traditional sense of the word.

Throughout his professional life, he mastered a wide range of experiences in the world of construction, from teacher to designer, from preparing feasibility studies to allocation of finance for large projects, from construction management to real estate development, from designing products to the construction and management of large industrial plants.

He considers architecture to be a combination of feasibility, functionality and engineering. His experience in all of these areas has provided him with vast knowledge in the field, and prepared him to revolutionize traditional building techniques with the architecture of the future.

Dr. Fisher's professional activity has always been focused on two concepts: an industrial approach involving the use of prefabricated units, and Dynamic Architecture, where the traditional three-dimensional design meets a fourth dimension: Time. With his new Dynamic Towers, he is transforming time to herald a New Era of Architecture.

DYNAMIC ARCHITECTURE - ROTATIN TOWER

SPUTNIK AND THE DAWN OF THE SPACE AGE

NASA Main Page Multimedia Interactive Feature on 50th Anniversary of the Space Age

Sputnik and The Dawn of the Space Age

History changed on October 4, 1957, when the Soviet Union successfully launched Sputnik I. The world's first artificial satellite was about the size of a beach ball (58 cm.or 22.8 inches in diameter), weighed only 83.6 kg. or 183.9 pounds, and took about 98 minutes to orbit the Earth on its elliptical path. That launch ushered in new political, military, technological, and scientific developments. While the Sputnik launch was a single event, it marked the start of the space age and the U.S.-U.S.S.R space race.

The story begins in 1952, when the International Council of Scientific Unions decided to establish July 1, 1957, to December 31, 1958, as the International Geophysical Year (IGY) because the scientists knew that the cycles of solar activity would be at a high point then. In October 1954, the council adopted a resolution calling for artificial satellites to be launched during the IGY to map the Earth's surface.

In July 1955, the White House announced plans to launch an Earth-orbiting satellite for the IGY and solicited proposals from various Government research agencies to undertake development. In September 1955, the Naval Research Laboratory's Vanguard proposal was chosen to represent the U.S. during the IGY.

The Sputnik launch changed everything. As a technical achievement, Sputnik caught the world's attention and the American public off-guard. Its size was more impressive than Vanguard's intended 3.5-pound payload. In addition, the public feared that the Soviets' ability to launch satellites also translated into the capability to launch ballistic missiles that could carry nuclear weapons from Europe to the U.S. Then the Soviets struck again; on November 3, Sputnik II was launched, carrying a much heavier payload, including a dog named Laika.

Immediately after the Sputnik I launch in October, the U.S. Defense Department responded to the political furor by approving funding for another U.S. satellite project. As a simultaneous alternative to Vanguard, Wernher von Braun and his Army Redstone Arsenal team began work on the Explorer project.

On January 31, 1958, the tide changed, when the United States successfully launched Explorer I. This satellite carried a small scientific payload that eventually discovered the magnetic radiation belts around the Earth, named after principal investigator James Van Allen. The Explorer program continued as a successful ongoing series of lightweight, scientifically useful spacecraft.

The Sputnik launch also led directly to the creation of National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). In July 1958, Congress passed the National Aeronautics and Space Act (commonly called the "Space Act"), which created NASA as of October 1, 1958 from the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) and other government agencies.

Front, left to right, are: Dr. Alan T. Waterman, Hagerty, Dr. S. Douglas Cornell and Dr. Alan Shapley. Standing, left to right: Dr. J. Wallace Joyce and Dr. Athelstan Spilhaus.

July 29, 1955. Announcement of plans for the building and launching of the world's first man-made satellite.

The then Presidential press secretary James Hagerty is shown with five scientists during the meeting at which announcement of President Eisenhower's approval of the plan was made.

SPUTNIK AND THE DAWN OF THE SPACE AGE

SECOND LIFE PRAYER FOR BURMESE DEAD 40

Second Life Prayer for Burmese Dead 40, originalmente cargada por Gary Hayes.

To honour the souls of Buddhist monks and others who have perished in Burma in these last days, Dr Richard James Allen (inworld in Second Life: RichardJamesJiva Allen) read from The Tibetan Book of the Dead in the build of Thursday’s Fictions in Second Life on Friday October 5, 2007.

The Bardo Thodol, or The Tibetan Book of the Death, is a text traditionally read to the dying and the dead as a guide in their passage through the ‘bardo’ or intermediate state before they are reborn. Thursday’s Fictions in Second Life, an online 3D immersive space that explores ideas about reincarnation and karma, will offer a place for people from all of the world to meet virtually and pray.

SECOND LIFE PRAYER FOR BURMESE DEAD 40

SUMMER MILKY WAY

Summer Milky Way, originalmente cargada por rodinal1.

View of the Summer Milky Way. Shot with a Pentax 67 camera mounted on top of an Astro Physics telescope tracking with a SBIG ST-4. This is about a 15 minute exposure. Exposed on color negative film. Beyond the technical there is something magical about the night sky.

Lyrics by Peter Mayer:

"When I go outside at night
And look up and the stars are bright
Sometimes I lay on the ground
And imagine that the sky is down
And if the earth should then let go
I’d fall into the stars below"

SUMMER MILKY WAY

NASA HUBBLE SPACE TELESCOPE

NASA Hubble Space Telescope, originalmente cargada por Antoon's Foobar.

The Hubble Space Telescope (HST; also known colloquially as "the Hubble" or just "Hubble") is a space telescope that was carried into orbit by a Space Shuttle in April 1990. It is named for American astronomer Edwin Hubble. Although not the first space telescope, the Hubble is one of the largest and most versatile, and is well known as both a vital research tool and a public relations boon for astronomy. The HST is a collaboration between NASA and the European Space Agency, and is one of NASA's Great Observatories, along with the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory, the Chandra X-ray Observatory, and the Spitzer Space Telescope.

Space telescopes were proposed as early as the 1940s. The Hubble was funded in the 1970s, with a proposed launch in 1983, but the project was beset by technical delays, budget problems, and the Challenger disaster. When finally launched in 1990, scientists found that the main mirror had been ground incorrectly, severely compromising the telescope's capabilities. However, after a servicing mission in 1993, the telescope was restored to its intended quality. Hubble's position outside the Earth's atmosphere allows it to take extremely sharp images with almost no background light. Hubble's Ultra Deep Field image, for instance, is the most detailed visible-light image of the universe's most distant objects ever made. Many Hubble observations have led to breakthroughs in astrophysics, such as accurately determining the rate of expansion of the universe.

The Hubble is the only telescope ever designed to be serviced in space by astronauts. To date, there have been four servicing missions. Servicing Mission 1 took place in December 1993 when Hubble's imaging flaw was corrected. Servicing missions 2, 3, and 4 repaired various sub-systems and replaced many of the observing instruments with more modern and capable versions. However, following the 2003 Columbia Space Shuttle disaster, the fifth servicing mission was canceled on safety grounds. After spirited public discussion, NASA reconsidered this decision, and administrator Mike Griffin gave the green light for one final Hubble servicing mission. This is now planned for October 2008.

The planned repairs to the Hubble will allow the telescope to function until at least 2013, when its successor, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), is due to be launched. The JWST will be far superior to Hubble for many astronomical research programs, but will only observe in infrared, so it would complement (not replace) Hubble's ability to observe in the visible and ultraviolet parts of the spectrum.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubble_Space_Telescope

• Courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech
• Whirls Hubble rond Aarde bij 5 mijlen per seconde. Als een auto dat kon reizen snel, zou een wegreis van Los Angeles tot de Stad van New York slechts 10 minuten vergen.
• Hubble voltooit één volledige baan om de 97 minuten.
• Hubble is bijna de grootte van een grote schoolbus, maar het kan binnen de ladingsbaai van een ruimtependel passen.
• In een gemiddelde baan, gebruik Hubble over de zelfde hoeveelheid energie zoals 28 100-watts gloeilampen.
• Hubble reist meer dan 150 miljoen mijlen (241 miljoen km) per jaar.
  

Waar is hubble nu?

http://hubblesite.org/the_telescope/where.a.s_hubble_now/basic_version.php

Wikipedia nl
De ruimtetelescoop Hubble (Hubble Space Telescope, HST) bestaat uit een aantal precisie-instrumenten voor astronomische waarnemingen, en draait sinds de lancering door de NASA op 24 april 1990 als een kunstmaan rond de aarde. De Hubble wordt gebruikt voor optische waarnemingen. De telescoop bezit ook een infraroodcamera. Voor observaties in het röntgengolflengtegebied wordt gebruikgemaakt van het Chandra X-Ray Observatory.

Door het ontbreken van een atmosfeer in de ruimte is een ongekend scherpe afbeelding van verre astronomische objecten mogelijk. Een van de bekendste foto's die door de Hubble genomen zijn is van de Adelaarsnevel (M16). Deze foto is volgens veel astronomen de mooiste foto ooit genomen van een object in het heelal.

De ruimtetelescoop bleek na de lancering aanvankelijk niet goed te werken, doordat de hoofdspiegel door een instrumentatiefout in de verkeerde vorm was geslepen. Een tweede ruimtemissie in december 1993, waarbij door astronauten onder andere een corrigerende spiegel werd aangebracht, verhielp dit euvel. In de jaren hierna zijn nog enkele onderhoudsmissies uitgevoerd.

Intussen werden al plannen gemaakt voor de volgende, betere en grotere ruimtetelescoop; anderzijds stonden ook in de op aardse telescopen gebaseerde astronomie de ontwikkelingen niet stil en werd het mogelijk, onder andere door een groot aantal kleinere telescoopbeelden te combineren en optische fouten, veroorzaakt door temperatuurverschillen en turbulentie in de atmosfeer, in real time computergestuurd te corrigeren, ook vanaf de aarde plaatjes te maken die niet meer voor die van de Hubble onderdoen, voor een fractie van de kosten.

Op 16 januari 2004 maakte de NASA bekend dat er geen onderhoud meer aan de Hubble zou worden verricht, in het licht van de enkele dagen eerder door president George W. Bush bekend gemaakte plannen om weer mensen naar de maan en uiteindelijk naar Mars te gaan sturen. Hiervoor moesten de andere plannen wijken. Naar verwachting heeft de Hubble hierna nog een nuttige levensduur van een jaar of vier.

Ton Linssens van de ESA-afdeling die over de Hubble-telescoop gaat stelde echter dat de beslissing om de telescoop niet meer te onderhouden niets te maken heeft met de plannen om naar Mars te reizen. De reden is dat het ruimteveer in de toekomst alleen maar naar het internationale ruimtestation mag vliegen. Alleen daar kan gecontroleerd worden of de tegeltjes van het hitteschild nog in goede staat zijn om de terugreis te maken. Daar is ook de mogelijkheid aanwezig om eventueel met een Sojoez de terugreis te maken.

Mike Griffin, de directeur van NASA, heeft op 31 oktober 2006 het groene licht gegeven voor een nieuwe missie naar de Hubble Space Telescope, wat waarschijnlijk tevens de laatste missie naar de Hubble Space Telescope zal zijn.

De telescoop is genoemd naar de Amerikaanse astronoom Edwin Hubble.

NASA HUBBLE SPACE TELESCOPE

NYC - METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART - LOVING COUPLE (MITHUNA)

NYC - Metropolitan Museum of Art - Loving Couple (Mithuna), originalmente cargada por wallyg.

Loving Couple (Mithuna)
Eastern Ganga dynasty, 13th century
Orissa, India
Ferruginous stone

A Hindu temple was often envisioned as the world's central axis, in the form of a mountain inhabited by a god. The temple itself was therefore worshiped. This was done by circumambulation (walking around the exterior, in this case in a counterclockwise direction) and by viewing its small inner sanctum. The outside of the temple was usually covered with myriad reliefs: some portrayed aspects of the god within or related deities; others represented the mountain's mythological inhabitants. From early times iconic representations of deities and holy figures were augmented by auspicious images, such as beautiful women, musicians, and loving couples (mithunas). Once part of the subsidiary decoration of a temple facade, the figures of this bejeweled couple embrace while peering rapturously into each other's eyes. Their full bodies and broad, detailed features are characteristic of architectural sculptures produced in thirteenth-century Orissa, a region in northeast India that was noted for its temples, particularly those built from the tenth through the thirteenth century, often distinguished by figures in astonishingly acrobatic and erotic poses. Couples such as this pair are understood to have multiple meanings, ranging from an obvious celebration of life's pleasures to the more metaphorical symbolism of a human soul's longing for union with the divine.

Purchase, Florance Waterbury Bequest, 1970 (1970.44)

NYC - METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART - LOVING COUPLE (MITHUNA)

NYC - METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART - THE BUDDHA AMITAYUS ATTENDED BY BODHISATTVAS

NYC - Metropolitan Museum of Art - The Buddha Amitayus Attended by Bodhisattvas, originalmente cargada por wallyg.

The Buddha Amitayus attended by bodhisattvas
Tibet, 11th century
Distemper on cloth

The cult of Amitayus, the Buddha of Eternal Life, was extremely popular in Tibet, as his followers believed that devotion to this Buddha would prolong their lives. Amitayus is shown cradling a jar containing the elixir of immortality in his lap as he preaches to an assemblage of Bodhisattvas (beings who have reached enlightenment but remain earthbound to save mankind) in his heaven. He is flanked by two Bodhisattvas standing on a gentle tribhanga (thrice-bent posture) typical of Indian Art and two tiers of seated Bodhisattvas, all of whom receive his doctrine. The seven figures in the upper register may be Buddhist hierarchs; they wear long-sleeved undergarments, voluminous cloaks, and flat hats, characteristics of eleventh-century Tibetan costume. At the bottom left are two figures, probably the donors of the painting, and on the right is a monk in monastic costume, who possiblly consecrated the thanka (painting on cloth). The monumental volumes of the deities and the slightly naïve rendering of the subsidiary figures are typical of this early phase of Tibetan thankas.

Rogers Fund, 1989 (1989.284)

**
The Metropolitan Museum of Art's permanent collection contains more than two million works of art from around the world. It opened its doors on February 20, 1872, housed in a building located at 681 Fifth Avenue in New York City. Under their guidance of John Taylor Johnston and George Palmer Putnam, the Met's holdings, initially consisting of a Roman stone sarcophagus and 174 mostly European paintings, quickly outgrew the available space. In 1873, occasioned by the Met's purchase of the Cesnola Collection of Cypriot antiquities, the museum decamped from Fifth Avenue and took up residence at the Douglas Mansion on West 14th Street. However, these new accommodations were temporary; after negotiations with the city of New York, the Met acquired land on the east side of Central Park, where it built its permanent home, a red-brick Gothic Revival stone "mausoleum" designed by American architects Calvert Vaux and Jacob Wrey Mold. As of 2006, the Met measures almost a quarter mile long and occupies more than two million square feet, more than 20 times the size of the original 1880 building.

In 2007, the Metropolitan Museum of Art was ranked #17 on the AIA 150 America's Favorite Architecture list.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art was designated a landmark by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission in 1967. The interior was designated in 1977.

NYC - METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART - THE BUDDHA AMITAYUS ATTENDED BY BODHISATTVAS

VINCENT VAN GOGH

Vincent van Gogh, originalmente cargada por Vincent.van.Gogh.
Vincent van Gogh in Madame Tussauds

Vincent Willem van Gogh (30 March 1853 – 29 July 1890) was a Dutch Post-Impressionist artist. His paintings and drawings include some of the world's best known, most popular and most expensive pieces.

Van Gogh spent his early adult life working for a firm of art dealers. After a brief spell as a teacher, he became a missionary worker in a very poor mining region. He did not embark upon a career as an artist until 1880. Initially, van Gogh worked only with sombre colours, until he encountered Impressionism and Neo-Impressionism in Paris. He incorporated their brighter colours and style of painting into a uniquely recognizable style, which was fully developed during the time he spent at Arles, France. He produced more than 2,000 works, including around 900 paintings and 1,100 drawings and sketches, during the last ten years of his life. Most of his best-known works were produced in the final two years of his life, during which time he cut off part of his left ear following a breakdown in his friendship with Paul Gauguin. After this he suffered recurrent bouts of mental illness, which led to his suicide.

The central figure in Van Gogh's life was his brother Theo, who continually and selflessly provided financial support. Their lifelong friendship is documented in numerous letters they exchanged from August 1872 onwards. Van Gogh is a pioneer of what came to be known as Expressionism. He had an enormous influence on 20th century art, especially on the Fauves and German Expressionists.

Van Gogh drew and painted water-colours while he went to school, though very few of these works survive, and his authorship is challenged for many claimed to be from this period. When he committed himself to art as an adult (1880), he started at the elementary level by copying the "Cours de dessin," edited by Charles Bargue and published by Goupil & Cie. Within his first two years he began to seek commissions, and in spring 1882, his uncle, Cornelis Marinus (owner of a renowned gallery of contemporary art in Amsterdam) asked him to provide drawings of the Hague; Van Gogh's work did not prove up to his uncle's expectations. Despite this, Uncle Cor (or "C.M. " as he was referred to by his nephews) offered a second commission, specifying the subject matter in detail, but he was once again disappointed with the result.

Nevertheless, Van Gogh persevered with his work. He improved the lighting of his atelier (studio) by installing variable shutters, and experimented with a variety of drawing materials. For more than a year he worked hard on single figures—highly elaborated studies in "black and white," which at the time gained him only criticism. Nowadays they are appreciated as his first masterpieces. In spring 1883, he embarked on multi-figure compositions, based on the drawings. He had some of them photographed, but when his brother commented that they lacked liveliness and freshness, Vincent destroyed them and turned to oil painting. Already in autumn 1882, Theo had enabled him to do his first paintings, but the amount Theo could supply was soon spent. Then, in spring 1883, Vincent turned to renowned Hague School artists like Weissenbruch and Blommers, and received technical support from them, as well as from painters like De Bock and Van der Weele, both Hague School artists of the second generation. When he moved to Nuenen, after the intermezzo in Drenthe, he started various large size paintings, but he destroyed most of them himself. The Potato Eaters and its companion pieces, The Old Tower on the Nuenen cemetery and The Cottage, are the only ones that have survived. After a visit to the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, Vincent was aware that many faults of his paintings were due to a lack of technical experience. So he went to Antwerp, and later to Paris to improve his technical skill.

More or less acquainted with impressionist and neo-impressionist techniques and theories, Van Gogh went to Arles to develop these new possibilities. But within a short time, older ideas on art and work reappeared: ideas like doing series on related or contrasting subject matter, which would reflect the purpose of art. Already in 1884 in Nuenen he had worked on a series that was to decorate the dining room of a friend in Eindhoven. Similarly in Arles, in spring 1888 he arranged his Flowering Orchards into triptychs, began a series of figures which found its end in The Roulin Family, and finally, when Gauguin had consented to work and live in Arles side by side with Vincent, he started to work on the The Décoration for the Yellow House, probably the most ambitious effort he ever undertook. Most of his later work is elaborating or revising its fundamental settings.

The paintings from the Saint-Rémy period are often characterized by swirls and spirals. The patterns of luminosity in these images have been shown to conform to Kolmogorov's statistical model of turbulence. At various times in his life Van Gogh painted the view from his window; this culminated in the great series of paintings of the wheat field he could see from his adjoining cells in the asylum at Saint-Rémy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vincent_van_Gogh

VINCENT VAN GOGH

STARRY NIGHT

Vincent van Gogh - Starry Night, originalmente cargada por Vincent.van.Gogh.

The Starry Night (Dutch: De sterrennacht) is a painting by Dutch post-impressionist artist Vincent van Gogh. Since 1941 it has been in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. Widely hailed as his magnum opus, the painting has been reproduced many times and is one of his most renowned paintings.

Van Gogh was perhaps not so happy with this painting. In a letter to Theo from Saint-Rémy he wrote:

"The first four canvases are studies without the effect of a whole that the others have . . . The olives with white clouds and background of mountains, also the moonrise and the night effect, these are exaggerations from the point of view of arrangement, their lines are warped as that of old wood."

Later in this letter, Vincent referred once more to the painting:

"In all this batch I think nothing at all good save the field of wheat, the mountain, the orchard, the olives with the blue hills and the portrait and the entrance to the Quarry, and the rest says nothing to me, because it lacks individual intention and feeling in the lines. Where these lines are close and deliberate it begins to be a picture, even if it is exaggerated. That is a little what Bernard and Gauguin feel, they do not ask the correct shape of a tree at all, but they insist absolutely that one can say if the shape is round or square - and my word, they are right, exasperated as they are by certain people's photographic and empty perfection. Certainly they will not ask the correct tone of the mountains, but they will say: In the Name of God, the mountains were blue, were they? Then chuck on some blue and don't go telling me that it was a blue rather like this or that, it was blue, wasn't it? Good - make them blue and it's enough! Gauguin is sometimes like a genius when he explains this, but as for the genius Gauguin has, he is very timid about showing it, and it is touching the way he likes to say something really useful to the young. How strange he is all the same."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Starry_Night

STARRY NIGHT

WATCH THE WORLD(S)

"Frameless heads on nameless walls, with eyes that watch the world and can't forget - like the strangers that you've met". [Don McLean].

Ever looked at your favorite painting and wished you could wander inside, to look at it from different perspectives? Spend a single day in one of mine, from early sunrise on a new day, to dusk when lights come on in cosy homes; through a peaceful night, till morning.

Shot on location in Second Life then post-produced, this was an idea I had a while ago. The Sim in this work was on temporary loan so it's all been swept away now, leaving only the film behind. It was always intended however that the video would be the end product, not the build.

This work is dedicated to the many weird and very wonderful strangers from around the globe I have met, but have never really met.

WATCH THE WORLD(S)

DRAGONFLY PATTERNS

Dragonfly patterns, originalmente cargada por macropoulos.

A pattern, from the French patron, is a theme of reoccurring events or objects, sometimes referred to as elements of a set. These elements repeat in a predictable manner. It can be a template or model which can be used to generate things or parts of a thing, especially if the things that are created have enough in common for the underlying pattern to be inferred, in which case the things are said to exhibit the unique pattern. Pattern matching is the act of checking for the presence of the constituents of a pattern, whereas the detecting for underlying patterns is referred to as pattern recognition. The question of how a pattern emerges is accomplished through the work of the scientific field of pattern formation. Patterns are also related to repeated shapes or objects, sometimes referred to as elements of the series. Some patterns (for example, many visual patterns) may be directly observable, such as simple decorative patterns (stripes, zigzags, and polka-dots). Others can be more complicated, such as the regular tiling of a plane, echos, and balanced binary branching.

The most basic patterns are based on repetition and periodicity. A single template, or cell, is combined with duplicates without change or modification. For example, in aviation, a "holding pattern" is a flight path which can be repeated until the aircraft has been granted clearance for landing.

Pattern recognition is more complex when templates are used to generate variants. For example, in English, sentences often follow the "N-VP" (noun - verb phrase) pattern, but some knowledge of the English language is required to detect the pattern. Computer science, ethology, and psychology are fields which study patterns.

In addition to static patterns, Simple Harmonic Oscillators produce repeated patterns of movement.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pattern

DRAGONFLY PATTERNS

ORUS

Orus, originalmente cargada por mathilde04.

Horus is a god of the Ancient Egyptian religion, most commonly known by the Greek version Horus, of the Egyptian Heru/Har. Horus was an ancient and important deity and the Eye of Horus became an important Egyptian symbol of power. Horus had a man's body and a falcon's head. One of Horus' eyes became injured as after Osiris was murdered by his brother Set, Horus fought with Set for the throne of Egypt. In this battle one of his eyes was injured and later it was healed by Thoth. This healing of the eye became a symbol of renewal. Horus united Egypt and bestowed divinity upon the pharaoh. Pharaohs were viewed as the incarnation of Horus.

Sky god

Horus is the god of the sky, and the son of Osiris. His mother is Isis.

Since he was god of the sky, Horus became depicted as a falcon, or as a falcon-headed man, leading to Horus' name, (in Egyptian, Heru), which meant The distant one. Horus was also sometimes known as Nekheny (meaning falcon), although it has been proposed that Nekheny may have been another falcon-god, worshipped at Nekhen (city of the hawk), that became identified as Horus very early on. In this form, he was sometimes given the title Kemwer, meaning (the) great black (one).

As Horus was the son of Osiris, and god of the sky, he became closely associated with the Pharaoh of Lower Egypt (where Horus was worshipped), and became their patron. The association with the Pharaoh brought with it the idea that he was the son of Isis, in her original form, who was regarded as a deification of the Queen.

It was said that after the world was created, Horus landed on a perch, known as the djeba, which literally translates as finger, in order to rest, which consequently became considered sacred. On some occasions, Horus was referred to as lord of the djeba (i.e. lord of the perch or lord of the finger), a form in which he was especially worshipped at Buto, known as Djebauti, meaning (ones) of the djeba (the reason for the plural is not understood, and may just have been a result of Epenthesis, or Paragoge). The form of Djebauti eventually became depicted as an heron, nevertheless continuing to rest on the sacred perch.

Sun god

Since Horus was said to be the sky, it was natural that he was rapidly considered to also contain the sun and moon. It became said that the sun was one of his eyes and the moon the other, and that they traversed the sky when he, a falcon, flew across it. Thus he became known as Harmerty - Horus of two eyes. Later, the reason that the moon was not as bright as the sun was explained by a tale, known as the contestings of Horus and Set, originating as a metaphor for the conquest of Upper Egypt by Lower Egypt in about 3000BC. In this tale, it was said that Set, the patron of Upper Egypt, and Horus, the patron of Lower Egypt, had battled for Egypt brutally, with neither side victorious, until eventually the gods sided with Horus (see below).

As Horus was the ultimate victor he became known as Harsiesis, Heru-ur or Har-Wer (ḥr.w wr 'Horus the Great'), but more usually translated as Horus the Elder. In the struggle Set had lost a testicle, explaining why the desert, which Set represented, is infertile. Horus' left eye had also been gouged out, which explained why the moon, which it represented, was so weak compared to the sun. It was also said that during a new-moon, Horus had become blinded and was titled Mekhenty-er-irty (mḫnty r ỉr.ty 'He who has no eyes'), while when the moon became visible again, he was re-titled Khenty-irty (ḫnty r ỉr.ty 'He who has eyes'). While blind, it was considered that Horus was quite dangerous, sometimes attacking his friends after mistaking them for enemies.

Horus was occasionally shown in art as a naked boy with a finger in his mouth sitting on a lotus with his mother. In the form of a youth, Horus was referred to as Neferhor. This is also spelled Nefer Hor, Nephoros or Nopheros (nfr ḥr.w) meaning 'The Good Horus'.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horus

ORUS

ISIS Y LA SERPIENTE EMPLUMADA

isis y la serpiente emplumada, originalmente cargada por Tatuzo.

Isis is a goddess in Ancient Egyptian mythology and is celebrated as the ideal mother and wife, patron of nature and magic; friend of slaves, sinners, artisans, the downtrodden, as well as listening to the prayers of the wealthy, the maiden, the aristocrat and emperor. In union with her husband and brother Osiris she conceived Horus. Isis was instrumental in the resurrection of Osiris when he was murdered by Seth. The goddess Isis was the first daughter of Geb, god of the Earth, and Nut, the goddess of the Overarching Sky, and was born on the fourth intercalary day.

She is also known as the goddess from whom all Beginnings arose, and as the Lady of bread, of beer and of green fields. Ancient Egyptians believed that the Nile flooded every year because of her tears of sorrow for her dead husband, Osiris.

The English pronunciation used for this deity, /ˈaɪ.sɪs/), is an Anglicized pronunciation of the Greek name, Ίσις, which itself changed the original Egyptian name by the addition of a final "-s" because of the grammatical requirements of Greek noun endings. The Egyptian name was recorded as ỉs.t or ȝs.t and meant "(She of the) Throne." However, the true Egyptian pronunciation remains uncertain because their writing system omitted vowels. Based on recent studies which present us with approximations based on contemporary languages and Coptic evidence, the reconstructed pronunciation of her name is *ʔŪsat (ooh-saht). Later, the name survived into Coptic dialects as "Ēse" or "Ēsi," as well as in compound words surviving in names of later people like "Har-si-Ese," literally "Horus, son of Isis."

Her name literally means "queen of the throne." Her original headdress was an empty throne chair belonging to her murdered husband, Osiris. As the personification of the throne, she was an important source of the Pharaoh's power. Her cult was popular throughout Egypt, but the most important sanctuaries were at Giza and at Behbeit El-Hagar in the Nile delta.

For convenience and arbitrarily, Egyptologists choose to pronounce the word as "ee-set." Sometimes they may also say "ee-sa" because the final "t" in her name was a feminine suffix, which is known to have been dropped in speech during the last stages of the Egyptian language. Isis holds an ankh in her hand which means life.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isis

ISIS Y LA SERPIENTE EMPLUMADA

NED ZED

Ned Zed, originalmente cargada por artoyzflickr.

Art by Rolito

NED ZED

FUNDIDO

fundido, originalmente cargada por Eff3r.ves.cing ele.p.h.a.n.t..

FUNDIDO

THAILAND - CHIANG MAI

Thailand. Chiang Mai., originalmente cargada por MikeRussia - NO VIDEO.

Wat Chiang Man: the oldest temple in Chiang Mai. King Mengrai lived here while overseeing the construction of the city. This temple houses two very important and venerated Buddha figures - Phra Sila (a marble Buddha) and Phra Satang Man (a crystal Buddha).

Wat Phra Singh: located within the city walls, dates from 1345 and offers an example of classic northern Thai style architecture. It houses the Phra Singh Buddha, a highly venerated figure, transferred here many years ago from Chiang Rai. This temple is one of the most important temples in the city. Visitors can also take part in meditation classes here at set times.

Wat Chedi Luang: founded in 1401 and dominated by the large Lanna style chedi which dates from the same time, but took many years to finish. An earthquake damaged the chedi in the 16th century and now only two-thirds of it remains.

Wat Ched Yot: located on the outskirts of the city, this temple, built in 1455, hosted the Eighth World Buddhist Council in 1977.

Wiang Kum Kam: the site of an old city situated on the southern outskirts of Chiang Mai. King Mengrai used this for ten years before the founding of Chiang Mai. The site has a large number of ruined temples.

Wat U-Mong: a forest and cave wat in the foothills in the west of the city, near Chiang Mai University. Wat U-Mong is known for its grotesque concrete fasting Buddha and hundreds of pithy Buddhist proverbs in English and Thai posted on trees throughout its grounds.

Wat Suan Dok: a 14th century temple located just west of the old city-wall. The temple was built by the King of Lanna for a revered monk visiting from Sukhothai to spend the rains retreat. The name translates as "the field of flowers temple." There are several unique aspects to this temple. One is the temple's large ubosot (ordination hall). This is unusual not only for its size, but also that it is open on the sides instead of enclosed. Secondly, there are a large number of chedis housing the ashes of the rulers of Chiang Mai. The temple is also the site of Mahachulalongkorn Rajavidyalaya Buddhist University.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiang_Mai

THAILAND - CHIANG MAI

LUZ

Luz, originalmente cargada por planeta.

Blackbox, Rufino Tamayo

LUZ

WOMAN WITH A BIRD CAGE, TAMAYO

Woman with a Bird Cage, Tamayo, originalmente cargada por tacvbo.

Rufino Tamayo (August 25, 1899 – June 24, 1991) was a Zapotecan Indian painter born in Oaxaca de Juárez, Mexico, of Mestizo parents.

Woman with a Bird Cage
1941
Oil on canvas

Gift of Joseph Winterbotham Collection
1942.57

Seeking an expressive and modern manner of painting, Rufino Tamayo fused Mexican traditions with avant-garde artistic innovations. In Woman with a Bird Cage, the influence of Cubism is apparent in Tamayo's depiction of the body, which has been fractured into planes of color. Yet the distinctive elongated ear, large nose, open mouth, and other aspects of the woman's physiognomy reflect his study of Pre-Columbian art. Although Tamayo, unlike his countrymen Diego Rivera and José Clemente Orozco, did not address overtly social themes in his paintings, is references to the ancient and indigenous art forms of his country suggest that his art was no less concerned with aspects of Mexican identity.

The Art Institute of Chicago

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rufino_Tamayo

WOMAN WITH A BIRD CAGE, TAMAYO

EL RETORNO DE KUKULCÁN

"El Eterno Retorno de Kukulcán", originalmente cargada por Aleksu.

Una de las esculturas del atrio a la entrada del cine sede del Festival Internacional de Cine de Cancún 2007.

La misma fue elaborada por el escultor cancunense Renato Dorfman.

http://www.renatodorfman.com/

EL RETORNO DE KUKULCÁN

LIFE IN SPIRAL

LIFE IN SPIRAL, originalmente cargada por enzym.

Life is best understood NOT when you are having fun all the time, but when you are struggling in it. Although even so, you should find self-happiness, at any time, even when climbing in vertical. Does it matter if you climb up or climb down, or living fast or slow? In the spiral of life, the most important is you know your reason and stick with it. Stick with the one you dear of and passion about.

LIFE IN SPIRAL

BLUE SPIRAL

blue spiral, originalmente cargada por extranoise.

Staircase in the memorial tower in Großbeeren near Berlin.

BLUE SPIRAL

PASSION SPIRAL

Passion Spiral, originalmente cargada por Michelle in Ireland.

PASSION SPIRAL

JAZZ

JAZZ, originalmente cargada por nromagna.

Artista: Paolo Conte
Titolo: Sotto Le Stelle Del Jazz

Certi capivano il jazz
l’argenteria spariva…
ladri di stelle e di jazz
così eravamo noi, così eravamo noi

Pochi capivano il jazz
troppe cravatte sbagliate…
ragazzi-scimmia del jazz
così eravamo noi, così eravamo noi

Sotto le stelle del jazz,
ma quanta notte è passata…
Marisa, svegliami, abbracciami
è stato un sogno fortissimo…

Le donne odiavano il jazz
“non si capisce il motivo”
du-dad-du-dad

Sotto le stelle del jazz
un uomo-scimmia cammina,
o forse balla, chissà
du-dad-du-dad

Duemila enigmi nel jazz
ah, non si capisce il motivo…
nel tempo fatto di attimi
e settimane enigmistiche…

Sotto la luna del jazz…

JAZZ

KNABBEL & BABBEL

Knabbel & Babbel., originalmente cargada por P Villerius.

Blijdorp Zoo, Rotterdam.

KNABBEL & BABBEL

DEEP SEA VEHICLE

Deep sea vehicle, originalmente cargada por James Whíte.

DEEP SEA VEHICLE