THE FLOWER OF LIFE

the flower of life Cargado originalmente por hinton.jennie

There are many symbols found within the Flower of Life's design, each believed to possess significant meaning.

The Flower of Life has represented important meaning to many people throughout history. It can be found in the temples, art, and manuscripts of cultures from all over the world. The following are some of the locations in which the FOL symbol has been sighted.

Egypt - The Temple of Osiris in Abydos and at Mount Sinai.
Hungary - Magyarország - Carphatians.
Israel - Masada
China - The Forbidden City and various temples.
Japan - Various temples.
India - The Harimandir Sahib (Golden Temple), Hampi, and the temples at Ajanta.
Turkey - Various old Roman sites.
Spain
Austria
Italy - Italian art from the 13th century (Wolfram 2002, p. 43).
North Africa - Morocco
Middle East - Lebanon and various Islamic mosques.
North America - Mexico

Components of the Flower of Life have been a part of the work of Alchemists. Metatron's Cube is a symbol derived from the Flower of Life which was used as a containment circle or creation circle.

Seed of Life

The "Seed of Life" is formed from seven circles being placed with sixfold symmetry, forming a pattern of circles and lenses, which acts as a basic component of the Flower of Life's design.

According to some^[who?], the Seed of Life is a symbol of depicting the seven days of creation in which God created life; Genesis 2:2-3, Exodus 23:12, 31:16-17, Isaiah 56:6-8. The first day is believed to be the creation of the Vesica Piscis, then the creation of the Tripod of Life on the second day, followed by one sphere added for each subsequent day until all seven spheres construct the Seed of Life on the sixth day of Creation. The seventh day is the day of rest, known as the "Sabbath" or "Shabbat."

In the 13th century, a Cabalist group from France succeeded, through geometric interpretation, in dividing the entire Hebrew alphabet into an order using the Seed of Life. The resulting alphabet was remarkably similar to that of the Religious sage Rashi who wrote his commentaries on the Old Testament at that time in France.

Vesica piscis

The Vesica Piscis is formed from two intersecting circles of the same diameter, where the center of each circle is on the circumference of the opposite circle. Its design is one of the simplest forms of sacred geometry. It has been depicted around the world at sacred sites, most notably at the Chalice Well in Glastonbury, England, and has been the subject of mystical speculation at several periods of history. One of the earliest known occurrences of the Vesica Piscis, and perhaps first, was among the Pythagoreans, who considered it a holy figure.

According to some religious beliefs^[who?], the Vesica Piscis represents the second stage in the creation of the Seed of Life, in that it was constructed by "the Creator" (or "God") through the creation of a second Spherical Octahedron joined with the first. It is said that the Creator's consciousness began inside the first sphere and journeyed outside the surface of that sphere to create the second. Purportedly in reference to this, the Old Testament refers to "the spirit of the Creator floating upon the face of the waters."

Continuing with these beliefs^[who?], God is said to have created light through the creation of the second sphere (or Vesica Piscis). "Let there be light" is a relevant excerpt from the Old Testament. The pattern of the Vesica Piscis is said to be a geometric formula which represents the electromagnetic spectrum of light. For further information on how this can be done, see Drunvalo Melchizedek's book, The Ancient Secret of The Flower of Life.

The Vesica Piscis has been called a symbol of the fusion of opposites and a passageway through the world’s apparent polarities. It has also been noted as the geometry for the human eye. It is also known to be the basis for the Ichthys fish, which is a Christian symbol representing "The Son," Jesus Christ.

Tree of Life

The symbol of the Tree of Life may be derived from the Flower of Life. The Tree of Life is a mystical concept, a metaphor for common descent, and a motif in various world theologies and philosophies. This mystical concept has historically been adopted by some Christians, Jews, Hermeticists, and pagans. Along with the Seed of Life it is believed to be part of the geometry that parallels the cycle of the fruit tree. This relationship is implied when these two forms are superimposed upon each other.

The Tree of Life is most widely recognized as a mystical concept within the Kabbalah, which is used to understand the nature of God and the manner in which He created the world ex nihilo (out of nothing). The Kabbalists developed this concept into a full model of reality, using the tree to depict a "map" of creation. The tree of life has been called the "cosmology" of the Kabbalah.

Some believe the Tree of Life of Kabbalah corresponds to the Tree of Life mentioned in Genesis 2:9.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flower_of_life#Vesica_Piscis

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

THE FLOWER OF LIFE

PANTHEISM

Pantheism (Greek: πάν ( 'pan' ) = all and θεός ( 'theos' ) = God) literally means "God is All" and "All is God". It is the view that everything is of an all-encompassing immanent abstract God; or that the universe, or nature, and God are equivalent. More detailed definitions tend to emphasize the idea that natural law, existence, and the universe (the sum total of all that is, was, and shall be) is represented or personified in the theological principle of an abstract 'god'.

History

The term "pantheist"—of which the word "pantheism" is a variation—was purportedly first used by Irish writer John Toland in his 1705 work, Socinianism Truly Stated, by a pantheist. However, the concept has been discussed as far back as the time of the philosophers of Ancient Greece, by Thales, Parmenides and Heraclitus. The Jewish backgrounds for pantheism may reach as far back as the Torah itself in its account of creation in Genesis and its earlier prophetic material in which clearly "acts of nature" [such as floods, storms, volcanoes, etc.] are all identified as "God's hand" through personification idioms, thus explaining the open references to the concept in both New Testament and Kabbalistic literature.

In 1785 a major controversy began between Friedrich Jacobi and Moses Mendelssohn, which eventually involved many important people of the time. Jacobi claimed that Lessing's pantheism was materialistic in that it thought of all Nature and God as one extended substance. For Jacobi, this was the result of the Enlightenment's devotion to reason and it would lead to atheism. Mendelssohn disagreed by asserting that pantheism was the same as theism.

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

PANTHEISM

I'M IN A LITTLE BUBBLE

i'm in a little bubble, originalmente cargada por seawallrunner.

And what a cozy little bubble this is... floating 300 feet above the city... bliss

I'M IN A LITTLE BUBBLE

LIGHT GEOMETRY: TESSERACT

light geometry: tesseract, originalmente cargada por citlali* moving = ].

In geometry, the tesseract, also called an 8-cell or regular octachoron, is the four-dimensional analog of the cube, which is in turn the three dimensional analog of the square. The tesseract is to the cube as the cube is to the square; or, more formally, the tesseract can be described as a regular convex 4-polytope whose boundary consists of eight cubical cells.

A generalization of the cube to dimensions greater than three is called a “hypercube”, “n-cube” or “measure polytope”. The tesseract is the four-dimensional hypercube or 4-cube.

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word tesseract was coined and first used in 1888 by Charles Howard Hinton in his book A New Era of Thought, from the Greek “τέσσερεις ακτίνες” (“four rays”), referring to the four lines from each vertex to other vertices. Some people have called the same figure a “tetracube”, and also simply a "hypercube" (although a hypercube can be of any dimension).

Rotating shadow of a tesseract rotating on a single axis

Geometry

The tesseract can be constructed in a number of different ways. As a regular polytope constructed by three cubes folded together around every edge, it has Schläfli symbol {4,3,3}. Constructed as a 4D hyperprism made of two parallel cubes, it can be named as a composite Schläfli symbol {4,3}x{ }. As a duoprism, a Cartesian product of two squares, it can be named by a composite Schläfli symbol {4}x{4}.

Since each vertex of a tesseract is adjacent to four edges, the vertex figure of the tesseract is a regular tetrahedron. The dual polytope of the tesseract is called the hexadecachoron, or 16-cell, with Schläfli symbol {3,3,4}.

The standard tesseract in Euclidean 4-space is given as the convex hull of the points (±1, ±1, ±1, ±1). That is, it consists of the points:

A tesseract is bounded by eight hyperplanes (x_i = ±1). Each pair of non-parallel hyperplanes intersects to form 24 square faces in a tesseract. Three cubes and three squares intersect at each edge. There are four cubes, six squares, and four edges meeting at every vertex. All in all, it consists of 8 cubes, 24 squares, 32 edges, and 16 vertices.

Projections to 2 dimensions

The construction of a hypercube can be imagined the following way:

• 1-dimensional: Two points A and B can be connected to a line, giving a new line AB.
• 2-dimensional: Two parallel lines AB and CD can be connected to become a square, with the corners marked as ABCD.
• 3-dimensional: Two parallel squares ABCD and EFGH can be connected to become a cube, with the corners marked as ABCDEFGH.
• 4-dimensional: Two parallel cubes ABCDEFGH and IJKLMNOP can be connected to become a hypercube, with the corners marked as ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOP.

This structure is not easily imagined but it is possible to project tesseracts into three- or two-dimensional spaces. Furthermore, projections on the 2D-plane become more instructive by rearranging the positions of the projected vertices. In this fashion, one can obtain pictures that no longer reflect the spatial relationships within the tesseract, but which illustrate the connection structure of the vertices, such as in the following examples:

A tesseract is in principle obtained by combining two cubes. The scheme is similar to the construction of a cube from two squares: juxtapose two copies of the lower dimensional cube and connect the corresponding vertices. Each edge of a tesseract is of the same length. A multitude of cubes that are nicely interconnected. The vertices of the tesseract with respect to the distance along the edges, with respect to the bottom point. This view is of interest when using tesseracts as the basis for a network topology to link multiple processors in parallel computing: the distance between two nodes is at most 4 and there are many different paths to allow weight balancing.

Tesseracts are also bipartite graphs, just as a path, square, cube and tree are.

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

LIGHT GEOMETRY: TESSERACT

CLIFFORD STOLL: 18 MINUTES WITH AN AGILE MIND

http://www.ted.com Clifford Stoll could talk about the atmosphere of Jupiter. Or hunting KGB hackers. Or Klein bottles, computers in classrooms, the future. But he's not going to. Which is fine, because it would be criminal to confine a man with interests as multifarious as Stoll's to give a talk on any one topic. Instead, he simply captivates his audience with a wildly energetic sprinkling of anecdotes, observations, asides -- and even a science experiment. After all, by his own definition, he's a scientist: "Once I do something, I want to do something else."

CLIFFORD STOLL: 18 MINUTES WITH AN AGILE MIND

LANTERN

Lantern, originalmente cargada por mjb7q.

LANTERN

GEORGE'S SECRET KEY TO THE UNIVERSE - BOOK

George's Secret Key To The Universe - Book, originalmente cargada por sanchezdot.

George's Secret Key To The Universe - Book

www.georgessecretkey.com/

GEORGE E O SEGREDO DO UNIVERSO

from website for George's Secret Key to the Universe!

George's Secret Key to the Universe is an adventure story where all the adventures are based on real science. It is a journey across space to learn more about the Universe in which we live and a journey through physics - the laws that govern the Universe - to understand more about it. But it's also the story of a lonely boy and how his life changes when he meets his new next-door neighbours, Annie and Eric. Annie is mad about the ballet and Eric, her father, is a scientist. Eric works with a computer called Cosmos who is so powerful and so clever he can draw you a doorway, through which you can walk (if you're wearing a space suit that is! It's very cold in space, around -270 C) to any point in the known Universe.

Now, my computer and yours may not be as powerful as Cosmos, but we've still got some wonderful and exciting pictures to show you on our website. You too can see some of the amazing sights in outer space that George discovers. Like George, you can go on a journey to places that no other human being has been before.

Writing this book with my dad, Stephen Hawking was a lot of fun for both of us. So I hope you enjoy George's Secret Key to the Universe and I hope you want to come back to hear more about George's adventures next year, when he takes off once more, destination unknown . . .

Best of luck with your cosmic voyages and remember, Space Rocks!

Lucy Hawking

GEORGE'S SECRET KEY TO THE UNIVERSE - BOOK

DRYMARIA JENNIFERAE

Abstract. Drymaria jenniferae is proposed as a new species. It appears to be related to the group "'Arenarioides" by the nature of the indumentum and the 2-8 lobed petals, but differs by its petals with four equal lobes, with the trunk (blade-like portion below lobes and above the basal claw) of each petal widened at the base. The species is notable for the absence of stipules, the cateniform trichomes, and the tuberculate seeds. A description, an illustration, and a key are provided. Key Words: Caryophyllaceae, Drymaria, Mexico.

Municipio de Viesca Coahuila, México

According to the most recent revision (Duke, 1961), the genus Drymaria Willd. ex Schult. (Caryophyllaceae) comprises 48 species mainly in subtropical areas of the Western Hemisphere; one species (Drymaria cordata Willd. ex Schult.) is widespread and occurs in Asia, Africa, Oceania, and Madagascar. The work of Duke (1961) includes a supra-specific classification in 17 series that were not validity published (Hartman, 2005) because they lacked Latin diagnoses and type citations. Since the revision of Duke, Turner (1995) described two new species from northeastern Mexico. Preliminary reports suggest there are 17 species and several infra-specific taxa in the Chihuahuan Desert (Hartman, in prep.). We here describe a new species of Drymaria from the southwestern Chihuahuan Desert Region.

Drymaria jenniferae Villarreal & A. E. Estrada, sp. nov. Type: Mexico. Coahuila: Mun. Viesca, E of Cinco de Mayo, 1600 m, 30 Sep 2006 (ft, ft), G. S. Hinton et al. 28498 (holotype: MEXU; isotypes: ANSM, ENCB, NY, TEX). (Fig. 1)

Drymariae axillari Brandegee similis sed differt petalis breviunguiculatis, doubus in 4 lobos equales bifurcatis, trunco (pars laminaris petalina sub lobis supraque unguem) ad basim leviter, stipulis carentibus, et seminibus lacrifonnibus tuberculatis.

Perennial herbs, the taproot woody, slender; stems originating from the root crown spreading or ascending, 4-8 cm long, branched, glaucous, indumentum hirsutulous, the trichomes septate, uniseriate, cateniform, often glandular. Leaves opposite; petioles 1- 3 mm long, glaucous, with same indumentum as the stems; blades elliptic to ovate, 4-10 x 3-6 mm, slightly succulent, the bases cuneate, decurrent to the petiole, the apices acute; stipules absent. Flowers solitary in distal branch axils; pedicels 3-6 mm long; sepals oblong to broadly elliptic, 4-5x1.8-2.2 mm, lobes, the lobes themselves divided into two cucullate, hirsutulous, the margins scarious, linear nearly equal lobes (each petal thus the apices obtuse; petals ca. 4 mm long, 4-lobed), the trunks (blade-like portion below white, divided half their length into two lobes and above claws) entire, slightly wider at the base, subhastate, the basal claw very short; staminodia absent; stamens 5, 2-3 mm long, the anthers ca. 1 mm long; ovaries ellipsoid, 1.0-1.5 mm long, glabrous, styles trifid, ca. 1 mm long. Capsules ellipsoid, 4— 6 mm long. Seeds 0.8 mm long, lacrimiform, glabrous, black, minutely roughened.

Distribution and ecology.—The species is known only from the type locality in southwestern Coahuila, growing in scattered sparse colonies on gypseous hillsides with only a few plants. The area was visited in 2007, but fertile material was unavailable due to drought. Other species in the area include Thymophylla setifolia Lag., Agave lechuguilla Torr., Fouquieria splendens Engelm., Euphorbia antisyphilitica Zucc, Anulocaulis erioselenus (A. Gray) Standi., Cyphomeris crassifolia (Standi.) Standi., Notholaena greggii (Kuhn) Maxon., Acacia crassifolia A. Gray, Tiquilia greggii (Torr. & A. Gray) A. Richardson, Tiquilia gossypina (Woot. & Standi.) A. Richardson, and Bursera schlechtendalii Engl.

Phenology.—Flowering August to October; fruiting in September and October, probably appearing after the rainy season.

Etymology.—The epithet honors Jennifer Hinton, great-granddaugther of George B. Hinton and a promising plant collector in the Hinton family, a family that has made tremendous contributions to the knowledge of the flora of Mexico (Hinton & Rzedowski, 1972).

The genus Drymaria was last revised by Duke (1961), but needs careful study by modern methods to evaluate Duke's informal classification (Hartman, 2005). Drymaria jenniferae does not fit comfortably within any of the infra-generic groups proposed by Duke (1961). It may be related to the complex of species that form the group "Arenarioides" (Duke, 1961), sharing with it the indumentum of glandular trichomes and petals with 2—8 lobes, each with a well-developed trunk, but it differs by the absence of stipules, the laterally denticulate petal trunks, and the granular or smooth seeds. It is morphologically close to Drymaria axillaris Brandegee but differs in having petals with four lobes and in the shape and surface of its seeds. It might also be compared with D. barkleyi Duke & Steyerm., because both taxa have petals with a wide trunk (slightly wider at the base and subhastate in D. jenniferae), a short claw, and lacrimiform, tuberculate seeds. The species in the group "Arenarioides" have deltoid stipules, while the new species seemingly lacks stipules. Drymaria arenarioides and D. axillaris have short glandular trichomes 0.25-0.4 mm long, with 1 or 2 septa, while D. jenniferae has trichomes 0.5-1.0 mm long, with 3—5 septa.

The four species can be separated by the following key:

1. Plants glabrous; petals 2 (or-3)-lobate, the trunks one-third as long as the lobes; inflorescences cymes D. barkleyi
1. Plants pubescent, the trichomes sometimes stipitate glandular; petals 2-4 -lobate, the
trunks as long as the lobes; inflorescences racemes or flowers axillary.
2. Leaves linear to oblong; inflorescences racemes D. arenarioides
2. Leaves ovate; flowers axillary.
3. Stipules present; petals 2-lobeted, the trunk bases not wider than apices; seeds
reticulate D. axillaris
3. Stipules absent; petals 4-lobated, the trunk bases wider than the apices, subhastate; seeds tuberculate D. jenniferae

Acknowledgments

We thank Guy Nesom for the Latin diagnosis and Miguel A. Carranza for preparing the illustration; George Diggs and Thomas Wendt for reviewing the English version; Billie L. Turner and Richard Spellenberg for the critical review of the manuscript.

Literature Cited

Duke, J. A. 1961. Preliminary revision of the genus Drymaria. Annals of the Missouri Botanical Garden 48: 173-268.

Hartman, R. L. In prep. In: Henrickson, J. & M. C. Johnston. A Flora of The Chihuahuan Desert Region. . 2005. Drymaria. In: Flora of North America Editorial Committee, eds. 1993+. Flora of North America North of Mexico 12+ vols. New York and Oxford. Vol 5, pp. 9-14.

Hinton, J. & J. Rzedowski. 1972. George B. Hinton, collector of plants in southwestern Mexico. Journal of the Arnold Arboretum 53: 141-181.

Turner, B. L. 1995. Two new species of Drymaria (Caryophyllaceae) from gypseous soils in northern Nuevo Leon, Mexico. Phytologia 78: 199-203.

FIG. 1. Drymaria jenniferae. A. Whole plant. B. Leaf. C. Glandular septate trichome. D. Sepal. E. Petal with stamen. F. Seed. (Drawn from the holotype.)

DRYMARIA JENNIFERAE

THE FACE OF A WHITE TIGER

The face of a White Tiger, originalmente cargada por karin widemann.

White Tiger (Panthera tigris) is a tiger with a genetic condition that nearly eliminates pigment in the normally orange fur although they still have dark stripes. This occurs when a tiger inherits two copies of the recessive gene for the paler coloration: pink nose, grey-mottled skin, ice-blue eyes, and white to cream-coloured fur with black, grey, or chocolate-coloured stripes. (Another genetic condition also makes the stripes of the tiger very pale; white tigers of this type are called snow-white.)

White tigers do not constitute a separate subspecies of their own and can breed with orange ones, although all of the resulting offspring will be heterozygous for the recessive white gene, and their fur will be orange. The only exception would be if the orange parent was itself already a heterozygous tiger, which would give each cub a 50% chance of being either double-recessive white or heterozygous orange.

Compared to orange tigers without the white gene, white tigers tend to be larger both at birth and at full adult size. This may have given them an advantage in the wild despite their unusual coloration. Heterozygous orange tigers also tend to be larger than other orange tigers. Kailash Sankhala, the director of the New Delhi Zoo in the 1960s, suggested that "one of the functions of the white gene may have been to keep a size gene in the population, in case it's ever needed."

Dark-striped white individuals are well-documented in the Bengal Tiger subspecies (Panthera tigris tigris or P. t. bengalensis), may also have occurred in captive Siberian Tigers (Panthera tigris altaica), and may have been reported historically in several other subspecies. White pelage is most closely associated with the Bengal, or Indian subspecies. Currently, several hundred white tigers are in captivity worldwide with about 100 of them in India, and their numbers are on the increase. The modern population includes both pure Bengals and hybrid Bengal–Siberians, but it is unclear whether the recessive gene for white came only from Bengals, or from any of the Siberian ancestors as well.

The unusual coloration of white tigers has made them popular in zoos and entertainment that showcases exotic animals. The magicians Siegfried & Roy are famous for having bred and trained white tigers for their performances, referring to them as "royal white tigers" perhaps from the white tiger's association with the Maharaja of Rewa.

It is a myth that white tigers did not thrive in the wild, where small groups had bred white for generations. India once planned to reintroduce them to the wild. A.A. Dunbar Brander wrote in "Wild Animals In Central India" (1923): "White tigers occasionally occur. There is a regular breed of these animals in the neighborhood of Amarkantak at the junction of the Rewa state and the Mandla and Bilaspur districts. When I was last in Mandla in 1919, a white tigress and two three parts grown white cubs existed. In 1915 a male was trapped by the Rewa state and kept in confinement. An excellent description of this animal by Mr. Scott of the Indian police, has been published in Vol. XXVII, No. 47, of the Bombay Natural History Society's journal."

However, most white tigers are now bred in captivity, often by inbreeding parents and cubs to ensure the presence of the recessive gene. Such inbreeding often also leads to birth defects.

An additional genetic condition can remove most of the striping of a white tiger, making the animal almost pure white. One such specimen was exhibited at Exeter Change in England in 1820 and described by Georges Cuvier as "A white variety of Tiger is sometimes seen, with the stripes very opaque, and not to be observed except in certain angles of light.". Naturalist Richard Lydekker said that, "a white tiger, in which the fur was of a creamy tint, with the usual stripes faintly visible in certain parts, was exhibited at the old menagerie at Exeter Change about the year 1820." Hamilton Smith said, "A wholly white tiger, with the stripe-pattern visible only under reflected light, like the pattern of a white tabby cat, was exhibited in the Exeter Change Menagerie in 1820.", and John George Wood stated that, "a creamy white, with the ordinary tigerine stripes so faintly marked that they were only visible in certain lights." Edwin Henry Landseer also drew this tigress in 1824.

The modern strain of snow white tigers came from repeated brother–sister matings of Bhim and Sumita at Cincinnati zoo. The gene involved possibly came from the Siberian tiger, via their part-Siberian ancestor Tony. Continued inbreeding appears to have caused a recessive gene for stripelessness to show up. About one fourth of Bhim and Sumita's offspring were stripeless. Their striped white offspring, which have been sold to zoos around the world, may also carry the stripeless gene.

Because Tony is present in many white tiger pedigrees, the gene may also be present in other captive white tigers. As a result, stripeless whites have occurred in zoos as far afield as the Czech Republic, Spain and Mexico. Stage magicians Siegfried & Roy were the first to attempt to breed selectively for stripelessness; they own snow white Bengal tigers taken from Cincinnati Zoo (Tsumura, Mantra, Mirage and Akbar-Kabul) and Guadalajara, Mexico (Vishnu and Jahan), and a stripeless Siberian tiger called Apollo.

In 2004, a blue-eyed, stripeless white tiger was born at a wildlife refuge in Alicante, Spain. Its parents are normal orange Bengals. The cub was named Artico ("Arctic"). Stripeless white tigers were thought to be sterile until Siegfried & Roy's stripeless white tigress Sitarra, a daughter of Bhim and Sumita, gave birth. Another variation which came out of the white strains are unusually light orange tigers called golden tabby tigers. These may be orange tigers which carry the stripeless white gene as a recessive. Some white tigers in India have been very dark nearly reverting to the orange colour.

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

THE FACE OF A WHITE TIGER

WHALE SHARK

Whale Shark, originalmente cargada por karin widemann.

The whale shark, Rhincodon typus, is a slow filter feeding shark that is the largest living fish species. This distinctively-marked shark is the only member of its genus Rhincodon and its family, Rhincodontidae (called Rhinodontes before 1984), which is grouped into the subclass Elasmobranchii in the class Chondrichthyes. The shark is found in tropical and warm oceans and lives in the open sea. The species is believed to have originated about 60 million years ago.

The whale shark inhabits the world's tropical and warm-temperate oceans. While thought to be primarily pelagic, seasonal feeding aggregations of the sharks occur at several coastal sites such as Ningaloo Reef in Western Australia; Útila in Honduras; Donsol and Batangas in the Philippines; off Isla Mujeres and Isla Holbox in Yucatan Mexico; and the Tanzanian islands of Pemba and Zanzibar. Though it is often seen offshore, it has also been found closer to shore, entering lagoons or coral atolls, and near the mouths of estuaries and rivers. Its range is restricted to about ±30 ° latitude. It is found to a depth of 700 metres (2,300 ft). The whale shark is solitary and rarely seen in groups unless feeding at locations with an abundance of food. Males range over longer distances than females (which appear to favor specific locations).

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

WHALE SHARK

JAZZ9OMETEOTL LONN & SMILE

JAZZ9OMETEOTL LONN & SMILE

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