Christine Sun Kim

Christine Sun Kim (born 1980) is an American sound artist based in Berlin. Working predominantly in drawing, performance, and video, Kim's practice considers how sound operates in society. Musical notation, written language, American Sign Language (ASL), and the use of the body are all recurring elements in her work. Her work has been exhibited in major cultural institutions internationally, including in the Museum of Modern Art's first exhibition about sound in 2013 and the Whitney Biennial in 2019. She was named a TED Fellow in both 2013 and 2015, a Director's Fellow at MIT Media Lab in 2015, and a Ford Foundation Disability Futures Fellow in 2020.
Background and education.
Christine Sun Kim was born in 1980 and raised in Southern California with hearing parents and a deaf sister. She has been profoundly deaf since birth. She attended University High School in Irvine, California and graduated from Rochester Institute of Technology in 2002 with a degree in Interdisciplinary Studies. She has a Master of Fine Arts in Visual Art from the School of Visual Arts in New York, and another in Sound and Music from Bard College.
Art Style.
Kim investigates the operations of sound and various aspects of Deaf culture in her performances, videos, and drawings. In developing her personal visual language, Kim draws from a variety of information systems. She uses elements from these systems such as body language, American Sign Language (ASL), musical and graphic notation, and language interpretation, inventing new structures for her compositions and extending each source's scope of communication. She further uses sound to explore her own relationship to verbal languages and her environment. Through her work, she gains control of voice and sound, seeking to release them from social conventions.
Notable Performances.
In 2015, she presented a TED Talk at a TED fellows retreat focusing on her relationship to sound, and how she has come to discover similarities between American Sign Language and music. She discussed how she felt that sound does not have to be solely experienced through auditory means.
In 2020, she performed at Super Bowl LIV, in what has become an annual partnership between the National Football League (NFL) and the National Association of the Deaf (NAD). She later penned an op-ed in "The New York Times" criticizing Fox Sports for cutting away during her American Sign Language performances of "America the Beautiful" and the national anthem.
Artworks.
"The Sound of".
Kim uses sound to explore her feelings in a unique way, as writer Molly Hannon addresses. Kim’s series of drawing, “The Sound of, ” was exhibited at Rubin Museum of Art. “It all goes back to my experience watching the film, "Kumiko, The Treasure Hunter."” said Kim. Even though there was not much dialogue, she was fascinated by how detailed and descriptive the captions of the movie were. She started to wonder if she was able to portray the sound of intangible objects like emotions or senses. This has become the essential reason she created this series. She takes traditional music dynamics and refashions them into music notes. In one of her drawings, "The Sound of Obsessing," Kim uses the symbol “p” to represent the sound of piano and indicate the note is played quietly. As more “p” appears, the notes are played more quietly. Kim concretizes abstract ideas. She believes that obsession has a repetitive pattern and can take up a person’s mind. She illustrates this pattern with the “p”s. “As time goes on, the obsession quickens, represented by the shrinking distance of p’s. Finally, at the end, the p’s are crowded and your mind is racing non-stop. You become totally engrossed with your obsession.”
"Degrees of Deaf Rage".
In 2018, Christine Sun Kim created a collection of six charcoal drawings on paper that explore “navigating the hearing world as a deaf person” shown in her series titled "Degrees of Deaf Rage". The drawings depict various degrees of angles (acute rage, legit rage, obtuse rage, straight up rage, reflex rage, full on rage), each labeled with rage-inducing experiences Kim experiences as a Deaf person. She states, “Deaf rage is a real thing. In the Deaf community, it’s something we know so well because we’ve all gone through it.” She hopes to “communicate to a wider audience who are not deaf” and are unfamiliar with her culture, as Deaf people are a cultural entity and not just a group of isolated people who have impaired hearing. Kim uses familiar and relatable formats in Degrees of Deaf Rage so that her “deaf ideas” are easily understandable and accessible to hearing individuals as she explains, “It's like mathematical angles. How much rage do I have? You can see it in that size of the angle”.


Ships in Harbour, Evening

Ships in Harbour, Evening (German - "Schiffe im Hafen am Abend") is an 1828 oil on canvas painting by the German artist Caspar David Friedrich, now in the Galerie Neue Meister in Dresden.


The Nice Guys

The Nice Guys is a 2016 American neo-noir action comedy film directed by Shane Black and written by Black and Anthony Bagarozzi. The film stars Russell Crowe, Ryan Gosling, Angourie Rice, Matt Bomer, Margaret Qualley, Keith David and Kim Basinger. Set in 1977 Los Angeles, the film focuses on a private eye (Gosling) and a tough enforcer (Crowe) who team up to investigate the disappearance of a teenage girl (Qualley).
"The Nice Guys" premiered on May 11, 2016, in Hollywood, and also screened on May 15 at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival, before being released by Warner Bros. Pictures in the United States on May 20, 2016. It received positive reviews from critics for its humor, mystery, and the performances of Crowe, Gosling, and Rice, and grossed $62 million on a $50 million budget.
Plot.
In 1977 Los Angeles, a young boy named Bobby admires a magazine centerfold of porn star Misty Mountains, when Misty herself crashes her car through the boy's house and dies afterwards. Down-on-his-luck private eye Holland March is hired by Misty's aunt, who claims to have seen her still alive. March's investigation leads him to Amelia Kuttner, an associate of Misty's who later pays enforcer Jackson Healy to scare March away. Healy barges into March's house and breaks his arm before leaving.
Healy is interrogated by two thugs, “Blueface” — so named after he sets off a dye pack while searching Healy's apartment — and Older Guy, about Amelia. Healy wards them off with a shotgun, and teams up with a reluctant March to find Amelia first.
March and Healy question Amelia's anti-pollution protest group and meet Chet, who brings them to the burnt-down house of Amelia's boyfriend Dean, who died in the fire. They learn that Amelia and Dean were working with Misty on an "experimental film" — combining pornography and investigative journalism — called "How Do You Like My Car, Big Boy?"
The two infiltrate a party in search of the film's financier, Sid Shattuck. Healy discovers the film is missing, while a drunken March finds Shattuck dead, and unknowingly crosses paths with Amelia. March's daughter Holly, having snuck along to the party, manages to stop Blueface from killing Amelia. Blueface is struck in a hit-and-run, and Amelia flees. Healy subdues Older Guy and finds Blueface dying, who tells Healy his boss has dispatched a hit man named John Boy to kill Amelia, March, and all other witnesses. Healy discreetly strangles Blueface to death. The police arrive at the scene, and March and Healy are met by Amelia's mother, Judith Kuttner, a high-ranking official in the Justice Department , who claims Amelia is delusional and believes Judith wants her dead. Judith hires the duo to find her daughter.
March and Healy go to an airport hotel where Amelia is meeting with distributors for the film. John Boy has arrived ahead of them; they witness the businessmen being slaughtered and hastily retreat, only for Amelia to land on their car and shoot at them, knocking herself unconscious. They take her to March's house, where she reveals that her mother is in the pocket of the cartel-like Detroit automakers. After uncovering evidence that they suppressed the catalytic converter, which regulates exhaust emissions, Amelia created the film to expose their collusion, and her mother has had everyone connected to the film killed.
March tells Judith's assistant Tally that Amelia has been found and is at March's house. Tally tells them that Judith has requested they deliver a briefcase of $100,000 to Judith and informs them the family's doctor will go to March's house to check on Amelia. When March crashes the car, the briefcase flies open to reveal shredded magazines; the delivery was a diversion to leave Amelia unprotected. John Boy arrives at March's house disguised as the family doctor, attacking Holly and her friend Jessica, then engaging in a shootout with March and Healy before evading the police. Amelia flees the house only to be killed by John Boy when she unwittingly flags down his car.
March and Healy are questioned by the police and then released, having no evidence that Judith is behind the murders. March realizes that nearsighted Mrs. Glenn didn't see Misty two days after her death; Mrs. Glenn saw Misty in a movie projected against a wall. At Misty's house, they discover a film projector, but the film is missing. They realize that Chet is the projectionist for the Los Angeles Auto Show and will try to screen the film at the event. At the auto show, Healy and March are intercepted at gunpoint by Tally, who is then distracted by Holly and knocked unconscious. Healy finds Chet, who has spliced the film into the auto show presentation. The film plays to the entire auto show, implicating the auto executives. On the roof, March struggles with Older Guy, who falls to his death while March lands in the pool. Holly stops Tally from reaching the film. Healy overpowers John Boy, but spares his life at Holly's ultimatum, and March secures the film from thugs sent by the auto executives.
Judith is arrested, but insists she did not want Amelia killed and that it was Detroit who wanted Amelia dead. Judith hired March and Healy to keep Amelia safe, and remarks that while she will go to jail, Detroit has still gotten away with trying to suppress the catalytic converter. Later, at a bar on Christmas Eve, March shows Healy an advertisement for their new detective agency called "The Nice Guys".
Production.
Development.
Like Black's previously directed film "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang", "The Nice Guys" takes inspiration from Brett Halliday, namely his novel "Blue Murder". Black initially wrote a version of the script along with Anthony Bagarozzi in 2001 which established the characters but otherwise was vastly different. According to Black, each would start with one detective, he with March and Bagarozzi with Healy. Along the way, they swapped characters and eventually wrote a first draft. This version of the script failed to attract any buyers, and then Black reworked it into a 64-page version that would serve for a television pilot. CBS became attracted to it, but given the contents led to many objections by the Standards and Practices department, it eventually did not progress. Black would later, upon promoting the release of the final film, speak disparagingly of the idea of the television series, stating that such a show "wouldn't have been any good". By 2009, Bagarozzi suggested changing the film from a contemporary setting to the 1970s. Black's producer friend Joel Silver was initially wary of the idea as he felt audiences would not be as welcoming to a period piece, but he changed his mind after producing "Sherlock Holmes". Black stated the change in time period helped as in contrast to "the divisiveness that we see now", the 1970s was full of multiculturalism and "was the aftermath of the protests and you got a sense that we are all in it together". The contents also drew from films of the period such as "Vanishing Point" and "Five Easy Pieces". Bagarozzi noted how the title "The Nice Guys" aimed to be ironic and non-descriptive, as the two main characters were "literally the two worst people that we could think of and then trying to make that fun," given "one breaks arms for a living and the other cons old ladies out of money."
Casting.
After Black completed "Iron Man 3" in 2013, Silver asked him what he wanted to do next, and he expressed interest in doing "The Nice Guys". The scripts were sent to Ryan Gosling and Russell Crowe, and both wound up taking the roles specially for the prospect of working with one another. Gosling even stated that when he read the script already picturing Crowe as Healy, "the movie just immediately became so funny" as he had never seen Crowe in a similar role. Gosling and Crowe accepted in a period of three days, and Black cited the casting as the reason the film was able to move forward, summed up as "After thirteen years it just popped into place in three days". The film was announced in June 2014, and other casting news followed with Margaret Qualley and Angourie Rice officially joining in September. Matt Bomer, Keith David, Beau Knapp, and Kim Basinger were confirmed in October, and Ty Simpkins and Jack Kilmer were announced in November.
Filming.
Principal photography began on October 27, 2014, in Atlanta and Decatur, Georgia. While production designer Richard Bridgland saw a challenge in that the green Atlanta differed too much from desertic Los Angeles, he found some fitting locations such as Dallas Austin's house, whose design was based on what architect John Lautner found in Southern California, and the Atlanta Hilton, which had not changed at all since being built in 1976. On October 31, a police station scene was filmed in Atlanta among extras. Filming also took place in Los Angeles, mostly to get exteriors of locations such as The Comedy Store.
Bridgland did his best to recreate the 1970s, researching from Super 8 films to documentary photographs, and basing the furniture on designers such as Verner Panton. Even the Misty Mountains glamour photography had Bridgland recruiting Arny Freytag, responsible for most "Playboy" centerfolds of the decade. For its part, Warner Bros. used its 1972–84 title featuring the "Big W" logo designed by Saul Bass for Warner Communications to open the film.
Music.
John Ottman, who had scored Shane Black's "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang", was brought to do the music for "The Nice Guys" along with David Buckley. Ottman drew inspiration from 1970s shows such as "S.W.A.T." and "The Dean Martin Show", with "The Streets of San Francisco" being a particular influence on the main theme. Ottman detailed that the difference to "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang" was that now the music was more song-driven, with Black stating that the songs would contrast to the neo-noir tone by focusing on mainstream, exuberant songs of the decade.
Lakeshore Records issued soundtrack albums for both the featured music and original score. The soundtrack also got a special collector's edition vinyl designed by Los Angeles-based creative services company iam8bit to create "something that seemed like it was an artifact from the seventies" and also "drew from the fictional world of the movie and give you something tactile you can hold in your hand", with the gatefold being a 3D centerfold of Misty Mountains, and the packaging including posters of Sid Shattuck films and a business card for The Nice Guys Agency.
Release.
In the United States, the film was originally scheduled for a June 17, 2016, release, which Warner Bros. moved up to May 20, 2016, giving its previous date to "Central Intelligence". The film had its premiere at the TCL Chinese Theatre in Hollywood on May 11, followed by a 1970s-themed after-party at The Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, and screened at Cannes on May 15. The film was released on digital on August 9, 2016, and DVD and Blu-ray on August 23, 2016.
Box office.
"The Nice Guys" grossed $36.3 million in the United States and Canada and $25.5 million in other countries for a worldwide total of $62.8 million, against a production budget of $50 million.
In North America, the film was released on May 20, 2016, alongside ' and "The Angry Birds Movie", and was projected to gross around $10 million from 2,865 theaters in its opening weekend. It grossed $3.9 million on its first day, including $700,000 from Thursday night previews. In its opening weekend the film grossed $11.3 million, finishing fourth at the box office behind "The Angry Birds Movie" ($39 million), ' ($33.1 million) and "Neighbors 2" ($21.8 million). Phil Walden of "Forbes" argued that the film could have performed higher if not for sharing its release with "Neighbors 2", which shared the same older demographic the film targeted. The film made $6.5 million in its second weekend (including $8.4 million over the four-day Memorial Day weekend), finishing seventh.
Critical response.
On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 91% based on 315 reviews, with an average score of 7.60/10. The website's critical consensus reads, ""The Nice Guys" hearkens back to the buddy comedies of a bygone era while adding something extra, courtesy of a knowing script, and the irresistible chemistry of its leads." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 70 out of 100, based on 51 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B–" on an A+ to F scale, while PostTrak reported filmgoers gave it a 75% overall positive score and a 52% "definite recommend".
Mike Ryan of "Uproxx" gave the film a positive review, praising Black's writing, and saying: "If you like Shane Black, you will like "The Nice Guys". It's probably the Shane Black-est of all the Shane Black movies. Black has a knack for turning action movie expectations on their head mixed with knowing and rich dialogue." IGN gave the film a 9/10, writing, "Working from a tight and sharp script that perfectly balances the characters like a yin and yang of screw-ups ensures "The Nice Guys" is an absolute joy every step of the way." Richard Roeper of "Chicago Sun-Times" gave 3 stars out 4 and wrote, "Forget about Kevin Hart and Ice Cube in "Ride Along 2", or Zac Efron and Robert De Niro in "Dirty Grandpa", or Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson in "Zoolander 2". Russell Crowe and Ryan Gosling are the funniest duo of the year so far in "The Nice Guys"". James Berardinelli described the film as reminiscent of "Boogie Nights". Berardinelli wrote, "The Nice Guys is a refreshingly adult movie entering a marketplace saturated by teen-friendly superhero flicks and animated family fare. It's edgy (although not so edgy that it will turn off a mass market audience), funny, and fast-paced", and he gave a score of 3 out of 4.
On the other hand, Rex Reed of "New York Observer" gave a score of 0 and he felt that the film is "another sub-mental movie for morons churned out by the kind of sophomoric Hollywood machine that trademarks the works of Judd Apatow & Co." A. O. Scott of "The New York Times" wrote that the film lacks the wistful, slyly political sense of history that Paul Thomas Anderson's "Inherent Vice" had. Scott wrote, "Even nostalgic nonsense requires more than attitude and energy, which is all that Mr. Black has to offer. And despite all its restless detective work, "The Nice Guys" is unable to track down a soul or a reason for being." Todd McCarthy of "The Hollywood Reporter" wrote, "That the film mostly falls flat has far more to do with the largely unconvincing material rather than with the co-stars, who are more than game for the often clownish shenanigans Black and his co-writer Anthony Bagarozzi have concocted for them; in fit and starts, the actors display a buoyant comic rapport." McCarthy, however, praised the production design (by Richard Bridgland) and costume design (by Kym Barrett) due to their "vivid reminders of how much L.A. has spruced itself up over the past 40 years"; and the cinematography (by Philippe Rousselot) due to "the figurative and possibly even literal use of a smog filter to evoke a physically and morally toxic environment."
Future.
Possible sequel.
In May 2016, prior to the film's release, Black said of a follow-up, "I think it's a little premature to consider a sequel. I don't believe in jinxes necessarily, but we really need people to see this one before we can even talk about that. We're up against some stiff superhero competition and we just need people to, you know, maybe see "" six times, but not the seventh and see us instead." In August 2018, Black reiterated his desire to make a sequel, although noted the film probably did not gross enough at the box office to make it likely.
Television spin-off.
In September 2017, Fox gave a script commitment to a contemporary female-led television version titled "The Nice Girls", to be produced by Silver Pictures Television with a script by Michael Diliberti.


Aurora Robson

Aurora Robson is a Canadian-American artist who works in sculpture, installation, painting and collage focusing on themes related to the environment.
Early life and education.
Born in Canada in 1972, Robson grew up in Hawaii and now resides in New York. Robson attended Columbia University where she graduated with a B.A. in visual arts and art history.
Work.
Robson's primary focus is creating works made with plastic collected by intercepting the waste stream, repurposing plastic into art before it is sent to recycling. While her initial work was with common household plastics like water bottles and caps, she is currently focused on large scale sculptures made with industrial plastic. She also paints and creates 3-dimensional collages made with junk mail and excess packaging.
In 2008, Robson founded Project Vortex, a not-for-profit organization consisting of artists, designers and architects from around the world that also work with plastic. The organization strives to bring awareness to plastic pollution and encourage cleanups of waterways. In 2013, she gave a Ted talk at TedxPeachtree entitled "Trash+Love" introducing "Sculpture+Intercepting the Waste Stream," an open source course she designed to foster creative stewardship at academic institutions. The course was first taught by Robson at Mary Baldwin University in 2012. Her goal for the course is to inspire others to look at junk differently and rather than discard it, to create art.
Robson is the recipient of numerous grants including the Pollock Krasner Grant from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship in Sculpture, a TED/Lincoln Re-Imagine Prize and a National Endowment for the Arts Art Work Grant.
Robson's work and philosophies have been included in WIRED UK, Art & Antiques, Scholastic Issues, BBC News The Forum, National Geographic ASPIRE Textbook, Houston Chronicle and other publications, programs and textbooks.
Some of her exhibitions include: "Plastic Fantastic" at Honolulu Museum of Art in Honolulu HI, "Sacrifice + Bliss" at Franklin Park Conservatory & Botanical Gardens in Columbus OH; "Stayin’ Alive" at the McColl Center for Art + Innovation in Charlotte, NC; "Everything, All At Once, Forever" at the Figge Art Museum in Davenport IA and "The Great Indoors" at the Rice Gallery in Houston TX. In 2018, she opened "Gravity Schmavity" at Penn State Arboretum, PA
The sculpture "Dyno" is permanently installed at The Kingsbrae Garden in Saint Andrews, New Brunswick, Canada. It was made with broken plastic fish boxes. Her sculpture "Lift" is installed permanently in the Gibbs Recreation and Wellness Center at Rice University. "Lift" has solar powered motors that help it rotate and is made with 10,000 discarded plastic bottles and 3,000 bottle caps.


Baptism of Christ (Mantegna)

The Baptism of Christ is a casein tempera and gold on canvas painting, measuring 176 by 230 cm and dating to around 1506. It and "The Holy Family and the Family of Saint John the Baptist" were painted by Andrea Mantegna for his funerary chapel at the Basilica of Sant'Andrea, Mantua - the chapel was dedicated to John the Baptist, hence the choice of subjects. They were both found in his studio after his death by his son Francesco and placed in the chapel, where they still hang.
"Baptism" is incomplete and was probably worked up by Francesco, a less-skilled artist - the colour on the mantle of the unknown character on the right may be his work. Above is the Holy Spirit descending as a dove, whilst a figure to the left is probably an angel holding Christ's garments. The central background is hilly, whilst the looming rock to the right is similar to that in "Triumph of Virtue" (1499-1502). The orange tree to the right and the lemon tree to the left recall the background of the "Trivulzio Madonna" (1497).


Maska (2020 film)

Maska is a 2020 Indian Hindi-language drama film written and directed by Neeraj Udhwani. It stars Manisha Koirala, Javed Jaffrey, Nikita Dutta, debutant Shirley Setia and Prit Kamani. The film follows a guy who sets out to fulfil his dream of becoming an actor until he meets a girl who helps him discover the reality. "Maska" was released on Netflix on 27 March 2020.
Plot.
Rumi Irani is the Successor of Rustom Irani, His father who used to run the Rustom Cafe, in South Bombay. His mother, Diana Irani, Runs the cafe with basic Menus. He is destined to take over the Business and revamp it since the death of his father after he completes his graduation. One day, he wins the Mr. Feroz Shah Bag contest, alongside Persis Mistry, who wins the Miss Feroz shah Bag Award. There he develops a passion for becoming an actor. He gets Enrolled in an acting school, and gets into a relationship with a Punjabi divorcee, Mallika.
On the graduation day, Rumi does not get the Best actor award that he had anticipated he would win. Whereas Mallika receives the best actress award.
Mallika convinces Rumi into a Live in, and Rumi takes about her to his mother, who certainly does not approve a divorcee Punjabi girl, and tells him that, and that he would not have her blessing. In desperation, Rumi sells his Father's watch and flees with the money.
He starts living in Andheri with Mallika, and starts giving auditions. His acting not being up to the mark, is rejected everywhere. Meanwhile, Mallika Gets the lead role in a web series. Fed up, When Rumi is about to get over his dream, he learns about a director, who does not have Funds for a film he wants to make. And anybody who brings him funds will be casted as hero. Desperate to start act, Rumi decides to sell his cafe. Persis is making a coffee table book on the irani cafes of bombay. She spends time with Rumi, and falls in love with him and asks him to take her virginity. Hesitating, he decides to accept her proposal, and they make out at his place, The Cafe.
The day of the Sale of the cafe arrives, and his mother gets to know about why he came back from Andheri. Diana signs the papers, transferring the power of attorney to him, and letting him sell the cafe. At the time of The deal, his mind changes, and he Decides to give up his dream of Acting, as it was only a Delusion. He breaks up with Mallika, Only to reconcile with Persis, and all of them are seen to celebrate the Centenary of the Rustom Cafe with Boman Irani as the Guest.
Soundtrack.
The soundtrack album is composed by Akshay Raheja, Mikey McCleary and Ketan Sodha with lyrics written by IP Singh, Mikey McCleary, Shirley Setia, Jonita Gandhi and Neeraj Udhwani.


The Stand In (2020 film)

The Stand In is a 2020 American comedy film directed by Jamie Babbit, written by Sam Bain, and starring Drew Barrymore, Michael Zegen, T.J. Miller and Holland Taylor. It was released on December 11, 2020.
Plot.
A disaffected comedy actress and her ambitious stand-in trade places.
Production.
In February 2018, Drew Barrymore joined the cast of the film and served as a producer under her company banner, with Jamie Babbit directing from a screenplay by Sam Bain. In January 2019, Michael Zegen joined the cast of the film. In February 2019, Charlie Barnett, Ellie Kemper, T.J. Miller and Holland Taylor joined the cast of the film. Principal photography began in New York City in January 2019. In February, filming took place in Lexington and Versailles, Kentucky.
Release.
It was scheduled to premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival on April 23, 2020. However, the festival was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In July 2020, Saban Films acquired distribution rights to the film. It was released on December 11, 2020. It was released on Netflix on April 10, 2021.
Reception.
The film received negative reviews from film critics. It holds a 31% approval rating on review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, based on 36 reviews, with a weighted average of 4.60/10. The website's critics consensus reads: "Despite impressively committed work from Drew Barrymore in a dual role, "The Stand In" struggles to find the humor in a premise with no shortage of comedic potential." On Metacritic, the film holds a rating of 38 out of 100, based on seven critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews".


Landscape at Auvers in the Rain

Landscape at Auvers in the Rain is an oil on canvas painting by the Dutch Post-Impressionist painter Vincent van Gogh.
Painted in July, 1890, and completed just 3 days before his death, it depicts a landscape at Auvers-sur-Oise, where van Gogh spent the last years of his life. It is one of thirteen double-square canvases of landscapes around Auvers completed by van Gogh between June 17 and July 27. The depiction of the rain with dark, diagonal lines is considered to be inspired by Japanese art, specifically the woodcuts of Hiroshige. It also displays the visceral relationship between nature and emotion that is a trademark of van Gogh's later work, as well as the stylistic innovations of a raised horizon line, expressive brushstrokes, and bold colors. This was one of Van Gogh's last paintings before his death and symbolizes the cycle of human suffering contrasted with a sense of hope. The painting was bought by Gwendoline Davies in 1920 in Paris, and was donated to the National Museum of Art in Cardiff, Wales, as part of her bequest in 1952.
Background.
Vincent van Gogh became an artist at the age of 27, and continued painting until his alleged suicide on July 29, 1890 at the age of 37. Originally based in his home country of the Netherlands, van Gogh spent the last four years of life painting in France, where his greatest artistic innovation occurred. As his mental health, allegedly caused by an epileptic disorder, declined, van Gogh chose to enter a private asylum in Saint-Remy-de-Provence in the South of France. He spent fifteen months there, continuing to develop a distinct artistic style. Then, he moved to the small village of Auvers-sur-Oise in northern France, where he spent the last three months of his life.
Van Gogh lived in Auvers from May to 27 July 1890. In those seventy days, the artist painted over seventy works, enjoying his newfound autonomy after being institutionalized by producing art fanatically. His main correspondences were with his brother Theo van Gogh whom he wrote to in Paris, and Doctor Paul Gachet, a local homeopathic practitioner who was interested in Post-Impressionist art and kept an eye on the artist. Despite his renewed freedom, his mental health continued to deteriorate, leading to his suicide. In the last two months of van Gogh’s life, the artist engaged in his “most daring stylistic experiments and freed himself from any remaining academic constraints, which had still hampered his work in the previous months”. Notably, he painted twelve double-square canvases of the gardens and fields around Auvers in the last ten days of his life, which displayed some of his most innovative techniques in terms of color and composition. "Landscape at Auvers in the Rain" was part of this collection of works, which were likely meant to be a coherent series, and was painted within the last three days before his suicide.
Development.
Setting.
Twenty miles northwest of Paris, Auvers was a popular artist colony “discovered” by Barbizon painter Charles-François Daubigny, who lived there in the 1870s. The village attracted those engaged in the Impressionist movement due to its tranquility and the contrast between its natural environment and the nearby capital city. An influential art colony for 30 years, Auvers provided rich landscapes as well as a sharp contrast between the old, quaint cottages and new industrial features, such as the railroad. In Auvers, van Gogh painted portraits, villages, and fields, focusing more on the natural beauty and provincial village life than the new mechanical innovations. Van Gogh largely edited out any signs of industrialization because he was “more interested in finding a new way of painting traditional motifs- whether through achieving a particular effect of light, or through the expressive use of color- than recording the encroachment of modern life”. Therefore, in "Landscape at Auvers in the Rain", van Gogh chose to focus on the old world charm of the village, from the shaped thatched roofs of the houses to the old cottages, and the natural beauty of Auvers, from the bustling meadows to the dark trees.
Environmentally, Auvers contrasted significantly with Southern France, leading van Gogh to develop new styles to convey his evolving relationship with the novel natural features of the land, reflecting the transition from the hot and dry climate of the South to the “cooler, rainy weather in the north that nourished gardens in Auvers.” The climate inspired him to capture the falling rain in "Landscape at Auvers in the Rain", but it also revived him on a spiritual level, as he wrote that in Auvers there was “beautiful greenery in abundance” and that it was “far enough from Paris… to be in the real countryside” with a sense of “well-being in the air”. The new location also inspired shifts in artistic technique, as van Gogh explored a heightened palette of bright greens and yellows, expressive brushwork, and innovative compositions, creating some of his most daring works.
Influences.
For "Landscape at Auvers in the Rain", van Gogh drew inspiration from both French and Japanese art, creating a distinctly personal style. Originally a “peasant painter” who emulated the Dutch greats, van Gogh shifted from dark, somber hues to embracing the vibrant colors of the Post-Impressionist movement. Once he moved to France, van Gogh drew inspiration from the works of innovators such as Monet, Pissarro, and Seurat, and began to experiment with brushstroke and color, emulating the Impressionist and Pointillist styles in his paintings. Importantly, van Gogh was heavily influenced by fellow Post-Impressionist artist Gauguin, who he connected with due to their “submission of nature to the expression of emotion in their works.” Entering his Auvers period, van Gogh, due to his lack of self-confidence and faltering faith in artistic innovation, also sought inspiration from the older generation of French artists such as Delacroix and Daubigny. In particular, his choice of the double-square format was inspired by Daubigny, “who had a strong predilection for canvases that were twice as wide as they were high, ideal for picturing sweeping landscapes”. Due to Theo's extensive collection of Japanese art, Vincent was also highly influenced by art from Japan and the Japonisme movement. In "Landscape at Auvers in the Rain", van Gogh uses dark, diagonal strokes to represent rain, a technique directly influenced by the woodcut "Sudden Shower Over Shin-Ohashi Bridge and Atake" by the Japanese artist Hiroshige, which he copied for training in 1887. Through his varied sources of inspiration, van Gogh "wanted somehow to combine past and present, North and South, Rembrandt and Delacroix, Europe and the Far East”.
Composition.
Van Gogh’s exploration of 50 cm × 100 cm (20 in × 39 in), double-square canvases allowed him to convey the fields surrounding Auvers with a greater sense of boundlessness. In his final letter to Theo he expressed that he was “quite absorbed in the immense plain with wheatfields against the hills” he found in Auvers, a sense of awe he wished to display in his paintings. The artist created twelve landscapes of this size, but curiously, “van Gogh himself said nothing about why he began using these unusual formats" although "the paintings were probably envisioned as a series to be hung and exhibited together”. "Landscape at Auvers in the Rain" is a primary example of how these large canvases afforded him an expanse to represent the immense stretches of wheatfields that engulfed the village. He engages the viewer by illustrating a high horizon line, creating a birds-eye view, but tilting the foreground so that one feels oneself to be within the grassy hills and looking above them simultaneously. The image has a limitless, panoramic depth due to the artist’s “diametrically opposed compositional approach, an exaggerated wide-angle effect from an elevated vantage point, giving a remarkably broad view over the landscape.” Van Gogh’s use of perspective and cropping became bolder and more innovative as he progressed as an artist, especially noteworthy because "Landscape at Auvers in the Rain" is one of his final works, showing that he continued to evolve the entirety of his career. Fascinated with this striking perspective, graphic design researchers used digital analysis on "Landscape at Auvers in the Rain," among other works from the artist’s Auvers period, determining that “in Auvers, van Gogh moved toward simplifying the composition, trading it for an increase in contrast and chromaticity”.
Interpretations.
Subject.
"Landscape of Auvers in the Rain" portrays the town of Auvers as well as the wheatfields that surround it. Art historians believe that van Gogh most likely created the painting in a field near Méry-Sur-Oise, based on the angle of Notre Dame d’Auvers in the work. The view looks at the village from the perspective of a trail that cuts through the cemetery and fields surrounding the town. Notably, the houses of Auvers appear half sunken into the landscape surrounding the town, emphasizing the natural world over the provincial town, as the buildings “rhyme with the diagonals of the hillsides outside their doors” bleeding into the countryside. Furthermore, it is notable that van Gogh chose not to populate the town in this image, largely erasing any form of topography or narrative. This leaves the viewer with the saturated, abstracted features of the sky, hills, town, and fields without a context, forcing them to confront van Gogh’s intense brushstrokes and colors. However, critics note that “the loss of the particularity does not lead to mere pattern but to an unprecedented emphasis on the brute facts of the landscape and the viewer’s visceral relationship to it,” revealing that by choosing to portray a town’s close relationship to nature through an expressive, abstracted perspective, van Gogh is able to create a more unique, emotionally-engaging landscape than if he merely copied Auvers for artistic accuracy.
Van Gogh used wheatfields as an important motif in "Landscape at Auvers in the Rain", as “in these immense stretches of wheatfields under turbulent skies, he tried to express sadness and extreme loneliness, but at the same time how healthy fortifying the countryside was” in a sense combining his isolation and loneliness with the newfound freedom he found upon moving to Auvers. Noami Margolis Maurer emphasizes spiritual and psychological resonance of van Gogh’s illustration of the storm, noting “van Gogh’s association of wheat with humanity [leads to] his vision of the endlessly rolling landscape as a manifestation of infinity and eternity… for him, these vast fields of grain represented the vulnerable existence of mankind, and the storm epitomized those fateful, uncontrollable, but passing catastrophes which sweep through people’s lives.” Van Gogh's choice of subject matter reflects his own personal struggles with human catastrophe, as he battled mental illness and self-doubt amid his desire to create great art. The crows fluttering upward toward the foreground of the image are also an important motif of van Gogh’s Auvers period, notably from the image "Wheatfield with Crows", which shows them as an “object of approaching menace and anxiety whose swift advance signifies the fleeting passage of time and the inexorability of death.” Therefore, the wheatfields and crows that surround the town have a deeper meaning, reflecting the cyclical nature of life, sadness, and death, important themes that van Gogh contemplated throughout his career as an artist.
Artistic Style.
For this piece, critics noted that van Gogh “celebrated the landscape in its own language, echoing the action of rain and wind, growth and decay, rather than observing the refined conventions of the Western painting tradition” revealing the artist's tendency to distort reality in order to create a more expressive representation of his personal feelings. Characteristic of his Auvers period, "Landscape at Auvers in the Rain" has a richly saturated palette of brilliant yellows and purples and a boldly abbreviated form, abstracting the important elements of the landscape. This simplification of form connects to the broader composition of the work, which emphasizes the natural and emotional aura of the landscape over exact replication. However, his briefness is also indicative of the artist’s “obsessive desire to produce” that came during his Auvers period, likely due to his newfound sense of freedom and autonomy after his institutionalization. In a letter to his brother, van Gogh expressed how his move to Auvers impacted his stylistic choices, stating “I already feel that it did me good to go south, the better to see the north. It is as I thought, I see more violet hues wherever they are.” Purples are particularly apparent in the shadowed areas of "Landscape at Auvers in the Rain", where they “add a moving resonance to the landscapes and enhance the brilliance of the greens, yellows, and blues” as well as in the sky. These coloristic choices and bold brushstrokes are characteristic of the Post-Impressionist style, as this movement rejected the “concern for the naturalistic depiction of light and color in favor of an emphasis on abstract qualities or symbolic content.” Therefore, van Gogh's bold choices in color and brushwork are indicative of his evolving technique as an increasingly innovative, original artist.
Stylistically, van Gogh also emulated the Japonisme movement, or the European imitation of traditional Japanese art, in "Landscape at Auvers in the Rain". Japanese art was known to appear decorative and stylized. Through "Landscape at Auvers in the Rain"’s striking birds-eye perspective, patterned areas of color, and rhythmic brushstrokes, van Gogh created this decorative effect. In his depiction of the wheatfields in the painting, van Gogh uses abstraction and linear patterns rather than a naturalistic treatment of the earth, evoking the Japanese prints that he and Theo collected. Furthermore, Japanese prints typically emphasize contour and lack of perspective, emphasizing the patterned elements of an image, which corresponds to van Gogh’s choice to create a rhythmic portrayal of rain droplets, piercing the image. Notably, van Gogh took direct inspiration for this patterned conception of a storm from a print by Utagawa Hiroshige titled "Sudden Shower Over Shin-Ohashi Bridge and Atake". Hiroshige used vertical lines to create “a device which represents falling rain as multiple diagonal lines superimposed in the landscape”. Using this highly stylized representation of a downpour, van Gogh integrated concepts of Japonisme with French landscape traditions. To critics, "Landscape at Auvers in the Rain" has a “startling effect, which links [van Gogh] to his own past, to his passion for Japan, and to his continuing engagement with the brute elements".
Significance.
Just three days separate "Landscape at Auvers in the Rain" from van Gogh's alleged suicide. Despite van Gogh's agony, depression, and hopelessness, his painting has sometimes been interpreted as containing signs of hope and renewal, closely connected to the invigoration of spirit van Gogh felt when spending time outdoors. "Landscape at Auvers in the Rain" expresses the relationship between nature and emotion that is van Gogh’s signature form of expression, as he “imbued his landscapes with personal feelings… in his landscape paintings he wanted to express the emotions that nature evoked in him”. The artist distorted reality to enhance the expression of his emotions in the work. The image’s lack of distinct subject matter and identifying signs of Auvers relate to van Gogh's goal of creating a relationship between nature and emotion. One critic notes that van Gogh’s true innovation with "Landscape at Auvers in the Rain" is his ability to create an expansive image that transforms a landscape into a metaphor, noting that even singular forms in the painting, such as the crows, “lift from the fields and are lost in the vegetation beyond the motifs and subject matter, and as in other paintings of the same format, the painting itself becomes the subject matter… the motif is literally drowned in painting.” Through these stylistic choices, van Gogh urges the viewer to share in the intensity of his emotion and enter his own distorted expression of reality. Van Gogh's efforts to create a new type of landscape are reflected in his own words; in a letter to Theo at the end of his life he stated that he could “see from afar the possibility of a new painting," noting that “before such nature I feel powerless”.
The rainy storm is central to the emotional expression that "Landscape at Auvers in the Rain" aims to convey. The layered, horizontal bands reflecting the countryside are interrupted by the rain, which lashes down in great streaks across the canvas, creating a dramatic emotional impact. While these features are abstracted and stylized rather than naturalistic, they still maintain the sense of emotion the artist wished to convey, notably the cycle of human pain and suffering. Van Gogh himself associated the inevitable natural phenomena of rainstorms with the parallel inevitability of anguish throughout the human lifespan. However, the painting is not simply an expression of hopelessness and despair. Van Gogh wrote to Theo that nature was a refuge from his troubles, and specifically, “when suffering is sometimes so great it fills the whole horizon that it takes on the proportions of a hopeless deluge… it is better to look at a wheat field, even in the form of a picture.” To certain critics, his use of the bright yellows to signify the wheat-filled countryside was a symbol of comfort for van Gogh amid his distress because “it embodied the ongoing process of life, the irrelevance of the individual's fate in the overall beauty and harmony of the divine order.”
Reception.
While he did not find success during his lifetime, van Gogh's work became increasingly coveted after his death. Encouraged by her art dealer Hugh Blaker, Gwendoline Davies purchase "Landscape at Auvers in the Rain" in 1920 from the Bernheim-Jeune Gallery in Paris for £2,020 (). Davies and her sister, Margaret, inherited a fortune from their grandfather, David Davies, which they dedicated to amassing one of the largest collections of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist art in Britain during the early twentieth century. Davies brought the painting to Wales, where it was displayed in the music room of her home, Gregynog Hall. Notably, the painting was almost purchased by Japanese art collector a short time earlier, connecting to the piece's Japonisme elements. The painting was donated to the National Museum of Art in Cardiff, Wales, as part of Davies's bequest in 1952.


Giancarlo Vitali

Giancarlo Vitali (29 November 1929 – 25 July 2018) was an Italian painter and engraver.
Biography.
Vitali was born in Bellano, on Lake Como, into a family of fishermen. He began painting when he was fifteen, after having worked at the Institute of Graphic Arts of Bergamo. In 1947 he exhibited his first work at the Angelicum Gallery in Milan, on the occasion of the biennial exhibition of sacred art. In the following edition in 1949, the two works he exhibited, "Visitazione" and "Cena in Emmaus", were met with great appreciation by Carlo Carrà. Vitali was awarded a fellowship from the Brera Academy in Milan but because he wasn't able to support himself he was force to reject it.
In 1981 his son Velasco Vitali, also a painter, encouraged Giancarlo to start working as an engraver.
In 1983 critic and writer Giovanni Testori, expressed the wish to meet Vitali after seeing one of his paintings depicting a quartered rabbit. The meeting generated a profound and solid relationship, founded on mutual esteem and admiration, which later became a long deep-rooted friendship. In 1984 Testori wrote an article about Vitai's work in the third page of "Corriere della Sera "and went on to organize his first solo exhibition at La Compagnia del Disegno in Milan. Vitali would later have several exhibitions in public and private institutions and released a series of catalogues and engravings portfolios.
At the end of the 1980s he realized many public art works, including "The Portrays of Benefactors" at Ospedale Maggiore in Milan commissioned by the Foundation Ca' Granda.


The Verdict of the People

 The Verdict of the People is an 1854 painting by George Caleb Bingham, currently owned by the Saint Louis Art Museum.
The last painting of Bingham's Election Series, "The Verdict of the People" tells the end of the story represented in the series. Within this painting, Bingham hid several political motives and ideas similar to the rest of the Election Series. Historians say the painting depicts public reaction to a likely proslavery candidate's election victory.
Completed in 1854, the work covered issues of slavery, temperance, and a representative government, subjects that had gone from a local to a national level. During the early 1850s, the temperance movement grew and more states were abolishing alcohol. A book by Herman Humphrey, titled "Parallel between Intemperance and Slavery", associated the cause of anti-slavery to that of temperance. Bingham showed his view on intemperance and slavery by painting a banner that said, "Freedom for Virtue[,] Restriction for Vice." The banner referred to temperance by saying that the vice and alcohol would need to be restricted for the people to be free. The banner then references Bingham's ideas of slavery by using the connection of the temperance movement and the anti-slavery movement to show that Bingham thought negatively about slavery and shared that view with intemperance.
When Donald Trump was inaugurated as the 45th president of the United States on Jan. 20, 2017, "The Verdict of the People" was the chosen painting, hanging on a partition wall behind the ceremonial head table in the Capitol's Statuary Hall.


The Temptation of St Anthony (Kansas City)

The Temptation of Saint Anthony is a single-panel painting by Hieronymus Bosch housed in the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art.
There was a dispute as to whether this work was a Bosch autograph or a piece by the workshop until the Bosch Research and Conservation Project concluded it to be autograph based on evidence present in the underdrawing. It was exhibited in 2016 as part of the "Jheronimus Bosch—Visions of Genius" exhibition.


Snake (Nolan)

Snake is an artwork by Australian artist Sir Sidney Nolan. Created between 1970 and 1972, it consists of 1,620 panels arranged so that the images on each panel form a larger image of a snake. It is part of the collection of the Museum of Old and New Art (MONA) in Hobart, Australia.
Nolan is believed to have created the work after "he saw a mural in a Beijing palace that moved him to create an Australian version, inspired by the desert in springtime"
David Walsh, MONA's owner, purchased the work in 2005 for AUD$2m. Walsh modified his initial design for MONA to make space for the work. Before its installation there, "Snake" was shown in England and Ireland.


Bridge of Four Lions

Bridge of Four Lions () is a 28-metre-long pedestrian bridge over the Griboedov Canal in St Petersburg, connecting L'vinyi Drive to Malaya Podyacheskaya Street. The Lion Bridge is in the Admiralteysky District of St. Petersburg, connecting the Kazansky and Spassky Islands. Its abutments are crowned with four cast-iron sculptures of lions, which give the bridge its name. The structure, suspended by cables emerging from the mouths of lions, was constructed in 1825 according to the design of two well-established bridge builders, Tratter and Kristianovich. It is an outstanding monument of bridge-building architecture of the first quarter of the 19th century [5]. It is also one of the three surviving pedestrian chain bridges in St. Petersburg (along with Bank and Pochtamtsky bridges).
Location.
It connects Lviny Lane and Malaya Podyacheskaya Street. Upstream is the Podyachsky Bridge, below the Kharlamov Bridge. The nearest metro stations (1 km) are Sadovaya, Sennaya Ploshchad, and Spasskaya.
Name.
The Lion Bridge got its name from four cast-iron sculptures of lions by the sculptor PP Sokolov, located at the corners of the bridge [6]. Until 1912, the bridge was also called Mariinsky (after the former name of Lion Lane) and Teatralny pedestrian (along Teatralnaya square located nearby).
History.
The need to build a bridge was caused by the growth of population in the area adjacent to the Catherine Canal [9]. The bridge project was developed by the engineers Tratter and Kristianovich [10]. Simultaneously with Lvin, a project was drawn up for the second chain pedestrian bridge across the canal - Bankovsky. On February 18, 1825, both projects were approved, and the construction of the bridge began in the summer of the same year [3]. It was supposed to be completed by October of the same year, but due to a delay in the manufacture of metal parts of the bridge, assembly of the bridge began in the spring of 1826. For the construction of the bridge supports, the embankment backbone was dismantled (without dismantling the granite facing) [4]. The manufacture of cast iron and metal parts, as well as the assembly of elements at the construction site, was carried out by the Byrd plant [3]. On July 1, 1826, the bridge was opened for traffic [4].
The sculptures of lions were made by academician P.P.Sokolov. Work on the creation of the models lasted from May to September 1825, and the sculptor also made alabaster molds [5]. The sculpture was supposed to be minted from copper sheets, but then the figures were cast from cast iron at the Alexandrovsky iron foundry [5] [11]. The sculptures of lions were painted in matt white marbled paint.
In 1882, all the wooden parts of the bridge were replaced, the cast iron railings were replaced with iron forged ones of a very primitive design, the lanterns located in the middle of the bridge were dismantled [12] [2]. The right-bank embankment of the canal was raised by one row of granite stones, while the figures of lions with pedestals and chains were raised [13].
In 1948, by engineer A. M. Yanovskiy, a major reconstruction of the bridge was carried out including the replacement of wooden longitudinal beams with metal I-beams [11]. In 1954, a new handrail and lanterns were installed on the bridge, made according to the original project, the white color of the lion sculptures was restored (after a series of unsuccessful dark paints) [5]. Restoration work on the reconstruction of the bridge rails, floor lamps with lanterns and the restoration of the original painting were carried out by the Special Scientific Restoration Production Workshops of the Office of Architecture, designed by the architect A. L. Rotach and the technician G. F. Perlina [14] [15].
In 1999-2000, according to the project of JSC Institute "Stroyproekt," the bridge was overhauled: the beams of the superstructure were replaced, the sculptures of lions were restored [16]. In 2018, work was carried out for the restoration of the lion sculptures[17] [18].
Copy of the bridge.
In 1838, a reduced copy of the bridge (length 17.3 m, width 2 m) was erected by the firm Borsig for the project of the German architect LF Hesse on territory of Berlin's Great Tiergarten park.
The Lion Bridge was the first Berlin suspension bridge. Unlike the original in St. Petersburg, the superstructure and railings of the Berlin Lion Bridge are still wooden.
Design.
The bridge is a single-span beam, the chains play a decorative role [1]. The superstructure consists of two welded double-tee beams made of low-alloy steel, combined with a chain hanging system with a distribution strip [16].
The function of the pylons is performed by the sculptured cast-iron frames (frames), attached with anchor bolts through the masonry to a wooden grille, compressed from above and below by massive cast-iron slabs, to which supporting chains are attached [19] [10]. A monolithic reinforced concrete slab was built under the pylons within the boundaries of the cast-iron pedestals of the sculptures [16]. The chains are made up of round metal links.
At the entrances to the bridge, sculptures of lions are installed on cast-iron pedestals. The railing is of artistic casting, and the design is a grid of a continuous rows of crossed rectangular rods, the ends of which at the top and bottom are connected by semicircular arcs of the same cross-section in the form of stylized eights, forming places for semicircular bronze rosettes [11]. A similar perimeter design was used for several St. Petersburg bridges (for example, the Ioannovsky bridge). In the middle of the bridge, two multifaceted lanterns on cast-iron posts rich in molding are mounted in the railings. Some parts of the bridge (balls and rosettes of the fence, shaped parts of lanterns, etc.) are gilded.
The width of the bridge between the railings is 2.28 m, the length of the bridge is 22.44 (27.8) m, the distance between the axes of the chains is 2.42 m [20] [3] [2]. The surface for the walkway of the bridge is wood.
References.
Footnotes.
1. Bogdanov, G. I., Yarokhno V.I. The Neva was dressed in granite, bridges hung over the waters ...: to the 200th anniversary of the St. Petersburg State University of Railways, 1809-2009, and the 125th anniversary of the "Bridges" department of PGUPS. - SPb .: Goland, 2009 .-- S. 156 .-- 174 p.
2. Stepnov, 1991, p. 308.
3. Bridges of Leningrad, 1986, p. 194.
4. Kochedamov, 1959, p. 219.
5. Kochedamov, 1959, p. 220.
6. Why are they named so?, 1996, p. 330.
7. Yerofeyev А. D., Vladimirovich А. G. Petersburg in street names. The origin of the names of streets and avenues, rivers and canals, bridges and islands. — SPb .: AST, 2009 .-- 752 p.
8. City names today and yesterday: Petersburg toponymy / comp. S. V. Alekseeva, A. G. Vladimirovich, A. D. Erofeev et al. - 2nd ed., Revised. and add. - SPb .: Lik, 1997 .-- S. 70 .-- 288 p. - (Three centuries of Northern Palmyra). - .
9. Kochedamov, 1959, p. 217.
10. RGIA. F. 1487. Op. 4.D. 273
11. Bridges of Leningrad, 1986, p. 196.
12. Petrov A.N. Architectural monuments of Leningrad. - L .: Stroyizdat, Leningrad. department, 1972 .-- p. 439 .-- 498 p.
13. Report of the St. Petersburg City Council for 1882. - SPb., 1883. - p. 306-307, 311.
14. Bridges of Leningrad, 1986, p. 197.
15. On the approval of the protective obligation of the Owner or other legal owner of the object of cultural heritage of federal significance "The Lion's Bridge", included in the unified state register of cultural heritage monuments of the peoples of the Russian Federation. Committee for State Control, Use and Protection of Historical and Cultural Monuments (October 10, 2017). Date of treatment October 19, 2019.
16. Lion Bridge over the Griboyedov Canal // AO "Institute" Stroyproekt "
17. Completed work on the restoration of 4 sculptures of lions on the Lion Bridge across the Griboyedov Canal // OOO "RM" Heritage "
18. Implementation of a set of measures for the restoration of museum items: 4 sculptures of lions (inv. No. 43 / 1-4) located on the Lion Bridge across the Griboyedov Canal in St. Petersburg // Unified information system in the field of procurement.
19. Bridges of Leningrad, 1986, p. 195.
20. Bridges and embankments of Leningrad, 1963, p. 104.


Joseph Wamps

Bernard-Joseph Wamps (30 November 1689, Lille - 9 August 1744, Lille) was a French painter; mostly of religious subjects.
Biography.
His father was listed in the "Registre aux Bourgeois" and he received his first lessons in his hometown from Arnould de Vuez. Later, he studied porcelain painting at the local manufactory and went to Paris, where he worked in the studios of Pierre-Jacques Cazes. Around 1706, he painted his first major work: "Saint John Preaching in the Wilderness", commissioned by the Lancry family.
In 1715, he was awarded the Prix de Rome of the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture with his rendering of Judith beheading Holofernes, and received a pension to study at the French Academy in Rome, where he spent five years.
After returning in 1720, he received numerous commissions from religious institutions and created decorations for the Governor's residence. He worked throughout the area, painting murals and other works at churches and convents in Douai, Cambrai, Arras, Tournai, Ghent and Valenciennes. Eventually, he acquired enough money to purchase the home of his former teacher, Vuez.
In, the loom-worker Guillaume Werniers produced a series of tapestries on the life of Christ, after drawings by Wamps. These were installed in the choir room of the "Église Saint-Sauveur". Most were later moved to museums, but one went to the "Église Saint Pierre d'Antioche" in Villeneuve-d'Ascq.
His paintings for Anchin Abbey were destroyed during World War II and are now preserved only as sketches. Other major works include "The Dream of Saint Joseph" and "The Resurrection of Christ" at the Hospice Comtesse and "The Judgment of David" at the Palais des beaux-arts de Lille.


Park McArthur

Park McArthur (born 1984, North Carolina, USA) is an artist living in New York City who works in sculpture, installation, text, and sound. McArthur is a wheelchair user whose work uses this position to inform her art.
Life and work.
McArthur graduated with a Masters in Fine Art from the University of Miami in 2009 and studied at the Whitney Museum of American Art’s Independent Study Program, 2011-2012. About McArthur's 2014 exhibition "Ramps", wherein the artist exhibited the wheelchair ramps of institutions with which she had previously worked, writer Andrew Blackley said, "The exhibition displayed the means by which institutions both produce and deny access. Each ramp challenged reappraisal and reinforced a set of past and future foreclosures. ‘Ramps’ enlisted generative, generous responses to the negativity of the institution, to the point of engendering the reproduction of those very negative characteristics (by removing the objects’ previously assumed ‘function’). By extension, at stake and always under threat are the threaded relationships between queerness and disability, the breakdown of their concomitant binaries and the temporality of care."
In 2015, McArthur addressed Felix Gonzalez-Torrez's ""Untitled" (Love Letter From the War Front)" in Whitney Museum of American Art, Lower Manhattan, New York.
McArthur's work has been described as questioning of "care alongside questions of autonomy and dependency" in regards to the daily experience of disabled individuals. McArthur uses her work to challenge the status quo and give those who are usually marginalized by societal structures a voice. Her choice of medium are sculptures and installations that "conceptually driven and often composed of utilitarian materials such as blocks of foam or a Wikipedia entry." Her works elicit an “experience of activism and jerry-built ingenuity.”
In 2014, McArthur won the Wynn Newhouse Award, an annual prize given to disabled artists in recognition of their artistic merit.
In 2015, McArthur was an Artadia Awardee.
McArthur is represented by Essex Street Gallery in New York.


Phoebe Washburn

Phoebe Washburn (born 1973) is an American installation artist who lives and works in New York City. Washburn is best known for producing large-scale installations: assemblages of garbage, detritus, cardboard, scrap wood, and, more recently, organic matter such as sod or plants. Her early, site-specific installations transform gallery spaces into captivating architectural experiences.
Career.
She holds a BFA from Tulane University and an MFA from School of Visual Arts. Her work has been exhibited around the world at Institute of Contemporary Art 2007, Deutsche Guggenheim 2007 and Whitney Biennial 2008. She is represented by Zach Feuer Gallery in New York.
Washburn is a process-based artist. She creates installations with help of assistants, due to the colossal size and labor-intensive methods she requires. Processes are architectural in nature including stacking, blinding, nailing, etc. The pieces tend to look organic, mirroring the processes, but also have that haphazard, precarious appeal as they are often stacked up with chairs or other props. The overall resulting work is reliant on the gallery space. Washburn dubs this 'spontaneous architecture' and continues by adding:
"My sculptures depend a lot on the spaces where they are shown because they often are anchored into the wall but chance is definitely more of a factor in the final product than is any predetermined design. I just let the structures evolve by repeating the same action again and again. The process has a slightly neurotic element in that it involves adding little behavior habits. As silly as it sounds, I often feel as if my assistants and I are beavers building a dam. The shapes are less about form than they are about the activity involved in amassing and assembling the forms."
A sample installation, "Vacational Trappings and Wildlife Worries" (exhibited during the summer of 2007 at Philadelphia's Institute of Contemporary Art) involved the creation of a "barrel-vaulted walkway made from hundreds of scrap-wood pieces" featuring several niches containing water, shrimp, snails, aquatic plants, and small objects, yiedling what Washburn called a 'poor man's aquarium'.
An earlier work, "Heavy Has Debt", (exhibited in 2003 in Grinnell, Iowa), was a "massive, shingled wall of debris," produced largely from mounted cardboard.
She chooses to give her works titles after they have been installed.


Back to the Secret Garden

Back to the Secret Garden is a 2001 family fantasy film. Produced for television, the film serves as a sequel to the 1987 "Hallmark Hall of Fame" film, "The Secret Garden". It contains some of the previous characters such as Lady Mary and Sir Colin Craven, who are now married, and Martha Sowerby, who is now the mistress of Misselthwaite Manor, which has become an orphanage for children whose parents died in World War II. They had appeared as children in the original story some 40 years earlier, and are now middle aged adults.
Plot.
In 1946, Lady Mary Craven (Cherie Lunghi) visits an American orphanage, telling the children about an exchange program that will allow one child to travel to England and stay at Misselthwaite Manor, now an orphanage. She meets young Lizzie Buscana (Camilla Belle), who is in the garden trying to take care of her mother's rose bush. Lady Mary tells Lizzie about the exchange program and the secret garden, whereupon Lizzie agrees to participate so she can see the garden for herself.
Lizzie arrives in England and is met at the train station by Martha Sowerby (Joan Plowright), who runs Misselthwaite Manor. Lizzie quickly discovers that the children are only allowed to be in the garden on Sunday after church and must be on their best behaviour and not touch anything.
Making friends with Geraldine, Steven and Robert (Aled Roberts), Lizzie visits the garden after curfew and realizes that she must help it. Returning to the manor Lizzie notices a fire in Robert's room, caused by Robert having fallen asleep with a candle still lit. After alerting everyone and helping put out the fire, she is questioned by Martha as to why she is still dressed and how she knew there was a fire. Lizzie tells Martha about her illicit visit to the garden, and Martha discovers that Lizzie stole the key to the garden. Martha discovers that Geraldine told Lizzie about the key, but Geraldine believes the key should belong to Lizzie, and that the garden has chosen her, instead of Martha, who could not find the door.
Geraldine (Florence Hoath), who is jealous of Lizzie, learns that Ms. Sowerby gave the key to Lizzie, and persuades Steven to steal it in revenge for Lizzie's rejection of his feelings. When Lizzie finds the key missing, she assumes that Robert has taken it, knowing of his animosity towards her. She goes to find the key with Robert and discovers that it was Steven (Justin Girdler) who took it, on Geraldine's instructions, and threw the key in the pond. Lizzie confronts Geraldine, who initially denies it, but confesses when Martha punishes her for being a liar.
Lizzie is told that maybe she does not need the key, because of the magic door. When Martha goes to meet Lady Mary, who has returned to Misselthwaite, she tells Mary of the garden's untended state, even though it has been well-tended in her absence. Lizzie realises that the garden has been starved of children's love and fun; with the help of Robert she gathers the orphans, who run to the quickly-reviving garden.
Lady Mary and Sir Colin (Leigh Lawson) arrive with Martha and are amazed, as the garden does not look dead as Martha had described. Lizzie tells Lady Mary that the garden needed love and that she should not have it closed. Lady Mary informs Lizzie that the garden belongs to her, and that it took "a girl from across the sea, many years ago" to bring the garden back to life, and that it has taken a girl from across the sea to do it again, and that it is up to her to do as she wishes with the garden. Lizzie announces that the garden will stay open so that all the children can enjoy it.


Slither (2006 film)

Slither is a 2006 American science-fiction black comedy horror film written and directed by James Gunn in his directorial debut. Produced by Paul Brooks and Eric Newman, the film stars Nathan Fillion, Elizabeth Banks, Tania Saulnier, Gregg Henry, and Michael Rooker. The film is set in a small town in South Carolina that becomes invaded by a malevolent alien parasite.
"Slither" was a box office failure, but received generally positive reviews from critics and has since become a cult film.
Plot.
A malevolent, sentient extraterrestrial parasite lands inside a meteorite and goes into the town of Wheelsy, South Carolina, where it infects wealthy resident Grant Grant, taking over his body and absorbing his mind. With the alien in control of his body, "Grant" begins to transform into a grotesque, tentacled monstrosity. He also abducts and infects a local woman, Brenda, to serve as a breeder for his alien larvae. His wife Starla becomes suspicious over the changes in his appearance and his behavior, leading to Grant attacking her. When the police arrive to rescue Starla, Grant flees.
During their search for Grant, a posse led by Police Chief Bill Pardy discovers Brenda, whose body has become inhumanly bloated from the larvae impregnated inside her. They see the floor littered with the remains of dead animals. As Brenda begs to be fed a possum, the slug-like larvae burst from her body, which infest everyone in town except Starla, Bill, Mayor Jack MacReady, and teenager Kylie Strutemyer. Those infected by the larvae become part of a hive mind controlled by Grant, who intends to consume all lifeforms until only his consciousness remains. However, Grant also retains his love for his wife and seeks to be reunited with her. The survivors deduce that killing Grant will eliminate the rest of the aliens before they are attacked by the infected townspeople. Bill and Kylie escape, but Starla and Jack are captured.
Armed with a grenade to kill the monster, Bill and Kylie head to Grant's home, where the infected are being absorbed by the increasingly-mutated Grant. Jack and others are turned into breeders for more larvae, while Grant keeps Starla uninfected in the hope of reclaiming her love. After euthanizing Jack at his own request, Bill tries to use the grenade, only for it to fall into a pool when Grant knocks it away. Grant subdues Kylie with a couch and attempts to infect Bill with his tentacles, but Bill manages to attach one of the tentacles to a propane tank. Filled with flammable gas, Grant is shot by Starla and explodes, killing the rest of the aliens in the process. With everyone else in Wheelsy dead, the three survivors head off to seek help.
In a post-credits scene, a cat approaches Grant's remains and becomes infected by the alien parasite.
Cast.
Additionally, William MacDonald and Iris Quinn portray Kylie's parents and Matreya Fedor and Amber Lee Bartlett portray her siblings Emily and Jenna. Other members of Bill's posse are played by Tom Heaton as Tourneur, Ben Cotton as Charlie, and Dee Jay Jackson as Dwight. Residents of Wheelsy include Dustin Milligan as a student in Starla's class, Lorena Gale as Starla's co-worker Janene, Darren Shahlavi as Brenda's husband, and Magda Apanowicz in an uncredited role as Kylie's friend. Troma Films co-founder Lloyd Kaufman has a cameo as drunken man and Rob Zombie provides the voice of Grant's physician Dr. Karl. Director James Gunn makes an uncredited appearance as Hank, Starla's co-worker.
Themes and influences.
Controversy ensued over the many similarities and plot-points shared with Fred Dekker's 1986 horror-comedy "Night of the Creeps". According to journalist Steve Palopoli:
Palopoli then goes on to directly compare "Slither" to the aforementioned "Creeps" as well as the 1975 film "Shivers". Gunn has stated that both Cronenberg's "Shivers" and his 1979 film "The Brood" were the two biggest influences on the story in "Slither", along with the 2000 manga "Uzumaki" by Junji Ito.
The film pays homage to other horror films, such as a farm being owned by Castevet in reference to the Satan-worshiping next-door neighbors in "Rosemary's Baby". Jack MacReady, the mayor of Wheelsy, is named after Kurt Russell's characters Jack Burton and R.J. MacReady from the John Carpenter films "Big Trouble in Little China" and "The Thing".
Home media.
"Slither" was released on regular DVD and on HD DVD/DVD hybrid disc on October 24, 2006. The HD version is presented in 1.85:1 widescreen encoded at 1080p and Dolby Digital-Plus 5.1 surround. In addition to the film, the DVD contains two making-of documentaries, one being solely dedicated to the visual effects. The DVD also contains deleted and extended scenes, a blooper reel, visual effects progressions, a set tour with Fillion, and an audio commentary by Gunn and Fillion. Also included are featurettes outlining how to make edible blood, and Lloyd Kaufman's documentary discussing his day on set, and the shooting of his one line (which was eventually cut from the film). Finally, there is an added bonus entitled "Who Is Bill Pardy?" which is a joke feature made by Gunn with the sole purpose of roasting Fillion, and was shown at the film's wrap party.
Shout! Factory released a Collector's Edition on Blu-ray Disc on July 25, 2017. In addition to new case artwork illustrated by artist Justin Osbourn, it includes new special features such as a new audio commentary with James Gunn and cast members, new interviews with James Gunn and actor Gregg Henry (Jack MacReady) as well as all of the special features found on the original DVD video.
Reception.
Box office.
"Slither" was "a box office flop", failing to recoup its production budget following its debut in the United States and Canada on March 31, 2006 in 1,945 theaters. In its opening weekend, the film grossed $3,880,270 and ranked #8 at the U.S. and Canadian box office. "Slither" grossed $7,802,450 in its theatrical run in the United States and Canada. "Slither" also under-performed in France, grossing $236,261 from 150 screens. The film grossed $5,032,486 as of February 6, 2008 in territories outside the United States and Canada for a worldwide gross of $12,834,936. Its box office performance was substantially less than its total budget of $29.5 million, including marketing costs; the production budget taking up about $15 million of the total.
Paul Brooks, president of the film's production company, Gold Circle Films, said the company was "crushingly disappointed" by the gross. Universal distanced itself from "Slither"s poor box office performance, citing their distribution of the film as merely part of a deal with Gold Circle. "The Hollywood Reporter" speculated that "Slither"s performance "might have killed off the horror-comedy genre for the near future." Producer Paul Brooks offered this explanation about why "Slither" failed to catch on with filmgoers:
Critical response.
"Slither" received generally positive reviews. According to the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 86% of critics have given the film a positive review based on 138 reviews, with an average rating of 6.9/10. The site's critics consensus states: "A slimy, B-movie homage oozing with affection for low-budget horror films, "Slither" is creepy and funny — if you've got the stomach for it." At Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 69 out of 100 based on 27 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".
The movie was featured in the April 14, 2006 issue of "Entertainment Weekly" as #1 on "The Must List"; "Ten Things We Love This Week". Guest critic Michael Phillips named "Slither" his DVD pick of the week on the television show "Ebert & Roeper". "Slither" was listed as one of the "Top 25 DVDs of the Year" by Peter Travers in "Rolling Stone" magazine.
Among the critics who did not like the film, Roger Ebert and Richard Roeper gave "Slither" a "two thumbs down" rating on their television show, with Roeper saying he was "all zombied out" after reviewing a wave of zombie-themed films from the year before.
Accolades.
"Slither" picked up the 2006 "Fangoria" "Chainsaw Award" for the "Highest Body Count", and garnered nominations in the categories of "Relationship From Hell", "Dude You Don't Wanna Mess With", and "Looks That Kill". Additionally, the horror magazine "Rue Morgue" named "Slither" the "Best Feature Film of the Year".


The Barrel of a Gun


Martin Aitchison

Martin Henry Hugh Aitchison (21 November 1919 – 22 October 2016) was an illustrator for the "Eagle" comic from 1952 to 1963, and then one of the main illustrators for Ladybird Books from 1963 to 1990.
Aitchison was born in Kings Norton, Worcestershire. He was educated at Ellesmere College in Shropshire, leaving aged 15 to attend the Birmingham School of Art and then Slade School of Art. He married fellow art student Dorothy Self.
He exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1939. He was deaf, excluding him from active service in the Second World War, but he worked for Vickers Aircraft as a technical illustrator. He produced drawings for the bouncing bomb designed by Barnes Wallis for the Dam Busters air raid.
He became a freelance commercial artist after the war, producing drawings for a range of magazines. His earliest work was for Hulton Press' "Lilliput" magazine. He drew for "Girl", filling in for Ray Bailey on "Kitty Hawke and her All-Girl Air Crew", and illustrating "Flick and the Vanishing New Girl" in the first "Girl" annual. He began to work for the "Eagle" in 1952, drawing the French Foreign Legion strip "Luck of the Legion", written by Geoffrey Bond, for nearly ten years, including spin-off strips in "ABC Film Review" in 1952. He also drew spy series "Danger Unlimited" and adaptations of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's "The Lost World" and C. S. Forester's Horatio Hornblower stories for the "Eagle", and "Arty and Crafty", written by Geoffrey Bond, for "Eagle"'s junior companion paper "Swift". His work for comics displayed his talents in an exuberant and creative medium, working mainly from imagination.
He joined Ladybird Books in 1963, and joined Harry Wingfield in illustrating many titles in its new Key Words Reading Scheme books, also known as Peter and Jane, which were used to teach so many British children to read. The consistency, naturalistic style and attention to detail of the artist made him a favourite with the prolific British publisher and over a period of a quarter of a century, he illustrated at least 100 different titles. Martin Aitchison was not the only artist to make the switch from "The Eagle" to Ladybird; Frank Hampson and also followed the same path.
He left Ladybird in 1987, and retired - apart from drawing a new comic strip, "Justin Tyme - ye Hapless Highwayman", written by Geoffrey Bond, and later his son Jim, for the fanzine "Eagle Times" from 1998 to 2004.
He died on 22 October 2016 at the age of 96.


Perseus and the Gorgon (Marqueste)

Perseus and the Gorgon is a sculptural group by French artist Laurent Marqueste composed of five statues made between 1875 and 1903.
The first plaster model was made in 1875, and a bronze statue made from it in 1877 (but the operation damaged the original plaster one). Marqueste had to make another plaster statue in 1887, which is now located in musée des Augustins. He then made a first marble in 1890 and second one in 1903.
White marble of 1890.
The white marble made in 1890 is now in the chapel of the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon.
It was acquired by the French state in 1890 for 18000 francs and was stored at the Musée du Luxembourg (1890-1913) and the Dépôt des marbres (from 1931). Until 1999 it was stored at Villeurbanne. It was moved to the Musée d’Orsay in 1986 and then to its present home in 1999. It was restored in 2000.


Sarah Ezekiel

Sarah Ezekiel (born 1965) is an artist. She has ALS and uses technology to control a computer cursor and create her images.
Ezekiel studied art and art history and had begun her career as an artist using primarily pastels, watercolors, and acrylics. She was diagnosed with motor neuron disease in 2000. She had a young child and was expecting her second child at the time. She cannot speak or move her arms. She uses EyeGaze from assistive technology company Tobii Dynavox to paint with her eyes.
She is a Lifelites ambassador, facilitating fundraising for the organization that brings technological assistance to children in hospice care. She is also the Co-Chair of the Northwest London chapter of the MND Association.
Exhibits and public events.
Ezekiel's art has been shown internationally, including at The Royal Academy Schools and Katara Art Center in Qatar. In 2019, her works were among those exhibited by the MND Association at their 40th anniversary event. In 2016 Ezekiel spoke at a Parliamentary reception supporting hospice medical care. She was also awarded the Third Sector Volunteer of the Year Award at this event.


Coat of arms of Courland

The coat of arms of Courland (Kurzeme), a historical region in western Latvia, has been known since the 16th century and depicts a lion gules on a silver background.
History.
Since 1565, the coat of arms of the Duchy of Courland and Semigallia was combined of four parts and included the coat of arms of Semigallia, an elk on blue field.
After the Duchy of Courland and Semigallia became a vassal state of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, a shield with the combined symbols of the ruling House of Kettler and of Polish-Lithuanian kings Stephen Báthory, Sigismund II Augustus and others was placed in the centre of the coat of arms.
In 1795, Courland and Semigallia became part of the Russian Empire as the Courland Governorate. On 6 December 1856, the governorate was officially granted a coat of arms which was based on the historical coat of arms of the duchy.
After the establishment of the independent Latvian state, the symbol of Courland became part of the newly created Coat of arms of Latvia. The red lion representing Courland became an element of the shield and one of the supporters. The coat of arms was in official usage in Latvia until the Soviet occupation of Latvia in 1940. In 1990, shortly before the restoration of independence, the coat of arms was restored.
The official current version of the coat of arms of Courland as a historical and cultural region of Latvia was approved in 2012. While Courland is not a separate administrative unit within Latvia, the coat of arms is used by the Kurzeme Planning Region.


Victor Forssell

Victor Reinhold Forssell (19 June 1846 - 16 August 1931) was a Swedish landscape, animal and genre painter.
Biography.
Forssell was born at Sala in Västmanland County, Sweden.
He was born out of wedlock to Beata Forssell, the daughter of a local miller. His father was generally believed to be a silver miner. He attended school in Sala from 1855 to 1861 and apparently had some art lessons during that time. In 1865, he was accepted as a student at the Royal Swedish Academy of Fine Arts. There, he studied with the landscape painters Edward Bergh and Per Daniel Holm.
In 1877, unable to obtain a scholarship, he set off on a study trip at his own expense, beginning with Düsseldorf followed by Paris, London and Antwerp.
After returning home, he continued to travel, spending several summers on the island of Gotland with his friend and fellow landscape painter, Per Ekström. In 1887, he became a member of the Royal Academy. In the 1890s, he undertook a lengthy visit to Denmark, Norway and England. His mother, with whom he had been living, died in 1897. Seeking spiritual solace, he turned to the teachings of Helena Blavatsky and embraced the pantheistic worldview of Theosophy, which influenced his approach to his choice of subjects for painting.
In 1902, he was awarded a contract by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences to teach painting animals in a landscape ("djurplacering i landskapen"). The class was taught outdoors in several locations around Stockholm. By 1912, the money he had saved enabled him to buy a small estate, Stora Sickla gård, at Sicklaö parish in Nacka.
After the chaos of World War I had settled, he found himself virtually forgotten. Sometime in the early 1920s, he suffered a serious fall which left him unable to walk without crutches. He was eventually awarded a disability pension by the Academy and moved to Solsunda sanatorium at Skurusundet in Nacka municipality where he died in 1931, aged eighty-five.


Chinatown Gateway

Chinatown Gateway is an outdoor paifang and sculpture which serves as an entrance to Portland, Oregon's Old Town Chinatown neighborhood, in the United States. The gate was proposed by the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association in 1984. Architect Yu Tang Wang and artist Sun Chau completed the gate's design, which was built by Ting Hwa Architects in Taiwan. It was then shipped to Portland and installed in one week before being dedicated in November 1986. It cost $256,000 and was the largest of its kind in the United States until one in Washington, D.C. was completed several months later.
Description.
"Chinatown Gateway" is located at the intersection of West Burnside Street and Northwest Fourth Avenue and serves as the official entrance to Portland's Old Town Chinatown neighborhood. It is tall and made of bronze, marble, granite, wood, tile and steel. The gate features depictions of 78 dragons and 58 mythical characters. Chinese letters on the front and back read "Portland Chinatown" and "Four Seas, One Family", respectively.
History.
In 1984, the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association proposed construction of a paifang, or gate. Architect Yu Tang Wang and artist Sun Chau completed a design. The gate was built by Ting Hwa Architects in Taiwan, then shipped to Portland and installed in one week. It was dedicated in November 1986 and presented to the City of Portland as "gesture of goodwill from the Chinese community". The gate cost $256,000 and was the largest in the country until one in Washington, D.C. was completed several months later. Harlan Luck, who served as the structural engineer, built the gate's foundation underground as well as the marble platforms that support two bronze lion statues. One lion is male and the other is female, representing yin and yang.
In 2011, an organization called Friends of Portland Chinatown held a ceremony to commemorate the gate's twenty-fifth anniversary.


Angelo Rossitto

Angelo Salvatore Rossitto (February 18, 1908 – September 21, 1991) was an American actor and voice artist. He had dwarfism and was 2'11" (89 cm) tall, and was often billed as Little Angie or Moe. Angelo first appeared in silent films opposite Lon Chaney and John Barrymore. On screen he portrayed everything from dwarfs, midgets, gnomes and pygmies as well as monsters, villains and aliens, with appearances in more than 70 films.
Rossitto was born in Omaha, Nebraska and discovered by John Barrymore and made his screen debut opposite Barrymore in "The Beloved Rogue" (1927). That same year he appeared in Warner Brother's "Old San Francisco". He appeared in the controversial 1932 film "Freaks" directed by Tod Browning, and another controversial film, 1938's "Child Bride". During the 1940s, he appeared in several poverty row movies starring Bela Lugosi. He appeared frequently in television series and mini-series, particularly best known for the police drama "Baretta", and his later film roles included appearances in "Alex in Wonderland" (1970), "Brain of Blood" (1971), "Dracula vs. Frankenstein" (1971), "Little Cigars" (1973), and "Fairy Tales" (1978). His last major role was as "Master" opposite Mel Gibson in "Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome" (1985).
Popular culture.
Rossitto appeared alongside singer/songwriter Tom Waits and Lee Kolima on the cover art of Waits' 1983 album "Swordfishtrombones", which paid homage to his performance in "Freaks".


Giovanni Battista Spinelli

Giovanni Battista Spinelli (c.1597, Chieti - 20 November 1647 (?), Ortona) was an Italian painter.
Biography.
He was born to a wealthy family. His father, Sante, was originally from Bergamo and had moved to Chieti to be a grain merchant. His sister, Caterina, was married to Baron Ludovico de Pizzis of Ortona; known for his numerous feuds. His earliest art lessons may have come from Domenico Carpinoni in the 1620s.
Spinelli established himself throughout Abruzzo, At the there is a Coronation of Mary, done around 1630. He also painted at churches in Chieti and Penne.
After 1630, he moved to Naples, where he worked with Massimo Stanzione and Battistello Caracciolo. He is believed to have been the latter's last student. Both of them had a great influence on his compositional style. His is also known to have been an avid collector of prints from Northern Europe; including Lucas van Leyden, Hendrik Goltzius, Jacob Matham and Heinrich Aldegrever. Their influence is often obvious, especially in his mythological and historical portraits.
In recent years, his works have been studied by many art historians, including Roberto Longhi, and his reputation has been somewhat rehabilitated. He has been especially praised for the physical and physiognomic characteristics of his figures. Many of his works can be found at Castellammare di Stabia and in private collections in Naples. Other works are at the Uffizi gallery and an "Adoration of the Shepherds" is in the collection of the National Gallery in London. His individual canvases are difficult to date and of uneven quality; having been painted to the specifications of private clients.
According to his biographer, Bernardo De Dominici, Spinelli gave up painting for alchemy and died while conducting an experiment in 1647, at the approximate age of fifty. More recent studies suggest that he lived until at least 1658.


Elkhorn (sculpture)

Elkhorn is an outdoor 1979 sculpture by Lee Kelly, installed at Catlin Gabel School in West Haven-Sylvan, a census-designated place in Washington County and the Portland metropolitan area, in the U.S. state of Oregon.
Description.
Lee Kelly's "Elkhorn" is a welded Cor-Ten steel sculpture installed west of Toad Hall at Catlin Gabel School in West Haven-Sylvan, Oregon. It was designed in 1978, the year his son with Bonnie Bronson, Jason, died of leukemia. The sculpture was commissioned by Kelly's friends, and dedicated in 1979 in his son's memory. The abstract, geometric work depicts a deer and features a three rectangular legs supporting a rectangular platform, with another rectangular shape suspended underneath the platform. It measures approximately x x . The sculpture's north leg has an inscription that reads and a plaque with the text, .
The sculpture is administered by Catlin Gabel School. It was surveyed and deemed "treatment needed" by the Smithsonian Institution's "Save Outdoor Sculpture!" program in November 1993.


Fun with Mr. Future

Fun with Mr. Future is a 1982 live-action/animated short film from Walt Disney Productions directed by Darrell Van Citters.
Plot.
An Audio-Animatronic talking-head replica of Abraham Lincoln (voiced by Phil Proctor) hosts a tour of what the future will look like.
Production.
"Fun with Mr. Future" originally began development as an Epcot television special, whose crew included Darrell Van Citters, Mike Giamo, Joe Ranft, Mike Gabriel, Tad Stones, and Brian McEntee. At the time, this team was also involved in the development stages of what would become "Sport Goofy in Soccermania" (1987) and "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" (1988). After Disney shelved the Epcot special, Tom Wilhite allowed them to use footage from the project and edit it into a new animated short. The resulting work marked the directorial debut of animator Darrell Van Citters, who began his career at the Disney studios.
Release.
Disney released the film in Los Angeles on October 27, 1982. No other public screenings took place until October 2010, when New York's Museum of Modern Art featured it in a program commemorating the publication of John Canemaker's book, "Two Guys Named Joe". According to Tad Stones, "[Working on it] was a lot of fun but I couldn't even tell you where you find it now. It's one of those gems even Disney doesn't know it has. I went to a comic convention and was surprised to see its cels for sale."


Madonna of Humility (Fra Angelico)

The Madonna of Humility is a tempera on wood painting by Fra Angelico, executed in 1433-1435, which belongs to the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum in Madrid and is conserved on loan at the National Art Museum of Catalonia.
Description.
The Virgin seated on a cushion placed directly on the ground with the child standing on her lap, holds a vase in her left hand which contains roses and a lily, symbols of motherhood and purity. The Child, who is also holding a lily, rests his forehead on his mother's cheek. They are set under a cloth of honour made of gold and black embroidered brocade held by three angels, while two more angels are seated on the ground playing an organ and a lute. The monumental figures, the splendour of the clothes, the modulated light and the use of the blue colour place this panel in the purest fifteenth-century Italian style. The work has been identified as the one described by Giorgio Vasari in 1568 in the home of the Gondi family, in Florence, where it formed part of a polyptic.