Michael Ford (artist)

Michael Ford (28 July 1920 – 16 June 2005) was an English artist who worked in several media and whose paintings often have a somewhat naive quality coupled with elements of minute, detailed observation.
Early life.
Ford was the son of a former Army major who was a farmer and the managing director of a seed merchant business at Overton near Winchester. Ford was born deaf as a result of his mother contracting rubella while pregnant. His mother ran a 'Home School' on the family farm which Ford attended, before studying art at Goldsmiths' College between 1937 and 1940.
World War Two.
In May 1940, Ford joined the Local Defence Volunteers, which soon became the Home Guard and also worked three days per week as a coal miner whilst also doing farm work. He learnt to ride a motorbike and became a dispatch rider. Ford continued to paint and submitted a number of pictures to the War Artists' Advisory Committee, WAAC. The first to be accepted by WAAC was "Home Guards Brewing Tea just before Dawn" which Ford had first sketched in a shepherd's hut whilst waiting to go on Home Guard duty. A submission in May 1941 of a painting of a Land Girl was refused, but in July 1941 WAAC accepted "War Weapons Week in a Country Town" and included it in their ongoing National Gallery exhibition. A reproduction of the painting was included in Eric Newton's 1945 book "War Through Artists' Eyes". Ford continued with his Home Guard duties and farm work and in February 1942 submitted another picture to WAAC. This oil painting, "Italian Prisoners-of-war Working on the Land", was purchased by WAAC for fifteen guineas and was one of the few depictions of prisoners of war at work acquired by WAAC. Ford also designed a poster featuring a Land Girl with the slogan "Are you working of shirking ? More women are needed".
Later life.
After the war, Ford had a long career as an artist and illustrator. He worked in many different media, pastels, ink, charcoal, watercolours and oil paint. He had works exhibited at the Royal Academy, with the Royal Society of Portrait Painters, with the New English Art Club, the Royal Society of British Artists and in the Paris Salon. Ford had a long-running contract with the magazine Farmers Weekly to portray a featured farmer or landowner. Ford died at Winchester in 2005.


Teddy (Mr. Bean character)

Mr. Bean#Teddy


Uncle Tom and Little Eva (painting)

Uncle Tom and Little Eva is an oil on canvas painted by Edwin Longsden Long in 1866. It depicts a scene from the novel "Uncle Tom's Cabin". The painting is kept at Russell-Cotes Art Gallery & Museum.


Walter Ferguson

Walter William Ferguson was born in New York City in 1930 and died in 2015. He received his formal art training under scholarship at Yale School of Fine Arts and Pratt Institute. He has exhibited widely in Israel and abroad and his paintings are in many private collections.
Ferguson is a 1948 graduate of Midwood High School, and is known to have painted at least two murals at the school while he was a student. Both murals still exist in their original locations as of January 2016.
Noted for his versatility, Ferguson paints a wide variety of subjects from wildlife to portraits and landscapes. His classical technique combined with modern design have been developed over 60 years and honed to a high degree of sensitivity.
In addition to his fine art, Ferguson has produced limited editions of serigraphs and litho-offsets prints. He has written and illustrated seven books and illustrated 26 books and many articles. He was commissioned by LIFE magazine to illustrate endangered species. Ferguson wrote and illustrated a book on "The Mammals of Israel". His paintings have helped raise funds to reintroduce into Israel animals that became extinct since Biblical times.
Ferguson has worked for the American Museum of Natural History where he did paintings reconstructing extinct animals. He moved to Israel in 1965, where he briefly taught art at Bezalel School of Art. He has been staff artist for the Department of Zoology of the Tel Aviv University for 29 years. In addition to his fine art, Ferguson has contributed to zoology and Paleoanthropology.
A 2010 interview of Walter Ferguson by Ynet, Israel's largest and most popular news and content website, was published under the Ecology & Science that covered his career work including a live interview.
The works by Ferguson have helped increase the popularity of animal artwork in Israel, as reported in the Jerusalem Post article "Wildlife art exhibit to open at Jerusalem Bird Observatory" by Sharon Udasin on October 27, 2011.
Walter Ferguson was asked to contribute several environmental paintings to the first Environmental Impact show and subsequent tour that premiered at the Canton Museum of Art in Ohio on September 1, 2013.
Ferguson died on December 18, 2015.
David J. Wagner published an article in the Millennium Alliance for Humanity and the Biosphere (MAHB), which is an initiative of Stanford University, called"Environmental Ideology Through Art" in 2016 that included a description of Walter Ferguson's work among other exhibitors.
In 2017, Ynet published another article under a quote Ferguson used to describe his work's objective of capturing the spark of life in his paintings.An article,"Memory of an Environmental Impact", was published in the MAHB during the follow-on exhibit and tour called Environmental Impact II that is coping with the 2020 pandemic.


John George (actor)

John George (; born Tufei Fatella, January 20, 1898 – August 25, 1968) was an actor who appeared in at least 130 movies from 1916 to 1960. George worked in films of all genres alongside countless stars although often for only the briefest of appearances, uncredited.
Early years.
George was born in Aleppo, Syria. Little is known about his early life but he immigrated to the United States around 1911 and searched for his mother and sisters who seem to have settled in the Nashville, Tennessee, area.
Film.
Eventually George found his way to Los Angeles and the early silent film industry. George may have begun his career in the Joseph De Grasse movie "Bobbie of the Ballet" (1916) as an uncredited "tenement dweller". George may have even appeared earlier than that in the 1915 serial "The Broken Coin" unbilled, as an actor who strongly favors him appears in a still photo from the chapter play with Francis Ford and Grace Cunard in Daniel Blum's "Pictorial History of the Silent Screen".
George went on to appear in Rex Ingram's Gothic melodrama "Black Orchids" (1917) as a character named Ali Bara. George worked in dozens of movies for Rex Ingram until 1926 when Ingram, tired of George's gambling, sent him home on a bus.
George became a regular in several 1920s silent films with Lon Chaney both at Universal Studios and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, including "The Road to Mandalay", "The Big City", "The Hunchback of Notre Dame", "Outside The Law" and "The Unknown". He also appeared in the Warner Brothers production "Don Juan" (1926) opposite John Barrymore, where he was the cruel dwarf Castle Keeper/Informer who delighted in exposing to Don Jose (Don Juan's father) the infidelities of his wife with another man. He also played Barnaby's minion in the 1934 "Babes in Toyland". George continued to appear in movie after movie until some time near his death. One of his last roles was in 1956, an uncredited one as “A Barfly” in James Arness’s TV Western Series "Gunsmoke", S1E21’s “Helping Hand”.
Death.
On August 25, 1968, George died from emphysema at age 70 in Los Angeles.


Peter Burroughs

Peter Burroughs (born 27 January 1947) is a British television and film actor, the director of Willow Management. He is the father-in-law of actor and TV presenter Warwick Davis.
Early career.
Burroughs initially ran a shop in his village at Yaxley, Cambridgeshire, United Kingdom.
His first dramatic role was that of the character "Branic" in the 1979 television series "The Legend of King Arthur". He also acted in the television shows "Dick Turpin", "The Goodies", "Doctor Who" and "One Foot in the Grave".
Film career.
Burroughs played roles in Hollywood movies such as "Flash Gordon", George Lucas' "Star Wars: Episode VI – Return of the Jedi" (a swinging ewok), "Willow", "The Dark Crystal", "Labyrinth" and "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy". In 1995, Burroughs set up Willow Management, an agency for short actors, along with co-actor Warwick Davis. He portrayed a bank goblin in the Harry Potter series ("Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" and "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2").
Personal life.
Burroughs' daughter, Samantha, is married to Warwick Davis. He has another daughter, Hayley Burroughs, who is also an actress.


From Time to Time (film)

From Time to Time is a 2009 British fantasy drama film directed by Julian Fellowes starring Maggie Smith, Timothy Spall, Carice van Houten, Alex Etel, Eliza Bennett, Elisabeth Dermot-Walsh, Dominic West, Hugh Bonneville, and Pauline Collins. It was adapted from Lucy M. Boston's children's novel "The Chimneys of Green Knowe" (1958). The film was shot in Athelhampton Hall, Dorset.
Plot.
Set in England, this ghostly, haunting story spans two worlds, over a century apart. Near the end of World War II, teen-aged Tolly (Alex Etel) goes to spend Christmas at his grandmother's large country estate, Green Knowe. Tolly's soldier father has been reported missing in action while his mother remains in London awaiting more information. His grandmother, Mrs. Oldknow (Maggie Smith), disapproved of her son's marriage, considering his wife a commoner. Mrs. Oldknow is financially strapped and faced with selling Green Knowe.
On Tolly's first night at Green Knowe, he sees and hears a ghostly young girl and adolescent boy. Soon after, he discovers that he magically time travels between the present and the early 19th century in the old manor house. Certain people in that time period can see and communicate with him, while he remains invisible to others. Susan, the blind daughter of Lord Thomas Oldknow, is the ghostly figure that Tolly first saw. She can speak to Tolly both in her time and his. He learns that his grandmother also sees the ancestral ghosts. Susan leads him on an adventure that unlocks family secrets laid buried for generations. Exciting events include a terrible fire, a tale of stolen jewels, and threats of a servant being sold into a press gang.
Although the lost treasure is found and Green Knowe is saved, Tolly's father is a casualty of the war. Mrs. Oldknow finally welcomes Tolly's mother into the family. Tolly is comforted when his father's ghost appears, assuring him everything will be all right.
Reception.
On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a score of 43% fresh rating based on reviews from seven critics and a rating average of 5.9 out of 10. Tom Huddleston of "Time Out" described the film as "an emotionally wise but logically skewed children’s tale", the logical inconsistencies of which "largely restricts the film’s appeal to bookish pre-teens". Henry Fitzherbert of the "Daily Express" praised the actors' performances, particularly Smith's, and noted that it "casts a magical spell by the touching conclusion".


The Circumcision (Rubens)

The Circumcision is an oil on canvas painting of the Circumcision of Jesus by Peter Paul Rubens, produced in 1605 during his stay in Rome. It is now in the " church in Genoa.
It was commissioned by Marcello Pallavicino, vestryman of the Casa Professa of Jesuits in Genoa. It is mainly influenced by Mantuan paintings from the court of Vincenzo Gonzaga, with a strongly foreshortened viewpoint.


Saint Candidus (Ayne Bru)

Saint Candidus is a painting by Ayne Bru conserved at the National Art Museum of Catalonia.
Description.
The knight, standing, is dressed in dark armour with a shield, halberd and sword, a fur-lined green tabard, a purple stole and a red cap with a medal featuring the bust of Christ. This is Saint Candidus, a warrior in the Theban legion who was martyred along with Saint Maurice. Like the panel of the "Martyrdom of Saint Cucuphas", this painting was part of the old high altarpiece in the monastery of Sant Cugat del Vallès. Ayne Bru, one of the most important names from the Catalan Cinquecento, was a painter of Central-European origin and training whose work speaks for the influence of Flemish culture and of the art produced in Venice in the period straddling the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.


Petrang Kabayo

Petrang Kabayo () is a 2010 Filipino fantasy comedy-drama film produced and released by Viva Films. The film was directed by Manola Ayala and stars comedian Vice Ganda in his first lead role. It is a remake of "Petrang Kabayo at ang Pilyang Kuting" (1988).
Although receiving mixed reviews from critics, the film was a box office success earning in its theatrical run.
Synopsis.
Peter is a boy who is always maltreated by his father because of his homosexuality. He decided to run away and was found by a wealthy lady, Doña Biday, and is adopted by her. But he becomes abusive of his newfound wealth, and after the death of Doña Biday he becomes more abusive of his wealth and mistreated most of his housemaids, employees, and friends. Because of that, he was given a curse that transforms him into a horse every time he gets angry, or does/says anything bad to others.
Home video release.
"Petrang Kabayo" was released on DVD and VCD on December 15, 2010 by Viva Video.


St Jerome in Penance

The St Jerome in Penance is a painting by the Italian Renaissance painter Filippo Lippi, dating to c. 1439. It is housed in the Lindenau-Museum of Altenburg, Germany. The work could be identified with the "St. Jerome Penitent" of which Lippi asked payment in a letter issued to Piero de' Medici in 1439.
The painting is one of the first known example on the subject of St. Jerome doing penance. It is a small panel, divided into two different scenes: in the upper part is St. Jerome with the wooden cross, the stone to strike his breast and the lectern lying on the rock. In the lower part, with a chronological step, is the episode of the saint with the lion having a thorn in the paw. The unfriendly landscape is a metaphor of the hermit style of life.


The White Reindeer

The White Reindeer (, ) is a 1952 Finnish horror drama film directed by Erik Blomberg in his feature film debut. It was entered in competition at the 1953 Cannes Film Festival and earned the Jean Cocteau-led jury special award for Best Fairy Tale Film. After its limited release five years later in the United States, it was one of five films to win the 1956 Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Film.
Plot.
The film, based on pre-Christian Finnish mythology and Sami shamanism, is set in Finnish Lapland and centers on a young woman, Pirita. In the snowy landscape, Pirita and reindeer herder Aslak meet and soon marry. Aslak must spend time away for work, leaving his new bride lonely. In an effort to alleviate her loneliness and ignite marital passion, Pirita visits the local shaman, who indeed helps her out; but in the process turns her into a shapeshifting, vampiric white reindeer. The villages' men are drawn to her and pursue her, with tragic results.
Release.
Theatrical release.
"The White Reindeer" was released theatrically outside of Finland at least in 11 countries, including the United States, Sweden and France.
Home media.
The film was released on VHS in Finland in 1990, and in the 2010s, DVDs were released in Finland and in France. A 4K restoration from the original camera negative was realized in 2016–2017 by the National Audiovisual Institute of Finland, and was released on Blu-ray with Swedish and English subtitles. On April 8, 2019, a Region 2 version of the film was released on DVD and Blu-ray by Eureka Entertainment, as a part of their "Masters of Cinema" series.
Reception.
International reception.
"The White Reindeer" received mostly positive reviews from critics outside of Finland, with many praising the film's atmosphere, cinematography, haunting imagery.
J. Hoberman from "The Village Voice" gave the film a positive review, calling it "a quasi-ethnographic exercise in magic neorealism". Hoberman also commended the film for its "terse delivery and stark premise". Jeremy Aspinall from "Radio Times" rated the film four out of five stars, praising the film's documentary-style cinematography, which he felt effectively captured Finland's snow-filled landscape, haunting imagery, and Kuosmanen's performance. "Starburst Magazine"s James Evans awarded the film a score of nine out of ten stars, calling it "a remarkable, beautiful, and compelling film that is fascinatingly rooted in Lapland mythology and Sámi practices"; highlighting the film's story, dream-like cinematography, and Kuosmanen's performance.
Maitland McDonagh from "TV Guide" awarded the film 3 out of 5 stars, criticizing the film for being awkward in some parts while praising the cinematography, and haunting imagery. McDonagh concluded his review by calling it "A must-see for horror completists, and one of the few films to explore Sami folkloric traditions."


Inger on the Beach

Inger on the Beach (also "Summernacht"; Norwegian: "Inger på stranden, Sommernatt") is a painting by the Norwegian artist Edvard Munch. It was created in the summer of 1889, at Åsgårdstrand and is a portrait of Munch's youngest sister Inger.
Description.
A young woman, identified by the title as Munch's youngest sister Inger, sits in a quiet pose, a straw hat in her hands, on a large granite rock and holds her head in profile. Her bright white dress contrasts with the green mossy stones and the blues and purples of the sea water behind her, which, as the alternative titles indicate, suggests "Nordic summer nights". Only a few pots and a fishing boat behind her betray human life in the countryside.
Munch used a similar pose for his 1884 interior composition "Morning", featuring a girl on the edge of a bed.
History.
In the summer of 1889, Munch rented a small house in Åsgårdstrand, a small Norwegian coastal town on the Oslofjord, which served as a summer resort of many citizens and artists from nearby Kristiana, now Oslo. Among them were Munch's friends Christian Krohg and Frits Thaulow. The place acquired great importance in the life of Munch: Here he spent not only many summers, and bought in 1897 a house, it was the place for many important pictures of his life work. In 1889, his first year in Åsgårdstrand, he painted "Inger on the beach". The model was his youngest sister Inger, who had previously modeled for him. The painting was preceded by a series of studies Munch made between 9 and 11 pm to study the lighting conditions of Norwegian summer night.
Interpretation.
Ulrich Bischoff suggests that—unlike Munch's earlier 1884 portrait of the then 14-year-old Inger in her black confirmation dress, a youthful work in the tradition of portraiture of the 19th century—"Inger on the beach" shows the future importance of the artist. Munch displays in this work his artistic repertoire for expressing loneliness, melancholy and angst, and foreshadows the compositional breakdown in horizontal and vertical axes of the later "Frieze of Life".
For Reinhold Heller the painting conveys less a time of day than a mood, created by the contours and dimensional representations of figure and stones, the nonexistent horizon between sky and sea, and the almost monochrome blue.
Anni Carlsson describes the work as a "character landscape" in which the beach, sea and figure are incorporated into a mood and the boundaries cancel space.
In a later statement, Munch compared seaside rocks with living creatures, goblins and sea spirits: "In the night's light which forms have fantastic tones". Nicolay Stang compares the "simplification of form and color, which is a colored form against the other" to Paul Gauguin, a painter whose work was familiar to Munch before 1889.
Tone Skedsmo says "Inger on the beach" is in the tradition of the naturalistic painters of the "Fleksum colony", namely Christian Skredsvig, Eilif Peterssen, Erik Werenskiold, Gerhard Munthe, Kitty Kielland and Harriet Backer, who were known for their quiet summer night moods. While the composition of a figure in a landscape and the elegiac mood are typical of the work of Munch's Norwegian colleagues, Munch's simplification of forms to express a mood adds elements of modernity. He may have been influenced by Puvis de Chavannes and Jules Bastien-Lepage, whom he had met at the Exposition Universelle d'Anvers (1885), in the rigid countenance of Ingers with her blank stare and the dry handling of the paint.
Reception.
A few months after its completion, the painting (originally titled "Evening") was displayed for the first time at the annual autumn exhibition in Kristiana, while Munch had already traveled to Paris to collect impressions of the local art scene through which his symbolism would find expressive style.
The contemporary criticism was extremely hostile.
"Morgenbladet" called the painting pure "gibberish" and said the public was being bamboozled. Other voices criticized the "easily thrown stones that seem to be made only from soft, shapeless substance".
"Aftenposten" described the seated figure as "a physical entity with no trace of life and expression, as untrue in the form as in the color [...] On the whole this seems to us to have such a low artistic value that his presence at the exhibition itself is difficult to defend. " Dagbladet nevertheless pointed out: "To understand it, one must constantly have in mind that Munch poet is - a person who can be entirely covered by a mood to her and her playing devotedly, without regard to conventional laws and forms, often with a tendency to fantasy. "
Munch's Norwegian colleague Erik Werenskiold bought it directly from the exhibition in 1909; it was acquired in 1924 by the Norwegian art collector Rasmus Meyer as part of his public collections in Bergen.


Fugio cent

The Fugio cent, also known as the Franklin cent, is the first official circulation coin of United States. Consisting of of copper, it was designed by Benjamin Franklin and minted only in 1787. Its design is very similar to a 1776 Continental Currency dollar coin that was produced in pattern pieces as potential Continental currency but was never circulated.
History.
On April 21, 1787, the Congress of the Confederation of the United States authorized a design for an official copper penny, later referred to as the Fugio cent because of its image of the Sun and its light shining down on a sundial with the caption, "Fugio" (Latin: "I flee/fly", referring to time flying by).
This coin was designed by Benjamin Franklin; as a reminder to its holders, he put at its bottom the message, "Mind your business". This design was based on the 1776 "Continental dollar" coin, which was produced in pattern pieces but was never circulated.
Some historians believe that the word "business" was intended literally here, as Franklin was an influential and successful businessman. It does not mean "mind your own business" as that phrase is used today, but rather, "pay attention to your affairs".
The reverse side of both the 1776 Continental dollar coins and paper notes, and the 1787 coins, bore the third motto "We Are One" (in English) surrounded by thirteen chain links, representing the original thirteen colonial states.
Following the reform of the central government with the 1788 ratification of the 1787 Constitution, gold and silver coins transitioned to the motto "E pluribus unum" from the Great Seal of the United States.
The Bank of New York Hoard.
In 1788, the Bank of New York stored several thousand Fugio cents in a keg in its basement. In 1856, the coins were put into cotton bags and stored away again. The trove was rediscovered in 1926. The coins were then given out as souvenirs and keepsakes to clients until 1948 when the American Numismatic Society examined the remaining 1,641 coins. The cache became known as the Bank of New York Hoard. Several of the coins were donated to the society while others were sold to collectors. All of the coins found were in mint state condition, most with brown toning and some with water damage. The bank retained 819 of the coins.


Bernhard von Neher

Karl Josef Bernhard von Neher (16 January 1806, Biberach an der Riß - 17 January 1886, Stuttgart) was a German painter.
Life and work.
Neher began to study painting in 1822 in Stuttgart, under Johann Heinrich von Dannecker und Philipp Friedrich von Hetsch, but received his primary instruction at the Academy of Fine Arts Munich with Peter von Cornelius. This was followed by four years in Rome, where he cultivated contacts with the Nazarene movement, led by Friedrich Overbeck und Philipp Veit. In 1832, he returned to Munich, where he painted the huge fresco that adorns the arch of the Isartor, depicting the triumphal entry of Emperor Louis after his victory at the Battle of Mühldorf.
In 1836 he was summoned to Weimar, to decorate two rooms of the Grand Ducal Palace with murals. He worked there, off and on, for eleven years. In 1841, he became Director of the Academy of Visual Arts in Leipzig. He was later induced to return to Stuttgart, where he became a Professor at the Royal Art School. He was promoted to Director in 1854, but continued to produce many large oil paintings, mostly on religious subjects.
Arguably, however, his best work involved a series of large glass paintings for stained-glass windows; six for the Stiftskirche, three for the chapel in the Old Castle and one each for the Leonhardskirche, the Greek Chapel in the New Castle and the Johanneskirche.
In 1852, he was awarded the Knight's Cross, First Class of the Order of the Crown (Württemberg), which conferred a title of nobility. In 1878, The Staatsgalerie Stuttgart acquired the frames and designs for his windows. He resigned his position as Director in 1879.


Tobias and the Angel (Verrocchio)

Tobias and the Angel is an altar painting, finished around 1470–1475, attributed to the workshop of the Italian Renaissance painter Andrea del Verrocchio. It is housed in the National Gallery, London. This painting is similar to an earlier painting depicting Tobias and the Angel, by Antonio del Pollaiolo.
According to Oxford art historian Martin Kemp, Leonardo da Vinci, who was a member of Verrocchio's studio, may have painted some part of this work, most likely the fish. David Alan Brown, of the National Gallery in Washington, attributes the painting of the fluffy little dog to him as well. If so, this would be perhaps the first extant example of a painting with input by Leonardo.


A Daughter of the Poor

A Daughter of the Poor is a 1917 American silent comedy-drama film produced by Fine Arts Film Company and released by Triangle Film Corporation. The film was directed by Edward Dillon and starred young Bessie Love.
Although incomplete, prints of the film survive at the George Eastman House.
Plot.
Although she and her family are poor, Rose (Love) is very generous to a lame child Lola (Giraci). Her kindness captures the attention of wealthy publisher Stevens (Stockdale), whose interest in Rose angers her beau Creig (Beranger), who is a worker and radical writer. When her uncle is imprisoned, Rose goes to the father of Stevens (Stewart) to have him released. He is impressed by Rose, and learns about Lola, deciding to adopt her. Creig follows Rose to the Stevens home, and is surprised to find that they published his radical treatise, and are prepared to pay him for his work.
Production.
In production, the film was known as "The Doll Shop" and "The Spitfire".
Reception.
Overall, the film received mixed reviews. One review deemed the production as "flawless" and declared Love's performance was "her best ... thus far." "Variety" noted issues with continuity. Another review said that the film was "not up to the Triangle standard."


Serpent Column

The Serpent Column ( "Τrikarenos Οphis" "Three-headed Serpent"; "Serpentine Column"), also known as the Serpentine Column, Plataean Tripod or Delphi Tripod, is an ancient bronze column at the Hippodrome of Constantinople (known as "Atmeydanı" "Horse Square" in the Ottoman period) in what is now Istanbul, Turkey. It is part of an ancient Greek sacrificial tripod, originally in Delphi and relocated to Constantinople by Constantine the Great in 324. It was built to commemorate the Greeks who fought and defeated the Persian Empire at the Battle of Plataea (479 BC). The serpent heads of the high column remained intact until the end of the 17th century (one is on display at the nearby Istanbul Archaeology Museums).
History.
Provenance.
The Serpentine Column has one of the longest literary histories of any object surviving from Greek and Roman antiquity – its provenance is not in doubt and it is almost 2,500 years old. Together with its original golden tripod and cauldron (both long missing), it constituted a trophy, or offering reminding of a military victory, dedicated to Apollo at Delphi. This offering was made in the spring of 478 BC, several months after the defeat of the Persian army in the Battle of Plataea (August 479 BC) by those Greek city-states in alliance against the Persian invasion of mainland Greece, during the Greco-Persian Wars. Among the writers who allude to the Column in the ancient literature are Herodotus, Thucydides, pseudo-Demosthenes, Diodorus Siculus, Pausanias the traveller, Cornelius Nepos and Plutarch. The removal of the column by the Emperor Constantine to his new capital, Constantinople, is described by Edward Gibbon, citing the testimony of the Byzantine historians Zosimus, Eusebius, Socrates, and Sozomenus.
Battle of Plataea.
The invasion, a combined land and sea expedition, which began in 480 BC, fell under the command of the king himself, Xerxes I of Persia, and his brother-in-law and cousin Mardonius, who had been a close confidant of Xerxes' father, Darius I of Persia. Mardonius had led the first invasion into Greece ten years earlier, but ultimately was wounded and subsequently called back by Darius. Mardonius was replaced by Datis and Artaphernes' son who after initial success were decisively beaten at the hands of the Athenians in the Battle of Marathon in 490 BC.
Mardonius eventually persuaded Darius to mount a second invasion. It had twin objectives, the first of which was forcing the submission of those city states on mainland Greece who had refused to provide the symbolic tribute of ‘earth and water’ to the Persian king. The second objective was to punish the cities (initially Athens and Eretria) which had supported the Ionian Greeks who, under the leadership of Aristagoras of Miletus, revolted against Persian rule in 499 BC. The Athenians had sent twenty triremes in support of the revolt, and the Eretrians sent five. This struggle lasted until the defeat of the Ionians in a naval battle outside Miletus in 494 BC.
The Battle of Plataea followed the two simultaneous defeats of the Greeks at the Battle of Thermopylae, and the Battle of Artemisium. At Artemisium in August 480 BC, the storm-buffeted Persians confronted the much smaller fleet of Greek naval forces, who retreated to Salamis. After several indecisive clashes over at least three days, and the news of the defeat on land, the strategy of the Greek allies was in ruins. Nothing could prevent the Persian advance and ultimately the occupation and pillage of Athens. Only the brilliant strategy, planning and careful reasoned actions of the Athenian general Themistocles restored the situation. He arranged to evacuate the inhabitants of Athens before the invasion to the island of Salamis. Then he persuaded the reluctant Peloponnesian cities to stop and fight a naval battle in the Straits of Salamis, rather than retreat to the Isthmus, thus drawing Xerxes in to attack the Greek fleet in the straits (September, 480 BC).
After Salamis, Xerxes withdrew to Sardis, but left a land force in Thrace, under the generalship of the experienced campaigner, Mardonius. He re-possessed Athens in the spring of 479 BC, and after the failure of diplomacy conducted by Alexander of Macedon on behalf of the Persians, to persuade the Athenians to a separate peace, the war continued. On learning that a Spartan force was on the march from the Peloponnese, Mardonius set fire to Athens again and removed his force to a strategic position in Boeotia, north of the river Asopus. The Greeks under the leadership of Pausanias, Regent of Sparta, drew up on high ground in defensive positions south of the river Asopus and above the plain of Plataea. After days of skirmishing and changes of position on the Greek side, Mardonius launched a full attack. The result of the complex battle was complete victory for the Spartans, under the leadership of Pausanias. Mardonius was killed and the Persians fled in confusion led by Artabazus, the Persian second in command.
The significance of the Battle of Plataea.
The Greek victories at Plataea and contemporaneous naval battle at Mycale had the result that never again would the Persian Empire launch an attack on mainland Greece. Afterwards, Persia pursued its policies by diplomacy, bribery and cajolement, playing one city state against another. But, by these victories, and through the Delian League, Athens was able to consolidate its power in the flowering of Athenian democracy in 5th century Athens, under the leadership of Pericles, son of Xanthippus.
After the Battle of Plataea, the last battle of the Greco-Persian Wars, the Greeks erected a bronze column of three intertwined snakes, whose bodies formed the column, to commemorate the 31 Greek city-states that participated in the battle. According to Herodotus, the bronze column was built using the bronze from the melted-down Persian weapons. A golden tripod topped the column, made by Persian weapons, and the whole monument was dedicated to the god Apollo and was placed next to the altar of Apollo at Delphi.
In ancient writers.
After describing the Greek victory at Plataea, in 479 BC, Herodotus recounts the collection of rich spoils, by the Helots, (the Spartan underclass), who had taken part in the battle, and then records the decision of the Greek cities to dedicate an offering to Apollo at Delphi:
In the same chapter, Herodotus records that dedications were also made to Zeus at Olympia and to Poseidon at the Isthmus. It is significant that precedence was given to Apollo at Delphi, despite the ambiguities in the responses of the Delphic oracle about the outcome of the invasion, and a suspicion that Delphi was sympathetic to the Persians.
Thucydides and pseudo-Demosthenes.
Pausanias, full of arrogance over his victory at Plataea and the subsequent ease with which he punished the Theban leaders for their support of the Persians, ordered a dedication on the column ascribing victory to himself alone. Later, it was discovered he had been in negotiations with the Persians and the Helots of Sparta to stage a rebellion, and set himself up as Tyrant. Although his treachery was, at first, disbelieved in Sparta, it was eventually confirmed by the Ephors of Sparta through his personal slave, and he was killed.
Thucydides describes the Spartan suspicion that Pausanias was at the point of committing treason and going over to the Persians, citing the Serpentine column affair as evidence. Pausanias provided other causes for suspicion in his disregard of laws, his admiration of the Persians, and his dissatisfaction with the status-quo. Upon examination of the rest of his behaviour, the Spartans recalled that when the tripod at Delphi was first erected, Pausanias had thought fit, of his own accord, to have a diptych engraved upon it with the inscription:
The Lacedaemonians, at once, removed the diptych from the tripod and engraved the names of the cities, who had joined together against the Persians and set up the offering.
Pseudo-Demosthenes gives a significantly different account of the train of events.
In a speech, "Against Neaira", the orator recalls the conduct of Pausanias after the defeat of the Persians in the battle of Plataea over the Serpentine column:
"Pausanias, King of the Lacedaemonians, caused a diptych to be inscribed on the tripod at Delphi, [which those Greeks, who had fought as allies in the battle of Plataea and in the naval engagement at Salamis had together made from the spoils taken from the Barbarians and had set up in honour of Apollo as a memorial to their bravery], as follows:
'Pausanias, commander-in-chief of the Greeks,
when he had destroyed the army of the Medes
dedicated this memorial to Phoebus (Apollo)', as if the work and the offering were his alone, and not from the allies together.
The Greeks were enraged and the Plataeans obtained leave to bring a suit, on behalf of the allies, against the Lacedaemonians for 1,000 talents at the Amphictyonic council; and they compelled the Lacedaemonians to erase the inscription and inscribe the names of those cities which had shared in the work".
The orator goes on to argue that this action rankled with the Lacedaemonians and was a strong motive, 50 years later, in their influencing the Theban night attack on Plataea in 431 BC, which was the first action in the Peloponnesian war described in Thucydides book 2.
Diodorus Siculus.
Diodorus Siculus, writing in the 1st century BC, says that a couplet composed by the poet Simonides, replaced Pausanias’ haughty personal dedication:
Pausanias the Traveller.
In the second century AD, Pausanias, the travel writer, noticed the monument at Delphi:
"The Greeks together, from the spoils taken at the battle of Plataea, dedicated a gold tripod set on a bronze serpent. The bronze part of the offering was preserved there, even at my time, but the Phocian leaders did not leave the gold in place in the same way." The Phocian General Philomelus took the treasures in 345/4 BC to pay for mercenaries during the Third Sacred War, an act of extreme sacrilege, which resulted in the expulsion of Phocians from the Amphictyonic league, by Philip II of Macedon, and to the imposition on them of a fine of 400 talents.
Even at the time of Pausanias’ visit, the Sacred Way, leading up to the temple of Apollo, was lined on both sides with monuments, statues and treasuries commemorating important events in Greek History. "Closest to the altar", as Herodotus says, was the Serpentine column, the base of which has been found, as has the base of the altar, which was dedicated by the Chians [and Appendix A].Above these loomed the great bronze statue of Apollo, and, on the architrave of the temple, shields commemorating a Greek victory over the Gauls. Pausanias also mentions the offering to Zeus at Olympia, [paragraph above] and listed the names of the cities engraved upon it.
In Gibbon.
In his "History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" (1776–1789), Edward Gibbon refers to the Serpentine Column both in Chapter 17 (on the founding of Constantinople) and in Chapter 68 (on the triumphal entry of Mehmet II, the Conqueror into Constantinople on 29 May 1453):
The Circus or Hippodrome was a stately building about 400 paces in length and 100 in breadth. The space between the two metae or goals was filled with statues and obelisks; and we may still remark a very singular fragment of antiquity, the bodies of three serpents twisted into one pillar of brass. Their triple heads had once supported the golden tripod which, after the defeat of Xerxes, was consecrated in the temple of Apollo at Delphi, by the victorious Greeks."
... and again...
From the first hour of the memorable 29th of May, disorder and rapine prevailed in Constantinople, till the eighth hour of the same day, when the Sultan himself passed in triumph through the gate of St. Romanus. He was attended by his vizars, bashaws, and guards, each of whom (says a Byzantine historian) was as robust as Hercules, dexterous as Apollo, and equal in battle to any ten of the race of ordinary mortals. The conqueror gazed in satisfaction and wonder on the strange though splendid appearance of the domes and palaces, so dissimilar from the style of Oriental architecture. In the hippodrome, his eye was attracted by the twisted column of the three serpents, and, as a trial of his strength, he shattered with his iron mace or battleaxe the under-jaw of one of these monsters, which in the eyes of the Turks were the idols or talismans of the city.
In other sources.
The somewhat chequered history of the monument, after its removal to Constantinople, may be deduced from various sources. According to W. W. How & J. Wells, it was converted into a triple-mouthed fountain by a later Emperor, was seen and described by travellers from 1422 onwards, and was thrown down in 1700, when the serpents heads were broken off. Marcus N. Tod says the level of the ground was raised in 1630, and the inscribed portion of the monument was then hidden. The base of the column was excavated in 1855, under the supervision of Charles Thomas Newton. Fifteen of the serpents’ coils had been hidden and the inscription, beginning at the 13th coil and ending at the 3rd was revealed. It was deciphered by C. Frick in 1856, by Ernst Fabricius in 1886 and by others since.
The 13th coil carries the Laconic inscription:
"Those who fought the war", followed on coils 12 to 3 by the names of 31 city states. This contains eight cities not named in Herodotus, book 9.28 as being present at the battle of Plataea, and excludes Pale, in Cephalonia, which Herodotus did include. In the aforementioned paragraph Pausanias lists the names on the offering to Zeus at Olympia, which exclude four cities inscribed on the Serpentine column. Perhaps this is a simple oversight by a copyist. Although the cities inscribed on the column exclude other cities mentioned by Herodotus as participating in the war, it is clear that the memorial relates to the Great Persian War as a whole, not just the battle of Plataea. The lists of states given by the three sources are set out in Appendix B. Coils 12 and 13 have been scarred and dented by sabre cuts, which made the inscriptions difficult to decipher. The dedication, said by Diodorus to have been composed by Simonides [paragraph above] has not been found. One of the serpent heads survives in the Museum of Antiquities, Istanbul. This head has its under-jaw missing, a linkage to Edward Gibbon's colourful description of the conqueror's triumphal entry into Constantinople on 29 May 1453.
Current status.
Pausanias informs us that roughly a hundred years later, the Phoceans used the golden tripod to fund their military during the holy war involving the Oracle of Delphi. Constantine the Great moved the Serpent Column to Constantinople to decorate the spina (central line) of the Hippodrome of Constantinople, where it still stands today.
The top of the column was adorned with a golden bowl supported by three serpent heads. The bowl was destroyed or stolen during the Fourth Crusade. Many Ottoman miniatures show the serpent heads were intact in the early decades following the Turkish conquest of the city.
Ahmed Bican, from Gallipoli, has given a short description of the Column in his "Dürr-i Meknûn", written around the time of the Fall of Constantinople. He states that it is a hollow bronze of intertwined snakes, threeheaded, a talisman for the citizens against snake bites.
Between fifty and one hundred years after the Turkish conquest of Constantinople, the jaw of one of the three serpent heads was documented missing. The accepted version states that Mehmed II shattered it upon entering the city in triumph as its conqueror.
Later, at the end of the 17th century, all three of the serpent heads were destroyed. Silahdar Findiklili Mehmed Aga relates in "Nusretname" ("The Book of Victories") that the heads simply fell off on the night of October 20, 1700. The upper jaw of one of the heads is on display at the Istanbul Archaeology Museum.
In 2015 a bronze cast copy of the serpent column was made and set up in the Archaeological Site of Delphi.


Aviva Rahmani

Aviva Rahmani is an Ecological artist whose public and ecological art projects have involved collaborative interdisciplinary community teams with scientists, planners, environmentalists and other artists. Her projects range from complete landscape restorations to museum venues that reference painting, sound and photography.
Early influences on her work include her interdisciplinary Classical studies at NYU, engagement in activism, as with the Bread and Puppet Theatre, her work in city planning in San Diego County in the 1980s and Vinalhaven Island, Maine in the 1990s, and the merging of science with aesthetics.
Education.
Rahmani attended the Cooper Union School of Art and Architecture, and got her MA from the California Institute of the Arts, Valencia, California on a scholarship and stipend to work with Allan Kaprow and Morton Sobotnick, receiving a double degree in multi-media and electronic music. Rahmani has taught, lectured and performed internationally, and is the recipient of numerous grants and fellowships including two from the Nancy H. Gray Foundation for Art in the Environment in 1999 and 2000. More recently, Rahmani concurrently studied for a GIS certificate at Lehman College, CUNY, while finishing a dissertation at Plymouth University, UK.
Biography.
Rahmani's background in performance and conceptual art begin with her founding and directing the performance group the American Ritual Theatre (1968- 1971). In 1971, she collaborated with Judy Chicago, Suzanne Lacy, and Sandi Orgel on "Ablutions", now considered a groundbreaking feminist performance work on rape (Chicago, Judy Through the Flower).
In 1999, Rahmani was a founding member of the "Eco-art Dialog", an international collective of ecological art practitioners.
Rahmani has received numerous grants and fellowships including two from the Nancy H. Gray Foundation for Art in the Environment and a 2009 award for her work on water from the Arts and Healing Network.
Work.
Rahmani has performed and exhibited work at numerous venues, including the Hudson River Museum, Exit Art, and the Cincinnati Contemporary Arts Center (Ecovention, exhibition) in Ohio.
One of Rahmani's best known works is "Ghost Nets" 1990-2000 (Tallmer, Kagan, Carruthers, Genocchio), which includes her original theories of environmental restoration and trigger point theory. In 2012, she applied trigger point theory and the "Gulf to Gulf" webcasts to "Fish Story Memphis," a multi-part public art project designed for “Memphis Social,” curated by Tom McGlynn (2013) (Memphis is the Center of the World).
In 2006, Rahmani initiated a series of podcasts, "Virtual Cities and Oceans of If", which segued into webcasts on climate change. She is currently an Affiliate with the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research at the University of Colorado Boulder, Colorado (UCB), where she has been collaborating with the Director, James White since 2007 on, "Gulf to Gulf," a series of webcasts on global warming with other scientists, artists and thinkers. Their first collaborative work premiered with Cultura21 in the Joseph Beuys Pavilion of the 2007 Venice Biennale.
In 2007, Rahmani in collaboration with White appeared in the collective exhibition Weather Report, debuting her titled work “Trigger Points, Tipping Points.” Rahmani displayed a series of digital prints that superimposed satellite imagery with textual warnings on the morphing and changing of climate change on the global landscape. Her work embodies a discourse that focuses on the power dynamics of disaster and how rising sea levels will not only effect landscape, but also result in the relocation of communities and refugee migration. Rahmani seamlessly ties together climate change with the themes of class, power, and justice — a conversation not as prevalent in the global warming conversation.
In 2009, Rahmani served as a formal observer for University of Colorado Boulder at the COP15 and blogged about her experience for High Tide, an arts collective based in Liverpool, UK.
Rahmani's current work reflects her interest in the application of mapping analysis, to "explore potential solutions for urban and rural water degradation in large landscapes."
Rahmani's recent work also uses the internet "to perform residencies without the international travel that spews jet fuel over the earth's waters." Virtual Cities and Oceans of If and the ongoing Virtual Concerts address global warming and geo-political conflicts by demonstrating, analyzing and interpreting the local impact of global warming at international real world sites.
As of 2018, Rahmani used her projects "The Blued Trees Symphony" and "The Blued Trees" in order to protect the locations of proposed pipeline constructions in New York, Virginia, and West Virginia through the Visual Artists Rights Act (VARA).
Recognition.
Rahmani's work has won numerous grants and fellowships and been written about internationally. She is an affiliate with the Institute for Arctic and Alpine Research at the University of Colorado at Boulder, gained her PhD from the University of Plymouth, UK, and received her BFA and MFA at the California Institute of the Arts.
Early life.
Rahmani's family traveled throughout her teen years, exposing her to many landscapes and cultures. Those early travels fostered a deep interest in her about how history inflects understanding and allowed her to consider how genocide and ecocide merge. As she matured, she came to understand the implications of how the personal is political and manifests in art.
Awards.
2020 MAP Fund Grant.
From the Multi-Arts Production (MAP) Fund supported by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, New York City, NY
2019 - 2020 LMCC Artist Residency.
Lower Manhattan Cultural Council (LMCC) at LMCC’s Arts Center at Governors Island, New York, NY
2018 Arts & Humanities Grant.
From the Maine Humanities Council (Portland, ME) in partnership with the Maine Arts Commission (Augusta, ME)
2017 ABOG Fellow for Contemplative Practice.
(Inaugural) in partnership with the Hemera Foundation, (for work on Blued Trees), A Blade of Grass (ABOG) foundation, Brooklyn, NY
2016 - 2019 Ethelwyn Doolittle Justice and Outreach Fund of the Community Church of New York Unitarian Universalist.
For Blued Trees (renewed 3 years following initial award, maximum offered), New York, NY
2016 NYFA Fellowship (Architecture/ Environmental Structures/ Design).
New York Foundation for the Arts, New York, NY
2015 NEA Ecology Residency.
ISCP International Studio & Curatorial Program, Brooklyn, NY
2010 - present Affiliate with the Institute for Arctic and Alpine Research (INSTAAR).
At the University of Colorado Boulder, CO
2010 - present NYFA Fiscal Sponsorship.
New York Foundation for the Arts, New York, NY
Interviews.
Chasing the Light.
Guest on environmental podcast Outside/In interviewed by Taylor Quimby, Dec 19, 2019
http://outsideinradio.org/shows/yearofwonders-fx7dn
The Art of Protecting Lands: Aviva Rahmani.
Guest on State Of The Art podcast, April 11, 2019
https://art19.com/shows/state-of-the-art/episodes/41e5ab5d-611a-47f8-9238-c262581562df
The Sarah West Love Show.
Guest with Gale Elston and Robin Scully, live radio conversation, April 2, 2019 https://www.facebook.com/TheWorkFM/videos/349790569212554/
Using ecological art to spark environmental conservation.
Guest on the Green Dreamer podcast, with Kamea Chayne, episode # 154, July 11, 2019
Artist Blocked Pipeline with Blued Trees Symphony.
Interview by Mitch Ratcliffe for the Podcast Earth911 May 8, 2018
https://earth911.com/inspire/artist-blocks-fracking/
Making the trees sing: Using art to try to stop pipelines.
Guest on Day 6 hosted by Brent Bambury CBC Radio, April 27, 2018
https://www.cbc.ca/radio/day6/making-the-treessing-using-art-to-try-to-stop-pipelines-1.4634839
Can Art Stop a Pipeline?
A Blade of Grass Film, Produced and Directed by RAVA Films and A Blade of Grass
https://abladeofgrass.org/fieldworks/can-art-stop-pipelinefeaturing-artist-aviva-rahmani/
Artist Series: Aviva Rahmani’s work with VARA, land use and environmental law.
Interview with Steve Schindler & Katie Wilson-Milne for The Art Law podcast, November 8, 2018
http://artlawpodcast.com/2018/11/08/artist-series-aviva-rahmanis-work-with-vara-landuse-and-environmental-law/
PIPELINE - 19 - BLUED TREES – REVISED..
Director, Marino, Colmano. A Lucid Media Production, YouTube, Nov 12, 2016
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkbJKUI9S_w
Feed the Green: Feminist Voices for this Earth..
Director Jane Caputi, produced by Susan Rosenkranz, distributed by Women Make Movies.
Chapters in Books.
Organizing the Approach in “Ecoart in Action,” an Anthology of writings About Teaching Ecological Art, edited by Christopher Fremantle, Amara Geffen, Aviva Rahmani and Ann Rosenthal. New York: New Village Press/ New York University Press. 2022.
Blued Trees as Policy: art, law, science and the Anthropocene in Art, Theory and Practice in the Anthropocene Edited by Julie Reiss, Wilmington, Delaware: Vernon Press. 2019.
Rocks, Radishes, Restoration: on the relationships between clean water and healthy soil Aviva Rahmani and Ray Weil in Field to Palette Edited by Alex Toland, Jay Stratton Noller and Gerd Wessolek, Boca Raton: CRC Press. 2018.
1000x Landscape Architecture, Germany: Braun. 2009.
The Butterfly Effect of Hummingbirds: environmental triage: disturbance theory, trigger points, and virtual analogs for physical sites in Sustainability: a new frontier for the arts and cultures Edited by Sacha Kagan and Volker Kirchberg, Waldkirchen: VAS-Verlag pp: 264-289. 2008.
Practical Ecofeminism in Blaze: Discourse on Art, Women and Feminism edited by Karen Frostig and Kathy A. Halamka, Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, p. 315. 2007.
Articles in Journals and Magazines.
The Music of the Trees: The Blued Trees Symphony and Opera as Environmental Research and Legal Activism Leonardo Music Journal 2019 Vol. 29, 8-13. 2019. https://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1162/lmj_a_01055
Blowin’ in the Wind” M/E/A/N/I/N/G: The Final Issue on A Year of Positive Thinking December 2016. https://ayearofpositivethinking.com/2016/12/17/
The Spirit of Change: Water, Policy and Ecological Artmaking Center for Humans and Nature October 21, 2016 https://www.humansandnature.org/the-spirit-of-change
Blued Trees on the front lines journal excerpts The Brooklyn Rail, November 5, 2015.
https://brooklynrail.org/2015/11/criticspage/blued-trees-on-the-front-lines-journal-excerpts
Blued Trees CSPA Quarterly Issue 12, August 3, 2015.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/cspaquarterly.issue-12 2015.
A Community of Resistance: Collaborative Work with Science and Scientists.” WEAD Magazine (an online magazine). Issue 7, CREATING COMMUNITY, 2014.
https://directory.weadartists.org/communities-art-science
Fish Story Memphis: Memphis is the Centre of the World Journal for Environmental Studies and Sciences [online] Vol. 4 (2; June 2014): 176–179.
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs13412-013-0150-z
Triggering Change: A Call to Action Public Art Review Vol. 24, Issue 48, Spring/Summer 2013.
https://issuu.com/forecastpublicart/docs/par48_full
Mapping Trigger Point Theory as Aesthetic Activism PJIM, Vol.4, Issue 2, Winter pp. 1–9. 2012.


Kiss Me Again (2006 film)

Kiss Me Again is a 2006 romantic drama film directed and co-written by William Tyler Smith. It stars Jeremy London and Katheryn Winnick.
Plot.
Julian and Chalice, who have been married for three years, hit turmoil when Julian almost has an affair with a young Spanish student, Elena. Julian suggests, after learning from a neighbour engaged in such, that they look for another woman to join them and have a polygamous relationship. However, Julian has orchestrated affairs so that the woman happens to be Elena.
Reception.
Neil Genzlinger of The New York Times criticized the film as derivative and having poor performances. He said, "(Tyler) seems not to realize just how tired the notion of married folk deciding jointly to experiment with other partners is. The movie is so earnest that it's embarrassing."


Tony Cox (actor)

Joseph Anthony Cox (born March 31, 1957) is an American actor known for his roles in "Bad Santa", "Friday", "Me, Myself & Irene," "Date Movie," "Epic Movie", "Disaster Movie", and Leprechaun 2. He is also known for his role in George Lucas's "Willow", as an Ewok in "Return of the Jedi" and as The Preacher in Tim Burton's "Beetlejuice". Cox also appeared in various music videos.
Early life.
Cox was born in Uniontown, Alabama, the son of Henrietta Cox-Penn and Joe Cox. He spent his childhood in Uniontown, with his grandmother and grandfather, Lottie and Henry Jones. His mother and stepfather, Rudolph (Rudy) Penn, live in College Park, Georgia. By the age of 10 he became an avid drummer. He met his future wife, Otelia, during high school. They were eventually married in 1981 when Cox was 23 years old.
After graduation from high school, Cox attended the Alabama State University and originally planned to study music. Cox said in a 2003 interview with "Jet" magazine, "I played by ear. It was exactly like in "Drumline". I played against some of the drummers from the school, and they didn't have anything on me. I just couldn't read music."
Career.
Shortly thereafter, Cox decided to pursue acting after watching Billy Barty, a little person who was an actor and also founder of the organization Little People of America. Encouraged by relatives and friends, he moved to Los Angeles at age 18. He began taking classes at the Merrick Studio School of Acting with Scriptwriter De De Tillman and soon began working in commercials, film, and television roles. He is better known for his roles in "Bad Santa" where he played Marcus, the brains of a safe cracking duo, and in "Date Movie" where he played a parody of Dr. Hitch from "Hitch". As second lead to Billy Bob Thornton, Cox's role in "Bad Santa" was a rare occurrence of a little person actor in a leading role. Cox reprised his role as Marcus in "Bad Santa 2", released in 2016.
Cox also appeared on the TV show "Martin" in the first season, playing the character Bennie, in which he helps his friend Trey, played by Bushwick Bill, beat up Tommy played by Thomas Mikal Ford, over Tommy allegedly "stealing" his ex-girlfriend.
Cox also appeared in a pivotal role in the Farrelly Brothers' movie "Me, Myself & Irene", playing a Mensa International-member limousine driver who steals Jim Carrey's character's wife.


The Fog Warning

The Fog Warning is one of several paintings on marine subjects by the late-19th-century American painter Winslow Homer (1836–1910). Together with "The Herring Net" and "Breezing Up", painted the same year and also depicting the hard lives of fishermen in Maine, it is considered among his best works on such topics.
Background.
After initially making his reputation with paintings on themes related to the Civil War, in the late 1860s and through the 1870s Winslow Homer turned instead to painting people relaxing and at play: children, young women, genre paintings of farm and sea scenes. In 1881–82 he spent time in Cullercoats, in northeast England, where he painted the local fisherman and women. On his return to the US, he settled for good in Prout's Neck, Maine, where his father and brother had recently purchased a large amount of land. His brother had spent his honeymoon in Prout's Neck in 1875, and Winslow had visited him then. In both these locations he returned to painting the sea with more serious themes, such as the hard and dangerous lives of the fishermen and their families, and "humankind’s life-and-death struggles against the sea and the elemental power of nature."
He had a studio built for him in Prout's Neck, which was completed in 1884. Here he painted "The Fog Warning", one of three paintings he completed there in 1885 depicting the lives of the local fishermen. These are considered among his best works representing the subject; the others are "Lost on the Grand Banks", and "The Herring Net". Many of his late paintings, like "The Fog Warning", depict a single figure at sea. Another theme in many of his paintings of the fisherman's life was the bounty of the sea, which also provides the people's livelihood; the two are combined in this painting, which was originally exhibited under the title "Halibut Fishing".
Description.
The painting depicts a lone fisherman in a dory who has caught several halibut but now sees fog blowing up, threatening to cut him off as he rows back to his ship. His face is turned in profile to the viewer as he looks over his shoulder at the clouds of fog in the background. He is in a race against the dense fog to return to the main ship with his day's work.
The Boston Fine Art Museum gives this description:The Fog Warning is a painting with a narrative, though its tale is disturbing rather than charming. As indicated by the halibut in his dory, the fisherman in this picture has been successful. But the hardest task of the day, the return to the main ship, is still ahead of him. He turns to look at the horizon, measuring the distance to the mother ship, and to safety. The seas are choppy and the dory rocks high on the waves, making it clear that the journey home will require considerable physical effort. But more threatening is the approaching fog bank, whose streamers echo, even mock, the fisherman's profile.
The scene is psychologically tense; the risk of being lost at sea as a result of a sudden fog was all too real at the time, and the viewer does not know whether this man will reach his ship. The weight of the halibut in the bow of the boat is slowing him down, but if he decides to leave his catch behind he will not get paid for his work. The picture has been used in elementary-school education to teach about interpretation of art and fishermen's lives.
Interpretation.
Several studies for the painting survive, among them a more intimate, less monumental version called "Halibut Fishing". Homer's handyman Henry Lee posed for the painting in a dory supported on a pile of sand. In 1886 this work was originally displayed in Boston at Doll and Richards Gallery with the title "Halibut Fishing." The original sketch was discovered in Homer's studio after his passing. This painting depicted the fisherman facing the viewer rather than gazing out to the nearing fog, with emphasis more on the act of fishing.
Before Homer added the dark shadows of the fog in the background, the original work emphasized the fisherman's focus on reeling in another fish to bring back to his boat. The fisherman's face is directed towards the line which he is feeding through one of the tholepins on the dory. The home ship is on the horizon, but the warm tones used throughout the sky and sea suggest the painting depicts a calm scene. Homer later changed the name of this piece to better depict the narrative of the relationship between the fisherman and the fog, rather than just the action of fishing. In his final piece, the dark clouds of the fog fill the skyline, almost swallowing the home ship on the horizon. The fog obscures the sunset, emphasizing that danger is near. The fisherman now appears in profile gazing towards the fog and the ship he must get back to. Homer replaced the fishing line in the tholepins with two oars, and added the detail of the anchor in the stern of the boat. The mood shifts in this final piece from calm to dangerous as darker shades of blue are added to the sea and the sky. The added details shift the meaning of this work to emphasize the dangerous life of a Maine fisherman when nature takes control.
Thematically related works.
In addition to "Herring Nets" and "Breezing Up", which share the focus on Maine fishermen, Homer's "Lost on the Grand Banks" (also 1885) and "" depict tragedy at sea: the former shows another fisherman in mortal danger at sea, the latter depicts one thrown up on shore dead. In contrast, in "Summer Night" (1890) the sea is raging in the background while in the middle ground people silhouetted against the waves watch, but in the foreground two girls are dancing, unconcerned. Similarly in "The Gulf Stream" (1899), violent waves and sharks surround the drifting boat, but the man lays across the stern, again, unconcerned about the possible dangers.


The Lock (Constable)

The Lock is an oil painting by English artist John Constable, finished in 1824. It depicts a rural scene on the River Stour in the English county of Suffolk, one of six paintings within the Six-Footer series. It was auctioned for £22,441,250 at Christie's in London on 3 July 2012.
Description.
"The Lock" is painted in oil on canvas. It depicts a working rural scene from Suffolk, as a figure struggles to open a canal gate at Dedham Lock near Flatford Mill in Suffolk to allow a lighter barge to progress on the River Stour. There is a distant view of Dedham church across the quintessentially English water meadows The scene is set under a towering tree and a dramatic, cloud-filled sky.
History.
"The Lock" is the fifth of six paintings that make up the "Stour series" of large-scale rural works, that Constable exhibited at the Royal Academy between 1819 and 1825. The painting is the only one of the series which remains in private hands, with the more famous "The Hay Wain" in the National Gallery, London.
After its exhibition in 1824, "The Morning Post" commented: "Mr Constable contributes a landscape composition which for depth, sparkling light, freshness and vigorous effect exceeds any of his works." Samuel William Reynolds offered to make a mezzotint print, but never completed it. His pupil David Lucas eventually prepared one from Constable's private copy of the painting (Foster version).
On the opening day of the exhibition, James Morrison (1789–1857) an inn-keeper's son from Balham Hill, London, and Basildon Park, Berkshire, acquired the painting for 150 guineas, the only occasion in Constable's career when a painting sold on its first day of exhibition. Its ownership then progressed down through his family:
On 14 November 1990 it was bought as lot No.128 for £10,780,000 at Sotheby's auction in London, by Baron Hans Heinrich Thyssen-Bornemisza and his wife Carmen "Tita" Thyssen. This set a record for a British work of art, which it held until 2006 when a view of Venice by J. M. W. Turner, Constable's rival, sold for £20.5m at Christie's in New York. From 1992, the couple placed the painting on loan to their museum, the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza in Madrid, Spain. It was part of the Baroness's personal collection rather than the main collection.
In light of "a lack of liquid funds", the Baroness decided in 2011 to sell the painting. It was auctioned for £22,441,250 at Christie's in London on 3 July 2012, following a low estimate of £20million, making it the joint fourth on the list of most-expensive Old Masters. Museum trustee Sir Norman Rosenthal resigned in protest at the sale, saying that the decision to sell represented ".. a moral shame on the part of all those concerned, most especially on the part of Tita"
Foster version and 1826 version.
Constable made a copy of this painting, known as the Foster version, in 1825. This was the only copy of a painting from the Stour series he made, though later he commonly made copies of his most popular compositions, such as his views of Salisbury Cathedral. The Foster version remains in private hands, one of just three such major works by Constable, and was auctioned at Sotheby's London on the evening of 9 December 2015 on its low estimate at £9,109,000. Previous owners of the painting include William Orme Foster (1814–1900) of Apley Hall, Shropshire, one time High Sheriff of Shropshire, and his descendants.
In 1826 Constable painted a variation of the same subject, entitled "A Boat Passing a Lock", changing the format from portrait to landscape and slightly varying the action.


El Jaleo

El Jaleo is a large painting by John Singer Sargent, depicting a Spanish Gypsy dancer performing to the accompaniment of musicians. Painted in 1882, it currently hangs in the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston.
Background.
The painting was inspired by a five-month trip Sargent made through Spain and North Africa in 1879, which also yielded a smaller oil painting, "The Spanish Dance" (Hispanic Society of America). Chronologically and thematically, the painting is related to a series of works Sargent painted during a subsequent stay in Venice; these, too, include dramatic light effects, exotic models, and restrained coloring. Impressed by the costumes and theatrical manner of Gypsy dance, the artist returned to Paris and began work on a large canvas whose scale suggested a performing stage. The name "El Jaleo" refers to both the broad meaning of "jaleo", a ruckus, as well as the specific dance known as "jaleo de jerez".
Sargent planned the composition of "El Jaleo" for at least a year. The painting was preceded by a series of preliminary studies, focusing particularly on the dancer's stylized posture. The result of thorough preparation, "El Jaleo" is characterized by an assured and rapid handling, and may have been completed in no more than a few days.
Description.
Almost wide, "El Jaleo" is broadly painted in a nearly monochromatic palette, but for spots of red at the right and an orange at left, which is reminiscent of the lemons Édouard Manet inserted into several of his large paintings. At odds with the academic practice of carefully modulated tones, Sargent dramatized the contrast between rich blacks and the shining white skirt of the dancer, caught in the strong footlights and painted briskly so as to suggest movement. The lighting also creates long and eerie shadows on the rear wall that comprises nearly half the painting.
The female dancer, leaning asymmetrically, is placed to imply forward motion, from left to right across the canvas. She is wearing a large, embroidered shawl wrapped around her shoulders, illustrating common flamenco costuming. The dancer's pose, with the outstretched left arm, is a depiction of standard flamenco dance technique and style.
"El Jaleo" is the most theatrical of Sargent's early major works. The lack of a barrier between the viewer and dancer helps create the illusion that we are present at the actual event; the manipulation of space and lighting communicates the energetic rhythms of the dance, its sound and movement.
"El Jaleo" is an example of Hispanism, the phenomenon of widespread fascination with Spanish culture throughout Europe and America in the nineteenth and early twentieth century.
The painting has been called both an example of John Singer Sargent's Impressionism and also his early affinity with the Realist movement.
Provenance.
Sargent exhibited "El Jaleo" at the 1882 Paris Salon, where the painting was purchased by a Boston patron, Thomas Jefferson Coolidge. It was the last subject picture that Sargent exhibited at the Salon, and his greatest success there.
In 1888 the painting was publicly exhibited in Boston, at which time museum patron Isabella Stewart Gardner, the heiress wife of a Coolidge cousin, expressed her interest in it. In 1914 she borrowed "El Jaleo" to exhibit in her museum, and constructed the Spanish Cloister gallery especially for "El Jaleo", which is framed by a Moorish arch and reflected the painting in a large mirror running perpendicular to its left edge. Coolidge then gave the painting to Gardner, and Sargent presented her with an album of pencil drawings he had made as preparatory sketches for the work.
"El Jaleo" was on exhibition at the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C. for a short time in 1992, on loan from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum for the first time since 1914. At that time, the painting had been recently cleaned and restored by Alain Goldrach.
Critical reception.
After the initial exhibition of "El Jaleo" in 1882 at the French Salon, John Singer Sargent became, as one writer put it, "the most talked-about painter in Paris." Some critics in 1882 said that the painting caused Sargent to join the ranks of the French Impressionists. A critic for "Le Figaro" called the painting "one of the most original and strongest works of the present Salon." Some writers hailed the painting as clever, while others dismissed it as a vagary of the artist.
Today "El Jaleo" is considered to be one of John Singer Sargent's most memorable works.


Wesley Willis

Wesley Lawrence Willis (May 31, 1963 – August 21, 2003) was an American singer-songwriter and visual artist. Diagnosed with schizophrenia in 1989, Willis began a career as an underground singer-songwriter in the outsider music tradition. Willis' songs are typically partially spoken in an MC style, and partially sung in a nasal and out-of-tune manner reminiscent of punk rock vocals. They feature bizarre, humorous and sometimes obscene or absurd lyrics sung over melodies created by using the auto accompaniment feature on his Technics KN keyboard. His songs cover a wide variety of topics, with mental illness and consumerism being the most prominent themes.
Willis gained a large cult following in the 1990s, particularly after the release of his 1995 "Greatest Hits" album on the Alternative Tentacles label, and received the nickname "The Daddy of Rock 'n' Roll". Jello Biafra compiled the album's track list. In addition to a large body of solo musical work, Willis fronted his own punk rock band, the Wesley Willis Fiasco, during the 1990s. He was also a visual artist long before he developed an interest in music, and produced hundreds of intricate, unusual, colored ink-pen drawings, most of them of various Chicago streetscapes; he frequently sold these on the street for between $20 and $40.
Despite his mainly underground career, Willis has influenced a variety of media. For example, music software company Nullsoft took their slogan "It really whips the llama's ass!" for Winamp from Willis's song "Whip the Llama's Ass".
Life and career.
Willis was born in Chicago, Illinois on May 31, 1963, to Walter and Annie Willis. According to the "Los Angeles Times", "Willis grew up in Chicago's projects as one of 10 children of parents who had a violent relationship and separated when he was young; he spent time in several foster homes and was essentially raised by two older brothers, who went with him from home to home." Willis began hearing voices during a period of living at his mother's home in the 1980s, when her abusive boyfriend Roger Lee Carpenter held a gun to his head and robbed him of $100 Willis had saved. By the end of the 1980s, he was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and institutionalized for two months after his diagnosis.
During childhood, Willis developed an interest in art, and in 1988, he was featured in a Chicago public access documentary feature created by Carl W. Hart titled "Wesley Willis: Artist of the Streets". In "Artist of the Streets", he was shown walking through Chicago's Loop neighborhood, producing his ink pen drawings outside of the Marshall Field and Company Building, and interacting with people curious about his art. The drawings typically encompass detailed Chicago streetscapes, including buildings, vehicles, trees, and landmarks. Willis was known for his ability to draw from memory a completely different location than the one in which he was sitting. During his lifetime, he frequently gave his drawings away to friends or sold them for small amounts (typically $10 or $20) in Chicago parks. However, after his death, Willis began to receive recognition in the art community for his large body of visual art. In 2008 his artwork was exhibited at the Mohamed Khalil Museum of Egypt, and he was the subject of a special exhibit entitled "Drawn By Wesley Willis" at Dominican University.
In 1991, after befriending some musicians from Chicago's alternative rock scene and recording several solo albums, he formed the punk rock band The Wesley Willis Fiasco. The band developed a popular underground following as well as attention from musicians such as Eddie Vedder, Henry Rollins, Mike D., Jello Biafra, and the members of White Zombie; and soon caught the attention of Rick Rubin at American Recordings, an independent label distributed by The Warner Group. In early 1994, Willis recorded with the Canadian industrial-metal band Monster Voodoo Machine and appeared on their Juno Award-winning debut album "Suffersystem" (RCA Records). In 1995, American Recordings signed Willis as a solo musician; the Wesley Willis Fiasco subsequently broke up in 1996. He went on to record numerous solo albums of novelty rock (two for American Recordings and the remainder for several independent labels or recorded, marketed and released independently by Willis himself), toured frequently, and was profiled on MTV. On September 26, 1996, he was a guest on "The Howard Stern Show" where he played nearly identical songs about Baba Booey and Howard Stern. During his many tours and live appearances, Willis became "famous for greeting fans with a headbutt"; this left him with a distinctive permanent bruise on his forehead.
In early 2003 the documentary "The Daddy of Rock 'n' Roll" was released, chronicling Willis' daily life and interests.
In 2004, Willis's song "Rock N Roll McDonald's", about the McDonald's restaurant of the same name, was used in the soundtrack of the documentary "Super Size Me".
Death.
On August 21, 2003, Willis died due to complications from chronic myelogenous leukemia in Skokie, Illinois.
Legacy.
In 2013, a supporting character named Milan was introduced for the ongoing Wonder Woman comic. A blind demigod with the power of far-sight and half-brother to Wonder Woman, his physical appearance and mannerisms are based on Wesley Willis.
Willis has been honored with a star on the outside mural of the Minneapolis nightclub First Avenue, recognizing performers that have played sold-out shows or have otherwise demonstrated a major contribution to the culture at the iconic venue. Receiving a star "might be the most prestigious public honor an artist can receive in Minneapolis", according to journalist Steve Marsh.
Willis is referenced on the song "Get Famous" by American indie rock band The Mountain Goats, released on September 14, 2020, with the line "Wesley Willis taught me how to write about you". The song references themes of fame and the exploitation and downfall of those who achieve it.
Song structure and themes.
"Hellride" was the term used by Willis to describe his encounters with "demons", which occurred mainly on the CTA bus lines in Chicago. According to Willis, his demons were trying to ruin his "Harmony Joy Music" or "Joy Rides". He used the term in many of his songs, such as "I Deserve a Warhellride".
The Wesley Willis Fiasco songs were punk rock songs with Willis howling his obscene, absurd rants as lyrics. The band recorded three cover songs: Thin Lizzy's "Jailbreak", Pure Prairie League's "Amie", and Duran Duran's "Girls on Film", the last of which was recorded for a 1997 Duran Duran tribute album. Another song by the Wesley Willis Fiasco, "The Bar Is Closed", recreates a section of Rush's "Tom Sawyer"; the song "Casper the Homosexual Friendly Ghost" does the same with Van Halen's "Jamie's Cryin'".
As a solo artist, Willis filled his albums with funny, bizarre, tense, and often obscene statements about crime, fast food, cultural trends, bus routes, violent confrontations with superheroes, commands for his "demons" to engage in bestiality (in "The Daddy of Rock 'n' Roll", Willis explained that these songs would "gross out" the demons enough to make them leave him alone), and praise for his favorite actors, friends, politicians, and hip hop and rock artists. Songs about rock artists were usually confined to describing a show performed by the band that Willis had attended or opened for, recycling key phrases such as "The crowd roared like a lion", "A lot of people met the band", or "The band got down like a Magikist". Many songs end with the phrase "Rock over London, rock on, Chicago", followed by a product slogan, such as "Wheaties: Breakfast of Champions", "Ford: Quality is Job One", "Diet Pepsi: Uh-Huh!" or "Blockbuster Video: Wow, What a Difference!"
Critic Stephen Thomas Erlewine of Allmusic wrote that despite Willis' prolific output his songs were essentially variations on the same simple structure, melody and lyrical themes. He also questioned record company motives for releasing albums by Willis: "It's certainly admirable that Willis has decided to not be tied down by his schizophrenia, but it often seems that his audience is laughing at him, not with him." Erlewine also wrote that listening to a Willis record felt "exploitive".


Landscape with a Windmill near a Town Moat

"
Landscape with a Windmill Near a Town Moat (c. 1650s) is an oil on canvas painting by the Dutch landscape painter Jacob van Ruisdael.
It is an example of Dutch Golden Age painting and is now in a private collection.
This painting was documented by Hofstede de Groot in 1911, who wrote; "174. LANDSCAPE WITH A WIND-MILL. Sm. 135. A town-moat stretches from the distance to the foreground, which it almost fills. In the immediate right foreground is the reedy bank with a wooden bridge. Farther back are brick walls, the remains of a sluice, which are connected by planks. A man with a dog crosses to the left bank which is thickly planted with trees. Near the bank is a boat on the water. In the middle distance is a man in a flat-bottomed boat on the sunlit water. Farther back is a wooden drawbridge over the moat to the town, above whose wall rise house-roofs and a great wooden mill. A fine summer day with clouds in the sky. More or less in the style of Hobbema. The figures are by Ruisdael himself. An attractive picture. Canvas, 25 inches by 30 1/2 inches. Engraved by J. H. Wright in the Stafford Gallery. In the collection of Lord Francis Egerton, London, 1835 (Sm.). In the collection of the Earl of Ellesmere, Bridgewater House, London, 1892 catalogue, No. 197."
This painting was documented in earlier estate sale catalogs of Pieter Locquet and Jan Gildemeester and Hofstede de Groot therefore listed it also as #16, though at the time he didn't know it was the same painting as his #174.


Fairy Dust (film)

Fairy Dust is a 2016 short film co-produced, co-written and starring Swedish singer-songwriter Tove Lo. The film coincides with the first "chapter", or first six songs, of Lo's sophomore album, "Lady Wood", which was released on 28 October 2016. The film was released on YouTube and Vevo on 31 October 2016.
Plot.
The film opens with Tove Lo (played by herself) returning to her motel room late at night. As she crosses the parking lot and ascends the stairs, she begins laughing maniacally, screaming in rage and crying shortly after (Fairy Dust - Chapter I).
The next morning, Lorna (Lina Esco) speaks negatively of women, motherhood and weddings and how much she enjoys being alone and that she's independent while smoking a cigarette. She hears the couple next door arguing and yells through the wall at them, telling the husband to stop being "a little bitch" and stating the wife is a hypocrite for being a feminist but wanting her sexual needs fulfilled. Lorna lays on the bed saying she has ways to numb the pain, with Tove laying with her. The two fornicate, cuddle and smoke marijuana together on the bed (Influence).
That night, Tove drives to a club. As she walks through the club, she wonders why "[it's] not working anymore" and that "it used to be enough as long as it was all the time". She sees Lorna across the room and begins to dance with the people around her, forming connections with them as they mimic her moves. At this, Lorna yells at Tove, only to have Tove retaliate with the help of her new friends. Eventually, Lorna and Tove reconcile, kissing as the lights flash (Lady Wood). After, Lorna and Tove drive back to the motel while Lorna recounts the first time they met when Tove was in love with an older man who did not reciprocate the feelings, leaving Tove alone with Lorna. Lorna begins to speak about how easy it is to die and forces Tove to crash her car, knocking her unconscious. When she wakes, Lorna is dousing the car in gasoline. Tove attempts to leave the scene several times, only to find herself back at the car wreck. There, Lorna sets fire to her clothes, killing herself (True Disaster).
Tove is later seen in her bathroom shaving her head. She dances around in the parking lot of the motel with the people she met at the club while her shaved head persona is burying Lorna in the desert. A short monologue reveals that while Tove is grieving the loss of Lorna, she believes pain to be a gateway to more pleasure, with pain removing fear and anxiety from an uncertain situation as she sets her motel room on fire (Cool Girl). While in the desert, she meets a guy and begins a relationship with him, with the two returning to the motel to have sex (Vibes). Afterwards, she sits outside her room and processes everything that's happened. A voiceover by Tove states that she feels like no one knows her.
In a scene during the credits, Tove is seen masturbating on her bed with Lorna watching her (Bitches).
Release.
The film was released on Tove Lo's Vevo and YouTube accounts on October 31, 2016. The same day, the video was pulled from YouTube, which cited its sexual content. Lo responded on her Twitter profile by saying "So I did release #FairyDust today but it's been taken down cause of @YouTubes policies on sexual content. HA. #imnotevennaked".


Half-Caste (film)

Half-Caste also called The Real Story of Half-Caste is a 2004 documentary-style horror film written and directed by Sebastian Apodaca. Set in Southern Africa, it centers around a group of documentary makers who search for the Half-Caste, a hybrid creature that is said to be part man and part leopard.
Plot.
One of Africa's most shocking legends comes to life in this terrifying tale of four students whose fascination with tales of a half-human, half-leopard man-beast find them fighting for their lives. The tales have been passed down through the generations, but few have lived to see the horrific monstrosity firsthand and lived to tell the tale. Now, as four students venture into the wilderness under the flawed theory of safety in numbers, the beast will make itself known, and the curious students will find out why some legends are best left to the storytellers.
Release.
Universal Studios released the film on DVD on August 3, 2004 and was released again on DVD as a triple feature by Screen Media on August 24, 2010. and was released theatrically on Jan 25, 2006.
Reception.
Critical reception for the film has been extremely negative.
Bill Gibron from DVD Talk panned the film calling it one of the worst independent films ever made.
Bill Thompson from "Sound on Sight.com" gave the film a negative review panning the film's acting, editing, and camera work stating, "There are horror movies and then there is Half-Caste, causing horror fans everywhere who think the genre can do no wrong to weep uncontrollably as they are subjected to its awfulness".


The Finding of Moses (Veronese)

The Finding of Moses refers to several paintings of the Finding of Moses by Paolo Veronese and his studio. These include:


The Adoration of the Shepherds (El Greco, Madrid)

The Adoration of the Shepherds is a painting of the traditional subject which was painted during the last year of El Greco's life. The painting is a work which the artist made to hang over his own tomb in the convent of Santo Domingo el Antiguo in Toledo.
His signature, in Greek, may be seen in the lower left corner.
El Greco's remains were transferred to another church after a few years, but the painting remained at Santo Domingo until the 20th century.
The painting is now in the Museo del Prado which states that it can be considered the artist's last work.
Description.
Extreme distortion of body characterizes the "Adoration of the Shepherds" like all the last paintings of El Greco. The infant Christ seems to emit a light which plays off the faces of the barefoot shepherds who have gathered to pay homage to his miraculous birth. A rhythmic energy animates the painting, expressed in the dance-like motions of the figures. Striking contrasts between light and dark passages heighten the sense of drama. The group of angels which hovers over the scene may resemble the missing section of "The Opening of the Fifth Seal".


Clarence Swensen

August Clarence Swensen (December 29, 1917 – February 25, 2009) was an American actor and was one of the last surviving Munchkins from the 1939 film "The Wizard of Oz".
Early life.
Swensen was born in 1917 and grew up in Austin, Texas. He was not allowed to attend a public school until he was nine because of his size.
Biography.
At 4ft 6in, he played one of the 25 Munchkin soldiers in the 1939 film "The Wizard of Oz".
He also appeared in "The Terror of Tiny Town" as a preacher. Many of his "Oz" co-stars were cast members of this Western musical film. He wore a chimp suit for Tarzan Finds a Son! with Johnny Weissmuller.
His wife Myrna was also up for a part in "The Wizard of Oz", but illness forced her to miss the opportunity.
After suffering a stroke in 2005, he was unable to walk and ended up in a wheelchair as a result. He suffered from poor health then after but still attended many events with the other surviving Munchkins, including the presentation of the Munchkins' star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2007.
Death.
Swensen died on February 25, 2009 at the age of 91.


Night Owl (film)

Night Owl, a 1993 vampire film shot in New York City's Alphabet City and directed by Jeffrey Arsenault, starred John Leguizamo and James Raftery as Jake, a brooding vampire/squatter who picks up women in nightclubs and while having sex with them, slices their necks with a matte knife and drinks their blood. One night he murders the sister of Angel, John Leguizamo, who begins a desperate search to find her killer. Ultimately, their paths cross and what happens is shocking. Meanwhile, Jake falls in love with Anne Guish, a performance artist, and tries desperately to resist his urge for fresh blood. Featuring Warhol superstar Holly Woodlawn, Caroline Munro of James Bond and Hammer Horror fame, and David Roya from "Billy Jack", it was the first in a succession of gritty black and white bloodsucker movies set in the same area of New York City, followed by "Nadja" and "The Addiction". Leguizamo, in one of his first roles, went on to major stardom with films like "Moulin Rouge", "Carlito's Way" and "Land of the Dead". Raftery now writes music and performs under the name Rat Wakes Red. Retitled "Nite Owl" when released on DVD. Not to be confused with a film of the same name starring Jennifer Beals. Interesting note: During the two-year time span of shooting the film, Arsenault directed Leguizamo in his first one-man show, "Mambo Mouth", Off-Broadway.


Landscape with Waterfall

Landscape with Waterfall (Dutch Landschap met waterval, in de verte een kerk) (c. 1660s) is an oil on canvas painting by the Dutch landscape painter Jacob van Ruisdael.
It is an example of Dutch Golden Age painting and is now in the collection of the Amsterdam Museum, on loan to the Rijksmuseum.
This painting was documented by Hofstede de Groot in 1911, who wrote; "198. A WATERFALL NEAR AN OAK WOOD. Sm. Suppl. 1. In the left foreground is a waterfall divided in the middle by a rock ; to the left is a tree-trunk lying half in the stream. In the right foreground is a rocky bank with a birch stem bent to the right. In the
right middle distance is a great oak wood, traversed by a road on which stand a man and boy conversing with a woman who sits nursing a child.
To the left of the road is the stream, through which two persons apparently men drive a flock of sheep. Beyond is a wooded slope. In the centre is a view over a cornfield with sheaves ; in the distance is a village with two wind-mills and a church. A fine evening, with rolling clouds and sunlight falling on the cornfield and wood. "This excellent
picture, in addition to its being one of the largest works of the artist, is singularly grand and rich in its composition, combined with unusual clearness and brilliancy of colouring and the most masterly execution, justly entitling it to the appellation of a chef d'oeuvre" (Sm.).
Signed in full on a stone on the right at foot ; canvas though the Amsterdam catalogue says it is on oak panel 56 inches by 76 1/2 inches. Exhibited at Amsterdam, 1845, No. 134.
Bought by an ancestor of Sir Charles Blount, Bart., on the Continent about the year 1740 (Sm.). In the collection of Sir Charles Blount, Bart., who sold it to Sm. in 1836. Sold by Sm. to A. van der Hoop, Amsterdam, 1837 (for 1450). Bequeathed by A. van der Hoop to Amsterdam with his collection in 1854. In the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, Van der Hoop bequest, 1910 catalogue, No. 2075."
This scene is very similar to other paintings Ruisdael made of waterfalls. As a warning of the forces of nature, these often included logs or broken tree stumps as silent witness to a more flooded scene than the one depicted. These must have sold well, as most of what remains today of Ruisdael's oeuvre are waterfall scenes. Inspired by the dramatic works of Allaert van Everdingen, Ruisdael also made more Nordic versions (such as "A Waterfall in a Rocky Landscape"), which included pine trees and mountains.


Two Nudes in a Forest

Two Nudes in a Forest is an oil painting by Mexican painter Frida Kahlo that was completed in 1939. It is also referred to as The Earth, Two Nudes in the Wood, or My Nanny and I. The painting was given to a close woman companion of Kahlo's, who some believe to be actress Dolores del Río. The two women in the painting also appear in Kahlo's 1938 painting "What the Water Gave Me", and her spider monkey, which views the couple from the forest, also appears in Kahlo's 1937 .
In May 2016 the painting was sold for $8 million at the Christie's auction in New York.
Interpretations.
The two naked women in the painting, one dark-skinned and one light-skinned, are viewed as representations of Kahlo's ethnic identity as connected to her indigenous roots, but also her European ancestry, something that is also explored in "The Two Fridas." The painting also brings attention to Kahlo's bisexuality, something she expressed openly in her paintings, as in "Self-Portrait with Cropped Hair", and in her sexual affairs.


Morning on the White River

Morning on the White River is a 2013 painted landscape diptych by Mason Archie of the White River in Indianapolis, Indiana. The paintings are located on the Eskenazi Health campus, near downtown Indianapolis, Indiana, and are part of the Eskenazi Health Art Collection.
Description.
"Morning on the White River" is a 2013 oil on linen canvas landscape diptych by artist Mason Archie, which depicts a view of the White River from a location approximately ¼ mile from Sidney & Lois Eskenazi Hospital. Archie selected this specific location along the river to paint when he encountered human traces left behind there. Makeshift fishing props and a worn path serve as evidence of the frequency with which local residents visit, and these details can be seen within the paintings: Each of the two paintings measure 38.25" x 61.5", framed.
Historical information.
Acquisition.
"Morning on the White River" was commissioned by Eskenazi Health as part of a re-imagining of the organization's historical art collection and to support "the sense of optimism, vitality and energy" of its new campus in 2013. In response to its nationwide request for proposals, Eskenazi Health received more than 500 submissions from 39 states, which were then narrowed to 54 finalists by an independent jury. Each of the 54 proposals was assigned an area of the new hospital by Eskenazi Health's art committee and publicly displayed in the existing Wishard Hospital and online for public comment; more than 3,000 public comments on the final proposals were collected and analyzed in the final selection. "Morning on the White River" is credited as "Dedicated with gratitude by Kathi and Bob Postlethwait.”
Location.
"Morning on the White River" is located in the 6th Floor Robert & Gina Laikin Intensive Care Waiting Room of the Sidney & Lois Eskenazi Hospital.
Artist.
A self-taught artist born and raised in Dayton, Ohio, Mason Archie began his career as a commercial sign painter with Lamar Outdoor Advertising. In 2005, he decided to pursue fine art painting in the style of traditional realism full-time, and has exhibited and sold his paintings nationally ever since. Archie is a member of the Oil Painters of America, the Hoosier Salon Patrons Association, the Portrait Society of America, the International Guild of Realism and the African American Visual Artist Guild. He received the Creative Renewal Arts Fellowship from the Arts Council of Indianapolis and Lilly Endowment in 2007.


The Baptism of Christ (Patinir)

The Baptism of Christ is an oil on oak painting executed c.1515 by the Flemish Renaissance painter Joachim Patinir which is now in the collection of the Kunsthistoriches Museum in Vienna.
The work depicts the baptism of Christ in the River Jordan by Saint John the Baptist, as described in Matthew 3:13-17. Matthew relates how John had begun living and preaching in the wilderness, living on locusts and wild honey and wearing a camel hair robe with a leather belt. After preaching he would baptise those who confessed their sins. Jesus attended one of his sessions and asked to be baptized. John refused at first, saying he was unworthy, but was persuaded by Jesus to carry out the baptism. As Jesus afterwards rose up from the water the heavens opened and he saw the Spirit of God in the form of a descending dove. And a voice from heaven said: "This is my son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.”