White Eternity

Greenland's culture began with settlement in the second millennium B.C. by the Dorset Inuits, shortly after the end of the ice age.

In the tenth century, Norwegian Vikings settled in the southern part of the island, while the Thule Inuit culture was introduced in the north of the island and expanded southward. The culture clash between two peoples is attested by the discovery of a fragment of chain mail Viking at high latitude of the island, while a figurine carved from walrus ivory Inuit clear assignment was found in Bergen, Norway. Both objects must be understood as a clear testimony of the trade between the two peoples.

Inuit culture dominated the island from the end of the Middle Ages to the recolonisation in the early eighteenth century, where European culture was reintroduced.

Today Greenlandic culture is a blending of traditional Inuit (Kalaallit) and Scandinavian culture. Inuit, or Kalaallit, culture has a strong artistic tradition, dating back thousands of years. The Kalaallit are known for an art form of figures called tupilaq or an "evil spirit object." Traditional art-making practices thrive in the Ammassalik.Sperm whale ivory remains a valued medium for carving.

Greenland also has a successful, albeit small, music culture. Some popular Greenlandic bands and artists include Chilly Friday (rock), Siissisoq (rock), Nuuk Posse (hip hop) and Rasmus Lyberth, who performed in the 1979 Eurovision Song Contest, perfoming in Greenlandic. The music culture of Greenland also includes traditional Inuit music, largely based around singing and drums.

Finland in Digitalkoot

The National Library of Finland is the oldest and largest scholarly library in Finland as well as one of the largest independent institutes at the University of Helsinki. It is responsible for the collection, description, preservation and accessibility of Finland’s printed national heritage and the unique collections under its care. The National Library also serves as a national service and development centre for the library sector and promotes national and international cooperation in the field.

Online gaming experience combines entertainment and volunteer work for conserving Finnish cultural heritage

The National Library of Finland has launched a national e-programme for the digitisation of Finland’s historical documents and material. The first of its kind in Europe, the e-programme Digitalkoot (Digital Volunteers) harnesses the power of crowdsourcing to mobilize people to help digitise millions of pages of archive material.

The e-programme technology provider is Microtask, whose automated platform splits dull repetitive tasks into tiny microtasks and distributes them over the internet. Once carried out by interested microworkers around Finland or around the world, Microtask puts the results back together into a completed assignment.

The online gaming experience provides both entertainment and the opportunity to contribute to the preservation of Finland’s cultural heritage.

– We have millions and millions of pages of historically and culturally valuable magazines, newspapers and journals online. The challenge is that the optical character recognition often contains errors and omissions, which hamper for example searches, says Kai Ekholm, Director of the National Library of Finland. – Manual correction is needed to weed out these mistakes so that the texts become machine readable, enabling scholars and archivists to search the material for the information they need.

– Microtask loves the work you hate. With our technology, repetitive work can be split into smaller components and allocated to numerous people, says Microtask Managing Director Harri Holopainen. – In the Digitalkoot program, participants can do as much, or as little, work they want, where they want and when they want. We help turn routine work into fun, almost a parlor game.

The National Library of Finland aims to enhance the visibility, accessibility and usability of the Library’s unique collections. Digital collections facilitate the use of cultural heritage materials in virtual environments.

To date, four million pages of different types of texts from the 18th to 20th centuries have been digitised, but there still remain huge bulks of cultural heritage archived only in paper files. The e-programme enables anyone to contribute converting portions of Finnish cultural heritage into a lasting format. The aim is to crowdsource thousands of volunteers to participate online utilising modern technology developed in Finland.

Majestic Indian Art

The National Museum, New Delhi as we see it today in the majestic building on the corner of Janpath and Maulana Azad Road is the prime museum in the country. The blue-print for establishing the National Museum in Delhi had been prepared by the Gwyer Committee set up by the Government of India in 1946. When an Exhibition of Indian Art consisting of selected artefacts from various museums of India, sponsored by the Royal Academy (London) with the co-operation of the Government of India and Britain, was on display in the galleries of Burlington House, London during the winter months of 1947-48, it was decided to display the same collection under a single roof in Delhi before the return of exhibits to their respective museums.

Accordingly, the exibition was held in the state rooms of the Rashtrapati Bhawan, New Delhi in 1949, and it turned out to be a great success. In turn, the event proved responsible for the creation of National Museum. On the auspicious day of the 15th August, 1949, the National Museum was formally inaugurated by the Governor-General of India, Shri R.C. Rajagopalachari, and it was announced that till a permanent building for housing the National Musuem was constructed, the Museum would continue to function in the Rashtrapati Bhawan. The Government also felt to retain the exhibits on show to form the holdings of the National Museum and the plan was sent to all the participants of London exhibition. It continued to be looked after well by the Director General of Archaeology until the Ministry of Education, the Government of India declared it a separate institution to grow in its collections that were sought painstakingly. It received several gifts but artefacts were collected mainly through its Art Purchase Committee. In the meanwhile, the foundation of the present building was laid by Pt. J.L. Nehru, Prime Minister of India, in the 12th May, 1955 and the new building where works of art were displayed elegantly on scientific lines, was handed over to Museum authorities in June, 1960.

The Museum was formally thrown open to the public on December 18, 1960. And it is now within the administrative control and fully financed by the Department of Culture, Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India. The Museum has in its possession approximately 2,00,000 works of exquisite art of diverse nature, both Indian and foreign and its holdings cover a time span of more than five thousand years of our cultural heritage. While the splendid chronological display of selected art objects in the various galleries, screening of educational films related to art and culture, guided tours, gallery talks by the experts, special lectures and training programmes, facilities for photography and access to the reserve collection and library for the study, and advice on identification of art objects have brought immense laurels to the Museum. The conservation laboratory had made its existence felt even in other countries.

http://www.nationalmuseumindia.gov.in/history.html

a Total Memory, a Great Sea

The Drowned World is a 1962 science fiction novel by J. G. Ballard. In contrast to much post-apocalyptic fiction, the novel features a central character who, rather than being disturbed by the end of the old world, is enraptured by the chaotic reality that has come to replace it. The novel is an expansion of a novella with the same title published in Science Fiction Adventures magazine in January 1962, Vol 4 No. 24. (Nova Publications.) This novella as referred to above is now out of print.

The Drowned World opens within the conventions of a hard science fiction novel, as the catastrophe responsible for the apocalypse is explained scientifically – solar radiation has caused the polar ice-caps to melt and worldwide temperature to soar, leaving the cities of northern Europe and America submerged in beautiful and haunting tropical lagoons. Yet Ballard’s novel is thematically more complex than is immediately apparent. Ballard uses the post-apocalyptic world of the story to mirror the collective unconscious desires of the main characters. A theme throughout Ballard’s writing is the idea that human beings construct their surroundings to reflect their unconscious drives. In The Drowned World, however, a natural catastrophe causes the real world to transform itself into a dream landscape, causing the central characters to regress mentally.

Just as psychoanalysis reconstructs the original traumatic situation in order to release the repressed material, so we are now being plunged back into the archaeopsychic past, uncovering the ancient taboos and drives that have been dormant for epochs…

Each one of us is as old as the entire biological kingdom, and our bloodstreams are tributaries of the great sea of its total memory.
The Drowned World, J.G. Ballard, Millennium 1999, p. 41.

Kvæði...

Die Färöische Literatur entstand Anfang des 19. Jahrhunderts mit den ersten schriftlichen Aufzeichnungen färöischer Balladen (kvæði), die während der Jahrhunderte zuvor mündlich überliefert wurden und von unbekannten Autoren stammten.

William Heinesen und Jørgen-Frantz Jacobsen 1918Durch die Schaffenskraft verschiedener färöischer Schriftsteller Anfang des 20. Jahrhunderts konnte sich die kleinste germanische Sprache im färöischen Sprachstreit bis 1938 als anerkannte Bildungssprache durchsetzen.

Heute erscheinen auf den Färöern jährlich mehr Bücher pro Kopf, als in jedem anderen Land der Erde. Gemessen an der kleinen Population von weniger als 50.000 Menschen, ist das allgemeine Interesse an muttersprachlicher Literatur außergewöhnlich. Die Landesbibliothek der Färöer wies in ihrer Ausleihstatistik 2000 nach, dass das meist gefragte Buch eine färöische Literaturgeschichte (Band 2: 1876-1939) war. Erst auf Platz zwei folgte ein dänischsprachiges Buch zur Berufsberatung.

Εκείνες τις Σιωπές...

Eugenio Montale: I Limoni    
    
Ascoltami, i poeti laureati
si muovono soltanto fra le piante
dai nomi poco usati: bossi ligustri o acanti.
lo, per me, amo le strade che riescono agli erbosi
fossi dove in pozzanghere
mezzo seccate agguantanoi ragazzi
qualche sparuta anguilla:
le viuzze che seguono i ciglioni,
discendono tra i ciuffi delle canne
e mettono negli orti, tra gli alberi dei limoni.

Meglio se le gazzarre degli uccelli
si spengono inghiottite dall'azzurro:
più chiaro si ascolta il susurro
dei rami amici nell'aria che quasi non si muove,
e i sensi di quest'odore
che non sa staccarsi da terra
e piove in petto una dolcezza inquieta.
Qui delle divertite passioni
per miracolo tace la guerra,
qui tocca anche a noi poveri la nostra parte di ricchezza
ed è l'odore dei limoni.

Vedi, in questi silenzi in cui le cose
s'abbandonano e sembrano vicine
a tradire il loro ultimo segreto,
talora ci si aspetta
di scoprire uno sbaglio di Natura,
il punto morto del mondo, l'anello che non tiene,
il filo da disbrogliare che finalmente ci metta
nel mezzo di una verità.
Lo sguardo fruga d'intorno,
la mente indaga accorda disunisce
nel profumo che dilaga
quando il giorno piú languisce.
Sono i silenzi in cui si vede
in ogni ombra umana che si allontana
qualche disturbata Divinità.

Ma l'illusione manca e ci riporta il tempo
nelle città rurnorose dove l'azzurro si mostra
soltanto a pezzi, in alto, tra le cimase.
La pioggia stanca la terra, di poi; s'affolta
il tedio dell'inverno sulle case,
la luce si fa avara - amara l'anima.
Quando un giorno da un malchiuso portone
tra gli alberi di una corte
ci si mostrano i gialli dei limoni;
e il gelo dei cuore si sfa,
e in petto ci scrosciano
le loro canzoni
le trombe d'oro della solarità.

Eugenio Montale
Eugenio Montale, poeta genovese del "Male di Vivere", fu insignito del premio Nobel per la Letteratura nel 1975. In questa lirica, inclusa nella raccolta del 1925 Ossi di Seppia, l'immagine semplice e carica di simbolismo del limone, viene a dipanare una realtà cruda, aspra e nuda dai toni, tuttavia, vivaci e colorati.

Eugenio Montale (Genova 1896 - Milano 1981)
Di salute malferma e carattere schivo, Montale fin da giovane coltiva la sua passione per la letteratura, la poesia e il canto. Dopo la guerra del 1917 stringe rapporti con gli scrittori che frequentano il Caffè Diana di Genova e anche con il gruppo torinese di Piero Gobetti, che negli anni Venti, si pone in opposizione al Futurismo, al Dannunzianesimo e in generale alla cultura del  fascismo. Nel 1925 pubblica, proprio per le edizioni di Gobetti, il suo primo libro di poesie, Ossi di seppia, firma il manifesto antifascista di Croce e pubblica sulla rivista milanese "L'esame" l'articolo omaggio a Italo Svevo. L'anno successivo conosce Umberto Saba e il poeta americano Ezra Pound e da allora comincia ad allargare i suoi interessi verso la letteratura anglosassone e poi europea.

it is Dark, it is Heart, it is written

Heart of Darkness is a novella written by Joseph Conrad. Before its 1902 publication, it appeared as a three-part series (1899) in Blackwood's Magazine. It is widely regarded as a significant work of English literature and part of the Western canon.

The story centres on Charles Marlow, who narrates most of the book. He is an Englishman who takes a foreign assignment from a Belgian trading company as a ferry-boat captain in Africa. Heart of Darkness exposes the dark side of European colonization while exploring the three levels of darkness that the protagonist, Marlow, encounters: the darkness of the Congo wilderness, the darkness of the Europeans' cruel treatment of the natives, and the unfathomable darkness within every human being for committing heinous acts of evil.

Although Conrad does not give the name of the river, at the time of writing the Congo Free State, the location of the large and important Congo River, was a private colony of Belgium's King Leopold II. In the story, Marlow is employed to transport ivory downriver. However, his more pressing assignment is to return Kurtz, another ivory trader, to civilization, in a cover-up. Kurtz has a reputation throughout the region.

This symbolic story is a story within a story or frame narrative. It follows Marlow as he recounts from dusk through to late night, to a group of men aboard a ship anchored in the Thames Estuary, his Congolese adventure. The passage of time and the darkening sky during the fictitious narrative-within-the-narrative parallel the atmosphere of the story.

Brautigan in a Fishing Boat...

Trout Fishing in America is a novella written by Richard Brautigan and published in 1967. It is technically Brautigan's first novel; he wrote it in 1961 before A Confederate General From Big Sur which was published first.

Trout Fishing In America is an abstract book without a clear central storyline. Instead, the book contains a series of anecdotes broken into chapters, with the same characters often reappearing from story to story. The settings of most of the chapters occur in three locales: Brautigan's childhood in the Pacific Northwest of the U.S.; his day-to-day adult life in San Francisco; and a camping trip in Idaho with his wife and infant daughter during the summer of 1961. Most of the chapters were written during this trip.

The phrase "Trout Fishing in America" is used in multiple ways: it is the title of the book, a character, a hotel, the act of fishing itself, a modifier (one character is named "Trout Fishing in America Shorty"), etc. Brautigan uses the theme of trout fishing as a point of departure for thinly veiled and often comical critiques of mainstream American society and culture. Several symbolic objects, such as a mayonnaise jar, a Ben Franklin statue in San Francisco's Washington Square, trout, etc. reappear throughout the book.

The cover of the book is a photograph of Richard Brautigan and a friend identified as Michaela Le Grand, whom he referred to as his "Muse." The photo was taken in San Francisco's Washington Square Park in front of the Benjamin Franklin statue. The first chapter of the book is an extended and fanciful description of this photo.

Arion Press published a deluxe edition of Trout Fishing in America in 2003, with a preface by Ron Loewinsohn, and a color lithograph in half the edition by Wayne Thiebaud.

Cultural influenceW. P. Kinsella cited the book as a major influence on his 1985 book, The Alligator Report.There is a folk rock band called Trout Fishing in America.

Apollo 17 astronaut Jack Schmitt named a crater explored in the Taurus-Littrow Valley on the moon "Shorty", after the character in the book.

In March 1994, a teenager named Peter Eastman Jr. from Carpinteria, California legally changed his name to "Trout Fishing in America", and now teaches English in Japan.At around the same time, National Public Radio reported on a young couple who had named their baby "Trout Fishing in America".

Τα Φοβερά Επεισόδια της Οδού Μερουλάνα

Roma, marzo 1927. Durante i primi anni del fascismo, il commissario della Squadra Mobile di Polizia Francesco "Don Ciccio" Ingravallo è incaricato di indagare su un furto di gioielli ai danni di un'anziana donna di origini venete, la vedova Menegazzi. In seguito viene uccisa, nello stesso palazzo che era stato teatro della rapina, la moglie di un uomo piuttosto ricco, la signora Liliana Balducci. Il luogo del furto e dell'omicidio è un tetro palazzo di via Merulana 219, noto come "Palazzo degli Ori", situato poco distante dal Colosseo.

La narrazione parte con la descrizione dell'ambiente attorno alla signora Balducci e si allarga ai Castelli Romani da dove provengono le domestiche della signora e le "nipoti", ragazze che accoglieva come figlie per compensare solitudine e mancata maternità. Intorno una folla di comparse: la svenevole e avvizzita contessa Menegazzi, vittima del furto, il commendator Angeloni "prosciuttofilo", i brigadieri della questura, i carabinieri di Marino a caccia di indizi nella campagna, le figure sfocate delle domestiche e nipoti.

FinaleIl giallo non ha soluzione e non si chiude con la scoperta del colpevole; secondo la sua concezione, la realtà è troppo complessa e caleidoscopica per essere spiegata e ricondotta ad una logica razionalità, la vita è un caos disordinato, un "pasticciaccio" di cose, persone e linguaggi.

Genesi e pubblicazioneIl romanzo, ideato a partire dal 1945, venne scritto in prima stesura durante il soggiorno fiorentino di Gadda, sotto l'impulso liberatorio e compositivo seguente la fine della guerra, e la caduta del regime fascista.

La prima pubblicazione, avvenuta a puntate sulla rivista Letteratura nel 1946, ebbe una diffusione molto limitata. Dopo il trasferimento a Roma di Gadda come giornalista RAI, l'editore Livio Garzanti gli propose la pubblicazione in volume, pubblicata nel 1957 con un immediato successo: l'autore, fino ad allora conosciuto e stimato da una ristretta cerchia di critici, divenne quindi noto al grande pubblico.

Analisi del testoTra la prima versione del romanzo e quella definitiva in volume vi sono alcune differenze, come varianti nel testo e una diversa articolazione dei capitoli (da sei a dieci), finalizzata all'aumentare la tensione narrativa del racconto.

La prima parte del romanzo è incentrata sulla scoperta dei delitti e sulle indagini tra gli esponenti della borghesia romana, mentre la seconda sulle indagini all'interno del proletariato della periferia della città.

Il romanzo è privo di un vero e proprio protagonista, o di un punto di vista che rifletta quello dell'autore, se non a tratti il personaggio di Ingravallo, che cerca di imporre ordine in una situazione caotica.

La mescolanza tra le situazioni, i personaggi, e il loro linguaggio, dà luogo ad un plurilinguismo ed uno intreccio tra spaccato popolare e borghese.

CriticaRappresenta probabilmente, con La cognizione del dolore, la migliore opera dello scrittore; nel romanzo, infatti, il virtuosismo linguistico e sintattico, il "barocchismo" e l'uso di più livelli di scrittura (dal dialetto popolare alla descrizione con echi manzoniani) rappresentano la complessità della realtà ed insieme la sua essenza fatta di "percezioni": l'affascinante "buccia delle cose". Detto "pasticciaccio", secondo l'occhio disilluso di Gadda, riflette inoltre l'agglomerato di linguaggi e comportamenti, orrori e stupidità, della società italiana.

Culture in Bangkok

Σε αναγνώριση των προγραμμάτων προώθησης του βιβλίου και του διαβάσματος.

Η Οργάνωση του ΟΗΕ για την Εκπαίδευση, την Επιστήμη και τον Πολιτισμό (UNESCO) υπέδειξε την Μπανγκόκ για Παγκόσμια Πρωτεύουσα Βιβλίου για το 2013 σε αναγνώριση των προγραμμάτων προώθησης του βιβλίου και του διαβάσματος, αναφέρουν σημερινά δημοσιεύματα. Η επιλογή έγινε μερικές ημέρες μετά την ανακοίνωση της Ταϊλάνδης ότι προτίθεται να αποχωρήσει από την Επιτροπή Παγκόσμιας Κληρονομιάς της UNESCO εξαιτίας διαφωνιών που αφορούν ένα καμποτζιανό ναό κοντά σε διαφιλονικούμενη μεθοριακή περιοχή.

Ο ναός Πρεάχ Βιχεάρ, ο οποίος βρίσκεται οριακά σε καμποτζιανό έδαφος, χαρακτηρίστηκε Μνημείο Παγκόσμιας Πολιτιστικής Κληρονομιάς από την επιτροπή της UNESCO το 2008 παρά τις αντιρρήσεις των Ταϊλανδών.

Η πρωτεύουσα της Ταϊλάνδης διαθέτει ενεργό βιομηχανία βιβλίου και πολλά βιβλιοπωλεία, αλλά λίγες μόνο δημόσιες βιβλιοθήκες για έναν πληθυσμό που εκτιμάται ότι ανέρχεται σε δέκα εκατομμύρια κατοίκους.

Από το 2001 η UNESCO απονέμει τον τίτλο της Παγκόσμιας Πρωτεύουσας Βιβλίου σε πόλεις που είναι αφοσιωμένες στην προώθηση του βιβλίου και του διαβάσματος.

«Η ανακήρυξη της υποψηφιότητας δεν περιλαμβάνει κάποιο χρηματικό έπαθλο», αναφέρει σε ανακοίνωσή της η UNESCO.

Στο παρελθόν τον τίτλο έχουν κερδίσει πόλεις όπως η Μαδρίτη, η Αλεξάνδρεια, το Νέο Δελχί, η Αμβέρσα, το Μόντρεαλ, το Τορίνο, η Μπογκοτά, το Άμστερνταμ, η Βηρυτός, η Λουμπλιάνα, το Μπουένος Άιρες (2011) και το Ερεβάν (2012).

http://www.kathimerini.gr/ με πληροφορίες από ΑΠΕ-ΜΠΕ

Brera Gallery

Having decided on a visit to view Leonardo's Last Supper, be sure also to visit the Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan's largest art gallery and one of the most important in Italy. The gallery is housed in the Palazzo Brera, once a Jesuit college; the Brera district itself is one of the most chic and fashionable in this most fashion-driven city.

The collection grew out of that of Milan’s Academy of Fine Arts (housed in the same building and founded in 1776), and it's most famous works were acquired successively, with fine collections of Venetian and Lombard paintings from the Renaissance and Baroque periods. Latterly two important collections of modern art have been added to the already impressive catalogue.

The gallery is spread across more than 30 rooms on the first floor of the building (works are ordered chronologically and geographically), and amongst the masterpieces on show perhaps the most sought-after are:

The San Luca Altarpiece by Andrea Mantegna, 1453
Supper at Emmaus by Caravaggio, 1606
Holy Conversation, by Piero della Francesca, ?1472-1474
Wedding of the Virgin by Raphael, 1504
Finding of the body of St Mark by Tintoretto, 1548
The Kiss by Francesco Hayez, 1859

What`s Ida...in NHM

The Natural History Museum at the University of Oslo is Norway’s most comprehensible natural history collection. For almost 200 years, preserved plant specimens, animal specimens, rocks, minerals and fossils have been collected, studied and preserved here.

A selection of specimens are on display for the general public, in the Geological Museum and the Zoological Museum. Both are to be found in the beautiful Botanical Garden. Located at Tøyen in the east of Oslo city centre, the garden is not only popular for recreation, but is a scientific collection in itself.

Ida is the world’s oldest complete primate skeleton, and the most valuable object exhibited at The Natural History Museum of Oslo. She was bought by the museum in 2007, and presented to the world in 2009.

Ida fascinates us in several ways:

•The dramatic story about the unfortunate little girl, still with her milk teeth, who had a broken wrist, was poisoned, fell in the water, and drowned.
•The superb state of preservation of the fossil
•What the fossil can tell us about the evolutionary history of mankind
•The secrecy surrounding the fossil from the time it was found in 1983 until it became publicly known
•The meticulously planned launch, with a book, a made-for-TV documentary, a website, huge press conferences and correspondingly great media coverage
•The ensuing debate around the popularization of research
Through the summer of 2010, Ida can be seen as part of the exhibition ”Can We Forgive Darwin?” After that, she will be included in the museum’s permanent exhibitions....

into Portuguese Minds

Portuguese literature

Luís Vaz de Camões

The poet Luís Vaz de Camões or Luís Vaz Camoens (1524 - June 10, 1580) was the author of the epic poem The Lusiad. (In the Victorian era, he was both sufficiently admired and sufficiently obscure for Elizabeth Barrett Browning to disguise her work by entitling it Sonnets from the Portuguese, a reference to Camões).

The Portuguese national holiday, "Portugal's Day" or "Dia de Portugal, das Comunidades Portuguesas e de Camões" (Portugal's, Portuguese Communities' and Camoens' Day), is celebrated on June 10, the anniversary of Camões' death. It is a day of national pride similar to the "Independence Day" celebrated in other countries.

Eça de Queiroz

Eça de Queiroz (1845–1900) is a Portuguese novelist. Born in Póvoa de Varzim, near Oporto, he traveled throughout the world as a consul. He accepted an assignment to the consulate of Paris in 1888 and remained there until his death on August 16, 1900. The books he wrote in Paris are critical of Portuguese society. His most famous works include Os Maias (The Maias) (1878) , O Crime do Padre Amaro (The Crime of Father Amaro) (1876) and O Primo Bazilio (Cousin Basílio) (1878). Nicknamed the "Portuguese Zola," Eça was the founder of Portuguese Naturalism.

In 2002, the Mexican director Carlos Carrera made a motion picture, "El Crimen del Padre Amaro" ("The Crime of Father Amaro"), adapted from Queirós' novel. One of the most successful Mexican films in history, it was also controversial because of its depiction of Catholic priesthood.

Fernando Pessoa

Fernando Pessoa (1888–1935) was a Portuguese poet. He used heteronyms, where he wrote in different styles as if he were more than one poet. One of his most famous works was an adaptation of the Lusiad called The Message (A Mensagem).

The Message discusses the Sebastianism and Portuguese prophecies, that were created and prophesized during the time of Camoes. The Portuguese await the return of the dead king on a foggy day - the return of National Me (Eu Nacional) that will take Portugal, once more, to govern the Fifth Empire.
 

a Jakhe, a Klong jin, a Klong kaek

The music of Thailand reflects its geographic position at the intersection of China and India, and reflects trade routes that have historically included Persia, Africa, Greece and Rome. Thai musical instruments are varied and reflect ancient influence from far afield - including the klong thap and khim (Persian origin), the jakhe (Indian origin), the klong jin (Chinese origin), and the klong kaek (Indonesian origin).

Though Thailand was never colonized by colonial powers, pop music and other forms of modern Asian, European and American music have become extremely influential. The two most popular styles of traditional Thai music are luk thung and mor lam; the latter in particular has close affinities with the Music of Laos.

Aside from the Thai, ethnic minorities such as the Lao, Lawa, Hmong, Akha, Khmer, Lisu, Karen and Lahu peoples have retained traditional musical forms.

 

Botero`s lifes...

His paintings and sculptures are united by their proportionally exaggerated, or "fat" figures, as he once referred to them.

Botero explains his use of these "large people", as they are often called by critics, in the following way:

"An artist is attracted to certain kinds of form without knowing why. You adopt a position intuitively; only later do you attempt to rationalize or even justify it."

Botero is an abstract artist in the most fundamental sense, choosing colors, shapes, and proportions based on intuitive aesthetic thinking. Though he spends only one month a year in Colombia, he considers himself the "most Colombian artist living" due to his insulation from the international trends of the art world.

In 2004 Botero exhibited a series of 27 drawings and 23 paintings dealing with the violence in Colombia from the drug cartels. He donated the works to the National Museum of Colombia, where they were first exhibited.

In 2005 Botero gained considerable attention for his Abu Ghraib series, which was exhibited first in Europe. He based the works on reports of United States forces' abuses of prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison during the Iraq War. Beginning with an idea he had on a plane journey, Botero produced more than 85 paintings and 100 drawings in exploring this concept and "painting out the poison." The series was exhibited at two United States locations in 2007, including Washington, DC. Botero said he would not sell any of the works, but would donate them to museums.

In 2006, after having focused exclusively on the Abu Ghraib series for over 14 months, Botero returned to the themes of his early life such as the family and maternity. In his "Une Famille" Botero represented the Colombian family, a subject often painted in the seventies and eighties. In his "Maternity", Botero repeated a composition he already painted in 2003, being able to evoke a sensuous velvety texture that lends it a special appeal and testifies for a personal involvement of the artist. Interestingly, the Child in the 2006 drawing has a wound in his right chest as if the Author wanted to identify him with Jesus Christ, thus giving it a religious meaning that was absent in the 2003 artwork.

In 2008 he exhibited the works of his The Circus collection, featuring 20 works in oil and watercolor. In a 2010 interview, Botero said that he was ready for other subjects: "After all this, I always return to the simplest things: still lifes."

History in Bangladesh

All non-official and official records of historical value are preserved in the National Archives. National Library is the legal depository of all new books and printed materials published in the country under Copy Right Law. The directorate is run by only one Director and two Deputy Directors with their respective physical infrastructure including own self reliant building and other logistics infrastructure like, Security personnel, technical manpower, Transport, Machinery, equipments, information resources, users group, service system, Act. International community, publications etc.

The present National Library was basically the Central Library of pre independence Bangladesh. It was established in 1967 as the part of the then National Library. After independence, this Central Library was turned and declared as the National Library of Bangladesh and started functioning on 6-11-1972 in Dhaka. The National Archives was formally set up in Dhaka after independence. In 1972 this twin national organizations were brought under one Directorate in the name of Directorate Archives and Libraries under the Ministry of Education, Sports and Culture Division. After the creation of Ministry of Cultural Affairs in 1988. The Sports and Culture Division including Directorate came automatically under the Ministry of Cultural Affairs for rapid development and florishment in the light of plan, policy and infrastructure of the government.
 

a Piano, such Piano!

Éric Alfred Leslie Satie (pronounced: [eʁik sati]) (17 May 1866 – Paris, 1 July 1925; signed his name Erik Satie after 1884) was a French composer and pianist. Satie was a colourful figure in the early 20th century Parisian avant-garde. His work was a precursor to later artistic movements such as minimalism, repetitive music, and the Theatre of the Absurd.

An eccentric, Satie was introduced as a "gymnopedist" in 1887, shortly before writing his most famous compositions, the Gymnopédies. Later, he also referred to himself as a "phonometrician" (meaning "someone who measures sounds") preferring this designation to that of a "musician", after having been called "a clumsy but subtle technician" in a book on contemporary French composers published in 1911.

In addition to his body of music, Satie also left a remarkable set of writings, having contributed work for a range of publications, from the dadaist 391 to the American top culture chronicle Vanity Fair. Although in later life he prided himself on always publishing his work under his own name, in the late nineteenth century he appears to have used pseudonyms such as Virginie Lebeau and François de Paule in some of his published writings.

The Lord God is in the Details

In 1935 Walter Benjamin showed how the original artwork loses its aura through mass reproduction – an observation that is particularly relevant in the age of the Internet. As the most famous painting in Cologne and the universal “trademark” of the city’s mediaeval painting tradition, this Madonna has been reproduced countless times. So how has the “Mona Lisa of Cologne” never the less managed to retain her aura?

The countless details cannot be appreciated in reproductions; they have to be viewed in the original. From the flowers at Mary’s feet to the musical instruments held by the angels, to the precious brooch and the heavenly crown, not forgetting the decorations in the golden background. And none of this was an end in itself: just look at the ornamentation worked into Mary’s halo: it is a simplified depiction of the lunar cycle and indicates the mediaeval link between astronomy and theology. The tiny brooch repeats the main image on a symbolic level, for it shows a virgin with a unicorn. The two are linked by their gestures in much the same way as Mary and the Baby Jesus – in an allusion to the “Mystic Wedding” between Christ and the Church. In addition comes the painting’s ingenious geometry based on the old Cologne Zoll (1 Zoll = 2.4 cm): this alludes to the connection between music and celestial architecture and denotes the modest bower as Paradise. At the same time the geometry of the bower symbolises the divine plan of salvation in which Mary and Christ play the lead roles.

Like a complex system of clockwork, the elements interlock to produce an extremely subtle theological statement. Behind a delightful overall impression, the artist has concealed a gigantic programme: the phases of history and course of salvation have been condensed in a wonderful way. And with that the painting remains untouched by our human calendar – and by the technology of reproduction.

Wallraf das Museum

a way to Kokoschka

Kokoschka was born in Pöchlarn. His early career was marked by portraits of Viennese celebrities, painted in a nervously animated style. He served in the Austrian army in World War I and was wounded. At the hospital, the doctors decided that he was mentally unstable. Nevertheless, he continued to develop his career as an artist, traveling across Europe and painting the landscape.


The house in which Oskar Kokoschka was born in Pöchlarn (August 2006)Kokoschka had a passionate, often stormy affair with Alma Mahler, shortly after the death of her four-year-old daughter Maria Mahler and her affair with Walter Gropius. After several years together, Alma rejected him, explaining that she was afraid of being too overcome with passion. He continued to love her his entire life, and one of his greatest works The Bride of the Wind (The Tempest), is a tribute to her. His poem Allos Markar  was inspired by this relationship. The poet Georg Trakl visited the studio while Kokoschka was painting this masterpiece. Kokoschka also commissioned a life-sized female doll in 1918.Although intended to simulate Alma and receive his affection, the gynoid-Alma did not satisfy Kokoschka and he destroyed it during a party.


1963-Deemed a degenerate by the Nazis, Kokoschka fled Austria in 1934 for Prague. There, his name was adopted by the Oskar-Kokoschka-Bund, founded by other expatriate artists, although he declined to otherwise participate (K. Holz, Modern German Art for Thirties Paris, Prague, and London: Resistance and Acquiescence in a Democratic Public Sphere). In 1938, when the Czechs began to mobilize for the expected invasion of the Wehrmacht, he fled to the United Kingdom and remained there during the war. With the help of the British Committee for Refugees from Czechoslovakia (later the Czech Refugee Trust Fund), all members of the OKB were able to escape through Poland and Sweden.

Kokoschka became a British citizen in 1946 and only in 1978 would regain Austrian citizenship. He traveled briefly to the United States in 1947 before settling in Switzerland, where he lived the rest of his life. He died in Montreux.

Kokoschka had much in common with his contemporary Max Beckmann. Both maintained their independence from German Expressionism, yet they are now regarded as its supreme masters, who delved deeply into the art of past masters to develop unique individual styles. Their individualism left them both orphaned from the main movements of Twentieth Century modernism. Both wrote eloquently of the need to develop the art of "seeing" (Kokoschka emphasized depth perception while Beckmann was concerned with mystical insight into the invisible realm), and both were masters of innovative oil painting techniques anchored in earlier traditions.

Kokoschka's last years were somewhat embittered, as he found himself marginalized as a curious footnote to art history. A noteworthy student of Kokoschka's "School of Seeing" was Konrad Juestel (1924–2001).

Kokoschka's literary works are as peculiar and interesting as his art. His memoir, A Sea Ringed with Visions, is as wildly psychedelic as anything written by others under the influence of actual hallucinogens.His short play "Murderer, the Hope of Women" (1909, set ten years later by Paul Hindemith as Mörder, Hoffnung der Frauen) is often called the first Expressionist drama. His Orpheus und Eurydike (1918) became an opera by Ernst Krenek, who was first approached for incidental music.
 

Ιπτάμενη Αλεπού

"A small scale research at the location where Johannes Vermeer was born in 1632 may illustrate this point. From a 1637 document it is known that his parents rented a house back in those days from Pieter Corstiaens'son Hopprus at Voldersgracht. Indeed the 1620-1632 "kohier van verponding" tax register does show a Pieter Corstiaens'son as an owner, of the third house east of the St Luke guild house [= Old Mens House]. This seems to correspond readily with present day Voldersgracht number 25.

However, when we search within that address in the databank, this Pieter does not come up at all. We do however find him in the archival sources for the present day houses at Voldersgracht 26 and 27. Obviously in the years 1620-1640 a number of changes have been going on just in the row of houses at Voldersgracht 23-27 concerning lot ownership and rebuilding. Plausibly some buildings have been joined and then split in other lots - or the other way around. Only extremely detailed research in the building history, the ownership of houses and the names of persons living in those houses might yield Vermeer's exact birth house location. Thus enough riddles are left over to provide whole generations of researchers a pleasant puzzle."

Vermeer's