1.
Renoir (film)
–
Renoir is a 2012 French drama film based on the last years of Renoir at Cagnes-sur-Mer during World War I. The film was directed by Gilles Bourdos and competed in the Un Certain Regard section at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival, the film is set in the south of France during World War I and stars Michel Bouquet, Christa Theret, Thomas Doret and Vincent Rottiers. In January 2014, the film received four nominations at the 39th César Awards, andrée was the link between two famous and widely acclaimed artists, a father and son. While the father is at the end his brilliant career, the son is searching for himself. Director Gilles Bourdos used the services of an art forger, Guy Ribes. The film-critics aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported 69% of critics gave the film a review based on 65 reviews. Metacritic, which assigns a score out of 100, rated the film 64 based on 23 reviews
Renoir (film)
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Film poster
2.
Limoges
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Limoges is a city and commune, the capital of the Haute-Vienne department and the administrative capital of the Limousin in west-central France. Limoges is known for its medieval and Renaissance enamels on copper, for its 19th-century porcelain and for its oak barrels which are used for Cognac, some are even exported to wineries in California. Scarce remains of settlements have been found in the area of Limoges. The city proper was founded as Augustoritum by the Romans, around 10 BC, the foundation was part of the reorganization of the province by the emperor Augustus, hence the new name. The Roman city included an amphitheatre measuring 136 x 115 metres, a theatre, according to tradition, a temple consecrated to Venus, Diana, Minerva and Jupiter was located near the modern cathedral. The city was on the typical Roman square plan, with two main crossing in the centre. It had a Senate and a currency of its own, a sign of its importance in the imperial age, Limoges was evangelized by Saint Martial, who came to the city around 250 with two companions, Alpinianus and Austriclinienus. However, in the late 3rd century it was increasingly abandoned, the population was concentrated instead in a more easily fortifiable site, the modern Puy Saint-Étienne, which is the centre of the modern Limoges. Starting from the 11th century, thanks to the presence of the Abbey of St. Martial and its large library, Limoges became a flourishing artistic centre. It was home to an important school of music composition. In the 13th century, at the peak of its splendour, the town proper, with a new line of walls encompassing the Vienne River, inhabited mainly by clerks and workers. It has a bridge on the Vienne river named after Saint-Étienne, built by the bishops, sacked in 1370, it never recovered entirely. The castle, with 12 meter-high walls, including the abbey and controlled by the abbot, traces of the walls can still be seen in the city centre. Outside the lines of walls were the popular quarters, in 1370, Limoges was occupied by Edward, the Black Prince, who massacred some 300 residents, perhaps a sixth of the normal population, with another 60 members of the garrison of 140 dead as well. The city and castle were united in 1792 to form the city of Limoges. During the French Revolution several religious edifices, considered symbols of the Ancien Régime, were destroyed by the population, some years later the porcelain industry started to develop, favoured by the presence of kaolinite which was discovered near Limoges in 1768. Factories in Limoges and St Junien still produce luxury leather shoes, gloves, in the 19th century Limoges saw strong construction activity, which included the destruction and rebuilding of much of the city centre. The unsafe conditions of the population is highlighted by the outbreak of several riots, including that of July–November 1830
Limoges
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The city hall
Limoges
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Limoges enamel ciborium with
champlevé enamel, and center rim in
pseudo-Kufic script, circa 1200.
Limoges
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Yale Mobile Hospital Unit No. 39 stationed at the Limoges factory, Christmas, 1917
Limoges
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The Cathedral of Limoges
3.
Haute-Vienne
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Haute-Vienne is a French department named after the river Vienne. It is one of the 12 departments that constitute the French region of Nouvelle-Aquitaine. The neighbouring departments are, Creuse, Corrèze, Dordogne, Charente, Vienne, the chief and largest city in the department is Limoges, the other towns in the department each having fewer than twenty thousand inhabitants. Haute-Vienne is part of the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region and it is bordered by six departments, Creuse lies to the east, Corrèze to the south, Dordogne to the southwest, Charente to the west, Vienne to the northwest and Indre to the north. The department has two rivers which cross it from east to west, the Vienne, on which the two main cities, Limoges and Saint-Junien, are situated, and the Gartempe, a tributary of the Creuse. To the southeast of the department lies the Massif Central, the source of the Charente is in the department, in the commune of Chéronnac, near Rochechouart. Artefacts from the Bronze Age include axe heads found at Châlus, with the coming of the Romans, trade was opened up and gold and tin were mined. Agriculture developed and grapes were grown, amphorae for storing wine were found at Saint-Gence, during the reign of Augustus, the city of Augustoritum was founded at a strategic ford across the Vienne. The Romans built roads from here to Brittany, Lyon and the Mediterranean, the city declined in the 3rd Century when barbarian invasions of the region took place. The domination of the Visigoths was short-lived and Clovis I seized control of Limousin after the battle of Vouillé in 507, by 674, the region was attached to the duchy of Aquitaine, and the Viscount of Limoges was created. There followed a period with various powers vying for control. In 1199, Richard Cœur de Lion was mortally wounded during the siege of the Château de Châlus-Chabrol, the region was much involved in the Hundred Years War and at the Treaty of Brétigny in 1360, France granted England a large area of territory comprising much of Limousin. Limoges city rebelled and gave its allegiance to the French crown, after a revolt by the peasants, Henri IV brought peace and prosperity to the region of Limousin. He visited Limoges in 1607 and was greeted enthusiastically, the Counter-Reformation led to the creation of numerous convents and religious orders, especially in Limoges. In 1761, Anne Robert Jacques Turgot was appointed intendent of Limoges and he negotiated a reduction in taxes payable by the region and developed fairer methods of collecting taxes, as well as improving the road system and encouraging agricultural development. Around 1765, kaolin was discovered near Saint-Yrieix-la-Perche in the south of the department, at first it was given the number 81, but in the nineteenth century, the number was changed to the 87th department, when further land to the east and northeast was added. It takes its name from the reaches of the Vienne which flows through it. In 1998, the southwest part of the department, together with the part of the region of Périgord was designated as the Parc Naturel Régional Périgord-Limousin
Haute-Vienne
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Prefecture building of the Haute-Vienne department, in Limoges
Haute-Vienne
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Château de Montbrun
Haute-Vienne
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Ruins of
Oradour-sur-Glane
Haute-Vienne
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Saint-Yrieix-la-Perche
4.
Cagnes-sur-Mer
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It is also home to the only horse hippodrome in the French Riviera, which draws people from all over for its horse races. It is the largest extension to the city of Nice and lies to the west-southwest of it and it was the retreat and final address of the painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir, who moved there in 1907 in an attempt to improve his arthritis, and remained until his death in 1919. In the late 1920s, Cagnes-sur-Mer became a residence for many American renowned literary and art figures, such as Kay Boyle, George Antheil and Harry, parisian artist, poet, and philosopher Georges Charaire had a home In Cagnes for many years. Creating his lithographs in the studio of Paul Gaugin, and also as a co-founder of the Theatre du Tertre in Montmartre, he had a great influence on French art. He helped his friend Eugène Ionesco with his first plays at the Theatre du Tertre, Charaire kept his second home in Cagnes sur Mer until his death in 2001. nt Belarusian-French artist Chaim Soutine created powerful, fanciful landscapes of southern France. A friend of Amedeo Modigliani, Soutine left colourful landscapes from Cagnes from 1924 on, fauvist painter Francisco Iturrino also resided in the town where he died. The town may have been an inspiration for Neo-impressionist Henri-Edmond Cross and it is also known for its horse racing venue, the Hippodrome de la Côte dAzur, and a four-kilometre pebble beach. The Gare de Cagnes-sur-Mer railway station offers services in the directions of Nice. The commune is twinned with, Passau Communes of the Alpes-Maritimes department INSEE Official website Official tourism website The Weather in Cagnes Sur Mer
Cagnes-sur-Mer
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The old village of Haut-de-Cagnes as seen from the château
Cagnes-sur-Mer
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Cros-de-Cagnes
Cagnes-sur-Mer
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Landscape near Cagnes, by
Pierre-Auguste Renoir
Cagnes-sur-Mer
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Red Square,
winner of the
Grand Prix de la Ville de Nice (1974)
5.
Bal du moulin de la Galette
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Bal du moulin de la Galette is an 1876 painting by French artist Pierre-Auguste Renoir. It is housed at the Musée dOrsay in Paris and is one of Impressionisms most celebrated masterpieces, the painting depicts a typical Sunday afternoon at Moulin de la Galette in the district of Montmartre in Paris. In the late 19th century, working class Parisians would dress up and spend time there dancing, drinking, like other works of Renoirs early maturity, Bal du moulin de la Galette is a typically Impressionist snapshot of real life. It shows a richness of form, a fluidity of brush stroke, from 1879 to 1894 the painting was in the collection of the French painter Gustave Caillebotte, when he died it became the property of the French Republic as payment for death duties. From 1896 to 1929 the painting hung in the Musée du Luxembourg in Paris, from 1929 it hung in the Musée du Louvre until it was transferred to the Musée dOrsay in 1986. Renoir painted a version of the picture with the same title. The painting is now believed to be in a collection in Switzerland. Apart from their size, the two paintings are identical, although the smaller is painted in a more fluid manner than the dOrsay version. One is presumably a copy of the original, but it is not known which is the original, for many years it was owned by John Hay Whitney. On May 17,1990, his widow sold the painting for US$78 million at Sothebys in New York City to Ryoei Saito, the honorary chairman of Daishowa Paper Manufacturing Company, Japan. At the time of sale, it was one of the top two most expensive ever sold, together with van Goghs Portrait of Dr. Gachet. Saito caused international outrage when he suggested in 1991 that he intended to both paintings with him when he died. Although not known for certain, the painting is believed to be in the hands of a Swiss collector, as of January 2013 the Bal du moulin de la Galette is sixth on the list of most expensive paintings ever sold. In the first place, Renoir needed to set up a studio near the mill, a suitable studio was found at an abandoned cottage in the rue Cortot with a garden described by Rivière as a beautiful abandoned park. Several of Renoirs major works were painted in this garden at this time, the gardens and its buildings have been preserved as the Musée de Montmartre. Rivière identified several of the personalities in the painting and it is her sister Estelle who poses as the girl wearing a blue and pink striped dress. These two girls came to Le Moulin every Sunday with their family, with two younger sisters barely taller than the tables, and their mother and father, properly chaperoned by their mother. Beside her is a group consisting of Pierre-Franc Lamy and Norbert Goeneutte, fellow painters, behind her, amongst the dancers, are to be found Henri Gervex, Eugène Pierre Lestringuez and Paul Lhote
Bal du moulin de la Galette
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Bal du moulin de la Galette
Bal du moulin de la Galette
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Smaller version
Bal du moulin de la Galette
–
La balançoire 1876
6.
Luncheon of the Boating Party
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Luncheon of the Boating Party is a painting by French impressionist Pierre-Auguste Renoir. Included in the Seventh Impressionist Exhibition in 1882, it was identified as the best painting in the show by three critics and it was purchased from the artist by the dealer-patron Paul Durand-Ruel and bought in 1923 from his son by Duncan Phillips. It is now in The Phillips Collection in Washington, D. C and it shows a richness of form, a fluidity of brush stroke, and a flickering light. The painter and art patron, Gustave Caillebotte, is seated in the lower right, Renoirs future wife, Aline Charigot, is in the foreground playing with a small dog, an affenpinscher. On the table is fruit and wine, in this painting Renoir has captured a great deal of light. The main focus of light is coming from the opening in the balcony. The singlets of both men in the foreground and the all work together to reflect this light and send it through the whole composition. As he often did in his paintings, Renoir included several of his friends in Luncheon of the Boating Party, identification of the sitters was made in 1912 by Julius Meier-Graefe. Among them are the following, The seamstress Aline Charigot, who is holding a affenpinscher dog, Renoir married her in 1890, and they had three sons. Charles Ephrussi—wealthy amateur art historian, collector, and editor of the Gazette des Beaux-Arts—appears wearing a top hat in the background. The younger man to whom Ephrussi appears to be speaking, more casually attired in a coat and cap, may be Jules Laforgue, his personal secretary and also a poet. Actress Ellen Andrée drinks from a glass in the center of the composition, seated across from her is Baron Raoul Barbier, former mayor of colonial Saigon. Alphonsine is the woman leaning on the railing, Alphonse. Also wearing boaters are figures appearing to be Renoirs close friends Eugène Pierre Lestringez, a bureaucrat, Renoir depicts them flirting with the actress Jeanne Samary in the upper righthand corner of the painting. An art patron, painter, and important figure in the impressionist circle, Caillebotte was also an avid boatman, at the Seventh Impressionist Exhibition in 1882, the painting generally received praise from critics. It is fresh and free without being too bawdy, wrote Paul de Charry in Le Pays and it is one of the most beautiful pieces that this insurrectionist art by Independent artists has produced. Alternatively, Le Figaro published Albert Wolffs comment on March 2,1882, If he had learned to draw, the painting was featured prominently in Jean-Pierre Jeunets film Le Fabuleux destin dAmélie Poulain — released in English as Amélie. A homage to this appears in the final panel of On the False Earths
Luncheon of the Boating Party
–
Le déjeuner des canotiers
Luncheon of the Boating Party
–
Detail of
Ellen Andrée drinking from a glass in the center of the composition
7.
Impressionism
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Impressionism originated with a group of Paris-based artists whose independent exhibitions brought them to prominence during the 1870s and 1880s. The Impressionists faced harsh opposition from the art community in France. The development of Impressionism in the arts was soon followed by analogous styles in other media that became known as impressionist music. Radicals in their time, early Impressionists violated the rules of academic painting and they constructed their pictures from freely brushed colours that took precedence over lines and contours, following the example of painters such as Eugène Delacroix and J. M. W. Turner. They also painted scenes of modern life, and often painted outdoors. Previously, still lifes and portraits as well as landscapes were painted in a studio. The Impressionists found that they could capture the momentary and transient effects of sunlight by painting en plein air, the Impressionists, however, developed new techniques specific to the style. The public, at first hostile, gradually came to believe that the Impressionists had captured a fresh and original vision, even if the art critics and art establishment disapproved of the new style. In the middle of the 19th century—a time of change, as Emperor Napoleon III rebuilt Paris, the Académie was the preserver of traditional French painting standards of content and style. Historical subjects, religious themes, and portraits were valued, landscape, the Académie preferred carefully finished images that looked realistic when examined closely. Paintings in this style were made up of brush strokes carefully blended to hide the artists hand in the work. Colour was restrained and often toned down further by the application of a golden varnish, the Académie had an annual, juried art show, the Salon de Paris, and artists whose work was displayed in the show won prizes, garnered commissions, and enhanced their prestige. The standards of the juries represented the values of the Académie, represented by the works of artists as Jean-Léon Gérôme. In the early 1860s, four young painters—Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Alfred Sisley and they discovered that they shared an interest in painting landscape and contemporary life rather than historical or mythological scenes. A favourite meeting place for the artists was the Café Guerbois on Avenue de Clichy in Paris, where the discussions were led by Édouard Manet. They were soon joined by Camille Pissarro, Paul Cézanne, during the 1860s, the Salon jury routinely rejected about half of the works submitted by Monet and his friends in favour of works by artists faithful to the approved style. In 1863, the Salon jury rejected Manets The Luncheon on the Grass primarily because it depicted a woman with two clothed men at a picnic. While the Salon jury routinely accepted nudes in historical and allegorical paintings, the jurys severely worded rejection of Manets painting appalled his admirers, and the unusually large number of rejected works that year perturbed many French artists
Impressionism
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Claude Monet,
Haystacks, (sunset), 1890–1891,
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Impressionism
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Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Dance at Le Moulin de la Galette (
Bal du moulin de la Galette),
Musée d'Orsay, 1876
Impressionism
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Édouard Manet,
The Luncheon on the Grass (Le déjeuner sur l'herbe), 1863
Impressionism
–
Alfred Sisley, View of the Saint-Martin Canal, Paris, 1870,
Musée d'Orsay
8.
Femininity
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Femininity is a set of attributes, behaviors, and roles generally associated with girls and women. Femininity is socially constructed, but made up of both socially-defined and biologically-created factors and this makes it distinct from the definition of the biological female sex, as both males and females can exhibit feminine traits. People who exhibit a combination of masculine and feminine characteristics are considered androgynous, and feminist philosophers have argued that gender ambiguity may blur gender classification. In some non-English speaking cultures, certain concepts or inanimate objects are considered feminine or masculine, tara Williams has suggested that modern notions of femininity in English speaking society began during the English medieval period at the time of the bubonic plague in the 1300s. Women in the Early Middle Ages were referred to simply within their traditional roles of maiden, wife, after the Black Death in England wiped out approximately half the population, traditional gender roles of wife and mother changed, and opportunities opened up for women in society. Prudence Allen has traced how the concept of woman changed during this period, the words femininity and womanhood are first recorded in Chaucer around 1380. Girls, second-wave feminists said, were then socialized with toys, games, television and school into conforming to feminine values, femininity is sometimes linked with sexual objectification and sexual appeal. Sexual passiveness, or sexual receptivity, is considered feminine while sexual assertiveness. Some queer theorists and other postmodernists, however, have rejected the sex /gender dichotomy as a dangerous simplification, an ongoing debate with regards to sex and psychology concerns the extent to which gender identity and gender-specific behavior is due to socialization versus inborn factors. According to Diane F. Halpern, both play a role, but the relative importance of each must still be investigated. The nature versus nurture question, for example, is debated and is continually revitalized by new research findings. Some hold that feminine identity is partly a given and partly a goal to be sought, in 1959, researchers such as John Money and Anke Erhardt proposed the prenatal hormone theory. This theory, however, has been criticized on theoretical and empirical grounds, Money also argued that gender identity is formed during a childs first three years. In Carl Jungs school of psychology, the anima and animus are the two primary anthropomorphic archetypes of the unconscious mind. The anima and animus are described by Jung as elements of his theory of the collective unconscious, a domain of the unconscious that transcends the personal psyche. In the unconscious of the male, it finds expression as a feminine inner personality, anima, equivalently, in the unconscious of the female, it is expressed as a masculine inner personality, animus. In Western cultures, the ideal of feminine appearance has traditionally included long, flowing hair, clear skin, a narrow waist, in other cultures, however, expectations are different. For example, in parts of the world, underarm hair is not considered unfeminine
Femininity
–
In Egyptian mythology,
Isis is synonymous with femininity.
Femininity
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The Birth of Venus (1486,
Uffizi) is a classic representation of femininity painted by
Sandro Botticelli.
Venus was a
Roman goddess principally associated with love, beauty and
fertility.
Femininity
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Young Woman Drawing (1801,
Metropolitan Museum of Art) painted by
Marie-Denise Villers (possibly a self-portrait), depicts an independent feminine spirit.
Femininity
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In some cultures, cosmetics are associated with femininity
9.
Sensuality
–
A sense is a physiological capacity of organisms that provides data for perception. The senses and their operation, classification, and theory are overlapping topics studied by a variety of fields, most notably neuroscience, cognitive psychology, the nervous system has a specific sensory system or organ, dedicated to each sense. Humans have a multitude of senses, sight, hearing, taste, smell, and touch are the five traditionally recognized senses. However, what constitutes a sense is a matter of debate, leading to difficulties in defining what exactly a distinct sense is. Other animals also have receptors to sense the world around them, humans have a comparatively weak sense of smell and a stronger sense of sight relative to many other mammals while some animals may lack one or more of the traditional five senses. Some animals may also intake and interpret sensory stimuli in different ways. Some species of animals are able to sense the world in a way humans cannot, with some species able to sense electrical and magnetic fields. There is no agreement as to the number of senses because of differing definitions of what constitutes a sense. The senses are frequently divided into exteroceptive and interoceptive, Exteroceptive senses are senses that perceive the bodys own position, motion, external senses include the traditional five, sight, hearing, touch, smell and taste, as well as thermoception and possibly an additional weak magnetoception. Proprioceptive senses include nociception, equilibrioception, proprioception, interoceptive senses are senses that perceive sensations in internal organs. Non-human animals may possess senses that are absent in humans, such as electroreception and detection of polarized light, in Buddhist philosophy, Ayatana or sense-base includes the mind as a sense organ, in addition to the traditional five. This addition to the commonly acknowledged senses may arise from the psychological orientation involved in Buddhist thought, the mind considered by itself is seen as the principal gateway to a different spectrum of phenomena that differ from the physical sense data. This way of viewing the human sense system indicates the importance of internal sources of sensation and perception that complements our experience of the external world, there are two types of photoreceptors, rods and cones. Rods are very sensitive to light, but do not distinguish colors, cones distinguish colors, but are less sensitive to dim light. There is some disagreement as to whether this one, two or three senses. Neuroanatomists generally regard it as two senses, given that different receptors are responsible for the perception of color and brightness, the inability to see is called blindness. Blindness may result from damage to the eyeball, especially to the retina, damage to the nerve that connects each eye to the brain. Temporary or permanent blindness can be caused by poisons or medications, people with blindsight are usually not aware that they are reacting to visual sources, and instead just unconsciously adapt their behaviour to the stimulus
Sensuality
–
Five senses and the respective sensory organs
Sensuality
–
An
allegory of five senses. Still Life by
Pieter Claesz, 1623. The painting illustrates the senses through musical instruments, a compass, a book, food and drink, a mirror,
incense and an open perfume bottle. The
tortoise may be an illustration of touch or an allusion to the opposite,(the tortoise isolating in its shell)
Sensuality
–
Detail of The Senses of Hearing, Touch and Taste,
Jan Brueghel the Elder, 1618
Sensuality
–
In this painting by
Pietro Paolini, each individual represents one of the five senses.
10.
Peter Paul Rubens
–
Sir Peter Paul Rubens was a Flemish/Netherlandish draughtsman and painter. He is widely considered as the most notable artist of Flemish Baroque art school, the catalogue of his works by Michael Jaffé lists 1,403 pieces, excluding numerous copies made in his workshop. His commissioned works were mostly history paintings, which included religious and mythological subjects and he painted portraits, especially of friends, and self-portraits, and in later life painted several landscapes. Rubens designed tapestries and prints, as well as his own house and he also oversaw the ephemeral decorations of the royal entry into Antwerp by the Cardinal-Infante Ferdinand in 1635. His drawings are mostly extremely forceful but not overly detailed and he also made great use of oil sketches as preparatory studies. For altarpieces he painted on slate to reduce reflection problems. Rubens was born in the city of Siegen to Jan Rubens and he was named in honour of Saint-Peter and Paul, because he was born on their solemnety. His father, a Calvinist, and mother fled Antwerp for Cologne in 1568, after increased religious turmoil and persecution of Protestants during the rule of the Spanish Netherlands by the Duke of Alba. Jan Rubens became the adviser of Anna of Saxony, the second wife of William I of Orange. Following Jan Rubens imprisonment for the affair, Peter Paul Rubens was born in 1577, the family returned to Cologne the next year. In 1589, two years after his fathers death, Rubens moved with his mother Maria Pypelincks to Antwerp, religion figured prominently in much of his work and Rubens later became one of the leading voices of the Catholic Counter-Reformation style of painting. In Antwerp, Rubens received a Renaissance humanist education, studying Latin, by fourteen he began his artistic apprenticeship with Tobias Verhaeght. Subsequently, he studied under two of the leading painters of the time, the late Mannerist artists Adam van Noort. Much of his earliest training involved copying earlier works, such as woodcuts by Hans Holbein the Younger. Rubens completed his education in 1598, at time he entered the Guild of St. Luke as an independent master. In 1600 Rubens travelled to Italy and he stopped first in Venice, where he saw paintings by Titian, Veronese, and Tintoretto, before settling in Mantua at the court of Duke Vincenzo I Gonzaga. The colouring and compositions of Veronese and Tintoretto had an effect on Rubenss painting. With financial support from the Duke, Rubens travelled to Rome by way of Florence in 1601, there, he studied classical Greek and Roman art and copied works of the Italian masters
Peter Paul Rubens
–
Self-portrait, 1623,
Royal Collection
Peter Paul Rubens
–
Rubens and
Isabella Brant, the
Honeysuckle Bower, c. 1609.
Alte Pinakothek
Peter Paul Rubens
–
The garden Rubens planned at
Rubenshuis, in
Antwerpen
Peter Paul Rubens
–
Portrait of a Young Scholar, from 1597
11.
Antoine Watteau
–
Jean-Antoine Watteau, better known as Antoine Watteau, was a French painter whose brief career spurred the revival of interest in colour and movement, as seen in the tradition of Correggio and Rubens. He revitalized the waning Baroque style, shifting it to the severe, more naturalistic. Watteau is credited with inventing the genre of fêtes galantes, scenes of bucolic and idyllic charm, some of his best known subjects were drawn from the world of Italian comedy and ballet. Watteau was born in October 1684 in the town of Valenciennes which had passed from the Spanish Netherlands to France. His father, Jean-Philippe Watteau, was a given to brawling. Showing an early interest in painting, Jean-Antoine may have been apprenticed to Jacques-Albert Gérin, jean-Antoines first artistic subjects were charlatans selling quack remedies on the streets of Valenciennes. Watteau left for Paris in 1702, by 1705 he was employed as an assistant by the painter Claude Gillot, whose work represented a reaction against the turgid official art of Louis XIVs reign. In Gillots studio Watteau became acquainted with the characters of the commedia dellarte, afterward he moved to the workshop of Claude Audran III, an interior decorator, under whose influence he began to make drawings admired for their consummate elegance. Audran was the curator of the Palais du Luxembourg, where Watteau was able to see the magnificent series of canvases painted by Peter Paul Rubens for Queen Marie de Medici. The Flemish painter would become one of his influences, together with the Venetian masters he would later study in the collection of his patron and friend. In 1709 Watteau tried to obtain the Prix de Rome and was rejected by the Academy. In 1712 he tried again and was considered so good that, rather than receiving the one-year stay in Rome for which he had applied, he was accepted as a full member of the Academy. He took five years to deliver the required reception piece, but it was one of his masterpieces, Watteau lacked aristocratic patrons, his buyers were bourgeois such as bankers and dealers. The subject of his painting, Pierrot, is an actor in a white satin costume who stands isolated from his four companions. Watteaus final masterpiece, the Shop-sign of Gersaint, exits the pastoral forest locale for an urban set of encounters. Painted at Watteaus own insistence, in eight days, working only in the mornings, in order to warm up his fingers, this sign for the shop in Paris of the paintings dealer Edme François Gersaint is effectively the final curtain of Watteaus theatre. It has been compared with Las Meninas as a meditation on art, the scene is an art gallery where the façade has magically vanished, and the gallery and street in the canvas are fused into one contiguous drama. Watteau alarmed his friends by a carelessness about his future and financial security, in fact he had been sickly and physically fragile since childhood
Antoine Watteau
–
Watteau in the last year of his life, by
Rosalba Carriera, 1721.
Antoine Watteau
–
Pleasures of Love (1718 - 1719)
Antoine Watteau
–
The Feast (or Festival) of Love (1718 - 1719)
Antoine Watteau
–
The Embarkation for Cythera, 1717,
Louvre. Many commentators note that it depicts a departure from the island of
Cythera, the birthplace of
Venus, thus symbolizing the brevity of love.
12.
Pierre Renoir
–
Pierre Renoir was a French stage and film actor. He was the son of the impressionist painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir and elder brother of the film director Jean Renoir and he is also noted for being the first actor to play Georges Simenons character Inspector Jules Maigret. Pierre Renoir was born on 21 March 1885 in Paris, on 18 rue Houdon, about a hundred meters from place Pigalle, Renoir was briefly the director of the Théâtre de lAthénée in Paris, taking over after the death of Louis Jouvet in 1951. Pierre Renoirs son was the cinematographer Claude Renoir, who is not to be confused with another brother, also called Claude Renoir, vals Mystery Les Enfants du paradis Special Mission The Captain Dr. Knock Judgement of God Pierre Renoir at the Internet Movie Database
Pierre Renoir
–
Pierre Renoir in US trailer for "Children Of Paradise" (1945)
13.
Jean Renoir
–
Jean Renoir was a French film director, screenwriter, actor, producer and author. As a film director and actor, he more than forty films from the silent era to the end of the 1960s. His films La Grande Illusion and The Rules of the Game are often cited by critics as among the greatest films ever made and he was ranked by the BFIs Sight & Sound poll of critics in 2002 as the fourth greatest director of all time. Among numerous honors accrued during his lifetime, he received a Lifetime Achievement Academy Award in 1975 for his contribution to the picture industry. Renoir was the son of the painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Renoir was born in the Montmartre district of Paris, France. He was the son of Aline Renoir and Pierre-Auguste Renoir. His elder brother was Pierre Renoir, a French stage and film actor, Renoir was also the uncle of Claude Renoir, the son of Pierre, a cinematographer who worked with Jean Renoir on several of his films. Renoir was largely raised by Gabrielle Renard, his nanny and his mothers cousin, shortly before his birth, she had come to live with the Renoir family. She introduced the boy to the Guignol puppet shows in Montmartre. He wrote in his 1974 memoirs My Life and My Films, She taught me to see the face behind the mask and she taught me to detest the cliché. Gabrielle was also fascinated by the new invention, and when Renoir was only a few years old she took him to see his first film. As a child, Renoir moved to the south of France with his family and he and the rest of the Renoir family were the subjects of many of his fathers paintings. His fathers financial success ensured that the young Renoir was educated at boarding schools, from which, as he later wrote. At the outbreak of World War I, Renoir was serving in the French cavalry, later, after receiving a bullet in his leg, he served as a reconnaissance pilot. After the war, Renoir followed his fathers suggestion and tried his hand at making ceramics and he was particularly inspired by Erich von Stroheims work. In 1924, Renoir directed Une Vie Sans Joie or Catherine and she was also his fathers last model. At this stage, his films did not produce a return, Renoir gradually sold paintings inherited from his father to finance them. During the 1930s Renoir enjoyed great success as a filmmaker, in 1931 he directed his first sound films, On purge bébé and La Chienne
Jean Renoir
–
Jean Renoir
Jean Renoir
–
The young Renoir with
Gabrielle Renard in a painting by his father
Pierre-Auguste Renoir.
14.
Courtauld Institute Galleries
–
The Courtauld Institute of Art, commonly referred to as The Courtauld, is a self-governing college of the University of London specialising in the study of the history of art and conservation. It is among the most prestigious institutions in the world for these disciplines and is known for the disproportionate number of directors of major museums drawn from its small body of alumni. The art collection of the Institute is known particularly for its French Impressionist and Post-Impressionist paintings and is housed in the Courtauld Gallery, the Institute and the Gallery are both in Somerset House, in the Strand in London. Originally the Courtauld Institute was based in Home House, a Robert Adam-designed townhouse in Londons Portman Square, the Strand block of Somerset House, designed by William Chambers from 1775–1780, has housed the Courtauld Institute since 1989. The Courtauld celebrated its 75th anniversary during the 2007–08 academic year, the Courtauld Institute of Art is the major centre for the study of the history and conservation of art and architecture in the United Kingdom. It offers undergraduate and postgraduate teaching to around 400 students each year, degrees are awarded by the University of London. The Independent has called it probably the most prestigious specialist college for the study of the history of art in the world, the Courtauld was ranked, again, first in the United Kingdom for History and History of Art in The Guardian’s 2017 University Guide. The only undergraduate course offered by the Courtauld is a BA in the History of Art and this is a full-time course designed to introduce students to all aspects of the study of western art. Students in the history of art masters programme have to choose a specialisation ranging from antiquity to modern to global contemporary artwork. Special options are taught in class sizes of 5–10 students. In 2009, it was decided that the Witt Library would not continue to add new material to the collection, the book library is one of the UKs largest archives of art history books, periodicals and exhibition catalogues. There is a library which also covers films, and an IT suite. Two other websites and sell high resolution digital files to scholars, publishers and broadcasters, the Courtauld uses a virtual learning environment to deliver course material to its students. Since 2004, the Courtauld has published a research journal, immediations. Each cover of the journal has been commissioned by a contemporary artist. The art collection of the Institute is housed in the Courtauld Gallery, the collection was begun by the founder of the Institute, Samuel Courtauld, who presented an extensive collection of mainly French Impressionist and Post-Impressionist paintings in 1932. It was enhanced by further gifts in the 1930s and a bequest in 1948, the Gallery contains some 530 paintings and over 26,000 drawings and prints. The Courtauld Gallery is open to the public, since 1989 it has been housed in the Strand block of Somerset House, which was the first home of the Royal Academy, founded in 1768
Courtauld Institute Galleries
–
This article needs additional citations for
verification. Please help improve this article by
adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (August 2015)
Courtauld Institute Galleries
–
Courtauld Institute of Art
Courtauld Institute Galleries
–
A Bar at the Folies-Bergère (1882) by
Édouard Manet
Courtauld Institute Galleries
–
Colleges and
institutions
15.
Paris
–
Paris is the capital and most populous city of France. It has an area of 105 square kilometres and a population of 2,229,621 in 2013 within its administrative limits, the agglomeration has grown well beyond the citys administrative limits. By the 17th century, Paris was one of Europes major centres of finance, commerce, fashion, science, and the arts, and it retains that position still today. The aire urbaine de Paris, a measure of area, spans most of the Île-de-France region and has a population of 12,405,426. It is therefore the second largest metropolitan area in the European Union after London, the Metropole of Grand Paris was created in 2016, combining the commune and its nearest suburbs into a single area for economic and environmental co-operation. Grand Paris covers 814 square kilometres and has a population of 7 million persons, the Paris Region had a GDP of €624 billion in 2012, accounting for 30.0 percent of the GDP of France and ranking it as one of the wealthiest regions in Europe. The city is also a rail, highway, and air-transport hub served by two international airports, Paris-Charles de Gaulle and Paris-Orly. Opened in 1900, the subway system, the Paris Métro. It is the second busiest metro system in Europe after Moscow Metro, notably, Paris Gare du Nord is the busiest railway station in the world outside of Japan, with 262 millions passengers in 2015. In 2015, Paris received 22.2 million visitors, making it one of the top tourist destinations. The association football club Paris Saint-Germain and the rugby union club Stade Français are based in Paris, the 80, 000-seat Stade de France, built for the 1998 FIFA World Cup, is located just north of Paris in the neighbouring commune of Saint-Denis. Paris hosts the annual French Open Grand Slam tennis tournament on the red clay of Roland Garros, Paris hosted the 1900 and 1924 Summer Olympics and is bidding to host the 2024 Summer Olympics. The name Paris is derived from its inhabitants, the Celtic Parisii tribe. Thus, though written the same, the name is not related to the Paris of Greek mythology. In the 1860s, the boulevards and streets of Paris were illuminated by 56,000 gas lamps, since the late 19th century, Paris has also been known as Panam in French slang. Inhabitants are known in English as Parisians and in French as Parisiens and they are also pejoratively called Parigots. The Parisii, a sub-tribe of the Celtic Senones, inhabited the Paris area from around the middle of the 3rd century BC. One of the areas major north-south trade routes crossed the Seine on the île de la Cité, this place of land and water trade routes gradually became a town
Paris
–
In the 1860s Paris streets and monuments were illuminated by 56,000 gas lamps, making it literally "The City of Light."
Paris
Paris
–
Gold coins minted by the Parisii (1st century BC)
Paris
–
The
Palais de la Cité and
Sainte-Chapelle, viewed from the Left Bank, from the
Très Riches Heures du duc de Berry (month of June) (1410)
16.
Charles Gounod
–
Charles-François Gounod was a French composer, best known for his Ave Maria, based on a work by Bach, as well as his opera Faust. Another opera by Gounod occasionally still performed is Roméo et Juliette, although he is known for his Grand Operas, the soprano aria Que ferons-nous avec le ragoût de citrouille. From his first opera Livre de recettes dun enfant is still performed in concert as an encore, Gounod died at Saint-Cloud in 1893, after a final revision of his twelve operas. His funeral took place ten days later at the Church of the Madeleine, with Camille Saint-Saëns playing the organ and Gabriel Fauré conducting. Ironically because of its obscurity today, an arrangement of Que ferons-nous avec le ragoût de citrouille. was performed by Saint-Saens at the funeral, due to its simple and it was later published as a posthumous Op.60. He was buried at the Cimetière dAuteuil in Paris, Gounod was born in Paris, the son of a pianist mother and an artist father. His mother was his first piano teacher, Gounod first showed his musical talents under her tutelage. He then entered the Paris Conservatoire, where he studied under Fromental Halévy, in 1839 he won the Prix de Rome for his cantata Fernand. In so doing he was following his father, François-Louis Gounod had won the second Prix de Rome in painting in 1783. During his stay of four years in Italy, Gounod studied the music of Palestrina and other sacred works of the sixteenth century, around 1846-47 he gave serious consideration to joining the priesthood, but he changed his mind before actually taking holy orders, and went back to composition. During that period he was attached to the Church of Foreign Missions in Paris, in 1854 Gounod completed a Messe Solennelle, also known as the St. Cecilia Mass. This work was first performed in its entirety in the church of St. Eustache in Paris on Saint Cecilias Day,22 November 1855, during 1855 Gounod wrote two symphonies. His Symphony No.1 in D major was the inspiration for the Symphony in C composed later that year by Georges Bizet, fanny Mendelssohn, sister of Felix Mendelssohn, introduced the keyboard music of Johann Sebastian Bach to Gounod, who came to revere him. For him The Well-Tempered Clavier was the law to pianoforte study. the unquestioned textbook of musical composition and it inspired Gounod to devise a melody and superimpose it on the C major Prelude from the collections first book. To this melody in 1859, Gounod fitted the words of the Ave Maria, Gounod wrote his first opera, Sapho, in 1851 at the urging of his friend, the singer Pauline Viardot, it was a commercial failure. He had no theatrical success until Faust, derived from Goethe. The romantic and melodious Roméo et Juliette, premiered in 1867, is revived now, mireille, first performed in 1864, has been admired by connoisseurs rather than by the general public. The other Gounod operas have fallen into oblivion, from 1870 to 1874 Gounod lived in England, at 17 Morden Road, Blackheath
Charles Gounod
–
Charles Gounod
Charles Gounod
–
Charles Gounod in 1859, the year of the premiere of Faust.
Charles Gounod
–
Gounod late in his career.
Charles Gounod
–
Gounod's guitar.
17.
Porcelain
–
Porcelain /ˈpɔːrsəlᵻn, ˈpɔːrslᵻn/ is a ceramic material made by heating materials, generally including kaolin, in a kiln to temperatures between 1,200 and 1,400 °C. Porcelain was first developed in China around 2,000 years ago, then spread to other East Asian countries, and finally Europe. It combines well with both glazes and paint, and can be modelled very well, allowing a range of decorative treatments in tablewares, vessels. It also has uses in technology and industry. The European name, porcelain in English, come from the old Italian porcellana because of its resemblance to the translucent surface of the shell, Porcelain is also referred to as china or fine china in some English-speaking countries, as it was first seen in imports from China. Porcelain has been described as being completely vitrified, hard, impermeable, white or artificially coloured, translucent, however, the term porcelain lacks a universal definition and has been applied in a very unsystematic fashion to substances of diverse kinds which have only certain surface-qualities in common. Terms such as porcellaneous or near-porcelain may be used in such cases, a high proportion of modern porcelain is made of the variant bone china. Kaolin is the material from which porcelain is made, even though clay minerals might account for only a small proportion of the whole. The word paste is an old term for both the unfired and fired material, a more common terminology these days for the unfired material is body, for example, when buying materials a potter might order an amount of porcelain body from a vendor. The composition of porcelain is highly variable, but the mineral kaolinite is often a raw material. Other raw materials can include feldspar, ball clay, glass, bone ash, steatite, quartz, petuntse, the clays used are often described as being long or short, depending on their plasticity. Long clays are cohesive and have high plasticity, short clays are cohesive and have lower plasticity. Clays used for porcelain are generally of lower plasticity and are shorter than many other pottery clays and they wet very quickly, meaning that small changes in the content of water can produce large changes in workability. Thus, the range of content within which these clays can be worked is very narrow. The following section provides information on the methods used to form, decorate, finish, glaze. Many types of glaze, such as the iron-containing glaze used on the wares of Longquan, were designed specifically for their striking effects on porcelain. Porcelain wares may be decorated under the glaze using pigments that include cobalt and copper or over the glaze using coloured enamels. Like many earlier wares, modern porcelains are often biscuit-fired at around 1,000 °C, coated with glaze, another early method is once-fired where the glaze is applied to the unfired body and the two fired together in a single operation
Porcelain
–
Porcelain wares, such as those similar to these Yongle-era porcelain flasks, were often presented as trade goods during the 15th-century
Chinese maritime expeditions. (British Museum)
Porcelain
–
Soft-paste porcelain Swan
tureen, 1752-6,
Chelsea.
Porcelain
–
Flower centrepiece, 18th century, Spain.
Porcelain
–
Ming Dynasty Xuande Archaic Porcelain Vase
18.
Louvre
–
The Louvre or the Louvre Museum is the worlds largest museum and a historic monument in Paris, France. A central landmark of the city, it is located on the Right Bank of the Seine in the citys 1st arrondissement, approximately 38,000 objects from prehistory to the 21st century are exhibited over an area of 72,735 square metres. The Louvre is the second most visited museum after the Palace Museum in China. The museum is housed in the Louvre Palace, originally built as a fortress in the late 12th century under Philip II, remnants of the fortress are visible in the basement of the museum. Due to the expansion of the city, the fortress eventually lost its defensive function and. The building was extended many times to form the present Louvre Palace, in 1692, the building was occupied by the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres and the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture, which in 1699 held the first of a series of salons. The Académie remained at the Louvre for 100 years, during the French Revolution, the National Assembly decreed that the Louvre should be used as a museum to display the nations masterpieces. The museum opened on 10 August 1793 with an exhibition of 537 paintings, because of structural problems with the building, the museum was closed in 1796 until 1801. The collection was increased under Napoleon and the museum renamed Musée Napoléon, the collection was further increased during the reigns of Louis XVIII and Charles X, and during the Second French Empire the museum gained 20,000 pieces. Holdings have grown steadily through donations and bequests since the Third Republic, whether this was the first building on that spot is not known, it is possible that Philip modified an existing tower. According to the authoritative Grand Larousse encyclopédique, the name derives from an association with wolf hunting den, in the 7th century, St. Fare, an abbess in Meaux, left part of her Villa called Luvra situated in the region of Paris to a monastery. This territory probably did not correspond exactly to the modern site, the Louvre Palace was altered frequently throughout the Middle Ages. In the 14th century, Charles V converted the building into a residence and in 1546, Francis acquired what would become the nucleus of the Louvres holdings, his acquisitions including Leonardo da Vincis Mona Lisa. After Louis XIV chose Versailles as his residence in 1682, constructions slowed, however, on 14 October 1750, Louis XV agreed and sanctioned a display of 96 pieces from the royal collection, mounted in the Galerie royale de peinture of the Luxembourg Palace. Under Louis XVI, the museum idea became policy. The comte dAngiviller broadened the collection and in 1776 proposed conversion of the Grande Galerie of the Louvre – which contained maps – into the French Museum, many proposals were offered for the Louvres renovation into a museum, however, none was agreed on. Hence the museum remained incomplete until the French Revolution, during the French Revolution the Louvre was transformed into a public museum. In May 1791, the Assembly declared that the Louvre would be a place for bringing together monuments of all the sciences, on 10 August 1792, Louis XVI was imprisoned and the royal collection in the Louvre became national property
Louvre
–
the Richelieu wing (2005)
Louvre
–
The only portion of the medieval Louvre still visible
Louvre
–
Antonio Canova 's
Psyche Revived by Cupid's Kiss was commissioned in 1787, donated in 1824.
Louvre
–
The
Venus de Milo was added to the Louvre's collection during the reign of
Louis XVIII.
19.
Charles Gleyre
–
Marc Gabriel Charles Gleyre, was a Swiss artist, resident in France from an early age. Gleyre was born in Chevilly, near Lausanne and his parents died when he was eight or nine years old, and he was brought up by an uncle in Lyon, France, who sent him to the citys industrial school. He began his artistic education in Lyon under Bonnefond, before moving to Paris. He also attended the Academie Suisse and studied watercolour technique in the studio of Richard Parkes Bonington and he then went to Italy, where he became acquainted with Horace Vernet and Louis Léopold Robert. They left Italy in spring 1834 and visited Greece, Turkey and Egypt, where they remained together until November 1835, Gleyre continued his travels around Egypt and Syria, not returning to France until 1838. He returned to Lyons in shattered health, having been attacked with ophthalmia, or inflammation of the eye, in Cairo, after 1845, when he exhibited the Separation of the Apostles, he contributed nothing to the Salon except the Dance of the Bacchantes in 1849. Yet he worked steadily and was productive and he had an infinite capacity of taking pains, and when asked by what method he attained to such marvelous perfection of workmanship, he would reply, En y pensant toujours. Many years often intervened between the first conception of a piece and its embodiment, and years not infrequently between the first and the stage of the embodiment itself. A landscape was finished, even his fellow artists would consider it done. Gleyre became influential as a teacher, taking over the studio of studio of Paul Delaroche – then the leading private teaching atelier in Paris – in 1843. His students included Jean-Léon Gérôme, Jean-Louis Hamon, Auguste Toulmouche, Whistler and several of the Impressionists, Monet, Renoir, Sisley and he did not charge his students a fee, although he expected them to contribute towards the rent and the payment of models. They were also given a say in the running of the school, though he lived in almost complete retirement from public life, he took a keen interest in politics, and was a voracious reader of political journals. For a time, under Louis Philippe, his studio had been the rendezvous of a sort of liberal club, to the last — amid all the disasters that befell his country — he was hopeful of the future, la raison finira bien par avoir raison. It was while on a visit to the Retrospective Exhibition, opened on behalf of the exiles from Alsace and Lorraine, that he died suddenly on 5 May 1874. He also left a number of drawings and watercolours. In Clements catalogue of his works there are 683 entries, including sketches and studies and this article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain, Chisholm, Hugh, ed. Gleyre, Marc Charles Gabriel. Fritz Berthoud in Bibliothèque universelle de Geneve, Albert de Montet, Dict
Charles Gleyre
–
Self-portrait
Charles Gleyre
–
Egyptian Temple, 1840
Charles Gleyre
–
Romans Under the Yoke (1858)
Charles Gleyre
–
This painting,
Lost Illusions, was started by Gleyre's student, Léon Dussart, and reworked by Gleyre himself. It is a replica of his masterpiece "Le Soir".
The Walters Art Museum
20.
Alfred Sisley
–
Alfred Sisley was an Impressionist landscape painter who was born and spent most of his life in France, but retained British citizenship. He was the most consistent of the Impressionists in his dedication to painting en plein air. He deviated into figure painting only rarely and, unlike Renoir and Pissarro, among his important works are a series of paintings of the River Thames, mostly around Hampton Court, executed in 1874, and landscapes depicting places in or near Moret-sur-Loing. Over the years Sisleys power of expression and colour intensity increased, Sisley was born in Paris to affluent British parents. His father, William Sisley, was in the silk business, in 1857 at the age of 18, Sisley was sent to London to study for a career in business, but he abandoned it after four years and returned to Paris in 1861. Together they would paint landscapes en plein air rather than in the studio and this approach, innovative at the time, resulted in paintings more colourful and more broadly painted than the public was accustomed to seeing. Consequently, Sisley and his friends initially had few opportunities to exhibit or sell their work and their works were usually rejected by the jury of the most important art exhibition in France, the annual Salon. During the 1860s, though, Sisley was in a financial position than some of his fellow artists. In 1866, Sisley began a relationship with Eugénie Lesouezec, a Breton living in Paris, the couple had two children, son Pierre and daughter Jeanne. At the time, Sisley lived not far from Avenue de Clichy and the Café Guerbois, in 1868, his paintings were accepted at the Salon, but the exhibition did not bring him financial or critical success, nor did subsequent exhibitions. In 1870 the Franco-Prussian War began, and as a result Sisleys fathers business failed, for the remainder of his life he would live in poverty, as his paintings did not rise significantly in monetary value until after his death. Occasionally, however, Sisley would be backed by patrons, the first of these occurred in 1874 after the first independent Impressionist exhibition. Here, as art historian Anne Poulet has said, the landscapes with their constantly changing atmosphere were perfectly attuned to his talents. Unlike Monet, he never sought the drama of the ocean or the brilliantly colored scenery of the Côte dAzur. In 1881 Sisley made a brief voyage to Britain. In 1897 Sisley and his partner visited Britain again, and were married in Cardiff Register Office on 5 August. They stayed at Penarth, where Sisley painted at least six oils of the sea, in mid-August they moved to the Osborne Hotel at Langland Bay on the Gower Peninsula, where he produced at least eleven oil paintings in and around Langland Bay and Rotherslade Bay. They returned to France in October and this was Sisleys last voyage to his ancestral homeland
Alfred Sisley
–
Alfred Sisley: 1882
Alfred Sisley
–
Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Alfred Sisley and his wife
Alfred Sisley
–
Molesey Weir – Morning, one of the paintings executed by Sisley on his visit to Britain in 1874
Alfred Sisley
–
Rest along the Stream. Edge of the Wood, 1878,
Musée d'Orsay
21.
Claude Monet
–
Monets ambition of documenting the French countryside led him to adopt a method of painting the same scene many times in order to capture the changing of light and the passing of the seasons. From 1883 Monet lived in Giverny, where he purchased a house and property, Claude Monet was born on 14 November 1840 on the fifth floor of 45 rue Laffitte, in the 9th arrondissement of Paris. He was the son of Claude Adolphe Monet and Louise Justine Aubrée Monet. On 20 May 1841, he was baptized in the parish church, Notre-Dame-de-Lorette, as Oscar-Claude. Despite being baptized Catholic, Monet later became an atheist, in 1845, his family moved to Le Havre in Normandy. His father wanted him to go into the familys ship-chandling and grocery business and his mother was a singer, and supported Monets desire for a career in art. On 1 April 1851, Monet entered Le Havre secondary school of the arts, locals knew him well for his charcoal caricatures, which he would sell for ten to twenty francs. Monet also undertook his first drawing lessons from Jacques-François Ochard, a student of Jacques-Louis David. On the beaches of Normandy around 1856 he met fellow artist Eugène Boudin, Boudin taught Monet en plein air techniques for painting. Both received the influence of Johan Barthold Jongkind, on 28 January 1857, his mother died. At the age of sixteen, he left school and went to live with his widowed, childless aunt, when Monet traveled to Paris to visit the Louvre, he witnessed painters copying from the old masters. Having brought his paints and other tools with him, he would go and sit by a window. Monet was in Paris for several years and met other painters, including Édouard Manet and others who would become friends. After drawing a low number in March 1861, Monet was drafted into the First Regiment of African Light Cavalry in Algeria for a seven-year period of military service. His prosperous father could have purchased Monets exemption from conscription but declined to do so when his son refused to give up painting. While in Algeria Monet did only a few sketches of scenes, a single landscape. In a Le Temps interview of 1900 however he commented that the light, after about a year of garrison duty in Algiers, Monet contracted typhoid fever and briefly went absent without leave. Following convalescence, Monets aunt intervened to get him out of the army if he agreed to complete a course at an art school and it is possible that the Dutch painter Johan Barthold Jongkind, whom Monet knew, may have prompted his aunt on this matter
Claude Monet
–
Claude Monet, photo by
Nadar, 1899.
Claude Monet
–
Impression, Sunrise (Impression, soleil levant), 1872; the painting that gave its name to the style.
Musée Marmottan Monet, Paris
Claude Monet
–
The Woman in the Green Dress,
Camille Doncieux, 1866,
Kunsthalle Bremen
Claude Monet
–
Le déjeuner sur l'herbe, (right section), 1865–1866, with
Gustave Courbet,
Frédéric Bazille and Camille Doncieux, first wife of the artist,
Musée d'Orsay,
Paris
22.
Paris Salon
–
The Salon, or rarely Paris Salon, beginning in 1667 was the official art exhibition of the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Paris. Between 1748 and 1890 it was arguably the greatest annual or biennial art event in the Western world, at the 1761 Salon, thirty-three painters, nine sculptors, and eleven engravers contributed. From 1881 onward, it has been managed by the Société des Artistes Français, in 1667, the royally sanctioned French institution of art patronage, the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture, held its first semi-public art exhibit at the Salon Carré. The Salons original focus was the display of the work of recent graduates of the École des Beaux-Arts, exhibition at the Salon de Paris was essential for any artist to achieve success in France for at least the next 200 years. Exhibition in the Salon marked a sign of royal favor, in 1725, the Salon was held in the Palace of the Louvre, when it became known as Salon or Salon de Paris. In 1737, the exhibitions, held from 18 August 1737 to 5 September 1737 at the Grand Salon of the Louvre and they were held, at first, annually, and then biennially, in odd-numbered years. They would start on the feast day of St. Louis, once made regular and public, the Salons status was never seriously in doubt. In 1748 a jury of awarded artists was introduced, from this time forward, the influence of the Salon was undisputed. The Salon exhibited paintings floor-to-ceiling and on every inch of space. The jostling of artwork became the subject of other paintings. Printed catalogues of the Salons are primary documents for art historians, critical descriptions of the exhibitions published in the gazettes mark the beginning of the modern occupation of art critic. The French revolution opened the exhibition to foreign artists, the vernissage of opening night was a grand social occasion, and a crush that gave subject matter to newspaper caricaturists like Honoré Daumier. Charles Baudelaire, Denis Diderot and others wrote reviews of the Salons, the 1848 revolution liberalized the Salon. The amount of refused works was greatly reduced, the increasingly conservative and academic juries were not receptive to the Impressionist painters, whose works were usually rejected, or poorly placed if accepted. The Salon opposed the Impressionists shift away from traditional painting styles, in 1863 the Salon jury turned away an unusually high number of the submitted paintings. An uproar resulted, particularly from regular exhibitors who had been rejected, in order to prove that the Salons were democratic, Napoleon III instituted the Salon des Refusés, containing a selection of the works that the Salon had rejected that year. It opened on 17 May 1863, marking the birth of the avant-garde, the Impressionists held their own independent exhibitions in 1874,1876,1877,1879,1880,1881,1882 and 1886. In 1881, the government withdrew official sponsorship from the annual Salon, in December 1890, the leader of the Société des Artistes Français, William-Adolphe Bouguereau, propagated the idea that Salon should be an exhibition of young, not-yet awarded, artists
Paris Salon
–
Formally dressed patrons at the Salon in 1890
Paris Salon
–
This portrait by
John Singer Sargent of
Virginie Amélie Avegno Gautreau depicting her
cleavage caused considerable controversy when it was displayed at the 1884 Salon.
Paris Salon
–
Salon of 1932, Grand Palais, Paris.
Paris Salon
–
Salon of 1753
23.
Franco-Prussian War
–
The conflict was caused by Prussian ambitions to extend German unification and French fears of the shift in the European balance of power that would result if the Prussians succeeded. On 16 July 1870, the French parliament voted to declare war on the German Kingdom of Prussia, the German coalition mobilised its troops much more quickly than the French and rapidly invaded northeastern France. The German forces were superior in numbers, had training and leadership and made more effective use of modern technology, particularly railroads. The German states proclaimed their union as the German Empire under the Prussian king Wilhelm I, the Treaty of Frankfurt of 10 May 1871 gave Germany most of Alsace and some parts of Lorraine, which became the Imperial territory of Alsace-Lorraine. French determination to regain Alsace-Lorraine and fear of another Franco-German war, along with British apprehension about the balance of power, the causes of the Franco-Prussian War are deeply rooted in the events surrounding the unification of Germany. In the aftermath of the Austro-Prussian War of 1866, Prussia had annexed numerous territories and this new power destabilized the European balance of power established by the Congress of Vienna in 1815 after the Napoleonic Wars. France was strongly opposed to any further alliance of German states, in Prussia, some officials considered a war against France both inevitable and necessary to arouse German nationalism in those states that would allow the unification of a great German empire. Bismarck also knew that France should be the aggressor in the conflict to bring the southern German states to side with Prussia, many Germans also viewed the French as the traditional destabilizer of Europe, and sought to weaken France to prevent further breaches of the peace. The immediate cause of the war resided in the candidacy of Leopold of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, France feared encirclement by an alliance between Prussia and Spain. The Hohenzollern princes candidacy was withdrawn under French diplomatic pressure, releasing the Ems Dispatch to the public, Bismarck made it sound as if the king had treated the French envoy in a demeaning fashion, which inflamed public opinion in France. They also argue that he wanted a war to resolve growing domestic political problems, other historians, notably French historian Pierre Milza, dispute this. According to Milza, the Emperor had no need for a war to increase his popularity, the Ems telegram had exactly the effect on French public opinion that Bismarck had intended. This text produced the effect of a red flag on the Gallic bull, gramont, the French foreign minister, declared that he felt he had just received a slap. Napoleons new prime minister, Emile Ollivier, declared that France had done all that it could humanly and honorably do to prevent the war, a crowd of 15–20,000 people, carrying flags and patriotic banners, marched through the streets of Paris, demanding war. On 19 July 1870 a declaration of war was sent to the Prussian government, the southern German states immediately sided with Prussia. The French Army consisted in peacetime of approximately 400,000 soldiers, some of them were veterans of previous French campaigns in the Crimean War, Algeria, the Franco-Austrian War in Italy, and in the Mexican campaign. Under Marshal Adolphe Niel, urgent reforms were made, universal conscription and a shorter period of service gave increased numbers of reservists, who would swell the army to a planned strength of 800,000 on mobilisation. Those who for any reason were not conscripted were to be enrolled in the Garde Mobile, however, the Franco-Prussian War broke out before these reforms could be completely implemented
Franco-Prussian War
–
Clockwise from top left: Prussian infantry at the
Battle of Spicheren;
Jeanniot 's 1886 La ligne de feu (
Battle of Mars-La-Tour);
Werner 's depiction of the
capitulation of Sedan;
Neuville 's 1873 Les dernières cartouches (
Battle of Bazeilles).
Franco-Prussian War
–
A French
mitrailleuse in the
Bundeswehr Military History Museum
Franco-Prussian War
–
French reservists responding to the call.
Franco-Prussian War
–
Map of German and French armies near their common border on 31 July 1870
24.
Paris Commune
–
The Paris Commune was a radical socialist and revolutionary government that ruled Paris from 18 March to 28 May 1871. Following the defeat of Emperor Napoleon III in September 1870, the French Second Empire swiftly collapsed, in its stead rose a Third Republic at war with Prussia, which laid siege to Paris for four months. A hotbed of radicalism, Frances capital was primarily defended during this time by the often politicized. In February 1871 Adolphe Thiers, the new executive of the French national government, signed an armistice with Prussia that disarmed the Army. Soldiers of the Communes National Guard killed two French army generals, and the Commune refused to accept the authority of the French government, the regular French Army suppressed the Commune during La semaine sanglante beginning on 21 May 1871. Debates over the policies and outcome of the Commune had significant influence on the ideas of Karl Marx, on 2 September 1870, after Frances unexpected defeat at the Battle of Sedan in the Franco-Prussian War, Emperor Napoleon III surrendered to the Prussian Chancellor Otto von Bismarck. When the news reached Paris the next day, shocked and angry crowds came out into the streets, Empress Eugénie de Montijo, the Emperors regent, fled the city, and the Government of the Second Empire swiftly collapsed. Republican and radical deputies of the National Assembly went to the Hôtel de Ville, proclaimed the new French Republic, though the Emperor and the French Army had been defeated at Sedan, the war continued. The German army marched swiftly toward Paris, in Paris, however, the republican candidates dominated, winning 234,000 votes against 77,000 for the Bonapartists. Only about 40,000 were employed in factories and large enterprises, most were employed in industries in textiles, furniture. There were also 115,000 servants and 45,000 concierges, in addition to the native French population, there were about 100,000 immigrant workers and political refugees, the largest number being from Italy and Poland. The working class and immigrants suffered the most from the lack of activity due to the war. The Commune resulted in part from growing discontent among the Paris workers and this discontent can be traced to the first worker uprisings, the Canut Revolts, in Lyon and Paris in the 1830s. Many Parisians, especially workers and the classes, supported a democratic republic. They also wanted a more just way of managing the economy, if not necessarily socialist, socialist movements, such as the First International, had been growing in influence with hundreds of societies affiliated to it across France. In early 1867, Parisian employers of bronze-workers attempted to de-unionize their workers and this was defeated by a strike organized by the International. Later in 1867, a public demonstration in Paris was answered by the legal dissolution of its executive committee. The International had considerable influence even among unaffiliated French workers, particularly in Paris, the killing of journalist Victor Noir incensed Parisians, and the arrests of journalists critical of the Emperor did nothing to quiet the city
Paris Commune
–
A barricade on Rue Voltaire, after its capture by the regular army during the Bloody Week
Paris Commune
–
Louis Auguste Blanqui, leader of the Commune's far-left faction, was imprisoned for the entire time of the Commune.
Paris Commune
–
Eugène Varlin led several thousand National Guard soldiers to march to the Hotel de Ville chanting 'Long Live the Commune!".
Paris Commune
–
Revolutionary units of the National Guard briefly seized the Hotel de Ville on 31 October 1870, but the uprising failed.
25.
Seine
–
The Seine is a 777-kilometre-long river and an important commercial waterway within the Paris Basin in the north of France. It rises at Source-Seine,30 kilometres northwest of Dijon in northeastern France in the Langres plateau, flowing through Paris and it is navigable by ocean-going vessels as far as Rouen,120 kilometres from the sea. There are 37 bridges within Paris and dozens more spanning the river outside the city, examples in Paris include the Pont Alexandre III and Pont Neuf, the latter of which dates back to 1607. Outside the city, examples include the Pont de Normandie, one of the longest cable-stayed bridges in the world, the Seine rises in the commune of Source-Seine, about 30 kilometres northwest of Dijon. The source has been owned by the city of Paris since 1864, a number of closely associated small ditches or depressions provide the source waters, with an artificial grotto laid out to highlight and contain a deemed main source. The grotto includes a statue of a nymph, on the same site are the buried remains of a Gallo-Roman temple. Small statues of the dea Sequana Seine goddess and other ex voti found at the place are now exhibited in the Dijon archeological museum. The Seine is dredged and oceangoing vessels can dock at Rouen,120 kilometres from the sea, commercial riverboats can use the river from Bar-sur-Seine,560 kilometres to its mouth. At Paris, there are 37 bridges, the river is only 24 metres above sea level 446 kilometres from its mouth, making it slow flowing and thus easily navigable. The Seine Maritime,105.7 kilometres from the English Channel at Le Havre to Rouen, is the portion of the Seine used by ocean-going craft. The tidal section of the Seine Maritime is followed by a section with four large multiple locks until the mouth of the Oise at Conflans-Sainte-Honorine. Multiple locks at Bougival / Chatou and at Suresnes lift the vessels to the level of the river in Paris, upstream from Paris seven locks ensure navigation to Saint Mammès, where the Loing mouth is situated. Through an eighth lock the river Yonne is reached at Montereau-Fault-Yonne, from the mouth of the Yonne, larger ships can continue upstream to Nogent-sur-Seine. From there on, the river is only by small craft. All navigation ends abruptly at Marcilly-sur-Seine, where the ancient Canal de la Haute-Seine used to allow vessels to continue all the way to Troyes and this canal has been abandoned for many years. The average depth of the Seine today at Paris is about 9.5 metres. Until locks were installed to raise the level in the 1800s, the river was much shallower within the city most of the time, today the depth is tightly controlled and the entire width of the river between the built-up banks on either side is normally filled with water. The average flow of the river is low, only a few cubic metres per second
Seine
–
The Seine in Paris
Seine
–
Seine source
Seine
–
The
Pont de Normandie over the Seine, between
Le Havre and
Honfleur, on the
Normandy coast
Seine
–
The Seine and Eiffel Tower
26.
Communards
–
The Communards were members and supporters of the short-lived 1871 Paris Commune formed in the wake of the Franco-Prussian War and Frances defeat. The working class of Paris were feeling ostracized after the decadence of the Second Empire, the Prussians besieged Paris in September 1870, causing suffering among Parisians. The poor ate cat or rat meat or went hungry, out of resentment from this situation grew radical and socialist political clubs and newspapers. While Paris was occupied, socialist groups tried twice to overthrow the provisional government, in January 1871, Otto von Bismarck and the French minister of foreign affairs, Jules Favre, decided that France would hold national elections. Adolphe Thiers, who had been loyal to the Second Empire, was elected head of the newly monarchist republic, during the war, the capital had moved from Paris to Bordeaux. When the war ended, the government declined to back to Paris. In the early morning of March 18, the government stationed in Versailles sent military forces into Paris to collect a reserve of cannons, the detachment was still gathering the munitions when the Parisians awoke, and soon the soldiers were surrounded. In the chaos that followed, the soldiers killed two of their own, and by the end of the day, they were mainly sided with the Parisians. Insurgents now controlled the city, and they declared a new government called the Paris Commune, Thiers refused to bargain with the Communards, despite their attempts to do so. He taught newly released French soldiers the evils of the Communards as the government prepared for a battle, starting on May 21 and continuing through May 28, soldiers chased the National Guard members who sided with the Communards through the streets. Around 18,000 Parisians were killed,25,000 were imprisoned, the violence of Bloody Week became a rallying cry for the working classes, politicians would later proudly brag about their participation with the Commune. After Bloody Week, the government asked for an inquest into the causes of the uprising, the inquest concluded that the main cause of the insurrection was a lack of belief in God, and that this problem had to be corrected immediately. It was decided that a revival was needed, and a key part of this was deporting 4,500 Communards to New Caledonia. There was a goal in this, as the government also hoped that the Communards would civilize the native Kanak people on the island. The government hoped that being exposed to the order of nature would return the Communards to the side of good, New Caledonia had become a French colony in 1853, but just ten years later it still only had 350 European colonists. After 1863, New Caledonia became the destination of convicts transported from France after French Guiana was deemed too unhealthy for people of European descent. Thereafter, convicts from France made up the largest number of arriving residents, during the busiest time of deportation, there were estimated to be about 50,000 total people on the island. There were four main sites on the island, one of which
Communards
–
Communards at the boulevard Voltaire
Communards
–
Communards at the rue de Castiglione
Communards
–
The Commune arrested by
Ignorance and
Reaction
Communards
–
Executed
National Guards
27.
Fontainebleau
–
Fontainebleau is a commune in the metropolitan area of Paris, France. It is located 55.5 kilometres south-southeast of the centre of Paris, Fontainebleau is a sub-prefecture of the Seine-et-Marne department, and it is the seat of the arrondissement of Fontainebleau. The commune has the largest land area in the Île-de-France region, Fontainebleau, together with the neighbouring commune of Avon and three other smaller communes, form an urban area of 39,713 inhabitants. This urban area is a satellite of Paris, inhabitants of Fontainebleau are called Bellifontains. Fontainebleau has been recorded in different Latinised forms, such as, Fons Bleaudi, Fons Bliaudi, Fons Blaadi in the 12th and 13th centuries and it became Fons Bellaqueus in the 17th century, which gave rise to the name of the inhabitants as Bellifontains. The name originates as a composite of two words, Fontaine– meaning spring, or fountainhead, followed by a person’s Germanic name Blizwald. This hamlet was endowed with a hunting lodge and a chapel by Louis VII in the middle of the twelfth century. A century later, Louis IX, also called Saint Louis, who held Fontainebleau in high esteem and referred to it as his wilderness, had a country house, philip the Fair was born there in 1268 and died there in 1314. In all, thirty-four sovereigns, from Louis VI, the Fat, to Napoleon III, the connection between the town of Fontainebleau and the French monarchy was reinforced with the transformation of the royal country house into a true royal palace, the Palace of Fontainebleau. On 18 October 1685, Louis XIV signed the Edict of Fontainebleau there, the result was that a large number of Protestants were forced to convert to the Catholic faith, killed, or forced into exile, mainly in the Low Countries, Prussia and in England. The 1762 Treaty of Fontainebleau, an agreement between France and Spain concerning the Louisiana territory in North America, was concluded here. Also, preliminary negotiations, held before the 1763 Treaty of Paris was signed, during the French Revolution, Fontainebleau was temporarily renamed Fontaine-la-Montagne, meaning Fountain by the Mountain. On 20 June 1812, Pope Pius VII arrived at the château of Fontainebleau, after a transfer from Savona, accompanied by his personal physician. In poor health, the Pope was the prisoner of Napoleon, from June 1812 until 23 January 1814, the Pope never left his apartments. According to contemporary sources, the occasion was very moving, the 1814 Treaty of Fontainebleau stripped Napoleon of his powers and sent him into exile on Elba. Until the 19th century, Fontainebleau was a village and a suburb of Avon, later, it developed as an independent residential city. For the 1924 Summer Olympics, the town played host to the portion of the modern pentathlon event. This event took place near a golf course, Fontainebleau also hosted the general staff of the Allied Forces in Central Europe and the land forces command, the air forces command was located nearby at Camp Guynemer
Fontainebleau
–
Palace of Fontainebleau
Fontainebleau
–
Fontainebleau palace garden fountain and Grand canal
Fontainebleau
–
Historical reenactment in Fontainebleau of the bicentenary of Napoleon's Farewell to the Old Guard, April 20th of 2014. Napoleon is going down the famous stairs of Fontainebleau castle to meet with the Old Guard.
28.
Forest of Fontainebleau
–
The forest of Fontainebleau is a mixed deciduous forest lying sixty kilometres southeast of Paris, France. It is located primarily in the arrondissement of Fontainebleau in the part of the department of Seine-et-Marne. Most of it lies in the canton of Fontainebleau, although parts of it extend into adjoining cantons. Several communes lie within the forest, notably the towns of Fontainebleau, the forest has an area of 280 km2. The most common trees in the forest are, oak, Scots pine, three thousand species of mushrooms have been discovered. The forest is home to approximately seven thousand animal species. The forest is the scene of action of the trilogy. A scene in the 1852 play The Corsican Brothers, where a duel takes place, is set in the forest of Fontainebleau, chapter 6 of the ground-breaking film serial Les Vampires takes place in Fontainebleau Forest. The map Castle Rock in the game Alliance of Valiant Arms takes place in the Fontainebleau Forest, the Santalune Forest location in Pokémon X and Y is based loosely on Fontainebleau Forest. Fontainebleau rock climbing Media related to Forest of Fontainebleau at Wikimedia Commons Fontainebleau, forêt démotions Official webpage from Office National des Forêts
Forest of Fontainebleau
–
Old topographic map of the Forest of Fontainebleau, 1895
Forest of Fontainebleau
–
A young man in the forest of
Fontainebleau,
Pierre-Auguste Renoir 1886
Forest of Fontainebleau
–
The Fontainebleau forest is famous for its large boulders.
Forest of Fontainebleau
–
View of the Gorges de Franchard in the Forest of Fontainebleau
29.
The Swing (Pierre-Auguste Renoir)
–
The Swing is an oil on canvas painting by the French artist Pierre-Auguste Renoir who was a leading exponent of the Impressionist style. The painting was executed in 1876, the painting measures 92 x 73 centimetres and is in the Musée d’Orsay. Renoir executed the painting in what are now the Musée de Montmartre gardens and he had rented a cottage in the gardens so that he be could closer to the Moulin de la Galette where he was engaged in painting Bal du moulin de la Galette. Renoirs people seem to stand on a forest floor of blossoms, the girl on the swing could be fifteen, her pink dress with a hat on head increases the charm of painting. The quivering light is rendered by the patches of colour, particularly on the clothing. This particularly annoyed the critics when the painting was shown at the Impressionist exhibition of 1877, the muyer was the model called Jeanne, a favourite of Renoirs who nevertheless could not be persuaded to model for Bal. It was her sister Estelle who modelled the girl in the pink, the two men are Renoirs brother Edmond and a painter friend Norbert Goeneutte
The Swing (Pierre-Auguste Renoir)
–
La balançoire
30.
Camille Pissarro
–
Camille Pissarro was a Danish-French Impressionist and Neo-Impressionist painter born on the island of St Thomas. His importance resides in his contributions to both Impressionism and Post-Impressionism, Pissarro studied from great forerunners, including Gustave Courbet and Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot. He later studied and worked alongside Georges Seurat and Paul Signac when he took on the Neo-Impressionist style at the age of 54, in 1873 he helped establish a collective society of fifteen aspiring artists, becoming the pivotal figure in holding the group together and encouraging the other members. Cézanne said he was a father for me, a man to consult and a little like the good Lord, and he was also one of Gauguins masters. Renoir referred to his work as revolutionary, through his portrayals of the common man. Pissarro is the only artist to have shown his work at all eight Paris Impressionist exhibitions and he acted as a father figure not only to the Impressionists but to all four of the major Post-Impressionists, including Georges Seurat, Paul Cézanne, Vincent van Gogh and Paul Gauguin. Jacob Abraham Camille Pissarro was born on 10 July 1830 on the island of St. Thomas to Frederick and his father was of Portuguese Jewish descent and held French nationality. His mother was from a French-Jewish family from the island of St. Thomas and his father was a merchant who came to the island from France to deal with the hardware store of a deceased uncle and married his widow. The marriage caused a stir within St. Thomas small Jewish community because she was married to Fredericks uncle. In subsequent years his four children were forced to attend the primary school. Upon his death, his will specified that his estate be split equally between the synagogue and St. Thomas Protestant church, when Camille was twelve his father sent him to boarding school in France. He studied at the Savary Academy in Passy near Paris, while a young student, he developed an early appreciation of the French art masters. Monsieur Savary himself gave him a grounding in drawing and painting and suggested he draw from nature when he returned to St. Thomas. However, his father preferred he work in his business, giving him a job working as a cargo clerk and he took every opportunity during those next five years at the job to practise drawing during breaks and after work. When he turned twenty-one, Danish artist Fritz Melbye, then living on St. Thomas, inspired Pissarro to take on painting as a profession, becoming his teacher. Pissarro then chose to leave his family and job and live in Venezuela and he drew everything he could, including landscapes, village scenes, and numerous sketches, enough to fill up multiple sketchbooks. In 1855 he moved back to Paris where he working as assistant to Anton Melbye. In Paris he worked as assistant to Danish painter Anton Melbye and he also studied paintings by other artists whose style impressed him, Courbet, Charles-François Daubigny, Jean-François Millet, and Corot
Camille Pissarro
–
Circa 1900
Camille Pissarro
–
Paisaje tropical con casas rurales y palmeras, c. 1853.
Galería de Arte Nacional, Caracas
Camille Pissarro
–
Two Women Chatting by the Sea,
St. Thomas, (1856), (private collection)
Camille Pissarro
–
Jalais Hill, Pontoise,
Metropolitan Museum of Art 1867
31.
Paul Durand-Ruel
–
Paul Durand-Ruel was a French art dealer who is associated with the Impressionists and the Barbizon School. He was one of the first modern art dealers who provided support to his painters with stipends, born Paul-Marie-Joseph Durand-Ruel in Paris, his father was a picture dealer. In 1865 young Paul took over the business, which represented artists such as Corot. In 1867 he moved his gallery from 1 rue de la Paix, Paris, to 16 rue Laffitte, during the 1860s and early 1870s Durand-Ruel was an important advocate and successful art dealer of the Barbizon School. However Durand-Ruel soon established a relationship with a group of painters who would become known as the Impressionists. In December 1870 he opened the first of ten Annual Exhibitions of the Society of French Artists at his new London gallery at 168 New Bond Street, under the management of Charles Deschamps. He recognized the artistic and fashionable potential of Impressionism as early as 1870, eventually Durand-Ruel had exhibitions of Impressionism and other works, at his Paris and London galleries. During the final three decades of the 19th century Durand-Ruel became the best known art dealer and most important commercial advocate of French Impressionism in the world and he succeeded in establishing the market for Impressionism in the United States as well as in Europe. Edgar Degas, Édouard Manet, Claude Monet, Berthe Morisot, Camille Pissarro, Pierre-Auguste Renoir and he represented many lesser known artists including Maxime Dethomas or Hugues Merle amongst others. Regarding the Americans’ open-mindedness towards impressionism, Durand-Ruel once said, The American public does not laugh, “Without America, ” he said, “I would have been lost, ruined, after having bought so many Monets and Renoirs. The two exhibitions there in 1886 saved me, but thanks to that public, Monet and Renoir were enabled to live and after that the French public followed suit. ”Durand-Ruel had an intense rivalry with Parisian art dealer Georges Petit. Durand-Ruel was the subject of a temporary exhibition titled Inventing Impressionism held at the National Gallery in London in 2015. Two exhibition catalogs from the Durand-Ruel Galleries, National Gallery exhibition devoted to Durand-Ruel 4 March –31 May 2015
Paul Durand-Ruel
–
Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Paul Durand-Ruel, 1910
32.
Algeria
–
Algeria, officially the Peoples Democratic Republic of Algeria, is a sovereign state in North Africa on the Mediterranean coast. Its capital and most populous city is Algiers, located in the far north. With an area of 2,381,741 square kilometres, Algeria is the tenth-largest country in the world, the country is a semi-presidential republic consisting of 48 provinces and 1,541 communes. Abdelaziz Bouteflika has been President since 1999, Berbers are the indigenous inhabitants of Algeria. Algeria is a regional and middle power, the North African country supplies large amounts of natural gas to Europe, and energy exports are the backbone of the economy. According to OPEC Algeria has the 16th largest oil reserves in the world, Sonatrach, the national oil company, is the largest company in Africa. Algeria has one of the largest militaries in Africa and the largest defence budget on the continent, most of Algerias weapons are imported from Russia, with whom they are a close ally. Algeria is a member of the African Union, the Arab League, OPEC, the countrys name derives from the city of Algiers. The citys name in turn derives from the Arabic al-Jazāir, a form of the older Jazāir Banī Mazghanna. In the region of Ain Hanech, early remnants of hominid occupation in North Africa were found, neanderthal tool makers produced hand axes in the Levalloisian and Mousterian styles similar to those in the Levant. Algeria was the site of the highest state of development of Middle Paleolithic Flake tool techniques, tools of this era, starting about 30,000 BC, are called Aterian. The earliest blade industries in North Africa are called Iberomaurusian and this industry appears to have spread throughout the coastal regions of the Maghreb between 15,000 and 10,000 BC. Neolithic civilization developed in the Saharan and Mediterranean Maghreb perhaps as early as 11,000 BC or as late as between 6000 and 2000 BC and this life, richly depicted in the Tassili nAjjer paintings, predominated in Algeria until the classical period. The amalgam of peoples of North Africa coalesced eventually into a native population that came to be called Berbers. These settlements served as market towns as well as anchorages, as Carthaginian power grew, its impact on the indigenous population increased dramatically. Berber civilization was already at a stage in which agriculture, manufacturing, trade, by the early 4th century BC, Berbers formed the single largest element of the Carthaginian army. In the Revolt of the Mercenaries, Berber soldiers rebelled from 241 to 238 BC after being unpaid following the defeat of Carthage in the First Punic War. They succeeded in obtaining control of much of Carthages North African territory, the Carthaginian state declined because of successive defeats by the Romans in the Punic Wars
Algeria
–
Ancient
Roman Empire ruins of
Timgad. Street leading to the Arch of Trajan.
Algeria
–
Flag
Algeria
–
Ancient Roman theatre in Djémila
Algeria
–
Numidia along with Egypt, Rome, and Carthage 200 BCE
33.
Madrid
–
Madrid is the capital city of the Kingdom of Spain and the largest municipality in both the Community of Madrid and Spain as a whole. The city has a population of almost 3.2 million with an area population of approximately 6.5 million. It is the third-largest city in the European Union after London and Berlin, the municipality itself covers an area of 604.3 km2. Madrid lies on the River Manzanares in the centre of both the country and the Community of Madrid, this community is bordered by the communities of Castile and León. As the capital city of Spain, seat of government, and residence of the Spanish monarch, Madrid is also the political, economic, the current mayor is Manuela Carmena from Ahora Madrid. Madrid is home to two football clubs, Real Madrid and Atlético de Madrid. Madrid is the 17th most liveable city in the according to Monocle magazine. Madrid organises fairs such as FITUR, ARCO, SIMO TCI, while Madrid possesses modern infrastructure, it has preserved the look and feel of many of its historic neighbourhoods and streets. Cibeles Palace and Fountain have become one of the monument symbols of the city, the first documented reference of the city originates in Andalusan times as the Arabic مجريط Majrīṭ, which was retained in Medieval Spanish as Magerit. A wider number of theories have been formulated on possible earlier origins, according to legend, Madrid was founded by Ocno Bianor and was named Metragirta or Mantua Carpetana. The most ancient recorded name of the city Magerit comes from the name of a built on the Manzanares River in the 9th century AD. Nevertheless, it is speculated that the origin of the current name of the city comes from the 2nd century BC. The Roman Empire established a settlement on the banks of the Manzanares river, the name of this first village was Matrice. In the 8th century, the Islamic conquest of the Iberian Peninsula saw the changed to Mayrit, from the Arabic term ميرا Mayra. The modern Madrid evolved from the Mozarabic Matrit, which is still in the Madrilenian gentilic, after the disintegration of the Caliphate of Córdoba, Madrid was integrated in the Taifa of Toledo. With the surrender of Toledo to Alfonso VI of León and Castile, the city was conquered by Christians in 1085, Christians replaced Muslims in the occupation of the centre of the city, while Muslims and Jews settled in the suburbs. The city was thriving and was given the title of Villa, since 1188, Madrid won the right to be a city with representation in the courts of Castile. In 1202, King Alfonso VIII of Castile gave Madrid its first charter to regulate the municipal council, which was expanded in 1222 by Ferdinand III of Castile
Madrid
–
From upper left: view of business districts of
AZCA and
CTBA,
Gran Vía street and
Metropolis Building, the
Palace of Communication, view of
Royal Palace and
Almudena Cathedral.
Madrid
Madrid
–
Plaza Mayor
Madrid
–
Puerta de Alcalá
34.
Titian
–
Tiziano Vecelli or Tiziano Vecellio, known in English as Titian /ˈtɪʃən/, was an Italian painter, the most important member of the 16th-century Venetian school. He was born in Pieve di Cadore, near Belluno, during his lifetime he was often called da Cadore, taken from the place of his birth. His painting methods, particularly in the application and use of color, would exercise a profound influence not only on painters of the Italian Renaissance, during the course of his long life, Titians artistic manner changed drastically, but he retained a lifelong interest in color. Although his mature works may not contain the vivid, luminous tints of his pieces, their loose brushwork. The exact date of Titians birth is uncertain, when he was an old man he claimed in a letter to Philip II, King of Spain, to have been born in 1474, but this seems most unlikely. Other writers contemporary to his old age give figures that would equate to birthdates between 1473 and after 1482 and he was the son of Gregorio Vecelli and his wife Lucia. His father was superintendent of the castle of Pieve di Cadore, Gregorio was also a distinguished councilor and soldier. Many relatives, including Titians grandfather, were notaries, and the family of four were well-established in the area, at the age of about ten to twelve he and his brother Francesco were sent to an uncle in Venice to find an apprenticeship with a painter. At that time the Bellinis, especially Giovanni, were the artists in the city. There Titian found a group of men about his own age, among them Giovanni Palma da Serinalta, Lorenzo Lotto, Sebastiano Luciani. Francesco Vecellio, his brother, later became a painter of some note in Venice. A fresco of Hercules on the Morosini Palace is said to have one of Titians earliest works. Others were the Bellini-esque so-called Gypsy Madonna in Vienna, and the Visitation of Mary and Elizabeth, now in the Accademia, a Man with a Quilted Sleeve is an early portrait, painted around 1509 and described by Giorgio Vasari in 1568. Scholars long believed it depicted Ludovico Ariosto, but now think it is of Gerolamo Barbarigo, Rembrandt borrowed the composition for his self-portraits. Titian joined Giorgione as an assistant, but many contemporary critics found his work more impressive—for example in exterior frescoes that they did for the Fondaco dei Tedeschi. Their relationship evidently contained a significant element of rivalry, distinguishing between their work at this period remains a subject of scholarly controversy. A substantial number of attributions have moved from Giorgione to Titian in the 20th century, one of the earliest known Titian works, Christ Carrying the Cross in the Scuola Grande di San Rocco, depicting the Ecce Homo scene, was long regarded as by Giorgione. In 1507–1508 Giorgione was commissioned by the state to create frescoes on the re-erected Fondaco dei Tedeschi, Titian and Morto da Feltre worked along with him, and some fragments of paintings remain, probably by Giorgione
Titian
–
Self-Portrait, c. 1567;
Museo del Prado, Madrid.
Titian
–
A Man with a Quilted Sleeve, an early portrait, c. 1509,
National Gallery, London.
Titian
–
Salome with the Head of John the Baptist c. 1515, (
Galleria Doria Pamphilj, Rome), or
Judith; this religious work also functions as an idealized portrait of a beauty, a genre developed by Titian, supposedly often using Venetian
courtesans as models.
Titian
–
Bacchus and Ariadne, c. 1520-1523.
35.
Florence
–
Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the Metropolitan City of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants, Florence was a centre of medieval European trade and finance and one of the wealthiest cities of the time. It is considered the birthplace of the Renaissance, and has called the Athens of the Middle Ages. A turbulent political history includes periods of rule by the powerful Medici family, from 1865 to 1871 the city was the capital of the recently established Kingdom of Italy. The Historic Centre of Florence attracts 13 million tourists each year and it was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1982. The city is noted for its culture, Renaissance art and architecture, the city also contains numerous museums and art galleries, such as the Uffizi Gallery and the Palazzo Pitti, and still exerts an influence in the fields of art, culture and politics. Due to Florences artistic and architectural heritage, it has been ranked by Forbes as one of the most beautiful cities in the world, in 2008, the city had the 17th highest average income in Italy. Florence originated as a Roman city, and later, after a period as a flourishing trading and banking medieval commune. According to the Encyclopædia Britannica, it was politically, economically, and culturally one of the most important cities in Europe, the language spoken in the city during the 14th century was, and still is, accepted as the Italian language. Starting from the late Middle Ages, Florentine money—in the form of the gold florin—financed the development of all over Europe, from Britain to Bruges, to Lyon. Florentine bankers financed the English kings during the Hundred Years War and they similarly financed the papacy, including the construction of their provisional capital of Avignon and, after their return to Rome, the reconstruction and Renaissance embellishment of Rome. Florence was home to the Medici, one of European historys most important noble families, Lorenzo de Medici was considered a political and cultural mastermind of Italy in the late 15th century. Two members of the family were popes in the early 16th century, Leo X, catherine de Medici married king Henry II of France and, after his death in 1559, reigned as regent in France. Marie de Medici married Henry IV of France and gave birth to the future king Louis XIII, the Medici reigned as Grand Dukes of Tuscany, starting with Cosimo I de Medici in 1569 and ending with the death of Gian Gastone de Medici in 1737. The Etruscans initially formed in 200 BC the small settlement of Fiesole and it was built in the style of an army camp with the main streets, the cardo and the decumanus, intersecting at the present Piazza della Repubblica. Situated along the Via Cassia, the route between Rome and the north, and within the fertile valley of the Arno, the settlement quickly became an important commercial centre. Peace returned under Lombard rule in the 6th century, Florence was conquered by Charlemagne in 774 and became part of the Duchy of Tuscany, with Lucca as capital. The population began to again and commerce prospered
Florence
–
A collage of Florence showing the
Galleria degli Uffizi (top left), followed by the
Palazzo Pitti, a sunset view of the city and the
Fountain of Neptune in the
Piazza della Signoria
Florence
–
A wooden model of Florence as it would have probably looked during Roman times, showing the ancient amphitheatre
Florence
–
The façade of the Cathedral
Florence
–
Leonardo da Vinci statue outside the
Uffizi Gallery.
36.
Raffaello Santi
–
Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino, known as Raphael, was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. His work is admired for its clarity of form, ease of composition, together with Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci, he forms the traditional trinity of great masters of that period. Raphael was enormously productive, running a large workshop and, despite his death at 37. Many of his works are found in the Vatican Palace, where the frescoed Raphael Rooms were the central, the best known work is The School of Athens in the Vatican Stanza della Segnatura. After his early years in Rome much of his work was executed by his workshop from his drawings and he was extremely influential in his lifetime, though outside Rome his work was mostly known from his collaborative printmaking. Raphael was born in the small but artistically significant central Italian city of Urbino in the Marche region and his poem to Federico shows him as keen to show awareness of the most advanced North Italian painters, and Early Netherlandish artists as well. In the very court of Urbino he was probably more integrated into the central circle of the ruling family than most court painters. Under them, the court continued as a centre for literary culture, growing up in the circle of this small court gave Raphael the excellent manners and social skills stressed by Vasari. Castiglione moved to Urbino in 1504, when Raphael was no longer based there but frequently visited, Raphael mixed easily in the highest circles throughout his life, one of the factors that tended to give a misleading impression of effortlessness to his career. He did not receive a humanistic education however, it is unclear how easily he read Latin. His mother Màgia died in 1491 when Raphael was eight, followed on August 1,1494 by his father, Raphael was thus orphaned at eleven, his formal guardian became his only paternal uncle Bartolomeo, a priest, who subsequently engaged in litigation with his stepmother. He probably continued to live with his stepmother when not staying as an apprentice with a master and he had already shown talent, according to Vasari, who says that Raphael had been a great help to his father. A self-portrait drawing from his teenage years shows his precocity and his fathers workshop continued and, probably together with his stepmother, Raphael evidently played a part in managing it from a very early age. In Urbino, he came into contact with the works of Paolo Uccello, previously the court painter, and Luca Signorelli, according to Vasari, his father placed him in the workshop of the Umbrian master Pietro Perugino as an apprentice despite the tears of his mother. The evidence of an apprenticeship comes only from Vasari and another source, an alternative theory is that he received at least some training from Timoteo Viti, who acted as court painter in Urbino from 1495. An excess of resin in the varnish often causes cracking of areas of paint in the works of both masters, the Perugino workshop was active in both Perugia and Florence, perhaps maintaining two permanent branches. Raphael is described as a master, that is to say fully trained and his first documented work was the Baronci altarpiece for the church of Saint Nicholas of Tolentino in Città di Castello, a town halfway between Perugia and Urbino. Evangelista da Pian di Meleto, who had worked for his father, was named in the commission
Raffaello Santi
–
Presumed Portrait of Raphael
Raffaello Santi
–
Self-portrait with a friend (1518 circa),
Louvre,
Paris
Raffaello Santi
–
Giovanni Santi, Raphael's father; Christ supported by two angels, c.1490
Raffaello Santi
–
The
Mond Crucifixion, 1502–3, very much in the style of
Perugino
37.
Richard Wagner
–
Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, theatre director, polemicist, and conductor who is primarily known for his operas. Unlike most opera composers, Wagner wrote both the libretto and the music for each of his stage works and he described this vision in a series of essays published between 1849 and 1852. Wagner realised these ideas most fully in the first half of the four-opera cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen and his advances in musical language, such as extreme chromaticism and quickly shifting tonal centres, greatly influenced the development of classical music. His Tristan und Isolde is sometimes described as marking the start of modern music, Wagner had his own opera house built, the Bayreuth Festspielhaus, which embodied many novel design features. The Ring and Parsifal were premiered here and his most important stage works continue to be performed at the annual Bayreuth Festival, until his final years, Wagners life was characterised by political exile, turbulent love affairs, poverty and repeated flight from his creditors. His controversial writings on music, drama and politics have attracted extensive comment, notably, since the late 20th century, where they express antisemitic sentiments. The effect of his ideas can be traced in many of the arts throughout the 20th century, his influence spread beyond composition into conducting, philosophy, literature, Richard Wagner was born to an ethnic German family in Leipzig, where his family lived at No. 3, the Brühl in the Jewish quarter and he was baptized at St. Thomas Church. He was the child of Carl Friedrich Wagner, who was a clerk in the Leipzig police service, and his wife, Johanna Rosine. Wagners father Carl died of typhus six months after Richards birth, afterwards his mother Johanna lived with Carls friend, the actor and playwright Ludwig Geyer. In August 1814 Johanna and Geyer probably married—although no documentation of this has found in the Leipzig church registers. She and her family moved to Geyers residence in Dresden, until he was fourteen, Wagner was known as Wilhelm Richard Geyer. He almost certainly thought that Geyer was his biological father, Geyers love of the theatre came to be shared by his stepson, and Wagner took part in his performances. In his autobiography Mein Leben Wagner recalled once playing the part of an angel, in late 1820, Wagner was enrolled at Pastor Wetzels school at Possendorf, near Dresden, where he received some piano instruction from his Latin teacher. He struggled to play a scale at the keyboard and preferred playing theatre overtures by ear. Following Geyers death in 1821, Richard was sent to the Kreuzschule, at the age of nine he was hugely impressed by the Gothic elements of Carl Maria von Webers opera Der Freischütz, which he saw Weber conduct. At this period Wagner entertained ambitions as a playwright and his first creative effort, listed in the Wagner-Werk-Verzeichnis as WWV1, was a tragedy called Leubald. Begun when he was in school in 1826, the play was influenced by Shakespeare
Richard Wagner
–
Richard Wagner in 1871
Richard Wagner
–
Wagner's birthplace, at 3,
the Brühl, Leipzig
Richard Wagner
–
Wilhelmine "Minna" Planer (1835), by Alexander von Otterstedt
Richard Wagner
–
Wagner c. 1840, by Ernest Benedikt Kietz
38.
Palermo
–
Palermo is a city of Southern Italy, the capital of both the autonomous region of Sicily and the Metropolitan City of Palermo. The city is noted for its history, culture, architecture and gastronomy, playing an important role throughout much of its existence, Palermo is located in the northwest of the island of Sicily, right by the Gulf of Palermo in the Tyrrhenian Sea. The city was founded in 734 BC by the Phoenicians as Ziz, Palermo then became a possession of Carthage, before becoming part of the Roman Republic, the Roman Empire and eventually part of the Byzantine Empire, for over a thousand years. The Greeks named the city Panormus meaning complete port, from 831 to 1072 the city was under Arab rule during the Emirate of Sicily when the city first became a capital. The Arabs shifted the Greek name into Balarme, the root for Palermos present-day name, eventually Sicily would be united with the Kingdom of Naples to form the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies until the Italian unification of 1860. The population of Palermo urban area is estimated by Eurostat to be 855,285, in the central area, the city has a population of around 676,000 people. The inhabitants are known as Palermitani or, poetically, panormiti, the languages spoken by its inhabitants are the Italian language, Sicilian language and the Palermitano dialect. Palermo is Sicilys cultural, economic and touristic capital and it is a city rich in history, culture, art, music and food. Palermo is the main Sicilian industrial and commercial center, the industrial sectors include tourism, services, commerce. Palermo currently has an airport, and a significant underground economy. In fact, for cultural, artistic and economic reasons, Palermo was one of the largest cities in the Mediterranean and is now among the top tourist destinations in both Italy and Europe. It is the seat of the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Arab-Norman Palermo. The city is going through careful redevelopment, preparing to become one of the major cities of the Euro-Mediterranean area. Roman Catholicism is highly important in Palermitano culture, the Patron Saint of Palermo is Santa Rosalia whose Feast Day is celebrated on 15 July. The area attracts significant numbers of each year and is widely known for its colourful fruit, vegetable and fish markets at the heart of Palermo, known as Vucciria, Ballarò. Palermo lies in a basin, formed by the Papireto, Kemonia, the basin was named the Conca dOro by the Arabs in the 9th century. The city is surrounded by a range which is named after the city itself. These mountains face the Tyrrhenian Sea, Palermo is home to a natural port and offers excellent views to the sea, especially from Monte Pellegrino
Palermo
–
Clockwise from top: Quattro Canti in Maqueda Street, San Domenico Church, Pretoria Square and Santa Caterina Church, and view of downtown Palermo from Mount Pellegrino
Palermo
–
View of Palermo from Monte Pellegrino.
Palermo
–
Monte Pellegrino pictured at the end of the 19th century; the mountain is visible from everywhere in the city
Palermo
–
Mesolithic cave art at
Addaura
39.
Guernsey
–
Guernsey is a jurisdiction within the Bailiwick of Guernsey, a Crown dependency. The jurisdiction is not part of the United Kingdom, however, defence and most foreign relations are handled by the British Government. Taken together with the jurisdictions of Alderney and Sark it forms the Bailiwick of Guernsey. The two Bailiwicks of Guernsey and Jersey together form the geographical grouping known as the Channel Islands, the name Guernsey, as well as that of neighbouring Jersey, is of Old Norse origin. The second element of word, -ey, is the Old Norse for island, while the original root, guern, is of uncertain origin. Around 6000 BC, rising seas created the English Channel and separated the Norman promontories that became the bailiwicks of Guernsey and Jersey from continental Europe, neolithic farmers then settled on its coast and built the dolmens and menhirs found in the islands today. During their migration to Brittany, Britons occupied the Lenur islands including Sarnia or Lisia and Angia, travelling from the Kingdom of Gwent, Saint Sampson, later the abbot of Dol in Brittany, is credited with the introduction of Christianity to Guernsey. In 933 AD, the Cotentin Peninsula including Avranchin which included the islands, were placed by the French King Ranulf under the control of William I, the island of Guernsey and the other Channel Islands represent the last remnants of the medieval Duchy of Normandy. During the Middle Ages, the island was a haven for pirates that would use the technique to ground ships close to her waters. This intensified during the Hundred Years War, when, starting in 1339, the Guernsey Militia was operational in 1337 and would help defend the island for a further 600 years. In 1372, the island was invaded by Aragonese mercenaries under the command of Owain Lawgoch, Owain and his dark-haired mercenaries were later absorbed into Guernsey legend as invading fairies from across the sea. In the mid-16th century, the island was influenced by Calvinist reformers from Normandy, during the Marian persecutions, three women, the Guernsey Martyrs, were burned at the stake for their Protestant beliefs. During the English Civil War, Guernsey sided with the Parliamentarians, the allegiance was not total, however, there were a few Royalist uprisings in the southwest of the island, while Castle Cornet was occupied by the Governor, Sir Peter Osborne, and Royalist troops. In December 1651, with honours of war, Castle Cornet surrendered. By the beginning of the 18th century, Guernseys residents were starting to settle in North America, the threat of invasion by Napoleon prompted many defensive structures to be built at the end of that century. The 19th century saw an increase in the prosperity of the island, due to its success in the global maritime trade. During the First World War, about 3,000 island men served in the British Expeditionary Force, of these, about 1,000 served in the Royal Guernsey Light Infantry regiment formed from the Royal Guernsey Militia in 1916. For most of the Second World War, the Channel Islands were occupied by German troops, before the occupation, 80% of Guernsey children had been evacuated to England to live with relatives or strangers during the war
Guernsey
–
Aerial view
Guernsey
–
Flag
Guernsey
–
Castle Cornet seen at night over the harbour of
St Peter Port.
Guernsey
–
The island of Guernsey seen from 33,000 feet looking North
40.
Channel Islands
–
The Channel Islands are an archipelago in the English Channel, off the French coast of Normandy. They are considered the remnants of the Duchy of Normandy, and although they are not part of the United Kingdom, it is responsible for the defence, the Crown dependencies are not members of the Commonwealth of Nations nor of the European Union. They have a population of about 168,000. The total area of the islands is 198 km2, the two bailiwicks have been administered separately since the late 13th century, each has its own independent laws, elections, and representative bodies. Any institution common to both is the rather than the rule. The Bailiwick of Guernsey is divided into three jurisdictions – Guernsey, Alderney and Sark – each with its own legislature, the term Channel Islands began to be used around 1830, possibly first by the Royal Navy as a collective name for the islands. The permanently inhabited islands of the Channel Islands are, Jersey Guernsey Alderney Sark Herm Jethou Brecqhou There are also several uninhabited islets and they are an incorporated part of the commune of Granville. While they are popular with visitors from France, Channel Islanders rarely visit them as there are no transport links from the other islands. Chausey is referred to as an Île normande, Îles Normandes and Archipel Normand have also, historically, been used in Channel Island French to refer to the islands as a whole. The lowest point is the Atlantic Ocean, the earliest evidence of human occupation of the Channel Islands has been dated to 250,000 years ago when they were attached to the landmass of continental Europe. The islands became detached by rising sea levels in the Neolithic period, hoards of Armorican coins have been excavated, providing evidence of trade and contact in the Iron Age period. Evidence for Roman settlement is sparse, although evidently the islands were visited by Roman officials, the Roman name for the Channel Islands was I. Lenuri and is included in the Peutinger Table The traditional Latin names used for the islands derive from the Antonine Itinerary, gallo-Roman culture was adopted to an unknown extent in the islands. In the sixth century, Christian missionaries visited the islands, samson of Dol, Helier, Marculf and Magloire are among saints associated with the islands. In the sixth century, they were included in the diocese of Coutances where they remained until reformation. The islands were inhabited by Britons, who also inhabited Wales, south west England, from the beginning of the ninth century, Norse raiders appeared on the coasts. Norse settlement succeeded initial attacks, and it is from this period that many names of Norse origin appear. In 933, the islands were granted to William I Longsword by Raoul King of Western Francia, in 1066, William II of Normandy invaded and conquered England, becoming William I of England, also known as William the Conqueror
Channel Islands
–
Viewed from Jersey's north coast,
Jethou,
Herm and
Sark are hazy outlines on the horizon.
Channel Islands
–
Location of the Channel Islands
Channel Islands
–
La Gran'mère du Chimquière,
Statue menhir,
Saint Martin, Guernsey
Channel Islands
–
The Channel Islands remain covered in German
fortifications built in the Second World War.
41.
English Channel
–
The English Channel, also called simply the Channel, is the body of water that separates southern England from northern France, and links the southern part of the North Sea to the Atlantic Ocean. It is about 560 km long and varies in width from 240 km at its widest to 33.3 km in the Strait of Dover and it is the smallest of the shallow seas around the continental shelf of Europe, covering an area of some 75,000 km2. The International Hydrographic Organization defines the limits of the English Channel as follows, a line joining Isle Vierge to Lands End. The southwestern limit of the North Sea, the IHO defines the southwestern limit of the North Sea as a line joining the Walde Lighthouse and Leathercoat Point. The Walde Lighthouse is 6 km east of Calais, and Leathercoat Point is at the end of St Margarets Bay. The Strait of Dover, at the Channels eastern end, is its narrowest point and it is relatively shallow, with an average depth of about 120 m at its widest part, reducing to a depth of about 45 m between Dover and Calais. Eastwards from there the adjoining North Sea reduces to about 26 m in the Broad Fourteens where it lies over the watershed of the land bridge between East Anglia and the Low Countries. It reaches a depth of 180 m in the submerged valley of Hurds Deep,48 km west-northwest of Guernsey. The eastern region along the French coast between Cherbourg and the mouth of the Seine river at Le Havre is frequently referred to as the Bay of the Seine. There are several islands in the Channel, the most notable being the Isle of Wight off the English coast. The coastline, particularly on the French shore, is indented, several small islands close to the coastline, including Chausey. The Cotentin Peninsula in France juts out into the Channel, whilst on the English side there is a parallel channel known as the Solent between the Isle of Wight and the mainland. The Celtic Sea is to the west of the Channel, the Channel is of geologically recent origins, having been dry land for most of the Pleistocene period. The first flood would have lasted for months, releasing as much as one million cubic metres of water per second. The flood started with large but localized waterfalls over the ridge, the flow eroded the retaining ridge, causing the rock dam to fail and releasing lake water into the English Channel. The erosion of the Lobourg Channel was probably the final opening of the Strait, the time difference of about six hours between high water at the eastern and western limits of the Channel is indicative of the tidal range being amplified further by resonance. It was never defined as a border and the names were more or less descriptive. It was not considered as the property of a nation, strangely, before the development of the modern nations, British scholars very often referred to it as Gaulish and the French one as British or English
English Channel
–
English Channel
English Channel
–
Three French river mouths. Top to bottom: the
Somme, the
Authie and the
Canche
English Channel
–
The Hermitage of
St Helier lies in the bay off
Saint Helier and is accessible on foot at low tide.
English Channel
–
British radar facilities during the
Battle of Britain 1940
42.
Suzanne Valadon
–
Suzanne Valadon was a French painter and artists model who was born Marie-Clémentine Valadon at Bessines-sur-Gartempe, Haute-Vienne, France. In 1894, Valadon became the first woman admitted to the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts. She was also the mother of painter Maurice Utrillo, the subjects of her drawings and paintings included mostly female nudes, female portraits, still lifes, and landscapes. She never attended the academy and was never confined within a tradition, Valadon spent nearly 40 years of her life as an artist. Valadon grew up in poverty with her mother and did not know her father and she was known to be quite independent and rebellious. She attended primary school until age 11 when she began to work, in 1883 Valadon gave birth to her illegitimate son, Maurice Utrillo, at the age of 18. Valadon’s mother cared for Maurice while she returned to modeling, Valadons friend Miguel Utrillo would later sign papers recognizing Maurice as his son, although his true paternity is uncertain. Valadon helped to educate herself in art by reading Toulouse-Lautrec’s books, in 1893, Valadon began a short-lived affair with composer Erik Satie, moving to a room next to his on the Rue Cortot. Valadon married stockbroker Paul Moussis in 1895, leading a life for 13 years at an apartment in Paris. In 1909, Valadon began an affair with the painter André Utter, age 23, Valadon married Utter in 1914, and he managed her career as well as her sons. Valadon and Utter regularly exhibited work together until the couple divorced in 1934, at the age of 15 Valadon met, Count Antoine de la Rochefoucauld and Thèo Wagner, two symbolist painters who were involved in decorating circus belonging to Medrano. Through this connection she began work at the Mollier circus as a acrobat, but a year later, the circus was frequented by artists such as Lautrec, Sescau and Berthe Morisot and it is believed this is where Morisot did her painting of Valadon. In the Montmartre quarter of Paris, she pursued her interest in art, first working as a model for artists, observing and learning their techniques, Valadon debuted as a model in 1880 in Montmartre at age 15. She modelled for over 10 years for different artists including the following, Pierre-Cécile Puvis de Chavannes, Théophile Steinlen, Pierre-Auguste Renoir. She modelled under the name “Maria” eventually being nicknamed “Suzanne” after the story of Susanna. She was considered a very focused, ambitious, rebellious, determined, self-confident and she was also known to be good friends with Edgar Degas. In the early 1890s she befriended Degas who, impressed with her bold line drawings and fine paintings, purchased her work and she remained one of Degass closest friends until his death. The most recognizable image of Valadon would be in Renoirs Dance at Bougival from 1883, in 1885, Renoir painted her portrait again as Girl Braiding Her Hair
Suzanne Valadon
–
Valadon as a young woman
Suzanne Valadon
–
Dance at Bougival, by Renoir; the female dancer is Valadon.
Suzanne Valadon
–
Casting of the Net, 1914, by Suzanne Valadon
Suzanne Valadon
–
Self-Portrait, 1883, by Suzanne Valadon
43.
Queen Victoria
–
Victoria was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until her death. From 1 May 1876, she adopted the title of Empress of India. Victoria was the daughter of Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn, both the Duke of Kent and King George III died in 1820, and Victoria was raised under close supervision by her German-born mother Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld. She inherited the throne aged 18, after her fathers three brothers had all died, leaving no surviving legitimate children. The United Kingdom was already a constitutional monarchy, in which the sovereign held relatively little direct political power. Privately, Victoria attempted to influence government policy and ministerial appointments, publicly, Victoria married her first cousin, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, in 1840. Their nine children married into royal and noble families across the continent, tying them together, after Alberts death in 1861, Victoria plunged into deep mourning and avoided public appearances. As a result of her seclusion, republicanism temporarily gained strength and her Golden and Diamond Jubilees were times of public celebration. Her reign of 63 years and seven months is known as the Victorian era and it was a period of industrial, cultural, political, scientific, and military change within the United Kingdom, and was marked by a great expansion of the British Empire. She was the last British monarch of the House of Hanover and her son and successor, Edward VII, belonged to the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, the line of his father. Victorias father was Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn, until 1817, Edwards niece, Princess Charlotte of Wales, was the only legitimate grandchild of George III. Her death in 1817 precipitated a crisis that brought pressure on the Duke of Kent. In 1818 he married Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, a widowed German princess with two children—Carl and Feodora —by her first marriage to the Prince of Leiningen and her brother Leopold was Princess Charlottes widower. The Duke and Duchess of Kents only child, Victoria, was born at 4.15 a. m. on 24 May 1819 at Kensington Palace in London. Victoria was christened privately by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Charles Manners-Sutton, on 24 June 1819 in the Cupola Room at Kensington Palace and she was baptised Alexandrina, after one of her godparents, Emperor Alexander I of Russia, and Victoria, after her mother. Additional names proposed by her parents—Georgina, Charlotte, and Augusta—were dropped on the instructions of the Dukes eldest brother, George, the Duke of Clarence and the Duke of Kent married on the same day in 1818, but both of Clarences daughters died as infants. Victorias father died in January 1820, when Victoria was less than a year old, a week later her grandfather died and was succeeded by his eldest son, George IV. The Duke of York died in 1827, when George IV died in 1830, he was succeeded by his next surviving brother, William IV, and Victoria became heir presumptive
Queen Victoria
–
Victoria wearing her
small diamond crown Photograph by
Alexander Bassano, 1882
Queen Victoria
–
Victoria, aged four Painting by
Stephen Poyntz Denning, 1823
Queen Victoria
–
Victoria with her spaniel Dash, 1833 Painting by
George Hayter
Queen Victoria
–
Self-portrait, 1835
44.
Golden Jubilee
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A golden jubilee is a celebration held to mark a 50th anniversary. The golden jubilee is a ceremony to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the accession of the king. The first Golden Jubilee of Thailand was the celebration of King Bhumibol Adulyadej, King Rama IX celebrated his golden jubilee on 9 June 1996, having acceded to the throne in 1946 which makes him Thailands longest-reigning monarch and the longest-living monarch today. The largest faceted diamond in the world, known as the Golden Jubilee Diamond, was purchased as a gift for the King on the 50th anniversary of his coronation by Thai businessmen, currently, the diamond is located in the Royal Thai Palace as part of the crown jewels. In 1996, Banharn Silpa-archa, the Prime Minister, and the Thai people celebrated the King with a large celebration, the symbol of the golden jubilee of King Bhumibol Adulyadej was designed by Wiyada Charoensuk, who won the contest for the design. The golden jubilee of George III of the United Kingdom was celebrated on 25th October 1809, Queen Elizabeth II celebrated her golden jubilee in 2002, having ascended the throne in 1952. In 1887 the United Kingdom and the British Empire celebrated Queen Victorias golden jubilee, Victoria marked 20 June 1887—the fiftieth anniversary of her accession—with a banquet, to which fifty European kings and princes were invited. Although she could not have been aware of it, there was a plan by Irish Republicans to blow up Westminster Abbey while the Queen attended a service of thanksgiving and this assassination attempt, when it was discovered, became known as the Jubilee Plot. At the time, Victoria was a popular monarch. Emperor Wu of Han dynasty Kangxi Emperor of Qing dynasty Qianlong Emperor of Qing dynasty Yeongjo of Joseon In Japan, Emperor Hirohito, celebrated his golden jubilee on 10 November 1976. Showa Memorial Park was established as part of a project to commemorate his golden jubilee, for the year 2015, the Singapore50 initiative is launched in Singapore to celebrate 50 years of independence from Malaysia. The logo is meant to identify with the SG50 celebrations, national Day Parade ceremonies for that year are themed Majulah Singapura - Our Golden Jubilee. In Bavaria, Charles Theodore, Elector of Bavaria celebrated his jubilee as Elector Palatine in 1792. In Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, Grand Duke Karl August celebrated his golden jubilee in 1826, in Austria-Hungary, Emperor Franz Josef celebrated his golden jubilee in 1898. In Baden, Grand Duke Frederick I celebrated his golden jubilee in 1906, in Liechtenstein, Prince Johann II celebrated his golden jubilee in 1908. In Greece, King George I was assassinated mere weeks before his golden jubilee was due to be celebrated in 1913, in Montenegro, Nikola I Petrović-Njegoš celebrated his golden jubilee in 1914. In Norway, King Haakon VII celebrated his golden jubilee in 1955, in Burundi, King Mwambutsa IV Bangiriceng celebrated his golden jubilee in 1965. In Ethiopia, Emperor Haile Selassie celebrated his jubilee, dating from when he became regent
Golden Jubilee
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The Singapore50 logo representing the golden jubilee celebrations.
45.
Gabrielle Renard
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Gabrielle Renard was a French woman who became an important member of the family of the painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir, first becoming their nanny, and subsequently a frequent model for the artist. The bond she developed with the Renoirs second son, the future filmmaker Jean Renoir, upon her marriage in 1921, she became Gabrielle Renard-Slade. Born in Essoyes in the Aube departement of France, she was a cousin of Aline Victorine Charigot Renoir, the village was the birthplace of Aline also. At age sixteen, Gabrielle Renard moved to Montmartre to live and work as a nanny in her cousins household, Renard became the subject of a number of Renoirs portraits, many of her with the children. Gabrielle Renard developed a bond with the infant, Jean Renoir. She introduced him to the Guignol puppet shows that were held in the Montmartre, Gabrielle was fascinated by the newly invented motion picture, and when Jean Renoir was only a few years old, she took him to see his first film. He became a film maker. During the final years of Pierre-Auguste Renoirs life he suffered from rheumatoid arthritis. When the family moved to a farm at Cagnes-sur-Mer near the Mediterranean coast, seeking a climate for Renoirs arthritis. While he worked in the studio at Les Collettes, Gabrielle would place the paint brush between his crippled fingers, devoted to her cousins family, Gabrielle Renard did not marry until 1921, when the Renoir children were grown. Her husband, Conrad Hensler Slade, was a painter from a wealthy American family. They had a son whom they named Jean Slade, following the occupation of France by the Germans during World War II, Gabrielle and her family moved to the United States, her husbands native country. Jean Renoir also moved to the United States during the war, being a successful film director, he settled in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California. When Gabrielles husband died in 1955, she moved to Beverly Hills to be near Jean Renoir, Gabrielle Renard-Slade died at her home in Beverly Hills in 1959. He wrote, She taught me to see the face behind the mask and the fraud behind the flourishes, media related to Gabrielle Renard at Wikimedia Commons
Gabrielle Renard
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Gabrielle Renard and
Jean Renoir, painted by
Pierre-Auguste Renoir
Gabrielle Renard
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The Family of the Artist, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, 1896.
Gabrielle Renard
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Gabrielle with Rose, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, 1911.
46.
Mediterranean Sea
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The sea is sometimes considered a part of the Atlantic Ocean, although it is usually identified as a separate body of water. The name Mediterranean is derived from the Latin mediterraneus, meaning inland or in the middle of land and it covers an approximate area of 2.5 million km2, but its connection to the Atlantic is only 14 km wide. The Strait of Gibraltar is a strait that connects the Atlantic Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea and separates Gibraltar. In oceanography, it is called the Eurafrican Mediterranean Sea or the European Mediterranean Sea to distinguish it from mediterranean seas elsewhere. The Mediterranean Sea has a depth of 1,500 m. The sea is bordered on the north by Europe, the east by Asia and it is located between latitudes 30° and 46° N and longitudes 6° W and 36° E. Its west-east length, from the Strait of Gibraltar to the Gulf of Iskenderun, the seas average north-south length, from Croatia’s southern shore to Libya, is approximately 800 km. The Mediterranean Sea, including the Sea of Marmara, has an area of approximately 2,510,000 square km. The sea was an important route for merchants and travelers of ancient times that allowed for trade, the history of the Mediterranean region is crucial to understanding the origins and development of many modern societies. In addition, the Gaza Strip and the British Overseas Territories of Gibraltar and Akrotiri, the term Mediterranean derives from the Latin word mediterraneus, meaning amid the earth or between land, as it is between the continents of Africa, Asia and Europe. The Ancient Greek name Mesogeios, is similarly from μέσο, between + γη, land, earth) and it can be compared with the Ancient Greek name Mesopotamia, meaning between rivers. The Mediterranean Sea has historically had several names, for example, the Carthaginians called it the Syrian Sea and latter Romans commonly called it Mare Nostrum, and occasionally Mare Internum. Another name was the Sea of the Philistines, from the people inhabiting a large portion of its shores near the Israelites, the sea is also called the Great Sea in the General Prologue by Geoffrey Chaucer. In Ottoman Turkish, it has also been called Bahr-i Sefid, in Modern Hebrew, it has been called HaYam HaTikhon, the Middle Sea, reflecting the Seas name in ancient Greek, Latin, and modern languages in both Europe and the Middle East. Similarly, in Modern Arabic, it is known as al-Baḥr al-Mutawassiṭ, in Turkish, it is known as Akdeniz, the White Sea since among Turks the white colour represents the west. Several ancient civilisations were located around the Mediterranean shores, and were influenced by their proximity to the sea. It provided routes for trade, colonisation, and war, as well as food for numerous communities throughout the ages, due to the shared climate, geology, and access to the sea, cultures centered on the Mediterranean tended to have some extent of intertwined culture and history. Two of the most notable Mediterranean civilisations in classical antiquity were the Greek city states, later, when Augustus founded the Roman Empire, the Romans referred to the Mediterranean as Mare Nostrum
Mediterranean Sea
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Circa the 6th century BCE: In ancient times the Mediterranean provided sources of food and local commerce and direct routes for trade and communications, colonisation, and war. Numerous cities and colonies were situated at its shores or within the basin: Greek (red) and Phoenician (yellow)
colonies in antiquity; and other cities (grey), including the provincial
"Rom".
Mediterranean Sea
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Map of the Mediterranean Sea
Mediterranean Sea
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With its highly indented coastline and large number of islands, Greece has the longest Mediterranean coastline.
Mediterranean Sea
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The
Battle of Lepanto, 1571, ended in victory for the European
Holy League against the Ottoman Turks.
47.
Tilla Durieux
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Tilla Durieux was an Austrian theatre and film actress of the first decades of the 20th century. Born Ottilie Godeffroy, the daughter of the Austrian chemist Richard Godeffroy, she trained as an actress in Vienna, her native town, the next season she got an engagement in Breslau. From 1903 she worked with Max Reinhardt at the Deutsches Theater in Berlin and with a group of expressionist artists around Kurt Hiller, from 1915 she performed at the Royal Schauspielhaus Berlin. Soon after, Durieux married general director Ludwig Katzenellenbogen, in 1927 they were the main financiers of Erwin Piscators Neues Schauspielhaus project. Durieux was a character of 1920s Berlin and associated with numerous celebrities like the famous photographer Frieda Riess. In 1933, Durieux and her husband left Germany for Switzerland to escape Nazi rule and she continued to perform at the Vienna Theater in der Josefstadt and in Prague. In 1937 she moved to Zagreb, Croatia where she became a member of the International Red Aid, Durieux returned to West Germany in 1952, appearing on stages in Berlin, Hamburg and Münster
Tilla Durieux
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Tilla Durieux, 1905
48.
Two Sisters (On the Terrace)
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Two Sisters or On the Terrace is an 1881 oil-on-canvas painting by French artist Pierre-Auguste Renoir. The dimensions of the painting are 100.5 cm ×81 cm, the title Two Sisters was given to the painting by Renoir, and the title On the Terrace by its first owner Paul Durand-Ruel. Renoir worked on the painting on the terrace of the Maison Fournaise, a restaurant located on an island in the Seine in Chatou, the painting depicts a young woman and her younger sister seated outdoors with a small basket containing balls of wool. Over the railings of the one can see shrubbery and foliage with the River Seine behind it. In 1880 to 1881, shortly before working on Two Sisters, Renoir worked in this location on another well-known painting. Jeanne Darlot, an actress who was 18 years old at the time, was posing as the elder sister. It is unknown who posed as the sister, but it is stated that the models were not actually related. Renoir began work on the painting in April 1881 and on July 7,1881, it was bought by the art dealer, Paul Durand-Ruel, the painting was presented for the first time to the public at the 7th Impressionist exhibition in the spring of 1882. In 1883 it was known to be in the collection of Charles Ephrussi, an art collector and a publisher, in 1925, the painting was sold to Annie S. Coburn from Chicago for $100,000. After her death in 1932 the painting was bequeathed to the Art Institute of Chicago, google Art Project, Two Sisters — Auguste Renoir Encyclopædia Britannica. com, Two Sisters The Art Institute of Chicago. edu, Video, Renoirs Two Sisters + CD With Open Eyes
Two Sisters (On the Terrace)
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Two Sisters (On the Terrace) (1881)
49.
Art Institute of Chicago
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The Art Institute of Chicago, founded in 1879 and located in Chicagos Grant Park, is one of the oldest and largest art museums in the United States. Recognized for its efforts and popularity among visitors, the museum hosts approximately 1.5 million guests annually. The growth of the collection has warranted several additions to the museums original 1893 building, the Art Institute is connected to the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, a leading art school, making it one of the few remaining unified arts institutions in the United States. In 1866, a group of 35 artists founded the Chicago Academy of Design in a studio on Dearborn Street, the organization was modeled after European art academies, such as the Royal Academy, with Academicians and Associate Academicians. The Academys charter was granted in March 1867, classes started in 1868, meeting every day at a cost of $10 per month. The Academys success enabled it to build a new home for the school, a stone building on 66 West Adams Street. When the Great Chicago Fire destroyed the building in 1871 the Academy was thrown into debt, attempts to continue despite the loss by using rented facilities failed. By 1878 the Academy was $10,000 in debt, members tried to rescue the ailing institution by making deals with local businessmen, before some finally abandoned it in 1879 to found a new organization, named the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts. When the Chicago Academy of Design went bankrupt the same year, in 1882, the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts changed its name to the current Art Institute of Chicago and elected as its first president the banker and philanthropist Charles L. Also in 1882, the purchased a lot on the southwest corner of Michigan Avenue. By January 1885 the trustees recognized the need to provide space for the organizations growing collection. The city agreed, and the building was completed in time for the year of the fair. Construction costs were met by selling the Michigan/Van Buren property, on October 31,1893 the Institute moved into the new building. For the opening reception on December 8,1893, Theodore Thomas, from the 1900s to the 1960s the school offered with the Logan Family the Logan Medal of the Arts, an award which became one of the most distinguished awards presented to artists in the US. Between 1959 and 1970 the Institute was a key site in the battle to gain art and documentary photography a place in galleries, under curator Hugh Edwards and his assistants. As Director of the museum starting in the early 1980s, James N. Wood conducted an expansion of its collection. He retired from the museum in 2004, in 2006, the Art Institute began construction of The Modern Wing, an addition situated on the southwest corner of Columbus and Monroe. The project, designed by Pritzker Prize winning architect Renzo Piano, was completed, the 264, 000-square-foot building makes the Art Institute the second-largest art museum in the United States
Art Institute of Chicago
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One of the two lion statues (Kemeys, bronze 1893) flanking the Institute's main entrances
Art Institute of Chicago
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Seurat at the Art Institute
Art Institute of Chicago
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Edward Hopper,
Nighthawks (1942)
Art Institute of Chicago
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Mary Cassatt, The Bath 1891–1892
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Renoir, "La Promenade" on YouTube, (1:49) Frick Collection
"Renoir, Firmin Auguste". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). 1911.
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