1.
Pushkin Museum
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The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts is the largest museum of European art in Moscow, located in Volkhonka street, just opposite the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour. The International musical festival Svyatoslav Richters December nights has been held in the Pushkin museum since 1981. The museums current name is misleading, in that it has no direct associations with the famous Russian poet Alexander Pushkin. The facility was founded by professor Ivan Tsvetaev, Tsvetaev persuaded the millionaire and philanthropist Yuriy Nechaev-Maltsov and the fashionable architect Roman Klein of the urgent need to give Moscow a fine arts museum. The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts building was designed by Roman Klein and Vladimir Shukhov, construction work began in 1898 and continued till 1912. Ivan Rerberg headed structural engineering effort on the site for 12 years. In 2008, President Dmitri A. Medvedev announced plans for a $177 million restoration, in 2014, Russian architect Yuri Grigoryan, and his firm Project Meganom, were chosen to take over the project. Tsvetaevs dream was realised in May 1912, when the museum opened its doors to the public, the museum was originally named after Alexander III, although the government provided only 200,000 rubles toward its construction, in comparison with over 2 million from Nechaev-Maltsev. Its first exhibits were copies of ancient statuary, thought indispensable for the education of art students, the only genuinely ancient items - Moscow Mathematical Papyrus and Story of Wenamun - had been contributed by Vladimir Golenishchev three years earlier. After the Russian capital was moved to Moscow in 1918, the Soviet government decided to transfer thousands of works from St Petersburgs Hermitage Museum to the new capital, the entire collection of Western art from the Museum Roumjantsev was added too. These paintings formed a nucleus of the Pushkin museums collections of Western art, but the most important paintings were added later from the State Museum of New Western Art. These comprised Impressionist and Post-Impressionist artwork, including top works by Van Gogh, Gauguin, Picasso, Dufrénoy, Derain, among them, Van Goghs La Vigne Rouge, apparently the only painting sold during the artists lifetime. In 1937, Pushkins name was appended to the museum, because the Soviet Union marked the centenary of the death that year. After World War II the evacuated Dresden Gallery had been stored in Moscow for 10 years, the Pushkin Museum has a numismatic collection which is unpublished. It includes archaeological material from Central Asia, such as a hoard of Kushano-Sasanian coins acquired in 2002 William Craft Brumfield
2.
Greek mythology
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It was a part of the religion in ancient Greece. Greek mythology is explicitly embodied in a collection of narratives. Greek myth attempts to explain the origins of the world, and details the lives and adventures of a variety of gods, goddesses, heroes, heroines. These accounts initially were disseminated in a tradition, today the Greek myths are known primarily from ancient Greek literature. The oldest known Greek literary sources, Homers epic poems Iliad and Odyssey, focus on the Trojan War, archaeological findings provide a principal source of detail about Greek mythology, with gods and heroes featured prominently in the decoration of many artifacts. Geometric designs on pottery of the eighth century BC depict scenes from the Trojan cycle as well as the adventures of Heracles, in the succeeding Archaic, Classical, and Hellenistic periods, Homeric and various other mythological scenes appear, supplementing the existing literary evidence. Greek mythology has had an influence on the culture, arts. Poets and artists from ancient times to the present have derived inspiration from Greek mythology and have discovered contemporary significance and relevance in the themes, Greek mythology is known today primarily from Greek literature and representations on visual media dating from the Geometric period from c. Mythical narration plays an important role in every genre of Greek literature. Nevertheless, the only general mythographical handbook to survive from Greek antiquity was the Library of Pseudo-Apollodorus and this work attempts to reconcile the contradictory tales of the poets and provides a grand summary of traditional Greek mythology and heroic legends. Apollodorus of Athens lived from c, 180–125 BC and wrote on many of these topics. His writings may have formed the basis for the collection, however the Library discusses events that occurred long after his death, among the earliest literary sources are Homers two epic poems, the Iliad and the Odyssey. Other poets completed the cycle, but these later and lesser poems now are lost almost entirely. Despite their traditional name, the Homeric Hymns have no connection with Homer. They are choral hymns from the part of the so-called Lyric age. Hesiods Works and Days, a poem about farming life, also includes the myths of Prometheus, Pandora. The poet gives advice on the best way to succeed in a dangerous world, lyrical poets often took their subjects from myth, but their treatment became gradually less narrative and more allusive. Greek lyric poets, including Pindar, Bacchylides and Simonides, and bucolic poets such as Theocritus and Bion, additionally, myth was central to classical Athenian drama
3.
Muses
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The Muses are the inspirational goddesses of literature, science, and the arts in Greek mythology. They were considered the source of the knowledge embodied in the poetry, lyric songs and they were later adopted by the Romans as a part of their pantheon. In current English usage, muse can refer in general to a person who inspires an artist, writer, the earliest known records of the Nine Muses are from Boeotia, the homeland of Hesiod. Some ancient authorities thought that the Nine Muses were of Thracian origin, there, a tradition persisted that the Muses had once been three in number. They were again called Melete or Practice, Mneme or Memory, three ancient Muses were also reported in Plutarchs Quaestiones Convivales. According to Pausanias in the second century AD, there were three original Muses, worshiped on Mount Helicon in Boeotia, Aoidḗ, Melétē, and Mnḗmē. Together, these three form the picture of the preconditions of poetic art in cult practice. In Delphi three Muses were worshiped as well, but with other names, Nḗtē, Mésē, and Hýpatē, alternatively they later were called Kēphisṓ, Apollōnís, and Borysthenís, which names characterize them as daughters of Apollo. In later tradition, a set of four Muses were recognized, Thelxinóē, Aoidḗ Archē, one of the people frequently associated with the Muses was Pierus. By some he was called the father of a total of seven Muses, called Neilṓ, Tritṓnē, Asōpṓ, Heptápora, Achelōís, Tipoplṓ, and Rhodía. According to Hesiods Theogony, they were daughters of Zeus, the second king of the gods. For Alcman and Mimnermus, they were even more primordial, springing from the deities, Uranus. Sometimes the Muses are referred to as water nymphs, associated with the springs of Helicon and it was said that the winged horse Pegasus touched his hooves to the ground on Helicon, causing four sacred springs to burst forth, from which the muses were born. Athena later tamed the horse and presented him to the muses, classical writers set Apollo as their leader, Apollon Mousagetēs. In one myth, the Muses judged a contest between Apollo and Marsyas and they also gathered the pieces of the dead body of Orpheus, son of Calliope, and buried them. In a later myth, Thamyris challenged them to a singing contest and they won and punished Thamyris by blinding him and robbing him of his singing ability. He thus challenged the Muses to a match, resulting in his daughters, Pausanias records a tradition of two generations of Muses, the first are the daughters of Uranus and Gaia, the second of Zeus and Mnemosyne. Another, rarer genealogy is that they are daughters of Harmonia, some Greek writers give the names of the nine Muses as Kallichore, Helike, Eunike, Thelxinoë, Terpsichore, Euterpe, Eukelade, Dia, and Enope
4.
Agriculture
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Agriculture is the cultivation and breeding of animals, plants and fungi for food, fiber, biofuel, medicinal plants and other products used to sustain and enhance human life. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of human civilization. The study of agriculture is known as agricultural science, the history of agriculture dates back thousands of years, and its development has been driven and defined by greatly different climates, cultures, and technologies. Industrial agriculture based on large-scale monoculture farming has become the dominant agricultural methodology, genetically modified organisms are an increasing component of agriculture, although they are banned in several countries. Agricultural food production and water management are increasingly becoming global issues that are fostering debate on a number of fronts, the major agricultural products can be broadly grouped into foods, fibers, fuels, and raw materials. Specific foods include cereals, vegetables, fruits, oils, meats, fibers include cotton, wool, hemp, silk and flax. Raw materials include lumber and bamboo, other useful materials are also produced by plants, such as resins, dyes, drugs, perfumes, biofuels and ornamental products such as cut flowers and nursery plants. The word agriculture is a late Middle English adaptation of Latin agricultūra, from ager, field, Agriculture usually refers to human activities, although it is also observed in certain species of ant, termite and ambrosia beetle. To practice agriculture means to use resources to produce commodities which maintain life, including food, fiber, forest products, horticultural crops. This definition includes arable farming or agronomy, and horticulture, all terms for the growing of plants, even then, it is acknowledged that there is a large amount of knowledge transfer and overlap between silviculture and agriculture. In traditional farming, the two are often combined even on small landholdings, leading to the term agroforestry, Agriculture began independently in different parts of the globe, and included a diverse range of taxa. At least 11 separate regions of the Old and New World were involved as independent centers of origin, wild grains were collected and eaten from at least 105,000 years ago. Pigs were domesticated in Mesopotamia around 15,000 years ago, rice was domesticated in China between 13,500 and 8,200 years ago, followed by mung, soy and azuki beans. Sheep were domesticated in Mesopotamia between 13,000 and 11,000 years ago. From around 11,500 years ago, the eight Neolithic founder crops, emmer and einkorn wheat, hulled barley, peas, lentils, bitter vetch, chick peas and flax were cultivated in the Levant. Cattle were domesticated from the aurochs in the areas of modern Turkey. In the Andes of South America, the potato was domesticated between 10,000 and 7,000 years ago, along with beans, coca, llamas, alpacas, sugarcane and some root vegetables were domesticated in New Guinea around 9,000 years ago. Sorghum was domesticated in the Sahel region of Africa by 7,000 years ago, cotton was domesticated in Peru by 5,600 years ago, and was independently domesticated in Eurasia at an unknown time
5.
Pantomime
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Pantomime, is a type of musical comedy stage production, designed for family entertainment. It was developed in England and is performed throughout the United Kingdom, generally during the Christmas and New Year season and, to a lesser extent. It is a form of theatre, in which the audience is expected to sing along with certain parts of the music. Pantomime has a theatrical history in Western culture dating back to classical theatre. It developed partly from the 16th century commedia dellarte tradition of Italy, as well as other European and British stage traditions, such as 17th-century masques, an important part of the pantomime, until the late 19th century, was the harlequinade. Outside Britain the word pantomime is used to mean miming. The Roman pantomime drew upon the Greek tragedy and other Greek genres from its inception, although the art was instituted in Rome, the English word came to be applied to the performance itself. Music was supplied by flute and the pulse of an iron-shod shoe, performances might be in a private household, with minimal personnel, or else lavish theatrical productions involving a large orchestra and chorus and sometimes an ancillary actor. The dancer danced all the roles, relying on masks, stock poses and gestures, Pantomime differed from mime by its more artistic nature and relative lack of farce and coarse humour, though these were not absent from some productions. Precursors of pantomime also included the masque, which grew in pomp, the development of English pantomime was also strongly influenced by the continental commedia dellarte, a form of popular theatre that arose in Italy in the Early Modern Period. Each scenario used some of the stock characters. These included the innamorati, the vecchi such as Pantalone, and zanni such as Arlecchino, Colombina, Scaramouche, Italian masque performances in the 17th century sometimes included the Harlequin character. In the 17th century, adaptations of the characters became familiar in English entertainments. From these, the standard English harlequinade developed, depicting the eloping lovers Harlequin and Columbine, pursued by the girls father Pantaloon and his comic servants Clown, in English versions, by the 18th century, Harlequin became the central figure and romantic lead. The basic plot of the harlequinade remained essentially the same for more than 150 years, tavern Bilkers, by John Weaver, the dancing master at Drury Lane, is cited as the first pantomime produced on the English stage. The same year he produced a pantomime on the subject of Perseus, after this, pantomime was regular feature at Drury Lane. In 1717 at Lincolns Inn, actor and manager John Rich introduced Harlequin into the theatres pantomimes under the name of Lun and he gained great popularity for his pantomimes, especially beginning with his 1724 production of The Necromancer, or, History of Dr. Faustus. These early pantomimes were silent, or dumb show, performances consisting of only dancing, spoken drama was only allowed in London only in the two patent theatres until Parliament changed this restriction in 1843
6.
Veil
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A veil is an article of clothing or cloth hanging that is intended to cover some part of the head or face, or an object of some significance. It is especially associated with women and sacred objects, one view is that as a religious item, it is intended to show honor to an object or space. The first recorded instance of veiling for women is recorded in the Bible in Genesis, chapter 24, verse 65, when Rebecca first sees Isaac, and veils herself. Another is found later from an Assyrian legal text from the 13th century BC, the Mycenaean Greek term
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