From the Orient

This site seems to be selling beautiful Oriental pieces of art. It's in Chinese type. These are such intricate pieces, one could look at them for a long time.

http://www.my.cnd.org

Jade

Today I had lunch at a Japanese restaurant. The waitress wore a beautiful jade pendant. Here is some jade and jadeite. The creamy colors of jade are so lovely.

http://www.culinarycultures.com

Vintage jewelry

This auction house had photos of some vintage jewelry that caught my eye. I love the fanciful, anthropomorphic ornamentation of this jewelry.

http://www.ragoarts.com

Great recording

I heard this recording on the radio and had to buy it. It is gorgeous, magical. The voices are all perfect and the orchestra is sublime. Best version of this opera I've ever heard. It's available very cheaply (used) from Amazon. And yes, the CD cover is just awful!
Conductor: Jeffrey Tate
Performers: Barbara Bonney, Barbara Hendricks, Eva Lind, Andreas Schmidt, Anne Sofie von Otter, et al.
Orchestra: Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Bayerischen Rundfunkorchester
Audio CD (October 15, 1990). Angel Records.

National Library, Vienna Austria

Library, originally uploaded by perreira.

Some people on flickr have photographs of this rococo masterpiece. I never knew about it.

A young pianist

This is Serg van Gennip. From his website:

Born in Kazan, Russia, in 1985. Serg van Gennip lived in St. Petersburg until the age of five. During this tender age, he always felt a certain attraction to the musical part of life, watching many great artists at work in theatres and concert halls. How can someone be attracted to this art so early? The answer could lie in the genes. Serg van Gennip is a far relative of Sergei Rachmaninov.

I'm listening to his playing and it's fantastic! And many pieces are available for free download. He supposedly has a podcast but it doesn't work. However there are pieces on his site that can be downloaded as MP3s.

http://www.serg.vangennip.com/www/home.html

Max Ernst

From MOMA website:

Max Ernst. (French, born Germany. 1891-1976). Two Children Are Threatened by a Nightingale. 1924.

Gallery label text
Dada, June 18–September 11, 2006

Made in 1924, the year of Surrealism’s founding, Ernst described this work as "the last consequence of his [sic] early collages—and a kind of farewell to a technique..." He later gave two possible autobiographical references for the nightingale: the death of his sister in 1897, and a fevered hallucination he recalled in which the wood grain of a panel near his bed took on "successively the aspect of an eye, a nose, a bird’s head, a menacing nightingale, a spinning top, and so on."

http://moma.org

Chrysler building

Bottom: Fairchild Aerial Surveys, Inc. The Mount Everest of Manhattan: The Silvered Peak of the Chrysler Building. 1930. Gelatin silver print, 8 3/4 x 6 13/16" (22.3 x 17.3 cm). The New York Times Collection. http://moma.org

Top: Probably a famous photograph, I don't have the credits.

This building is a concrete manifestation of fantasy. Does it represent the power and masculinity of modern USA in the 1920s? I don't know. It's amazing that such an art deco masterpiece got made and is still there.
http://moma.org

Charles Altamont Doyle

The artist Charles Altamont Doyle was the father of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. He was institutionalized in mental hospitals from middle age onward, although by today's standards he was not insane. Nor did he think he was insane, and tried to prove with his art that he wasn't. It didn't work. Basically, he was an alcoholic and depressed. He was a trained artist and his works are poignant and delicate. There's an interesting book called The Doyle Diary by Michael Baker (1978) that reproduces Charles Doyle's journal sketches from his time in Sunnyside mental institution in Scotland. If you think these works are strange, his brother Richard "Dicky" Doyle was a famous Victorian artist well known for his fairy illustrations. Years later, Arthur Conan Doyle publicized "fairy photographs" which he believed were real. By today's standards, these photographs are pretty fake looking. Even back then, they were debunked. My point being that the entire family (not just the one who was institutionalized) had a "thing" for fairies.

St. Giles His Bells (unknown location).

Meditation, Self Portrait (V&A Museum, London). This watercolour comes from one of the sketchbooks used by the artist during his stay in the Royal Montrose Lunatic Asylum in Scotland. His son, the writer Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, organised an exhibition of the artist's work in London in 1924. http://www.vam.ac.uk/images/image/16458-popup.html

Michelangelo Buonarotti

Inside the Sistine Chapel..., originally uploaded by unicornia1.

Michelangelo was so passionate and emotional. I love the mannerist style. The reaching of the two hands toward each other is a pinnacle of humanist iconograhy. This gorgeous photo was blogged from flickr.

La Belle et la Bete

This movie has put me to sleep in the past, but not today. I finally appreciated its magic, romance, and enchantment. It is very beautiful, very simple.

Submarine Lagoon

submarine lagoon, originally uploaded by boogah.

It was a blast from the past to see this on flickr. I used to go on this ride and thought it was really under the ocean!

Hello!

Goji, originally uploaded by vidalia_11.

Relaxin Horny Toad

Relaxin Horny Toad, originally uploaded by The Horned Jack Lizard.

Psychiatry podcast

Welcome to the Intitute of Psychiatry audio feeds. We aim to bring to you all public lectures and events at the Institute of Psychiatry, this includes, the popular Maudsley Debates series. These are entertaining, interesting podcasts. The British speakers are so articulate and witty. Plus I'm interested in the subject.
http://www.iop.kcl.ac.uk/podcast/default.aspx?type=items

Lewis Chessman, British Museum

Lewis Chessman, British Museum, originally uploaded by RobRoyAus.

The Lewis Chessmen in the British Museum were probably made in Norway, about AD 1150-1200
Found on the Isle of Lewis, Outer Hebrides, Scotland

The chess pieces consist of elaborately worked walrus ivory and whales' teeth in the forms of seated kings and queens, mitred bishops, knights on their mounts, standing warders and pawns in the shape of obelisks.

(Written by RobRoyAus on Flickr)

Gorgeous church in Rome

Theater - II, originally uploaded by rocdam.

Retro design site

Raybelle Linoleum, Surfray No. 80, Armstrong Cork, 1954
http://www.plan59.com

Marilyn Horne

I downloaded a podcast from Premier Opera Podcast featuring the mezzo-soprano, Marilyn Horne. She is a showstopper! I absolutely adored her renditions of You're a Grand Old Flag and God Bless America. But the podcast mainly featured her coloratura work. Thanks, Marilyn!

Ivan Bilibin (3)

Vassilisa outside Baba Yaga's House. Note the amanita mushrooms in the margins.

Ivan Bilibin (2)

DOBRYNIA NIKITICH FREES ZABAVA PUTIATICHNA FROM GORYNYCH THE DRAGON. Illustration to "The Tale of the Capital City of Kiev and of the Russian Bogatyrs" by N. Vodovozov. 1941. http://www.auburn.edu/academic/liberal_arts/foreign/russian/art

Ivan Bilibin

This 1920's Russian artist created gorgeous illustrations for Russian folktales.

Christmas in Germany

Because of the Grimm Brothers' fairy tale associations, I think of Germany as the embodiment of Christmas. It seems to go with the gingerbread house of Hansel and Gretel. (Photo from flickr - I need to find the credit.)

A Christmas Carol

Okay, I've pretty much forgotten the story, but this is an adorable Victorian illustration for it.

'Tis the season...

For pretty Christmas pictures.

Kawase Hasui

Hasui was a brilliant artist, reaching his height (I think) in the 1920s and 30s. Traditional Japanese woodblock prints that are astonishing in their technical power and beauty.

Zojoji, Shiba (Snow) 1925

Kikyo, Gate of the Palace, 1929

Iten Pond, Shiba, 1929

http://collectionsonline.lacma.org (Los Angeles County Museum of Art)

Ornamentation madness

Segaud, Armand -- Artist
Pluviôse : les poissons.
From Album de la Décoration. (Paris : Librairie des Arts Decoratifs,) Calavas, A., editor.

Art Nouveau door design
Kühnel, Richard -- Artist
Moderne Wanddekoration mit Kunstverglasungen (1889-1928)

Persian rug
From Das polychrome Ornament : hundert Tafeln, Gold-, Silber- und Farben-Druck . . . antike und orientalische Kunst : Mittelalter Renaissance, XVII und XVIII Jahrhundert : eine historische und praktische sammlung. (Stuttgart : Paul Neff, 1874.) Racinet, A. (Auguste) (1825-1893), author.

All at NYPL Digital gallery.

NYPL Digital again

Grüner, Ludwig, 1801-1882 -- Artist
Part of an ancient pilaster in the Villa Medici at Rome.
The French bean and the convolvolus from nature.
In: Specimens of ornamental art, selected from the best models of the classical epochs. (created 1850)

Studies in Design (1876)

More NYPL madness!

The NYPL Digital library continues to amaze. There are so many scans of ornamentation. This one looks absolutely three-dimensional.

Rockin

Just rediscovered this artist - "Let's go, let's go, let's go" (aka There's a Thrill on Hill), "Finger-Popping Time", "The Switcheroo", "Work With Me Annie."

Dick Tracy

There was an article about surreal 1930s comic strips...where was it? I have to find it.

French Illuminated Manuscript

Here's a more colorful one.

Beautiful French illuminated manuscript images, hi-res, are at this site: http://www.moyenageenlumiere.com/. Most are more colorful than this, I just liked this one.

Earlysound podcast

Just discovered this podcast on www.podcast.net. It's all early music, hosted by a genial British guy with what I think is a cockney accent. Check it out if you like music of the medieval, renaissance and early baroque.

The Age of Innocence

ntf
Originally uploaded by vidalia_11.

I'm listening to this as an audiobook read by Brenda Dayne. It is a wonderful book by Edith Wharton. Beautifully written, sad, moving, emotional. Highly recommended. The movie is also excellent.

This audiobook is available as a podcast and on this website: http://brendadayne.blogspot.com/.

Henry Morton Stanley

I listened to an audiobook, Into Africa by Martin Dugard. First time I ever heard the real story of Stanley finding David Livingstone in central Africa. Livingstone was searching for the source of the Nile. He wouldn't leave Africa and died there. Stanley later returned to Africa and did a lot of exploration. [okay, it's more complicated than that.] This opens up a new area of interest for me. The explorers of Africa, South America, and South Pacific faced incredible dangers and illnesses. What made them go to these places and then conquer them?

Magical Places - St. Petersburg

St. Petersburg Church Domes
Originally uploaded by Brenda M.

Church built where Czar Alexander II was assassinated, hence its name, "Church of the Savior on the Spilled Blood". from flickr