I say yes, you say no, OR People are Strange

I love history, but tend to gravitate toward WWII, the Civil War and the Amerian Revolution. I have every one of Steven Ambrose's WWII books. I figure they will be a collector's item for my kids someday as I now only read on my kindle.

While the Brits revere and treasure their past, they refuse to live in it:

Courtesy of the BBC:  

Failing to teach evolution by natural selection in science lessons could lead to new free schools losing their funding under government changes. 

The new rules state that from 2013, all free schools in England must teach evolution as a "comprehensive and coherent scientific theory". 

The move follows scientists' concerns that free schools run by creationists might avoid teaching evolution. 

Sir Paul Nurse, president of the Royal Society, said he was "delighted". 

Sir Paul told BBC News the previous rules on free schools and the teaching of evolution versus creationism had been "not tight enough". 

He said that although the previous rules had confined creationism to religious education lessons, "the Royal Society identified a potential issue that schools could have avoided teaching evolution by natural selection in science lessons or dealt with it in a such a perfunctory way, that the main experience for students was the creationist myth". 

oh yes!!  there is a trip advertized somewhere to take you to the sites in Scotland that are mentioned in the books.

Athena, that was incredible! Also loved D-Day and Band of Soldiers. In addition to WWII he wrote an awesome book about Lewis and Clark called Undaunted Courage.

Jealous. Something lately about ice cream and my tummy has gone very wrong. I never had a dairy problem but now milk and ice cream send me into digestive hell.



Have to find a new food vice. Chocolate in any form!

Lindasa you are probably on the right track, although I thought celiac was a gluten thing. Didn't know dairy was part of the problem too.



It's always something, ain't it.

Riley-Every one of the "Outlander" series books I have read so far is at least 600 pages.  I'm taking a break after 3 of them-I think there are at least 4 more. "Outlander" is only the first book.

Mary

Back to the concept of humanism, Botticelli and Raphael are other prominent masters. Before, since the fall of Rome, Europe mostly had religious art. So Raphael and Botticelli were novel in reviving some of the pagan themes:

Here is Botticelli's Birth of Venus:

and his Primavera ("Spring")

It was not only the departure from religious art that was revolutionary, but also the emphasis on earthly emotions, joy, and the depiction of three-dimensional human figures which depart from the rather flat figures you saw in Medieval art.

And then, of course, there is Raphael:

Raphael, if you notice above, was another master at the use of perspective. This painting, entitled The School of Athens, was meant to convey, generally speaking, knowledge and scholarship as exemplified by the Ancients.

I said a few pages back that El Greco was a mannerist - but many critics say he is too unique to be classed into a single art form. However, the reason why I bring him up here is that he, like many Renaissance masters before his time, also continued religious themes but with a deeply human and often tortured tone. To understand this point, compare and contrast the El Greco, immediately below, with the uni-dimensional Medieval triptych that follows:

(El Greco's Pieta)

This is all to explain how art became human....so let's jump a few centuries forward to the time when photography had been invented and art slowly became abstract. Cezanne and Seurat are considered to be two forefathers of the impressionists, which are considered, in their way, to be the first abstracts in that they were the first to worry less about how objects actually were and instead were concerned with how they appeared. Monet is probably the best known impressionist:

The preoccupation with how things appeared, coming at the end of the 19th century, was not uncoincidental. As the 20th century dawned, war, industrialization and technology spelled the ending of an old world order. It was a time of trauma, uncertainty, extremism in Europe and a sense of fatalism - the feeling that technology and war could spell the end of humanity. This was compounded by the fact that religion is no longer the center of philosophical thought. Science is. And the cubists, led by Picasso and Braque, incorporate this preoccupation via shape, form, geometry and analytics in their art. At the height of the cubist era, here is Picasso's Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (the young ladies of Avignon)

Braque - one of my favorites -  his Violin and Candlestick:

The preoccupation of cubism is not to depict an object as it looks to us but as it really is - with the parts that we don't see, such as those that are behind. The argument of cubism proponents was that a shape's innate characteristics --including the parts that are invisible to us-- are more real than what we can see with our eyes.

Picasso in his cubist period - the painting below depicts what is known as analytic cubism:

Picasso went through many evolutions in his art. His "blue" period, which came just before his cubism one, already depicted that early 20th century angst while already hinting at abstraction and away from the faithful depiction of human forms:

I mentioned earlier the growing preoccupation with technology as defining to thought in the early 20th century. This was expressed in art and architecture in many ways, including by the Futurism movement, which became obsessed with showing how technology and industrialization had dominated the consciousness of the time. Futurism was a brief movement, but I find it emblematic:

Futurism, as per its "Manifesto," was meant to celebrate speed, violence, machinery, youth and industry. It was UNHEARD of, at the time, to lump such conepts together. In many ways, futureism, IMO, predates the irreverence which has become so very mainstream these days. Here are some more expressions of that movement:

Hi juliaanna! Welcome!



The art discussion is fascinating, isn't it? You never know what you'll learn on this thread!



Athena, thank you for posting photos of such wonderful works of art. I like pieces that show "movement" (for lack of a better word) so van Gogh and Rodin are favorites of mine. Rodin's Burghers of Calais fascinated me since I read of it long ago. I was pleased to discover it at the Hirshhorn!



And now, my daily "Prisoner of Medicare" update:



Morning fog shrouded my bedroom windows. My bowels have become unruly and a pimple garnishes my chin. Tomorrow I approach my oncs with Medicare card and metaphorical hat in hand.



Based on Fox News and Drudge reports, government doctors will likely implant an Obamachip into my arm so that "they " can monitor my whereabouts and freedom-lovin' capitalistic activities, and perhaps even control my thoughts! The next time I report, I may be an Obamabot.



Wish me luck, friends.

E - Make sure to take your tax forms - you KNOW the guv'mint needs those BEFORE they agree to treat you!

And here is the Rodin you refer to: