View allAll Photos Tagged Draws
University Chapel & Galleries sits on the historic campus of Washington and Lee University. Construction began in 1867, during Robert E. Lee’s presidency of the institution, and the chapel was completed in 1868. Although Lee solicited the project and worked on its design, the building’s architecture is largely credited to Thomas Williamson, an engineering professor, with input from Lee’s son. Stylistically, the structure reflects a simplified Romanesque or Neo‑Norman/Victorian Gothic character, built from regionally sourced brick and stone.
The interior preserves Lee’s office in the basement much as he left it shortly before his death in 1870, offering a direct link to his role as educator and administrator. Beneath the chapel lies a crypt holding Lee and members of his family. A notable feature added in 1883 is a rear extension, which houses the recumbent statue of Lee by sculptor Edward Valentine.
A museum occupies the chapel’s lower level, exhibiting institutional history, family portraits, artifacts, and rotating galleries. The main auditorium continues to serve for university events, lectures, and occasional public functions. In 2021, the building was officially renamed to University Chapel & Galleries, reflecting evolving perspectives on its namesake and purpose. It remains a National Historic Landmark and draws visitors interested in architecture, education, and the legacy of its era.
Ok, what can I say? When there's no camera in the trunk and the sky is drawing up water from the ocean, the phone was the only handy camera
CSXT's ex Pan Am BO-1 local has a little seven car train seen hustling up the Keolis/MBTA (ex Boston and Maine) Eastern Route mainline at MP 9.5 crossing Saugus Draw enroute to Salem and the Danvers Branch headed to Peabody. The 487 ft long double track bridge dates from 1911 and has a 65 ft movable span. According to the Historic American Engineering Record (HAER) it is a single-leaf Strauss overhead counterweight bascule which is believed to be the oldest known example of its type in Massachusetts. It is particularly significant for its innovative engineering design and association with a prominent bridge engineer, Joseph Baermann Strauss, whose company designed the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco.
Alas like so much other legacy Boston and Maine infrastructure, this bridge has reached the end of its useful life and a replacement is in the works as described here: archives.lib.state.ma.us/bitstream/handle/2452/799579/ocn...
Leading the freight is CSXT's ex Pan Am Railways GMDD GP40-2W MEC 507 (blt. Jul 1974 as CN 9472) which was given this mysterious retro fresh Guilford gray paint job at Waterville in August 2020 and has been frequently assigned to BO-1 since then. If you haven't seen what she looked like sparking fresh check out this shot:
This view looks west from the crumbling sidewalk of the Route 1A General Edwards Bridge at the industrial waterfront of the Saugus River. At left is the controversial Wheelabrator Saugus trash incinerator that processes some 1500 tons of municipal waste every day generating up to 37MW of electricity. At right on the Lynn shore is the massive River Works plant of GE Aerospace that employs nearly 2500 and per their web site: has a history that dates back more than 125 years and is recognized as one of the founding sites of the General Electric Company. The site is home to the first U.S. jet engine (1942) and other prominent aviation industry milestones. The Lynn plant is recognized as a U.S. Department of Defense facility that designs, produces, assembles, and tests military and commercial aircraft engines and components.
In the foreground is a grafitti covered pipeline leading to a derelict pumping station on pilings. Alas I've not been able to find any info on when it was built and what it served so if anyone here knows it's history or purpose I'd love to know more.
And while everything looks normal at the moment, change is on the horizon as it was recently announced the Rousselot in Peabody is closing which means the end of the last freight customer remaining north of Boston on the Eastern Route. That may mean the end of BO-1 (or L055 as CSXT now symbols it) which has long been based in Somerville, as it's possible CSXT may choose to serve their Chelsea and Everett customers via Framingham. Regardless of what happens there your chances to photograph freight trains on this bridge or anywhere else on the line will be over by June....so shoot it now, you might not get a second chance.
Saugus, Massachusetts
Thursday March 9, 2023
Inside the draw tunnel of the limekiln at Mere Hill near Waterhouses in the Staffordshire Moorlands. A kiln of this size was a surprise in this remote hilltop location and the transport of the coal to fire it and the finished product must have been difficult.
Primavera, is a large panel painting in tempera paint by the Italian Renaissance painter Sandro Botticelli made in the late 1470s or early 1480s (datings vary). It has been described as "one of the most written about, and most controversial paintings in the world", and also "one of the most popular paintings in Western art".
The painting depicts a group of figures from classical mythology in a garden, but no story has been found that brings this particular group together. Most critics agree that the painting is an allegory based on the lush growth of Spring, but accounts of any precise meaning vary, though many involve the Renaissance Neoplatonism which then fascinated intellectual circles in Florence. The subject was first described as Primavera by the art historian Giorgio Vasari who saw it at Villa Castello, just outside Florence, by 1550.
Although the two are now known not to be a pair, the painting is inevitably discussed with Botticelli's other very large mythological painting, The Birth of Venus, also in the Uffizi. They are among the most famous paintings in the world, and icons of the Italian Renaissance; of the two, the Birth is even better known than the Primavera. As depictions of subjects from classical mythology on a very large scale, they were virtually unprecedented in Western art since classical antiquity.
The history of the painting is not certainly known; it may have been commissioned by one of the Medici family, but the certainty of its commission is unknown. It draws from a number of classical and Renaissance literary sources, including the works of the Ancient Roman poet Ovid and, less certainly, Lucretius, and may also allude to a poem by Poliziano, the Medici house poet who may have helped Botticelli devise the composition. Since 1919 the painting has been part of the collection of the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, Italy.
The painting features six female figures and two male, along with a cupid, in an orange grove. The movement of the composition is from right to left, so following that direction the standard identification of the figures is: at far right "Zephyrus, the biting wind of March, kidnaps and possesses the nymph Chloris, whom he later marries and transforms into a deity; she becomes the goddess of Spring, eternal bearer of life, and is scattering roses on the ground." Chloris the nymph overlaps Flora, the goddess she transforms into.
In the centre (but not exactly so) and somewhat set back from the other figures stands Venus, a red-draped woman in blue. Like the flower-gatherer, she returns the viewer's gaze. The trees behind her form a broken arch to draw the eye. In the air above her a blindfolded Cupid aims his bow to the left. On the left of the painting the Three Graces, a group of three females also in diaphanous white, join hands in a dance. At the extreme left Mercury, clothed in red with a sword and a helmet, raises his caduceus or wooden rod towards some wispy gray clouds.
The interactions between the figures are enigmatic. Zephyrus and Chloris are looking at each other. Flora and Venus look out at the viewer, the Cupid is blindfolded, and Mercury has turned his back on the others, and looks up at the clouds. The central Grace looks towards him, while the other two seem to look at each other. Flora's smile was very unusual in painting at this date.
The pastoral scenery is elaborate. There are 500 identified plant species depicted in the painting, with about 190 different flowers, of which at least 130 can be specifically identified. The overall appearance, and size, of the painting is similar to that of the millefleur ("thousand flower") Flemish tapestries that were popular decorations for palaces at the time.
These tapestries had not caught up by the 1480s with the artistic developments of the Italian Renaissance, and the composition of the painting has aspects that belong to this still Gothic style. The figures are spread in a rough line across the front of the picture space, "set side by side like pearls on a string". It is now known that in the setting for which the painting was designed the bottom was about at eye level, or slightly above it, partly explaining "the gently rising plane" on which the figures stand.
The feet of Venus are considerably higher than those of the others, showing she is behind them, but she is at the same scale, if not larger, than the other figures. Overlapping of other figures by Mercury's sword and Chloris' hands shows that they stand slightly in front of the left Grace and Flora respectively, which might not be obvious otherwise, for example from their feet. It has been argued that the flowers do not grow smaller to the rear of the picture space, certainly a feature of the millefleur tapestries.
The costumes of the figures are versions of the dress of contemporary Florence, though the sort of "quasi-theatrical costumes designed for masquerades of the sort that Vasari wrote were invented by Lorenzo de' Medici for civic festivals and tournaments." The lack of an obvious narrative may relate to the world of pageants and tableaux vivants as well as typically static Gothic allegories.
Various interpretations of the figures have been set forth, but it is generally agreed that at least at one level the painting is "an elaborate mythological allegory of the burgeoning fertility of the world." It is thought that Botticelli had help devising the composition of the painting and whatever meanings it was intended to contain, as it appears that the painting reflects a deep knowledge of classical literature and philosophy that Botticelli is unlikely to have possessed. Poliziano is usually thought to have been involved in this, though Marsilio Ficino, another member of Lorenzo de' Medici's circle and a key figure in Renaissance Neoplatonism, has also often been mentioned.
One aspect of the painting is a depiction of the progress of the season of spring, reading from right to left. The wind of early Spring blows on the land and brings forth growth and flowers, presided over by Venus, goddess of April, with at the left Mercury, the god of the month of May in an early Roman calendar, chasing away the last clouds before summer. As well as being part of a sequence over the season, Mercury in dispelling the clouds is acting as the guard of the garden, partly explaining his military dress and his facing out of the picture space. A passage in Virgil's Aeneid describes him clearing the skies with his caduceus. A more positive, Neoplatonist view of the clouds is that they are "the benificent veils through which the splendour of transcendent truth may reach the beholder without destroying him."
Venus presides over the garden – an orange grove (a Medici symbol). It is also the Garden of the Hesperides of classical myth, from which the golden apples used in the Judgement of Paris came; the Hellenistic Greeks had decided that these were citrus fruits, exotic to them. According to Claudian, no clouds were allowed there. Venus stands in front of the dark leaves of a myrtle bush. According to Hesiod, Venus had been born of the sea after the semen of Uranus had fallen upon the waters. Coming ashore in a shell she had clothed her nakedness in myrtle, and so the plant became sacred to her. Venus appears here in her character as a goddess of marriage, clothed and with her hair modestly covered, as married women were expected to appear in public.
The Three Graces are sisters, and traditionally accompany Venus. In classical art (but not literature) they are normally nude, and typically stand still as they hold hands, but the depiction here is very close to one adapting Seneca by Leon Battista Alberti in his De pictura (1435), which Botticelli certainly knew. From the left they are identified by Edgar Wind as Voluptas, Castitas, and Pulchritudo (Pleasure, Chastity and Beauty), though other names are found in mythology, and it is noticeable that many writers, including Lightbown and the Ettlingers, refrain from naming Botticelli's Graces at all.
Botticelli's Pallas and the Centaur (1482) has been proposed as the companion piece to Primavera.
Cupid's arrow is aimed at the middle Grace — Chastity, according to Wind — and the impact of love on chastity, leading to a marriage, features in many interpretations. Chastity looks towards Mercury, and some interpretations, especially those identifying the figures as modelled on actual individuals, see this couple as one to match Chloris and Zephyrus on the other side of the painting.
In a different interpretation the Earthy carnal love represented by Zephyrus to the right is renounced by the central figure of the Graces, who has turned her back to the scene, unconcerned by the threat represented to her by Cupid. Her focus is on Mercury, who himself gazes beyond the canvas at what many believe hung as the companion piece to Primavera: Pallas and the Centaur, in which "love oriented towards knowledge" (embodied by Pallas Athena) proves triumphant over lust (symbolized by the centaur).
The basic identification of the figures is now widely agreed,but in the past other names have sometimes been used for the females on the right, who are two stages of the same person in the usual interpretation. The woman in the flowered dress may be called Primavera (a personification of Spring), with Flora the figure pursued by Zephyrus. One scholar suggested in 2011 that the central figure is not Venus at all, but Persephone.
In addition to its overt meaning, the painting has been interpreted as an illustration of the ideal of Neoplatonic love popularized among the Medicis and their followers by Marsilio Ficino. The Neoplatonic philosophers saw Venus as ruling over both Earthly and divine love and argued that she was the classical equivalent of the Virgin Mary; this is alluded to by the way she is framed in an altar-like setting that is similar to contemporary images of the Virgin Mary. Venus' hand gesture of welcome, probably directed to the viewer, is the same as that used by Mary to the Archangel Gabriel in contemporary paintings of the Annunciation.
Punning allusions to Medici names probably include the golden balls of the oranges, recalling those on the Medici coat of arms, the laurel trees at right, for either Lorenzo, and the flames on the costume of both Mercury (for whom they are a regular attribute) and Venus, which are also an attribute of Saint Laurence (Lorenzo in Italian). Mercury was the god of medicine and "doctors", medici in Italian. Such puns for the Medici, and in Venus and Mars the Vespucci, run through all Botticelli's mythological paintings.
The origin of the painting is unclear. Botticelli was away in Rome for many months in 1481/82, painting in the Sistine Chapel, and suggested dates are in recent years mostly later than this, but still sometimes before. Thinking has been somewhat changed by the publication in 1975 of an inventory from 1499 of the collection of Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de' Medici.
The 1499 inventory records it hanging in the city palace of Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de' Medici and his brother Giovanni "Il Popolano". They were the cousins of Lorenzo de' Medici ("Lorenzo il Magnifico"), who was effectively the ruler of Florence, and after their father's early death had been his wards. It hung over a large lettuccio, an elaborate piece of furniture including a raised base, a seat and a backboard, probably topped with a cornice. The bottom of the painting was probably at about the viewer's eye-level, so rather higher than it is hung today.
In the same room was Botticelli's Pallas and the Centaur, and also a large tondo with the Virgin and Child. The tondo is now unidentified, but is a type of painting especially associated with Botticelli. This was given the highest value of the three paintings, at 180 lire. A further inventory of 1503 records that the Primavera had a large white frame.
In the first edition of his Life of Botticelli, published in 1550, Giorgio Vasari said that he had seen this painting, and the Birth of Venus, hanging in the Medici country Villa di Castello. Before the inventory was known it was usually believed that both paintings were made for the villa, probably soon after it was acquired in 1477, either commissioned by Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco or perhaps given to him by his older cousin and guardian Lorenzo de' Medici. Rather oddly, Vasari says both paintings contained female nudes, which is not strictly the case here.
Most scholars now connect the painting to the marriage of Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de' Medici. Paintings and furniture were often given as presents celebrating weddings. The marriage was on 19 July 1482, but had been postponed after the death of the elder Lorenzo's mother on 25 March. It was originally planned for May. Recent datings tend to prefer the early 1480s, after Botticelli's return from Rome, suggesting it was directly commissioned in connection with this wedding, a view supported by many.
Another older theory, assuming an early date, suggests the older Lorenzo commissioned the portrait to celebrate the birth of his nephew Giulio di Giuliano de' Medici (who later became Pope), but changed his mind after the assassination of Giulo's father, his brother Giuliano in 1478, having it instead completed as a wedding gift for Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco.
It is frequently suggested that Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco is the model for Mercury in the portrait, and his bride Semiramide represented as Flora (or Venus). In older theories, placing the painting in the 1470s, it was proposed that the model for Venus was Simonetta Vespucci, wife of Marco Vespucci and according to popular legend the mistress of Giuliano de' Medici (who is also sometimes said to have been the model for Mercury); these identifications largely depend on an early date, in the 1470s, as both were dead by 1478. Simonetta was the aunt of Lorenzo's bride Semiramide. Summarizing the many interpretations of the painting, Leopold Ettlinger includes "descending to the ludricous – a Wagnerian pantomime enacted in memory of the murdered Giuliano de' Medici and his beloved Simonetta Vespucci with the Germanic Norns disguised as the Mediterranean Graces."
Whenever this painting and the Birth of Venus were united at Castello, they have remained together ever since. They stayed in Castello until 1815, when they were transferred to the Uffizi. For some years until 1919 they were kept in the Galleria dell'Accademia, another government museum in Florence. Since 1919, it has hung in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence. During the Italian campaign of World War Two, the picture was moved to Montegufoni Castle about ten miles south west of Florence to protect it from wartime bombing.
It was returned to the Uffizi Gallery where it remains to the present day. In 1978, the painting was restored.[66] The work has darkened considerably over the course of time
Now for 0L at the main store provide gifts for everyone to enjoy during these more difficult times in real life. maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Fox%20Borough/106/33/2498
Gladys Willems (Belgium) and Carolin Landesfeind (Germany)
World Field Archery Championships 2016
Killruddery House and Gardens - Wicklow - Ireland
www.youtube.com/watch?v=woR_NpKJr3s
To Archery competitors and everyone else, please feel free to use any of the photos from this World Championship photoshoot on your online accounts. Please credit the photo: Photograph by Owen J Fitzpatrick
The exterior of the Hirshhorn’s iconic cylindrical building is the site of internationally renowned Swiss artist Nicolas Party’s newest artwork. “Draw the Curtain”. It wraps 360 degrees around the temporary scaffolding that encases the Museum building and spans a circumference of 829 feet, becoming the artist’s largest work to date. September 23rd, 2021.
OI-16 has an impressive and colorful four-unit consist, all of which are former Conrail units now assigned to the Conrail Shared Assets Operation. The train is crossing NJ Transit's River Draw which crosses the Raritan River between Perth Amboy and South Amboy. NS 1700, the Erie Lackawanna heritage unit, had been leading the train earlier in the week but was trailing on this day. The trailing two GP38-2s are enroute to local assignment out of Browns Yard.
Oh hey look a Vintage Fair Blog with Vintage Fair stuff and A pretty gabe with chops. tragiclystyled.com/2012/07/30/draw-a-card/
{"total_effects_actions":0,"total_draw_time":0,"layers_used":0,"effects_tried":0,"total_draw_actions":0,"total_editor_actions":{"border":0,"frame":0,"mask":0,"lensflare":0,"clipart":0,"text":0,"square_fit":0,"shape_mask":0,"callout":0},"effects_applied":0,"uid":"BFC1C226-7676-4073-A9DD-CA88762466DE_1483705990983","width":2508,"photos_added":0,"total_effects_time":0,"tools_used":{"tilt_shift":0,"resize":0,"adjust":0,"curves":0,"motion":0,"perspective":0,"clone":0,"crop":0,"enhance":1,"selection":0,"free_crop":0,"flip_rotate":0,"shape_crop":0,"stretch":0},"origin":"gallery","height":3344,"subsource":"done_button","total_editor_time":16,"brushes_used":0}
A long time ago… in galaxies far far away, the first stars were born in the early universe. But when and how? That’s a mystery Webb is one step closer to solving.
Using Webb, researchers have found two early galaxies that are unusually bright, one of which could contain the most distant starlight ever seen. The galaxies are thought to have existed 350 and 450 million years after the big bang (respectively, from top to bottom). Unlike our Milky Way, these first galaxies are small and compact, with spherical or disk shapes rather than grand spirals.
Webb’s new findings suggest that the galaxies would have had to begin coming together about 100 million years after the big bang — meaning that the first stars might have started forming in such galaxies around that time, much earlier than expected.
Follow-up observations with Webb’s spectrographs will confirm the distances of these primordial galaxies and help us learn more about the earliest stars. More: www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2022/nasa-s-webb-draws-back-...
Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, Tommaso Treu (UCLA)
[Image description: Unlabeled graphic with two large square images, one on the left and one on the right, and two smaller images in between, one stacked above the other. The small images are zoom-ins that show details in the large images. The large image on the left shows galaxies of different colors, shapes, and sizes, and several bright foreground stars with Webb’s characteristic diffraction pattern. On the left side of this image is a box around a galaxy, which zooms in to a red galaxy shown in the top small center pullout image. The image on the right also shows galaxies of different colors, shapes, and sizes, but without any prominent diffraction spikes seen in the left image. It includes a box on the left side, which zooms into a red galaxy, shown in the bottom center image.]
The view looking down toward the area of the Big Draw from Chasm View along the South Rim Drive at the Black Canyon of the Gunnison. That's the Gunnison River at the bottom of the Canyon. The geology of the Black Canyon will have to suffice for a while as my plans for a trip to South Dakota tomorrow have changed. So I won't be able to see Badlands National Park, Devil's Tower, Mount Rushmore quite yet. But stay tuned, I do have some day trips that I'm putting together for the next 5 days.
Right now my avatar's draw weight is 65,058.
To put that in perspective, most avatars that look similarly detailed have a draw weight between 150,000 and 350,000
The mask, shield and shoulder pauldron are all super high-poly, but I haven't found anything to replace them with. I also still have a fair number of sculpted prims I still need to replace.
If content creators were more concerned with efficiency, it would be easy to achieve this look with a draw weight under 30,000.
LL's mistake was in not realizing that if you do not encourage efficiency, people will not even try to be efficient with their content.
Prim counts on land forced people to create environmental objects with as few prims as possible.
Land Impact did the same with forcing people to take polygon counts into consideration.
Avatar attachments have no such resource limits, so nobody tries to optimize avatar attachments.
Likewise, there are no limits on texture use, so SL is packed with uselessly large textures dragging down framerates.
Hopefully they realize this going forward with their new virtual world endeavour. Their success likely depends on it.
South Bank, London
Last Post For A Week, Away On Holiday, Thank You For All Your Comments, Visits and Fav's, Much Appreciated, Will Try And Catch Up When I Return !
Wearhouse loading dock in the old part of the Grand Junction railyard. I believe the other side of this warehouse lines up with the railroad yard but couldn't get around the building to check it out for sure. Grand Junction, Colorado.
Handsome Chinese vagrant draws fans of 'homeless chic'
Identity of 'Brother Sharp' – dubbed China's coolest man – remains a mystery
By Clifford Coonan in Beijing, Thursday, 4 March 2010
The photograph shows a starkly handsome Chinese man walking with a model's measured gait, and wearing a rag-tag but well co-ordinated overcoat on top of a leather jacket. His eyes peer into the middle distance, in what one fan described as "a deep and penetrating way", and he strides confidently forward.
But this is no catwalk model. This is a homeless man in the city of Ningbo. And now a band of web followers are calling him the coolest man in China.
His good looks and bohemian dress sense have won him thousands of online fans after a resident of Ningbo posted a picture online. Web users in China have called him the "Beggar Prince", the "Handsome Vagabond", and, most often, "Brother Sharp".
He is 5ft 8in, around 35 years old, and always has a cigarette between his fingers. He also appears to have a fondness for women's clothes, which has only served to fuel his status as a fashion icon. His good looks are reminiscent of popular Asian actors like Takeshi Kaneshiro or the Oscar- nominated Ken Watanabe.
One particularly striking picture juxtaposes Brother Sharp's with a model showing the latest Dolce & Gabbana collection. "Look at him wrinkle his brow... nothing needs to be said... sexy...", ran one comment on the Tianyu site.
Another wrote: "He doesn't really look like a beggar, more like a vagabond. The quality of this person's tops are all not bad, a down jacket, cotton jacket, even a leather jacket inside, and though they're a bit dirty, they're all in good condition, not the kind that beggars find from the trash."
The suggestion that homelessness can be cool chimes with a fashion trend that many have considered tasteless: in January, the designer Vivienne Westwood presented a "homeless chic" show in which models were styled to look like rough sleepers, a move prefigured by Ben Stiller's satirical film Zoolander, which featured a similar show called Derelicte. Two years ago the supermodel Erin Wasson revealed the homeless were her fashion inspiration, saying: "When I... see the homeless, like, I'm like, 'Oh my God, they're pulling out, like, crazy looks and they, like, pull shit out of like garbage cans.'"
But anyone with similar designs on Brother Sharp's sartorial tips is out of luck. His identity remains a secret, and social workers in Ningbo say they want to keep it that way. "Homeless people are vulnerable. It is incorrect to use them for entertainment purposes," said one worker at a homeless centre in Ningbo. Brother Sharp is said to appear mentally disturbed when approached on the street.
In China, begging is technically illegal, as the Communist Party-run state provides all a citizen could need. In reality, the rapid development of the Chinese economy in the last 30 years has marginalised many.
The rumours surrounding Brother Sharp's true identity persist. Some say he is a university graduate who lost his mind after his girlfriend left him. Others have blogged about how they sought him out and tried to help him find work or to go back to his family, but that he appeared frightened and cried out without speaking.
The local government in Ningbo said it had a policy of looking after the homeless, and that it would extend the same treatment to Mr Sharp.
The wind plays flute
Through the cellar door
And on my window sill
Plays a sad old song
I hope tonight
You will touch my hair
And draw ghosts on my back
www.youtube.com/watch?v=6JaWyWjPnSs
(I am hopelessly, irrevocably haunted)
Calton Hill and it's views are an irresistible draw. From the left, The Castle, The Balmoral Hotel (formerly the North British, the Sir Walter Scott Monument and leading along Princes Street to the far right with the three spires of St Margarets Cathedral, St George's West Church and the former RW Forsyth building globe or sphere.