Arbour Hill is an inner city area of Dublin, on the Northside of the River Liffey, in the Dublin 7 postal district. Arbour Hill, the road of the same name, runs west from Blackhall Place in Stoneybatter, and separates Collins Barracks, now part of the National Museum of Ireland, to the south from Arbour Hill Prison to the north, whose graveyard includes the burial plot of the signatories of the Easter Proclamation that began the 1916 Rising.

  

The military cemetery at Arbour Hill is the last resting place of 14 of the executed leaders of the insurrection of 1916. Among those buried there are Patrick Pearse, James Connolly and Major John Mc Bride. The leaders were executed in Kilmainham and then their bodies were transported to Arbour Hill, where they were buried.

 

The graves are located under a low mound on a terrace of Wicklow granite in what was once the old prison yard. The gravesite is surrounded by a limestone wall on which their names are inscribed in Irish and English. On the prison wall opposite the gravesite is a plaque with the names of other people who gave their lives in 1916.

 

The adjoining Church of the Sacred Heart, which is the prison chapel for Arbour Hill prison, is maintained by the Department of Defence. At the rear of the church lies the old cemetery, where lie the remains of British military personnel who died in the Dublin area in the 19th and early 20th century.

 

A doorway beside the 1916 memorial gives access to the Irish United Nations Veterans Association house and memorial garden.

This manuscript was executed in 1475 by a scribe identified as Aristakes, for a priest named Hakob. It contains a series of 16 images on the life of Christ preceding the text of the gospels, as well as the traditional evangelist portraits, and there are marginal illustrations throughout. The style of the miniatures, which employ brilliant colors and emphasize decorative patterns, is characteristic of manuscript production in the region around Lake Van during the 15th century. The style of Lake Van has often been described in relation to schools of Islamic arts of the book. Numerous inscriptions (on fols. 258-60) spanning a few centuries attest to the manuscript's long history of use and revered preservation. The codex's later history included a re-binding with silver covers from Kayseri that date to approximately 1700. This jeweled and enameled silver binding bears a composition of the Adoration of the Magi on the front and the Ascension on the back.

 

To explore fully digitized manuscripts with a virtual page-turning application, please visit Walters Ex Libris.

 

This manuscript was executed in 1475 by a scribe identified as Aristakes, for a priest named Hakob. It contains a series of 16 images on the life of Christ preceding the text of the gospels, as well as the traditional evangelist portraits, and there are marginal illustrations throughout. The style of the miniatures, which employ brilliant colors and emphasize decorative patterns, is characteristic of manuscript production in the region around Lake Van during the 15th century. The style of Lake Van has often been described in relation to schools of Islamic arts of the book. Numerous inscriptions (on fols. 258-60) spanning a few centuries attest to the manuscript's long history of use and revered preservation. The codex's later history included a re-binding with silver covers from Kayseri that date to approximately 1700. This jeweled and enameled silver binding bears a composition of the Adoration of the Magi on the front and the Ascension on the back.

 

To explore fully digitized manuscripts with a virtual page-turning application, please visit Walters Ex Libris.

 

Fresco (plural frescos or frescoes) is a technique of mural painting executed upon freshly-laid, or wet lime plaster. Water is used as the vehicle for the pigment to merge with the plaster, and with the setting of the plaster, the painting becomes an integral part of the wall. The word fresco (Italian: affresco) is derived from the Italian adjective fresco meaning "fresh", and may thus be contrasted with fresco-secco or secco mural painting techniques, which are applied to dried plaster, to supplement painting in fresco. The fresco technique has been employed since antiquity and is closely associated with Italian Renaissance painting.

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A mural is any piece of artwork painted or applied directly on a wall, ceiling or other large permanent surface. A distinguishing characteristic of mural painting is that the architectural elements of the given space are harmoniously incorporated into the picture.

 

Some wall paintings are painted on large canvases, which are then attached to the wall (e.g., with marouflage). Whether these works can be accurately called "murals" is a subject of some controversy in the art world, but the technique has been in common use since the late 19th century.

 

HISTORY

Murals of sorts date to Upper Paleolithic times such as the paintings in the Chauvet Cave in Ardèche department of southern France (around 30,000 BC). Many ancient murals have survived in Egyptian tombs (around 3150 BC), the Minoan palaces (Middle period III of the Neopalatial period, 1700-1600 BC) and in Pompeii (around 100 BC - AD 79).

 

During the Middle Ages murals were usually executed on dry plaster (secco). In Italy, circa 1300, the technique of painting of frescos on wet plaster was reintroduced and led to a significant increase in the quality of mural painting.

 

In modern times, the term became more well-known with the Mexican "muralista" art movement (Diego Rivera, David Siqueiros, or José Orozco). There are many different styles and techniques. The best-known is probably fresco, which uses water-soluble paints with a damp lime wash, a rapid use of the resulting mixture over a large surface, and often in parts (but with a sense of the whole). The colors lighten as they dry. The marouflage method has also been used for millennia.

 

Murals today are painted in a variety of ways, using oil or water-based media. The styles can vary from abstract to trompe-l'œil (a French term for "fool" or "trick the eye"). Initiated by the works of mural artists like Graham Rust or Rainer Maria Latzke in the 1980s, trompe-l'oeil painting has experienced a renaissance in private and public buildings in Europe. Today, the beauty of a wall mural has become much more widely available with a technique whereby a painting or photographic image is transferred to poster paper or canvas which is then pasted to a wall surface (see wallpaper, Frescography) to give the effect of either a hand-painted mural or realistic scene.

 

TECHNIQUE

In the history of mural several methods have been used:

 

A fresco painting, from the Italian word affresco which derives from the adjective fresco ("fresh"), describes a method in which the paint is applied on plaster on walls or ceilings. The buon fresco technique consists of painting in pigment mixed with water on a thin layer of wet, fresh, lime mortar or plaster. The pigment is then absorbed by the wet plaster; after a number of hours, the plaster dries and reacts with the air: it is this chemical reaction which fixes the pigment particles in the plaster. After this the painting stays for a long time up to centuries in fresh and brilliant colors.

 

Fresco-secco painting is done on dry plaster (secco is "dry" in Italian). The pigments thus require a binding medium, such as egg (tempera), glue or oil to attach the pigment to the wall.

 

Mezzo-fresco is painted on nearly-dry plaster, and was defined by the sixteenth-century author Ignazio Pozzo as "firm enough not to take a thumb-print" so that the pigment only penetrates slightly into the plaster. By the end of the sixteenth century this had largely displaced the buon fresco method, and was used by painters such as Gianbattista Tiepolo or Michelangelo. This technique had, in reduced form, the advantages of a secco work.

 

MATERIAL

In Greco-Roman times, mostly encaustic colors applied in a cold state were used.

 

Tempera painting is one of the oldest known methods in mural painting. In tempera, the pigments are bound in an albuminous medium such as egg yolk or egg white diluted in water.

 

In 16th-century Europe, oil painting on canvas arose as an easier method for mural painting. The advantage was that the artwork could be completed in the artist’s studio and later transported to its destination and there attached to the wall or ceiling. Oil paint can be said to be the least satisfactory medium for murals because of its lack of brilliance in colour. Also the pigments are yellowed by the binder or are more easily affected by atmospheric conditions. The canvas itself is more subject to rapid deterioration than a plaster ground. Different muralists tend to become experts in their preferred medium and application, whether that be oil paints, emulsion or acrylic paints applied by brush, roller or airbrush/aerosols. Clients will often ask for a particular style and the artist may adjust to the appropriate technique.

 

A consultation usually leads to a detailed design and layout of the proposed mural with a price quote that the client approves before the muralist starts on the work. The area to be painted can be gridded to match the design allowing the image to be scaled accurately step by step. In some cases the design is projected straight onto the wall and traced with pencil before painting begins. Some muralists will paint directly without any prior sketching, preferring the spontaneous technique.

 

Once completed the mural can be given coats of varnish or protective acrylic glaze to protect the work from UV rays and surface damage.

 

As an alternative to a hand-painted or airbrushed mural, digitally printed murals can also be applied to surfaces. Already existing murals can be photographed and then be reproduced in near-to-original quality.

 

The disadvantages of pre-fabricated murals and decals are that they are often mass-produced and lack the allure and exclusivity of an original artwork. They are often not fitted to the individual wall sizes of the client and their personal ideas or wishes can not be added to the mural as it progresses. The Frescography technique, a digital manufacturing method (CAM) invented by Rainer Maria Latzke addresses some of the personalisation and size restrictions.

 

Digital techniques are commonly used in advertisements. A "wallscape" is a large advertisement on or attached to the outside wall of a building. Wallscapes can be painted directly on the wall as a mural, or printed on vinyl and securely attached to the wall in the manner of a billboard. Although not strictly classed as murals, large scale printed media are often referred to as such. Advertising murals were traditionally painted onto buildings and shops by sign-writers, later as large scale poster billboards.

 

SIGNIFICANCE OF MURALS

Murals are important in that they bring art into the public sphere. Due to the size, cost, and work involved in creating a mural, muralists must often be commissioned by a sponsor. Often it is the local government or a business, but many murals have been paid for with grants of patronage. For artists, their work gets a wide audience who otherwise might not set foot in an art gallery. A city benefits by the beauty of a work of art.

 

Murals can be a relatively effective tool of social emancipation or achieving a political goal. Murals have sometimes been created against the law, or have been commissioned by local bars and coffeeshops. Often, the visual effects are an enticement to attract public attention to social issues. State-sponsored public art expressions, particularly murals, are often used by totalitarian regimes as a tool of mass-control and propaganda. However, despite the propagandist character of that works, some of them still have an artistic value.

 

Murals can have a dramatic impact whether consciously or subconsciously on the attitudes of passers by, when they are added to areas where people live and work. It can also be argued that the presence of large, public murals can add aesthetic improvement to the daily lives of residents or that of employees at a corporate venue.

 

Other world-famous murals can be found in Mexico, New York, Philadelphia, Belfast, Derry, Los Angeles, Nicaragua, Cuba and in India. They have functioned as an important means of communication for members of socially, ethnically and racially divided communities in times of conflict. They also proved to be an effective tool in establishing a dialogue and hence solving the cleavage in the long run. The Indian state Kerala has exclusive murals. These Kerala mural painting are on walls of Hindu temples. They can be dated from 9th century AD.

 

The San Bartolo murals of the Maya civilization in Guatemala, are the oldest example of this art in Mesoamerica and are dated at 300 BC.

 

Many rural towns have begun using murals to create tourist attractions in order to boost economic income. Colquitt, Georgia is one such town. Colquitt was chosen to host the 2010 Global Mural Conference. The town has more than twelve murals completed, and will host the Conference along with Dothan, Alabama, and Blakely, Georgia. In the summer of 2010, Colquitt will begin work on their Icon Mural.

 

WIKIPEDIA

Arbour Hill is an inner city area of Dublin, on the Northside of the River Liffey, in the Dublin 7 postal district. Arbour Hill, the road of the same name, runs west from Blackhall Place in Stoneybatter, and separates Collins Barracks, now part of the National Museum of Ireland, to the south from Arbour Hill Prison to the north, whose graveyard includes the burial plot of the signatories of the Easter Proclamation that began the 1916 Rising.

  

The military cemetery at Arbour Hill is the last resting place of 14 of the executed leaders of the insurrection of 1916. Among those buried there are Patrick Pearse, James Connolly and Major John Mc Bride. The leaders were executed in Kilmainham and then their bodies were transported to Arbour Hill, where they were buried.

 

The graves are located under a low mound on a terrace of Wicklow granite in what was once the old prison yard. The gravesite is surrounded by a limestone wall on which their names are inscribed in Irish and English. On the prison wall opposite the gravesite is a plaque with the names of other people who gave their lives in 1916.

 

The adjoining Church of the Sacred Heart, which is the prison chapel for Arbour Hill prison, is maintained by the Department of Defence. At the rear of the church lies the old cemetery, where lie the remains of British military personnel who died in the Dublin area in the 19th and early 20th century.

 

A doorway beside the 1916 memorial gives access to the Irish United Nations Veterans Association house and memorial garden.

The neighbor kitty executes her final photo'd jump.. She succumbed to feline lymphoma last month, but will live on in her amazing on-line pics. What a super kitty she was!

Here's a gallery of her favorite earth-bound perches: www.flickr.com/photos/27047646@N00/galleries/721576256639...

This manuscript was executed in 1475 by a scribe identified as Aristakes, for a priest named Hakob. It contains a series of 16 images on the life of Christ preceding the text of the gospels, as well as the traditional evangelist portraits, and there are marginal illustrations throughout. The style of the miniatures, which employ brilliant colors and emphasize decorative patterns, is characteristic of manuscript production in the region around Lake Van during the 15th century. The style of Lake Van has often been described in relation to schools of Islamic arts of the book. Numerous inscriptions (on fols. 258-60) spanning a few centuries attest to the manuscript's long history of use and revered preservation. The codex's later history included a re-binding with silver covers from Kayseri that date to approximately 1700. This jeweled and enameled silver binding bears a composition of the Adoration of the Magi on the front and the Ascension on the back.

 

To explore fully digitized manuscripts with a virtual page-turning application, please visit Walters Ex Libris.

 

This manuscript was executed in 1475 by a scribe identified as Aristakes, for a priest named Hakob. It contains a series of 16 images on the life of Christ preceding the text of the gospels, as well as the traditional evangelist portraits, and there are marginal illustrations throughout. The style of the miniatures, which employ brilliant colors and emphasize decorative patterns, is characteristic of manuscript production in the region around Lake Van during the 15th century. The style of Lake Van has often been described in relation to schools of Islamic arts of the book. Numerous inscriptions (on fols. 258-60) spanning a few centuries attest to the manuscript's long history of use and revered preservation. The codex's later history included a re-binding with silver covers from Kayseri that date to approximately 1700. This jeweled and enameled silver binding bears a composition of the Adoration of the Magi on the front and the Ascension on the back.

 

To explore fully digitized manuscripts with a virtual page-turning application, please visit Walters Ex Libris.

 

This manuscript was executed in 1475 by a scribe identified as Aristakes, for a priest named Hakob. It contains a series of 16 images on the life of Christ preceding the text of the gospels, as well as the traditional evangelist portraits, and there are marginal illustrations throughout. The style of the miniatures, which employ brilliant colors and emphasize decorative patterns, is characteristic of manuscript production in the region around Lake Van during the 15th century. The style of Lake Van has often been described in relation to schools of Islamic arts of the book. Numerous inscriptions (on fols. 258-60) spanning a few centuries attest to the manuscript's long history of use and revered preservation. The codex's later history included a re-binding with silver covers from Kayseri that date to approximately 1700. This jeweled and enameled silver binding bears a composition of the Adoration of the Magi on the front and the Ascension on the back.

 

To explore fully digitized manuscripts with a virtual page-turning application, please visit Walters Ex Libris.

 

This manuscript was executed in 1475 by a scribe identified as Aristakes, for a priest named Hakob. It contains a series of 16 images on the life of Christ preceding the text of the gospels, as well as the traditional evangelist portraits, and there are marginal illustrations throughout. The style of the miniatures, which employ brilliant colors and emphasize decorative patterns, is characteristic of manuscript production in the region around Lake Van during the 15th century. The style of Lake Van has often been described in relation to schools of Islamic arts of the book. Numerous inscriptions (on fols. 258-60) spanning a few centuries attest to the manuscript's long history of use and revered preservation. The codex's later history included a re-binding with silver covers from Kayseri that date to approximately 1700. This jeweled and enameled silver binding bears a composition of the Adoration of the Magi on the front and the Ascension on the back.

 

To explore fully digitized manuscripts with a virtual page-turning application, please visit Walters Ex Libris.

 

Three people have been arrested after early morning warrants were executed in Manchester.

 

Earlier this morning (Friday 29 November 2019), officers executed warrants at two addresses in Cheetham Hill and made three arrests in relation to an ongoing firearms investigation.

 

The action comes after GMP launched a dedicated operation – codenamed Heamus - earlier in the month. The operation is set to tackle a dispute between two local crime groups, following a series of firearms discharges which have taken place since the beginning of September 2019.

 

Superintendent Rebecca Boyce, of GMP’s City of Manchester division, said: “Following this morning’s direct action, we have three people in custody and I would like to thank those officers who have worked extremely hard as part of this ongoing operation and who are committed to keeping the people of Cheetham Hill safe.

 

“Whilst we believe that these incidents have been targeted, we understand and appreciate how concerned local residents may be and as a result of this have set up this dedicated operation. We want to reassure those who feel affected that we are doing all that we can and stress that we are treating these incidents as an absolute priority.

 

“This is a complex investigation, which brings its own challenges and whilst we have made arrests, we are continuing to appeal for the public’s help. We believe that answers lie within the community and would urge anyone with information to get in touch. Whether you want to speak to us directly, or whether you’d prefer to talk to Crimestoppers anonymously, please do so if you think you can assist our enquiries with even the smallest piece of information.

 

“We will continue to work closely with partners in order to disrupt this kind of activity and I hope that this morning’s action demonstrates that are working hard in order to prevent any further incidents and protect those in our communities.

 

“This type of criminal behaviour is reckless and dangerous- it will not be tolerated on our streets.”

 

Anyone with information should call 0161 856 1146, quoting incident number 2348 of 18/11/19. Reports can also be made anonymously to the independent charity Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.

Learn how to compile and execute a Java program from command prompt/terminal

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Ernest Herman Kerkhof, the lover of the wife of Nazi saboteur Edward Kerling, was one of fourteen people arrested for aiding eight Nazi saboteurs who landed by submarine on U.S. shores in June 1942. He is shown in a full frontal mug shot after his arrest in July 1942.

 

Kerkhof was born in Germany in 1906 and entered the United States in 1924. He became a naturalized citizen in 1932 and was alleged to have associated with the German-American Bund, a pro-Nazi organization.

 

There was no evidence linking Kerkhof to the saboteurs other than the circumstantial evidence that he was the lover of the estranged wife, Maria Kerling, of one of the saboteurs, Edward Kerling.

 

Maria Kerling had been separated from her husband for several years and living in New York.

 

The only evidence against Maria Kerling was that Helmut Leiner, a man who aided the Nazi saboteurs, attempted to arrange a meeting between Maria and her husband. Kerling was then aware that her husband was in the country but Leiner’s attempt at a meeting was unsuccessful because Edward Kerling had already been taken into custody by the FBI.

 

The U.S. later declined to press charges against Maria Kerling and Kerkhof, but the two were detained as enemy aliens for the duration of World War II.

 

The eight Nazi saboteurs who landed in the U.S. in Florida and New York were almost immediately arrested after one of them, George Dasch, contacted the FBI and turned himself in.

 

The eight saboteurs were quickly convicted--six of whom were executed in August 1942, including Edward Kerling; one received a life sentence; and one received 30 years imprisonment following a Washington, D.C. military trial. In 1948 U.S. President Harry Truman commuted the sentences of the two imprisoned and deported them to the U.S. section of Germany.

 

Fourteen other people, including Maria Kerling and Kerkhof, were charged with aiding the eight saboteurs.

 

Of the others charged with aiding the saboteurs some received long prison terms, some shorter terms, some had charges dropped, some were detained as enemy aliens and deported after the war ended.

 

For more information and related images, see flic.kr/s/aHsmPiRmT4

 

The photographer is unknown. The image is believed to be a U.S. government photograph. It is housed in the D.C. Library Washington Star Collection.

 

According to sources, a confrontation between residents and Ethiopian government officials broke out on June 9, 2014, over a mass grave discovered at the former Hameressa military garrison near Harar city, eastern Oromia. The mass grave is believed to contain remains of political prisoners executed during both the Dergue era and the early reigns of the current TPLF regime. Among those who were executed and buried in the location was Mustafa Harowe, a famous Oromo singer who was killed around early 1990′s for his revolutionary songs. Thousands more Oromo political prisoners were kept at this location in early 1990′s – with many of them never to be seen again.

 

The mass grave was discovered while the Ethiopian government was clearing the camp with bulldozers to make it available to Turkish investors. Upon the discovery of the remains, the government tried to quietly remove them from the site. However, workers secretly alerted residents in nearby villages; upon the spread of the news, many turned up en mass to block the removal of the remains and demanded construction a memorial statue on the site instead. The protests is still continuing with elders camping on the site while awaiting a response from government.

 

In addition to the remains, belongings of the dead individuals as well as ropes tied in hangman’s noose were discovered at the site.

 

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Lafeen ilmaan Oromoo bara 1980moota keessa mootummaa Darguutin, baroota 1990moota keessa ammoo Wayyaaneen dhoksaan kaampii waraanaa Hammarreessaa keessatti ajjeefamanii argame. Ilmaan Oromoo mooraa san keessatti hidhamanii booda ajjeefaman keessa wallisaan beekamaan Musxafaa Harawwee isa tokko. Musxafaa Harawwee wallee qabsoo inni baasaa tureef jecha qabamee yeroo dheeraaf erga hiraarfamee booda toora bara ~1991 keessa ajjeefame. Hiraar Musxafaarra geessifamaa ture keessa tokko aara wallee isaatirraa qaban garsiisuuf muka afaanitti dhiibuun a’oo isaa cabsuun ni yaadatama.

 

Baroota 1990moota keessas Oromoonni kumaatamaan tilmaamaman warra amma aangorra jiru kanaan achitti hidhamanii, hedduun isaanii achumaan dhabamuun yaadannoo yeroo dhihooti.

 

Haqxi dukkana halkaniitiin ajjeesanii lafa jalatti awwaalan kunoo har’a rabbi as baase. Dhugaan Oromoo tun kan amma as bahe, mootummaa kaampii waraanaa kana diiguun warra lafa isaa warra Turkiitiif kennuuf osoo qopheessuuf yaaluti. Lafee warra dhumee akkuma arganiin dhoksaan achirra gara biraatti dabarsuuf osoo yaalanii hojjattonni ummata naannotti iccitii san himan. Ummanniis dafee wal-dammaqsuun bakka sanitti argamuun ekeraan nama keenyaa akka achii hin kaafamneefi siidaan yaadannoo akka jaaramu gaafachaa jiran.

 

Hamma feetes turtu dhugaan Oromoo awwaalamtee hin haftu.

 

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More on the Mass Grave of Oromos at Hameressa:

1) OLF on the Hameressa Mas Grave: gadaa.net/FinfinneTribune/2014/06/olf-press-release-one-o... .... or gadaa.net/FinfinneTribune/2014/06/ibsa-abo-ajjeechaa-ilma...

 

2) gadaa.net/FinfinneTribune/2014/06/jaal-araarsoo-biqilaa-h...

 

3) gadaa.net/FinfinneTribune/2014/06/oromoprotests-fdg-hamma...

 

4) gadaa.net/FinfinneTribune/2014/06/gulelepost-hameressa-ma...

This manuscript was executed in 1475 by a scribe identified as Aristakes, for a priest named Hakob. It contains a series of 16 images on the life of Christ preceding the text of the gospels, as well as the traditional evangelist portraits, and there are marginal illustrations throughout. The style of the miniatures, which employ brilliant colors and emphasize decorative patterns, is characteristic of manuscript production in the region around Lake Van during the 15th century. The style of Lake Van has often been described in relation to schools of Islamic arts of the book. Numerous inscriptions (on fols. 258-60) spanning a few centuries attest to the manuscript's long history of use and revered preservation. The codex's later history included a re-binding with silver covers from Kayseri that date to approximately 1700. This jeweled and enameled silver binding bears a composition of the Adoration of the Magi on the front and the Ascension on the back.

 

To explore fully digitized manuscripts with a virtual page-turning application, please visit Walters Ex Libris.

 

Banking and Law, located on the outer south wall of Coit Tower's rotunda, was executed by George Harris, in 1934. While the stocks continue to plunge and bags of money are guarded, lawyers pour over books in a law library. The artist's sense of humor is evident in the titles of the books and the authors to whom he attributes the titles.

 

The interior walls of the tower are decorated with murals, mostly done in fresco, carried out by 26 artists under the auspices of the Public Works Project. The muralists, who were mainly faculty and students were supervised by Ralph Stackpole and Bernard Zakheim. Artists included Maxine Albro, Victor Arnautoff, Ray Bertrand, Rinaldo Cuneo, Mallette Harold Dean, Clifford Wight, Edith Hamlin, George Harris, Robert B. Howard, Otis Oldfield, Suzanne Scheuer, Hebe Daum and Frede Vidar.

 

Coit Tower, sitting in Pioneer Park atop Telegraph Hill, was built in 1933 by architects Arthur Brown, Jr. and Henry Howard, at the bequest of Lillian Hitchcock Coit for the purposes of beautification of the City of San Francisco. The 210-foot tall, unpainted, reinforced concrete, Art Deco tower resembles a fire hose nozzle. However, even though Lillie Coit was a big supporter of the city's fireman, contrary to urban legend the tower does not serve as a memorial in wake of the 1906 earthquake. Over 250,000 visitors come to Coit Tower annually to take the elevator ride up to the 360-degree observation deck, which sits 179-feet high and 542-feet above sea level. There is a small studio apartment on the first level of the tower, which was originally used as lodging for the structure's caretaker.

 

Pioneer Park, one of the first dedicated parks in San Francisco, was established atop Telegraph Hill in 1876. Telegraph Hill earned its name from the marine semaphore telegraph which was posted there in the 1850's, providing notification of arriving ships.

 

National Register #07001468 (2007)

The Liechtenstein Garden Palace is a Baroque palace at the Fürstengasse in the 9th District of Vienna, Alsergrund . Between the palace, where the Liechtenstein Museum was until the end of 2011, and executed as Belvedere summer palace on the Alserbachstraße is a park. Since early 2012, the Liechtenstein Garden Palace is a place for events. Part of the private art collection of the Prince of Liechtenstein is still in the gallery rooms of the palace. In 2010 was started to call the palace, to avoid future confusion, officially the Garden Palace, since 2013 the city has renovated the Palais Liechtenstein (Stadtpalais) in Vienna's old town and then also equipped with a part of the Liechtenstein art collection.

Building

Design for the Liechtenstein Garden Palace, Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach in 1687/1688

Canaletto: View of Palais Liechtenstein

1687 bought Prince Johann Adam Andreas von Liechtenstein a garden with adjoining meadows of Count Weikhard von Auersperg in the Rossau. In the southern part of the property the prince had built a palace and in the north part he founded a brewery and a manorial, from which developed the suburb Lichtental. For the construction of the palace Johann Adam Andreas organised 1688 a competition, in the inter alia participating, the young Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach. Meanwhile, a little functional, " permeable " project was rejected by the prince but, after all, instead he was allowed to built a garden in the Belvedere Alserbachstraße 14, which , however, was canceled in 1872.

The competition was won by Domenico Egidio Rossi, but was replaced in 1692 by Domenico Martinelli. The execution of the stonework had been given the royal Hofsteinmetzmeister (master stonemason) Martin Mitschke. He was delivered by the Masters of Kaisersteinbruch Ambrose Ferrethi , Giovanni Battista Passerini and Martin Trumler large pillars, columns and pedestal made ​​from stone Emperor (Kaiserstein). Begin of the contract was the fourth July 1689 , the total cost was around 50,000 guilders.

For contracts from the years 1693 and 1701 undertook the Salzburg master stonemason John and Joseph Pernegger owner for 4,060 guilders the steps of the great grand staircase from Lienbacher (Adnet = red) to supply marble monolith of 4.65 meters. From the Master Nicolaus Wendlinger from Hallein came the Stiegenbalustraden (stair balustrades) for 1,000 guilders.

A palazzo was built in a mix of city and country in the Roman-style villa. The structure is clear and the construction very blocky with a stressed central risalite, what served the conservative tastes of the Prince very much. According to the procedure of the architectural treatise by Johann Adam Andreas ' father, Karl Eusebius, the palace was designed with three floors and 13 windows axis on the main front and seven windows axis on the lateral front. Together with the stems it forms a courtyard .

Sala terrene of the Palais

1700 the shell was completed. In 1702, the Salzburg master stonemason and Georg Andreas Doppler took over 7,005 guilders for the manufacture of door frame made ​​of white marble of Salzburg, 1708 was the delivery of the fireplaces in marble hall for 1,577 guilders. For the painted decoration was originally the Bolognese Marcantonio Franceschini hired, from him are some of the painted ceilings on the first floor. Since he to slow to the prince, Antonio Belucci was hired from Venice, who envisioned the rest of the floor. The ceiling painting in the Great Hall, the Hercules Hall but got Andrea Pozzo . Pozzo in 1708 confirmed the sum of 7,500 florins which he had received since 1704 for the ceiling fresco in the Marble Hall in installments. As these artists died ( Pozzo) or declined to Italy, the Prince now had no painter left for the ground floor.

After a long search finally Michael Rottmayr was hired for the painting of the ground floor - originally a temporary solution, because the prince was of the opinion that only Italian artist buon gusto d'invenzione had. Since Rottmayr was not involved in the original planning, his paintings not quite fit with the stucco. Rottmayr 1708 confirmed the receipt of 7,500 guilders for his fresco work.

Giovanni Giuliani, who designed the sculptural decoration in the window roofing of the main facade, undertook in 1705 to provide sixteen stone vases of Zogelsdorfer stone. From September 1704 to August 1705 Santino Bussi stuccoed the ground floor of the vault of the hall and received a fee of 1,000 florins and twenty buckets of wine. 1706 Bussi adorned the two staircases, the Marble Hall, the Gallery Hall and the remaining six halls of the main projectile with its stucco work for 2,200 florins and twenty buckets of wine. Giuliani received in 1709 for his Kaminbekrönungen (fireplace crowning) of the great room and the vases 1,128 guilders.

Garden

Liechtenstein Palace from the garden

The new summer palace of Henry of Ferstel from the garden

The garden was created in the mind of a classic baroque garden. The vases and statues were carried out according to the plans of Giuseppe Mazza from the local Giovanni Giuliani. In 1820 the garden has been remodeled according to plans of Joseph Kornhäusel in the Classical sense. In the Fürstengasse was opposite the Palais, the Orangerie, built 1700s.

Use as a museum

Already from 1805 to 1938, the palace was housing the family collection of the house of Liechtenstein, which was also open for public viewing, the collection was then transferred to the Principality of Liechtenstein, which remained neutral during the war and was not bombed. In the 1960s and 1970s, the so-called Building Centre was housed in the palace as a tenant, a permanent exhibition for builders of single-family houses and similar buildings. From 26 April 1979 rented the since 1962 housed in the so-called 20er Haus Museum of the 20th Century , a federal museum, the palace as a new main house, the 20er Haus was continued as a branch . Since the start of operations at the Palais, the collection called itself Museum of Modern Art (since 1991 Museum of Modern Art Ludwig Foundation ), the MUMOK in 2001 moved to the newly built museum district.

From 29 March 2004 till the end of 2011 in the Palace was the Liechtenstein Museum, whose collection includes paintings and sculptures from five centuries. The collection is considered one of the largest and most valuable private art collections in the world, whose main base in Vaduz (Liechtenstein) is . As the palace, so too the collection is owned by the Prince of Liechtenstein Foundation .

On 15 November 2011 it was announced that the regular museum operating in the Garden Palace was stopped due to short of original expectations, visiting numbers remaining lower as calculated, with January 2012. The Liechtenstein City Palace museum will also not offer regular operations. Exhibited works of art would then (in the city palace from 2013) only during the "Long Night of the Museums", for registered groups and during leased events being visitable. The name of the Liechtenstein Museum will no longer be used.

 

de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palais_Liechtenstein_(F%C3%BCrstengasse)

Marble, AD 1-100

The young boy's job was to light the way at night with his lantern. He had fallen asleep, dutifully waiting for his master. The reality was starkly different. In AD 61, a distinguished senator was murdered by one of his household staff. Despite protests by the people, Nero backed the senate's decision to upholad an existing law. It stipulated that all enslaved members of the owner's household should be executed - a ruthless collective punishment intended as a deterrent.

[British Museum]

 

Nero: the Man Behind the Myth

(May - Oct 2021)

 

Nero is known as one of Rome's most infamous rulers, notorious for his cruelty, debauchery and madness.

The last male descendant of the emperor Augustus, Nero succeeded to the throne in AD 54 aged just 16 and died a violent death at 30. His turbulent rule saw momentous events including the Great Fire of Rome, Boudicca's rebellion in Britain, the execution of his own mother and first wife, grand projects and extravagant excesses.

Drawing on the latest research, this major exhibition questions the traditional narrative of the ruthless tyrant and eccentric performer, revealing a different Nero, a populist leader at a time of great change in Roman society.

Through some 200 spectacular objects, from the imperial palace in Rome to the streets of Pompeii, follow the young emperor’s rise and fall and make up your own mind about Nero. Was he a young, inexperienced ruler trying his best in a divided society, or the merciless, matricidal megalomaniac history has painted him to be?

 

Nero was the 5th emperor of Rome and the last of Rome’s first dynasty, the Julio-Claudians, founded by Augustus (the adopted son of Julius Caesar). Nero is known as one of Rome’s most infamous rulers, notorious for his cruelty and debauchery. He ascended to power in AD 54 aged just 16 and died at 30. He ruled at a time of great social and political change, overseeing momentous events such as the Great Fire of Rome and Boudica’s rebellion in Britain. He allegedly killed his mother and two of his wives, only cared about his art and had very little interest in ruling the empire.

Most of what we know about Nero comes from the surviving works of three historians – Tacitus, Suetonius and Cassius Dio. All written decades after Nero’s death, their accounts have long shaped our understanding of this emperor’s rule. However, far from being impartial narrators presenting objective accounts of past events, these authors and their sources wrote with a very clear agenda in mind. Nero’s demise brought forward a period of chaos and civil war – one that ended only when a new dynasty seized power, the Flavians. Authors writing under the Flavians all had an interest in legitimising the new ruling family by portraying the last of the Julio-Claudians in the worst possible light, turning history into propaganda. These accounts became the ‘historical’ sources used by later historians, therefore perpetuating a fabricated image of Nero, which has survived all the way to the present.

Nero was born Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus on 15 December AD 37.

He was the son of Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus and Agrippina the Younger. Both Gnaeus and Agrippina were the grandchildren of Augustus, making Nero Augustus’ great, great grandson with a strong claim to power.

Nero was only two years old when his mother was exiled and three when his father died. His inheritance was taken from him and he was sent to live with his aunt. However, Nero’s fate changed again when Claudius became emperor, restoring the boy’s property and recalling his mother Agrippina from exile.

In AD 49 the emperor Claudius married Agrippina, and adopted Nero the following year. It is at this point that Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus changed his name to Nero Claudius Caesar Drusus Germanicus. In Roman times it was normal to change your name when adopted, abandoning your family name in favour of your adoptive father’s. Nero was a common name among members of the Claudian family, especially in Claudius’ branch.

Nero and Agrippina offered Claudius a politically useful link back to Augustus, strengthening his position.

Claudius appeared to favour Nero over his natural son, Britannicus, marking Nero as the designated heir.

When Claudius died in AD 54, Nero became emperor just two months before turning 17.

As he was supported by both the army and the senate, his rise to power was smooth. His mother Agrippina exerted a significant influence, especially at the beginning of his rule.

The Roman historians Tacitus, Suetonius and Cassius Dio all claim that Nero, fed up with Agrippina’s interference, decided to kill her.

Given the lack of eyewitnesses, there is no way of knowing if or how this happened. However, this did not stop historians from fabricating dramatic stories of Agrippina’s murder, asserting that Nero tried (and failed) to kill her with a boat engineered to sink, before sending his men to do the job.

Agrippina allegedly told them to stab her in the womb that bore Nero, her last words clearly borrowed from stage plays.

It is entirely possible, as claimed by Nero himself, that Agrippina chose (or was more likely forced) to take her own life after her plot against her son was discovered.

Early in his rule, Nero had to contend with a rebellion in the newly conquered province of Britain.

In AD 60–61, Queen Boudica of the Iceni tribe led a revolt against the Romans, attacking and laying waste to important Roman settlements. The possible causes of the rebellion were numerous – the greed of the Romans exploiting the newly conquered territories, the recalling of loans made to local leaders, ongoing conflict in Wales and, above all, violence against the family of Prasutagus, Boudica’s husband and king of the Iceni.

Boudica and the rebels destroyed Colchester, London and St Albans before being heavily defeated by Roman troops. After the uprising, the governor of Britain Suetonius Paulinus introduced harsher laws against the Britons, until Nero replaced him with the more conciliatory governor Publius Petronius Turpilianus.

The marriage between Nero and Octavia, aged 15 and 13/14 at the time, was arranged by their parents in order to further legitimise Nero’s claim to the throne. Octavia was the daughter of the emperor Claudius from a previous marriage, so when Claudius married Agrippina and adopted her son Nero, Nero and Octavia became brother and sister. In order to arrange their marriage, Octavia had to be adopted into another family.

Their marriage was not a happy one. According to ancient writers, Nero had various affairs until his lover Poppaea Sabina convinced him to divorce his wife. Octavia was first exiled then executed in AD 62 on adultery charges. According to ancient writers, her banishment and death caused great unrest among the public, who sympathised with the dutiful Octavia.

No further motives were offered for Octavia’s death other than Nero’s passion for Poppaea, and we will probably never know what transpired at court. The fact that Octavia couldn’t produce an heir while Poppaea was pregnant with Nero’s daughter likely played an important role in deciding Octavia’s fate.

On 19 July AD 64, a fire started close to the Circus Maximus. The flames soon encompassed the entire city of Rome and the fire raged for nine days. Only four of the 14 districts of the capital were spared, while three were completely destroyed.

Rome had already been razed by flames – and would be again in its long history – but this event was so severe it came to be known as the Great Fire of Rome.

Later historians blamed Nero for the event, claiming that he set the capital ablaze in order to clear land for the construction of a vast new palace. According to Suetonius and Cassius Dio, Nero took in the view of the burning city from the imperial residence while playing the lyre and singing about the fall of Troy. This story, however, is fictional.

Tacitus, the only historian who was actually alive at the time of the Great Fire of Rome (although only 8 years old), wrote that Nero was not even in Rome when the fire started, but returned to the capital and led the relief efforts.

Tacitus, Suetonius and Cassius Dio all describe Nero as being blinded by passion for his wife Poppaea, yet they accuse him of killing her, allegedly by kicking her in an outburst of rage while she was pregnant.

Interestingly, pregnant women being kicked to death by enraged husbands is a recurring theme in ancient literature, used to explore the (self) destructive tendencies of autocrats. The Greek writer Herodotus tells the story of how the Persian king Cambyses kicked his pregnant wife in the stomach, causing her death. A similar episode is told of Periander, tyrant of Corinth. Nero is just one of many allegedly ‘mad’ tyrants for which this literary convention was used.

Poppaea probably died from complications connected with her pregnancy and not at Nero’s hands. She was given a lavish funeral and was deified.

Centred on greater Iran, the Parthian empire was a major political and cultural power and a long-standing enemy of Rome. The two powers had long been contending for control over the buffer state of Armenia and open conflict sparked again during Nero’s rule. The Parthian War started in AD 58 and, after initial victories and following set-backs, ended in AD 63 when a diplomatic solution was reached between Nero and the Parthian king Vologases I.

According to this settlement Tiridates, brother of the Parthian king, would rule over Armenia, but only after having travelled all the way to Rome to be crowned by Nero.

The journey lasted 9 months, Tiridates’ retinue included 3,000 Parthian horsemen and many Roman soldiers. The coronation ceremony took place in the summer of AD 66 and the day was celebrated with much pomp: all the people of Rome saw the new king of Armenia kneeling in front of Nero. This was the Golden Day of Nero’s rule

In AD 68, Vindex, the governor of Gaul (France), rebelled against Nero and declared his support for Galba, the governor of Spain. Vindex was defeated in battle by troops loyal to Nero, yet Galba started gaining more military support.

It was at this point that Nero lost the support of Rome’s people due to a grain shortage, caused by a rebellious commander who cut the crucial food supply from Egypt to the capital. Abandoned by the people and declared an enemy of the state by the senate, Nero tried to flee Rome and eventually committed suicide.

Following his death, Nero’s memory was condemned (a practice called damnatio memoriae) and the images of the emperor were destroyed, removed or reworked. However, Nero was still given an expensive funeral and for a long time people decorated his tomb with flowers, some even believing he was still alive.

After Nero’s death, civil war ensued. At the end of the so-called ‘Year of the Four Emperors’ (AD 69), Vespasian became emperor and started a new dynasty: the Flavians.

[Francesca Bologna, curator, for British Museum]

 

Taken in the British Museum

According to Wiki:

It is the largest Japanese cemetery in Southeast Asia at 29,359 square metres, consisting of 910 tombstones that contain the remains of members of the Japanese community in Singapore, including young Japanese prostitutes, civilians, soldiers and convicted war criminals executed in Changi Prison.

 

I find it puzzling that the inscriptions is in Chinese. I could be wrong and the inscription could be in Japanese "Kanji".

 

Officers investigating the recent spate of firearms discharges in Salford have executed a series of warrants in Little Hulton and Eccles.

 

In the early hours of this morning, Friday 16 October 2015, officers from Greater Manchester Police’s Salford Division searched nine properties throughout the division in the hunt for firearms linked to the recent shootings in the area.

 

The warrants were executed as part of a Project Gulf operation designed to tackle organised crime. Gulf is part of Programme Challenger, the Greater Manchester approach to tackling organised criminality across the region.

 

Seven men and one woman have been arrested on suspicion of a number of offences, ranging from possession with intent to supply to handling stolen goods.

 

A significant amount of Class A and Class B drugs were seized as part of the operation, though no firearms were found.

 

Detective Inspector Alan Clitherow said: “This series of warrants are just one element of the continuing and relentless operation being orchestrated to tackle organised crime gangs in Salford.

 

“They came about as a result of the on-going investigation into the recent spate of firearms discharges in Salford, including the horrific attack of young Christian Hickey and his mother Jayne.

 

“We wanted to show our communities that we are leaving no stone unturned in the hunt for those responsible for the abhorrent attack on an innocent child and his mother, and that we will not stand for the spate of shootings taking place on our streets in recent weeks.

 

“But there is still more to do and, as with any fight against organised crime groups embedded in our city, we need residents to come to us with information so we can put a stop to this criminality.

 

“There has been much said about people breaking this wall of silence in Salford, and once again I urge people to search their consciences and please come forward.

 

“You could provide the information that may help prevent any further innocent lives being touched by this senseless violence, and prevent further children being injured by thugs that many people within Salford seem so intent on protecting.

 

“I want to stress that if you come forward with what you know, we can offer you complete anonymity and I assure you that you will have our full support. Or if you don’t feel you can talk to police but you have information, you can speak to Crimestoppers anonymously.”

 

A dedicated information hotline has been set up on 0161 856 9775, or people can also pass information on by calling 101, or the independent charity, Crimestoppers, anonymously on 0800 555 111.

 

The Liechtenstein Garden Palace is a Baroque palace at the Fürstengasse in the 9th District of Vienna, Alsergrund . Between the palace, where the Liechtenstein Museum was until the end of 2011, and executed as Belvedere summer palace on the Alserbachstraße is a park. Since early 2012, the Liechtenstein Garden Palace is a place for events. Part of the private art collection of the Prince of Liechtenstein is still in the gallery rooms of the palace. In 2010 was started to call the palace, to avoid future confusion, officially the Garden Palace, since 2013 the city has renovated the Palais Liechtenstein (Stadtpalais) in Vienna's old town and then also equipped with a part of the Liechtenstein art collection.

Building

Design for the Liechtenstein Garden Palace, Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach in 1687/1688

Canaletto: View of Palais Liechtenstein

1687 bought Prince Johann Adam Andreas von Liechtenstein a garden with adjoining meadows of Count Weikhard von Auersperg in the Rossau. In the southern part of the property the prince had built a palace and in the north part he founded a brewery and a manorial, from which developed the suburb Lichtental. For the construction of the palace Johann Adam Andreas organised 1688 a competition, in the inter alia participating, the young Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach. Meanwhile, a little functional, " permeable " project was rejected by the prince but, after all, instead he was allowed to built a garden in the Belvedere Alserbachstraße 14, which , however, was canceled in 1872.

The competition was won by Domenico Egidio Rossi, but was replaced in 1692 by Domenico Martinelli. The execution of the stonework had been given the royal Hofsteinmetzmeister (master stonemason) Martin Mitschke. He was delivered by the Masters of Kaisersteinbruch Ambrose Ferrethi , Giovanni Battista Passerini and Martin Trumler large pillars, columns and pedestal made ​​from stone Emperor (Kaiserstein). Begin of the contract was the fourth July 1689 , the total cost was around 50,000 guilders.

For contracts from the years 1693 and 1701 undertook the Salzburg master stonemason John and Joseph Pernegger owner for 4,060 guilders the steps of the great grand staircase from Lienbacher (Adnet = red) to supply marble monolith of 4.65 meters. From the Master Nicolaus Wendlinger from Hallein came the Stiegenbalustraden (stair balustrades) for 1,000 guilders.

A palazzo was built in a mix of city and country in the Roman-style villa. The structure is clear and the construction very blocky with a stressed central risalite, what served the conservative tastes of the Prince very much. According to the procedure of the architectural treatise by Johann Adam Andreas ' father, Karl Eusebius, the palace was designed with three floors and 13 windows axis on the main front and seven windows axis on the lateral front. Together with the stems it forms a courtyard .

Sala terrene of the Palais

1700 the shell was completed. In 1702, the Salzburg master stonemason and Georg Andreas Doppler took over 7,005 guilders for the manufacture of door frame made ​​of white marble of Salzburg, 1708 was the delivery of the fireplaces in marble hall for 1,577 guilders. For the painted decoration was originally the Bolognese Marcantonio Franceschini hired, from him are some of the painted ceilings on the first floor. Since he to slow to the prince, Antonio Belucci was hired from Venice, who envisioned the rest of the floor. The ceiling painting in the Great Hall, the Hercules Hall but got Andrea Pozzo . Pozzo in 1708 confirmed the sum of 7,500 florins which he had received since 1704 for the ceiling fresco in the Marble Hall in installments. As these artists died ( Pozzo) or declined to Italy, the Prince now had no painter left for the ground floor.

After a long search finally Michael Rottmayr was hired for the painting of the ground floor - originally a temporary solution, because the prince was of the opinion that only Italian artist buon gusto d'invenzione had. Since Rottmayr was not involved in the original planning, his paintings not quite fit with the stucco. Rottmayr 1708 confirmed the receipt of 7,500 guilders for his fresco work.

Giovanni Giuliani, who designed the sculptural decoration in the window roofing of the main facade, undertook in 1705 to provide sixteen stone vases of Zogelsdorfer stone. From September 1704 to August 1705 Santino Bussi stuccoed the ground floor of the vault of the hall and received a fee of 1,000 florins and twenty buckets of wine. 1706 Bussi adorned the two staircases, the Marble Hall, the Gallery Hall and the remaining six halls of the main projectile with its stucco work for 2,200 florins and twenty buckets of wine. Giuliani received in 1709 for his Kaminbekrönungen (fireplace crowning) of the great room and the vases 1,128 guilders.

Garden

Liechtenstein Palace from the garden

The new summer palace of Henry of Ferstel from the garden

The garden was created in the mind of a classic baroque garden. The vases and statues were carried out according to the plans of Giuseppe Mazza from the local Giovanni Giuliani. In 1820 the garden has been remodeled according to plans of Joseph Kornhäusel in the Classical sense. In the Fürstengasse was opposite the Palais, the Orangerie, built 1700s.

Use as a museum

Already from 1805 to 1938, the palace was housing the family collection of the house of Liechtenstein, which was also open for public viewing, the collection was then transferred to the Principality of Liechtenstein, which remained neutral during the war and was not bombed. In the 1960s and 1970s, the so-called Building Centre was housed in the palace as a tenant, a permanent exhibition for builders of single-family houses and similar buildings. From 26 April 1979 rented the since 1962 housed in the so-called 20er Haus Museum of the 20th Century , a federal museum, the palace as a new main house, the 20er Haus was continued as a branch . Since the start of operations at the Palais, the collection called itself Museum of Modern Art (since 1991 Museum of Modern Art Ludwig Foundation ), the MUMOK in 2001 moved to the newly built museum district.

From 29 March 2004 till the end of 2011 in the Palace was the Liechtenstein Museum, whose collection includes paintings and sculptures from five centuries. The collection is considered one of the largest and most valuable private art collections in the world, whose main base in Vaduz (Liechtenstein) is . As the palace, so too the collection is owned by the Prince of Liechtenstein Foundation .

On 15 November 2011 it was announced that the regular museum operating in the Garden Palace was stopped due to short of original expectations, visiting numbers remaining lower as calculated, with January 2012. The Liechtenstein City Palace museum will also not offer regular operations. Exhibited works of art would then (in the city palace from 2013) only during the "Long Night of the Museums", for registered groups and during leased events being visitable. The name of the Liechtenstein Museum will no longer be used.

 

de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palais_Liechtenstein_(F%C3%BCrstengasse)

The cadets of 1st Regiment conduct air mobility training at the U.S. Military Academy. The training, planned and executed by cadets, was supported by aircraft from the 10th Combat Aviation Brigade.

This manuscript was executed in 1475 by a scribe identified as Aristakes, for a priest named Hakob. It contains a series of 16 images on the life of Christ preceding the text of the gospels, as well as the traditional evangelist portraits, and there are marginal illustrations throughout. The style of the miniatures, which employ brilliant colors and emphasize decorative patterns, is characteristic of manuscript production in the region around Lake Van during the 15th century. The style of Lake Van has often been described in relation to schools of Islamic arts of the book. Numerous inscriptions (on fols. 258-60) spanning a few centuries attest to the manuscript's long history of use and revered preservation. The codex's later history included a re-binding with silver covers from Kayseri that date to approximately 1700. This jeweled and enameled silver binding bears a composition of the Adoration of the Magi on the front and the Ascension on the back.

 

To explore fully digitized manuscripts with a virtual page-turning application, please visit Walters Ex Libris.

 

Today, Thursday 16 November 2017, police executed warrants at eight addresses across the Moss Side and Hulme areas of Manchester.

 

The warrants were executed as the latest phase of Operation Malham, targeting the supply of drugs in South Manchester.

 

This follows previous raids last week, which means more than 14 properties have been searched and eight people arrested in total as part of the operation.

 

Detective Chief Inspector Paul Walker, of GMP’s City of Manchester team, said: “We are dedicated to rooting out those who seek to make profits from putting drugs on our streets.

 

“Today’s raids have resulted in the arrests of five people which have only been made possible through the support of partner agencies and community intelligence.

 

“We are grateful for all your support and help and I would urge you to continue to report anything suspicious to help us stop people who are benefitting from crime and remove drugs from our city.”

 

Anyone with information should contact police on 101 or Crimestoppers, anonymously, on 0800 555 111.

 

To find out more about Greater Manchester Police please visit

www.gmp.police.uk

 

You should call 101, the national non-emergency number, to report crime and other concerns that do not require an emergency response.

 

Always call 999 in an emergency, such as when a crime is in progress, violence is being used or threatened or where there is danger to life.

This portrait of Andrew Jackson (Catalog Number INDE11873) was executed by David Rent Etter in 1835. Etter, a Philadelphia artist, based his portait on an engraving, probably made by James Barton Longacre in 1824 after Joseph's Wood's life portrait of the same year. Etter depicted Jackson seated in the White House, pointing to a copy of his 1832 proclamation instructing the people of South Carolina to accept a national tarriff. Upon the proclamation rests a dress sword and a bound copy of the Constitution, which leans against biographies of Thomas Jefferson and William Penn. Through the window, the northern end and eastern facade of the United States Capitol are visible, showing the artist's misunderstanding of the orientation of the White House. Etter probably painted this portrait for his fellow commissioners of Southwark, an indpendent municipality that merged with the City of Philadelphia in 1854. The Commissioners gave the Jackson portrait to Philadelphia to commemorate the merger.

 

Andrew Jackson (1767–1845) was the seventh President of the United States (1829–1837), military governor of Florida (1821), commander of the American forces at the Battle of New Orleans (1815), and the eponym of the era of Jacksonian democracy. A polarizing figure, he dominated American politics in the 1820s and 1830s, shaping the modern Democratic Party. Nicknamed "Old Hickory," Jackson was the first President primarily associated with the frontier.

 

The Second Bank of the United States, at 420 Chestnut Street, was chartered five years after the expiration of the First Bank of the United States in 1816 to keep inflation in check following the War of 1812. The Bank served as the depository for Federal funds until 1833, when it became the center of bitter controversy between bank president Nicholas Biddle and President Andrew Jackson. The Bank, always a privately owned institution, lost its Federal charter in 1836, and ceased operations in 1841. The Greek Revival building, built between 1819 and 1824 and modeled by architect William Strickland after the Parthenon, continued for a short time to house a banking institution under a Pennsylvania charter. From 1845 to 1935 the building served as the Philadelphia Customs House. Today it is open, free to the public, and features the "People of Independence" exhibit--a portrait gallery with 185 paintings of Colonial and Federal leaders, military officers, explorers and scientists, including many by Charles Willson Peale.

 

Independence National Historical Park preserves several sites associated with the American Revolution. Administered by the National Park Service, the 45-acre park was authorized in 1948, and established on July 4, 1956. The Second Bank of the United States was added to the Park's properties in 2006.

 

Second Bank of the United States National Register #87001293 (1987)

Independence National Park Historic District National Register #66000675 (1966)

Twelve people have today, Thursday 10 January 2013, been arrested by officers from Project Gulf, Salford’s multi agency task force set up to target organised crime groups.

 

In total 14 warrants were executed at addresses across Salford.

 

The arrests were made on suspicion of a variety of offences including violent disorder, drugs offences and money laundering.

 

They remain in police custody for questioning.

 

Items recovered as part of the warrants include cash, drugs, balaclavas, body armour and a crossbow. Pictures which could illustrate an affiliation to organised crime groups have also been seized.

 

The warrants follow an investigation into an incident of violent disorder at the Blue Bell pub on Monton Green on 9 December 2012, during which a group of men entered and assaulted a number of people inside.

 

Officers attended the premises following contact with the police but no complaints were made. They recovered CCTV from the premises and have been investigating the matter since.

 

As part of a joint agency approach three housing inspections, two visits from local authority social workers and eight benefit fraud inspections were also carried out.

 

Superintendent Wayne Miller, said: “Today’s action reflects the determined and pro active approach we are taking to identify and disrupt organised crime groups operating in Salford.

 

“We were not called directly to the incident but as soon as we became aware we took and continue to take steps to identify those involved.

 

“We recovered some CCTV that quite clearly shows a determined and coordinated effort on the part of a significantly large number of offenders to deliberately target some of those inside the pub.

 

“While we cannot speculate on the motive for this, it is clear to me that this was not a random incident but an attempt by a gang of men to commit serious violence and to intimidate and threaten our communities. “

 

Tony Lloyd, the Police and Crime Commissioner for Greater Manchester said: ”We will not tolerate such behaviour and are standing shoulder to shoulder with partner agencies to pick at these crime groups member by member to disrupt their criminality by whatever means necessary.

 

"Today's operation was a fantastic example of partnership working with the police, council and local community all joining forces to make a stand against organised crime. Project Gulf shows how working together can make a real difference to Greater Manchester people. It also acts as a warning to those involved in organised crime that it simply will not be tolerated."

 

ABOUT PROJECT GULF:

 

Project Gulf was set up in 2010 to tackle serious organised crime. The multi-agency team investigates every area of a suspected criminal's life - including their business interests, benefits, housing and associates.

 

The Gulf team includes representatives from Greater Manchester Police, Salford City Council, the Serious Organised Crime Agency, UK Border Agency, Environment Agency, Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service, DVLA, Department of Work and Pensions, Security Industry Association, Housing, HM Revenue & Customs and children’s services.

 

Serious organised crime causes devastating harm to local communities and the Project Gulf team is determined to taking these criminals off the streets, disrupting their lifestyles and making the streets of Salford a safer place to live.

 

To find out more about Greater Manchester Police please visit our website.

www.gmp.police.uk

 

You should call 101, the new national non-emergency number, to report crime and other concerns that do not require an emergency response.

 

Always call 999 in an emergency, such as when a crime is in progress, violence is being used or threatened or where there is danger to life.

 

You can also call anonymously with information about crime to Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111. Crimestoppers is an independent charity who will not want your name, just your information. Your call will not be traced or recorded and you do not have to go to court or give a statement

 

Soldiers execute jumps out of a C-130 Hercules Sept. 3, 2014, at Combined Arms Training Center Camp Fuji, Japan. The Soldiers are assigned to the 1st Battalion, 1st Special Forces Group (Airborne) and the C-130 is assigned to the 36th Airlift Squadron. (U.S. Air Force photo/Osakabe Yasuo)

According to sources, a confrontation between residents and Ethiopian government officials broke out on June 9, 2014, over a mass grave discovered at the former Hameressa military garrison near Harar city, eastern Oromia. The mass grave is believed to contain remains of political prisoners executed during both the Dergue era and the early reigns of the current TPLF regime. Among those who were executed and buried in the location was Mustafa Harowe, a famous Oromo singer who was killed around early 1990′s for his revolutionary songs. Thousands more Oromo political prisoners were kept at this location in early 1990′s – with many of them never to be seen again.

 

The mass grave was discovered while the Ethiopian government was clearing the camp with bulldozers to make it available to Turkish investors. Upon the discovery of the remains, the government tried to quietly remove them from the site. However, workers secretly alerted residents in nearby villages; upon the spread of the news, many turned up en mass to block the removal of the remains and demanded construction a memorial statue on the site instead. The protests is still continuing with elders camping on the site while awaiting a response from government.

 

In addition to the remains, belongings of the dead individuals as well as ropes tied in hangman’s noose were discovered at the site.

 

———————

 

Lafeen ilmaan Oromoo bara 1980moota keessa mootummaa Darguutin, baroota 1990moota keessa ammoo Wayyaaneen dhoksaan kaampii waraanaa Hammarreessaa keessatti ajjeefamanii argame. Ilmaan Oromoo mooraa san keessatti hidhamanii booda ajjeefaman keessa wallisaan beekamaan Musxafaa Harawwee isa tokko. Musxafaa Harawwee wallee qabsoo inni baasaa tureef jecha qabamee yeroo dheeraaf erga hiraarfamee booda toora bara ~1991 keessa ajjeefame. Hiraar Musxafaarra geessifamaa ture keessa tokko aara wallee isaatirraa qaban garsiisuuf muka afaanitti dhiibuun a’oo isaa cabsuun ni yaadatama.

 

Baroota 1990moota keessas Oromoonni kumaatamaan tilmaamaman warra amma aangorra jiru kanaan achitti hidhamanii, hedduun isaanii achumaan dhabamuun yaadannoo yeroo dhihooti.

 

Haqxi dukkana halkaniitiin ajjeesanii lafa jalatti awwaalan kunoo har’a rabbi as baase. Dhugaan Oromoo tun kan amma as bahe, mootummaa kaampii waraanaa kana diiguun warra lafa isaa warra Turkiitiif kennuuf osoo qopheessuuf yaaluti. Lafee warra dhumee akkuma arganiin dhoksaan achirra gara biraatti dabarsuuf osoo yaalanii hojjattonni ummata naannotti iccitii san himan. Ummanniis dafee wal-dammaqsuun bakka sanitti argamuun ekeraan nama keenyaa akka achii hin kaafamneefi siidaan yaadannoo akka jaaramu gaafachaa jiran.

 

Hamma feetes turtu dhugaan Oromoo awwaalamtee hin haftu.

 

-----

More on the Mass Grave of Oromos at Hameressa:

1) OLF on the Hameressa Mas Grave: gadaa.net/FinfinneTribune/2014/06/olf-press-release-one-o... .... or gadaa.net/FinfinneTribune/2014/06/ibsa-abo-ajjeechaa-ilma...

 

2) gadaa.net/FinfinneTribune/2014/06/jaal-araarsoo-biqilaa-h...

 

3) gadaa.net/FinfinneTribune/2014/06/oromoprotests-fdg-hamma...

 

4) gadaa.net/FinfinneTribune/2014/06/gulelepost-hameressa-ma...

This manuscript was executed in 1475 by a scribe identified as Aristakes, for a priest named Hakob. It contains a series of 16 images on the life of Christ preceding the text of the gospels, as well as the traditional evangelist portraits, and there are marginal illustrations throughout. The style of the miniatures, which employ brilliant colors and emphasize decorative patterns, is characteristic of manuscript production in the region around Lake Van during the 15th century. The style of Lake Van has often been described in relation to schools of Islamic arts of the book. Numerous inscriptions (on fols. 258-60) spanning a few centuries attest to the manuscript's long history of use and revered preservation. The codex's later history included a re-binding with silver covers from Kayseri that date to approximately 1700. This jeweled and enameled silver binding bears a composition of the Adoration of the Magi on the front and the Ascension on the back.

 

To explore fully digitized manuscripts with a virtual page-turning application, please visit Walters Ex Libris.

 

Today, Thursday 16 November 2017, police executed warrants at eight addresses across the Moss Side and Hulme areas of Manchester.

 

The warrants were executed as the latest phase of Operation Malham, targeting the supply of drugs in South Manchester.

 

This follows previous raids last week, which means more than 14 properties have been searched and eight people arrested in total as part of the operation.

 

Detective Chief Inspector Paul Walker, of GMP’s City of Manchester team, said: “We are dedicated to rooting out those who seek to make profits from putting drugs on our streets.

 

“Today’s raids have resulted in the arrests of five people which have only been made possible through the support of partner agencies and community intelligence.

 

“We are grateful for all your support and help and I would urge you to continue to report anything suspicious to help us stop people who are benefitting from crime and remove drugs from our city.”

 

Anyone with information should contact police on 101 or Crimestoppers, anonymously, on 0800 555 111.

 

To find out more about Greater Manchester Police please visit

www.gmp.police.uk

 

You should call 101, the national non-emergency number, to report crime and other concerns that do not require an emergency response.

 

Always call 999 in an emergency, such as when a crime is in progress, violence is being used or threatened or where there is danger to life.

Dawn arrests have taken place after man left with life-changing injuries in Stockport last week.

 

Police investigating the serious assault of a man who was left with life-changing injuries in Stockport last week have made arrests during dawn raids.

 

Earlier today (Wednesday 7 October 2020), officers from GMP's Stockport borough and Tactical Aid Unit (TAU) executed warrants at addresses in the Edgeley area of the town as part of OperationSycamore - GMP’s response to tackling serious violent crime, with a particular interest in knife crime.

 

The action comes after a 45-year-old man was run over by a dark grey VW Golf on Chatham Street on the evening of Tuesday 29 September, before being repeatedly stabbed in the face, arm and legs by two masked men with a knife.

 

The men then made off in the VW before abandoning it on Avondale Road Industrial unit near to a bakery. The car was reported to be discovered on fire later on at around 8.45pm.

 

Detective Sergeant Matthew Tarr, of GMP's Stockport CID, said: "This morning's strike action has seen us make significant arrests in response to the shocking attack on a 45-year-old man last week in Edgeley, and our enquiries are very much ongoing.

 

"We hope the public feel reassured that when these incidents occur we will do all we can to take action and target those involved with such criminal activity - particularly those involved in knife crime, which is utterly unacceptable.

 

"While we have people in custody, we are still actively investigating this case to make sure those responsible are brought to justice, and I continue to appeal to the public with any information to contact us with any details they may have.”

 

Anyone with information or with video footage should contact police on 0161 856 9616 quoting incident number 2418 of 30/09/2020. Details can be passed anonymously to the independent charity Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.

Thirteen suspected members of a prolific south Manchester organised crime group have been arrested by Greater Manchester Police.

 

Following a four-month investigation into the activities of a suspected OCG operating in the south Manchester area, police have today executed a series of warrants across Manchester.

 

As a result, 12 men and one woman have been arrested in connection with a string of offences, including ram raids, burglaries, and vehicle crime. The thirteen people have been arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to steal and conspiracy to handle stolen property and remain in custody for questioning.

 

The raids were executed under the banner of Operation Ingot which was set up to tackle the activities of the suspected OCG. Some of the victims of those crimes accompanied officers on the raids so they could see the suspected offenders being arrested and put into the back of police vans.

 

Cash, mobile phones and stolen property have been seized after the raids.

 

As part of the operation but not directly connected to the overall investigation, a further three arrests were also made today – a man for possession of a stun gun, another man for possession of drugs and a woman for assisting an offender.

 

To date, officers believe this OCG may be responsible for up to 50 crimes between July and December of last year, during which more than £400,000 worth of goods have been stolen from innocent members of numerous communities.

 

Detective Sergeant Alan Hamlin said: "This operation has been four months in the making and is a result of a lengthy investigation into the activities of a suspected organised criminal network - based in south Manchester - that has been causing real heartache and misery in Greater Manchester and beyond its borders.

 

"Clearly I cannot go into too much detail at this stage given we have made so many arrests, but we believe members of the gang may be responsible for up to 40 crimes including burglaries, ram raids and the supply of drugs.

 

"As a result, many innocent and law-abiding people have fallen victim to this gang, losing not only money and goods worth up to £400,000 but also being put through huge emotional strain.

 

"I hope today's action shows those who have been victims of this gang that we will use every available weapon we and other agencies have to disrupt and dismantle these organised criminal networks.

 

"We know all too well from speaking to residents how destructive and pernicious these gangs can be, and the corrosive effect they can have in our communities. We also know that the answers to tackling organised crime lie in the communities where these people operate, so I would continue to ask residents to take a stand with us and together we can bring about real change.

 

"These are your communities. They belong to you, not the criminal gangs who try and rule with an iron fist. I want today's action to give residents the confidence that things are different and you can come forward. If you tell us what action needs taking, then through your local police officers and the local authority, we will take it and together we will dismantle these criminal networks."

 

To find out more about Greater Manchester Police please visit our website.

www.gmp.police.uk

 

You should call 101, the national non-emergency number, to report crime and other concerns that do not require an emergency response.

 

Always call 999 in an emergency, such as when a crime is in progress, violence is being used or threatened or where there is danger to life.

 

You can also call anonymously with information about crime to Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.

 

Crimestoppers is an independent charity who will not want your name, just your information. Your call will not be traced or recorded and you do not have to go to court or give a statement.

L’Aiguille d’Étretat est creuse !

 

Phénomène naturel ? Excavation produite par des cataclysmes intérieurs ou par l’effort insensible de la mer qui bouillonne, de la pluie qui s’infiltre ? Ou bien œuvre surhumaine, exécutée par des humains, Celtes, Gaulois, hommes préhistoriques ? Questions insolubles sans doute. Et qu’importait ? L’essentiel résidait en ceci : l’Aiguille était creuse.

 

À quarante ou cinquante mètres de cette arche imposante qu’on appelle la Porte d’Aval et qui s’élance du haut de la falaise, ainsi que la branche colossale d’un arbre, pour prendre racine dans les rocs sous-marins, s’érige un cône calcaire démesuré ; et ce cône n’est qu’un bonnet d’écorce pointu posé sur du vide.

 

Révélation prodigieuse ! Après Lupin, voilà que Beautrelet découvrait le mot de la grande énigme, qui a plané sur plus de vingt siècles ! mot d’une importance suprême pour celui qui le possédait jadis, aux lointaines époques où des hordes de barbares chevauchaient le vieux monde ! mot magique qui ouvre l’antre cyclopéen à des tribus entières fuyant devant l’ennemi ! mot mystérieux qui garde la porte de l’asile le plus inviolable ! mot prestigieux qui donne le Pouvoir et assure la prépondérance !

 

Pour l’avoir connu, ce mot, César peut asservir la Gaule. Pour l’avoir connu, les Normands s’imposent au pays, et de là, plus tard, adossés à ce point d’appui, conquièrent l’île voisine, conquièrent la Sicile, conquièrent l’Orient, conquièrent le Nouveau-Monde !

 

Maîtres du secret, les rois d’Angleterre dominent la France, l’humilient, la dépècent, se font couronner rois à Paris. Ils le perdent, et c’est la déroute.

 

Maîtres du secret, les rois de France grandissent, débordent les limites étroites de leur domaine, fondent peu à peu la grande nation et rayonnent de gloire et de puissance – ils l’oublient ou ne savent point en user, et c’est la mort, l’exil, la déchéance.

 

Un royaume invisible, au sein des eaux et à dix brasses de la terre !... Une forteresse ignorée, plus haute que les tours de Notre-Dame et construite sur une base de granit plus large qu’une place publique... Quelle force et quelle sécurité ! De Paris à la mer, par la Seine. Là, Le Havre, ville nouvelle, ville nécessaire. Et à sept lieues de là, l’Aiguille creuse, n’est-ce pas l’asile inexpugnable ?

 

C’est l’asile et c’est aussi la formidable cachette. Tous les trésors des rois, grossis de siècle en siècle, tout l’or de France, tout ce qu’on extrait du peuple, tout ce qu’on arrache au clergé, tout le butin ramassé sur les champs de bataille de l’Europe, c’est dans la caverne royale qu’on l’entasse. Vieux sous d’or, écus reluisants, doublons, ducats, florins, guinées, et les pierreries, et les diamants, et tous les joyaux, et toutes les parures, tout est là. Qui le découvrirait ? Qui saurait jamais le secret impénétrable de l’Aiguille ? Personne.

 

Si, Lupin.

 

Et Lupin devient cette sorte d’être vraiment disproportionné que l’on connaît, ce miracle impossible à expliquer tant que la vérité demeure dans l’ombre. Si infinies que soient les ressources de son génie, elles ne peuvent suffire à la lutte qu’il soutient contre la Société. Il en faut d’autres plus matérielles. Il faut la retraite sûre, il faut la certitude de l’impunité, la paix qui permet l’exécution des plans.

 

Sans l’Aiguille creuse, Lupin est incompréhensible, c’est un mythe, un personnage de roman, sans rapport avec la réalité. Maître du secret, et de quel secret ! c’est un homme comme les autres, tout simplement, mais qui sait manier de façon supérieure l’arme extraordinaire dont le destin l’a doté.

 

Donc, l’Aiguille est creuse, et c’est là un fait indiscutable. Restait à savoir comment l’on y pouvait accéder.

 

Par la mer évidemment. Il devait y avoir, du côté du large, quelque fissure abordable pour les barques à certaines heures de la marée. Mais du côté de la terre ?

 

Jusqu’au soir, Beautrelet resta suspendu au-dessus de l’abîme, les yeux rivés à la masse d’ombre que formait la pyramide, et songeant, méditant de tout l’effort de son esprit.

 

Puis il descendit vers Étretat, choisit l’hôtel le plus modeste, dîna, monta dans sa chambre et déplia le document.

 

Pour lui, maintenant, c’était un jeu que d’en préciser la signification. Tout de suite il s’aperçut que les trois voyelles du mot Étretat se retrouvaient à la première ligne, dans leur ordre et aux intervalles voulus. Cette première ligne s’établissait dès lors ainsi :

 

e . a . a . . é t r e t a t . a . .

 

Quels mots pouvaient précéder Étretat ? Des mots sans doute qui s’appliquaient à la situation de l’Aiguille par rapport au village. Or, l’Aiguille se dressait à gauche, à l’ouest... Il chercha et, se souvenant que les vents d’ouest s’appelaient sur les côtes vents d’aval et que la porte était justement dénommée d’Aval, il inscrivit :

 

En aval d’Étretat . a . .

 

La seconde ligne était celle du mot Demoiselles, et, constatant aussitôt, avant ce mot, la série de toutes les voyelles qui composent les mots la chambre des, il nota les deux phrases :

 

En aval d’Étretat – La chambre des Demoiselles.

 

Il eut plus de mal pour la troisième ligne, et ce n’est qu’après avoir tâtonné que, se rappelant la situation, non loin de la chambre des Demoiselles, du castel construit à la place du fort de Fréfossé, il finit par reconstituer ainsi le document presque complet :

 

En aval d’Étretat – la chambre des Demoiselles – Sous le fort de Fréfossé – Aiguille creuse.

 

Cela, c’était les quatre grandes formules, les formules essentielles et générales. Par elles, on se dirigeait en aval d’Étretat, on entrait dans la chambre des Demoiselles, on passait selon toutes probabilités sous le fort de Fréfossé et l’on arrivait à l’aiguille.

  

Maurice Leblanc

L’Aiguille creuse

Chapitre VII

Sésame, ouvre-toi !

 

SHIZUOKA, Japan (Nov. 4, 2016) - Marines patrol the roads after the ground assault portion of a long-range raid from Marine Corps Air Station Futenma, Okinawa to the Combined Arms Training Center, Camp Fuji uring Blue Chromite 2017. The Marines honed their ability to project forces from afar by executing a long-range raid over 1,000 miles via MV-22B Osprey to include an aerial refueling by KC-130J Super Hercules. Blue Chromite is a U.S.-only exercise which strengthens the Navy-Marine Corps expeditionary, amphibious rapid-response capabilities based in Okinawa and the greater Indo-Asia-Pacific region. The Marines are with Company I, 3rd Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment which is forward deployed from Kaneohe Bay, Hawaii, to 3rd Marine Division, III Marine Expeditionary Force, based in Okinawa, Japan. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Lance Cpl. Kelsey Dornfeld/Released) 161104-M-PY134-122

 

** Interested in following U.S. Pacific Command? Engage and connect with us at www.facebook.com/pacific.command and twitter.com/PacificCommand and www.pacom.mil/ **

 

Thirty three (33) people have so far today, Wednesday 28 January 2015, been arrested following a huge crackdown on the supply of drugs across Greater Manchester.

 

Officers have executed warrants at 53 addresses across the region this morning as part of Operation Trafalgar, a pre-planned operation.

 

Police have also seized an imitation firearm, a quantity of heroin, several thousands of pounds of cash, three cars and discovered two cannabis farms.

 

Specialist officers from GMP’s Tactical Aid Unit teamed up with detectives and neighbourhood officers on each of Greater Manchester’s 11 divisions.

 

Superintendent Craig Thompson from the Specialist Operations Branch said: “Today’s operation sends a clear message to drug dealers that we will take robust action to disrupt their activity and put them in front of the courts.

 

“Drug dealers have no respect for local communities and we will not stand by and allow them to cause misery in order to fuel their own dishonest and antisocial lifestyles.

 

“Tackling drug-related crime is daily business and officers are out there every single day of the year hunting those responsible for bringing drugs into our communities.

 

“Help us weed out these individuals and put them behind bars where they deserve to be by calling the police or Crimestoppers anonymously.”

 

For updates on Operation Trafalgar, follow #OpTrafalgar on Twitter.

 

Visit our website for information about Neighbourhood Policing in your area of Greater Manchester. www.gmp.police.uk

 

You should call 101, the national non-emergency number, to report crime and other concerns that do not require an emergency response.

 

Always call 999 in an emergency, such as when a crime is in progress, violence is being used or threatened or where there is danger to life.

  

This portrait of James Monroe (Catalog Number INDE11916) was executed circa 1807-1811 and attributed to Felix Sharples. During their second visit to the United States beginning in the 1790s, the Sharples family of British pastelists resumed painting portraits of prominent Americans. James Sharples Senior is not known to have visited south of Philadelphia, therefore this pastel portrait of Monroe in the Sharples style is attributed to his son Felix, who traveled extensively in Virginia. Felix may have arranged this sitting after Monroe returned from England in 1807 and before he moved to Washington in early 1811. The portrait is competently done, but without James Sharples Senior's skill is modeling through the use of delicate shading. The pastel was purchased by the City of Philadelphia in 1874, from Murray Harrison.

 

James Monroe (1758-1831) was the fifth President of the United States (1817-1825). His administration was marked by the acquisition of Florida (1819); the Missouri Compromise (1820), in which Missouri was declared a slave state; and the profession of the Monroe Doctrine (1823), declaring U.S. opposition to European interference in the Americas, as well as breaking all ties with France remaining from the War of 1812.

 

The Second Bank of the United States, at 420 Chestnut Street, was chartered five years after the expiration of the First Bank of the United States in 1816 to keep inflation in check following the War of 1812. The Bank served as the depository for Federal funds until 1833, when it became the center of bitter controversy between bank president Nicholas Biddle and President Andrew Jackson. The Bank, always a privately owned institution, lost its Federal charter in 1836, and ceased operations in 1841. The Greek Revival building, built between 1819 and 1824 and modeled by architect William Strickland after the Parthenon, continued for a short time to house a banking institution under a Pennsylvania charter. From 1845 to 1935 the building served as the Philadelphia Customs House. Today it is open, free to the public, and features the "People of Independence" exhibit--a portrait gallery with 185 paintings of Colonial and Federal leaders, military officers, explorers and scientists, including many by Charles Willson Peale.

 

Independence National Historical Park preserves several sites associated with the American Revolution. Administered by the National Park Service, the 45-acre park was authorized in 1948, and established on July 4, 1956. The Second Bank of the United States was added to the Park's properties in 2006.

 

Second Bank of the United States National Register #87001293 (1987)

Independence National Park Historic District National Register #66000675 (1966)

love story. folk paintings of sohni-mahiwal have been executed in the kangra style across punjabs in both india and pakistan. the best known modern version is perhaps by sobha singh and is at the amar palace museum at jammu in original. for some reason it is displayed high up hence the perspective loss :|

 

legend/Around the 18th c., the beautiful girl Sohni was born to a potter named Tulla. They lived in Gujrat town (present-day Pakistan). At the time, Gujrat, on the river Chenab, was a caravanserai on the trade route between Bukhara and Delhi. as Sohni grew up, she helped her father decorate his pots. Their shop is said to have been near Rampyari Mahal by the river. As soon as the Surahis (water-pitchers) and mugs came off the wheel, she would draw artistic designs on them and set them up for sale. Shahzada Izzat Baig, a rich trader from Bukhara (Uzbekistan), came to Punjab on business and halted in the town of Gujrat. Here he saw Sohni at the shop and was completely smitten. The song goes that instead of looking after the 'mohars' (gold coins) in his pockets, he roamed around with his pockets full of love. Just to get a glimpse of Sohni, he would end up buying the water pitchers and mugs everyday.

Sohni too lost her heart to Izzat Baig. Instead of returning to Bukhara with his caravan, the noble-born Izzat Baig took up the job of a servant in the house of Tulla, Sohni's father. He would even take their buffaloes for grazing. Soon, he came to be known as Mehar or "Mahiwal" (buffalo herder). When the people got to know about the love of Sohni and Mahiwal, there was a commotion within the Kumhar community, who consider themselves a higher caste. It was not acceptable that a daughter from this community would marry an outsider, so her parents immediately arranged her marriage with another potter. Izzat Baig renounced the world and started living like a faqir (hermit). He eventually moved to a small hut across the river from Sohni's new home. The earth of Sohni’s land was like a shrine for him. He had forgotten his own land, his own people and his world.

In the dark of night, when the world was fast asleep, the lovers would meet by the river. Sohni would come by the riverside and Izzat would swim across to meet her. Meanwhile, rumours of their romantic rendezvous spread. One day Sohni’s sister-in-law followed her and saw the hiding place where Sohni used to keep her earthenware pitcher inside the bushes. The next day, the sister-in-law removed the hard baked pitcher and replaced it with an unbaked one. That night, when Sohni tried to cross the river with the help of the pitcher, it dissolved in the water and Sohni drowned. From the other side of the river, Mahiwal saw Sohni drowning and jumped into the river and drowned as well.Thus their union was effected.

According to sources, a confrontation between residents and Ethiopian government officials broke out on June 9, 2014, over a mass grave discovered at the former Hameressa military garrison near Harar city, eastern Oromia. The mass grave is believed to contain remains of political prisoners executed during both the Dergue era and the early reigns of the current TPLF regime. Among those who were executed and buried in the location was Mustafa Harowe, a famous Oromo singer who was killed around early 1990′s for his revolutionary songs. Thousands more Oromo political prisoners were kept at this location in early 1990′s – with many of them never to be seen again.

 

The mass grave was discovered while the Ethiopian government was clearing the camp with bulldozers to make it available to Turkish investors. Upon the discovery of the remains, the government tried to quietly remove them from the site. However, workers secretly alerted residents in nearby villages; upon the spread of the news, many turned up en mass to block the removal of the remains and demanded construction a memorial statue on the site instead. The protests is still continuing with elders camping on the site while awaiting a response from government.

 

In addition to the remains, belongings of the dead individuals as well as ropes tied in hangman’s noose were discovered at the site.

 

———————

 

Lafeen ilmaan Oromoo bara 1980moota keessa mootummaa Darguutin, baroota 1990moota keessa ammoo Wayyaaneen dhoksaan kaampii waraanaa Hammarreessaa keessatti ajjeefamanii argame. Ilmaan Oromoo mooraa san keessatti hidhamanii booda ajjeefaman keessa wallisaan beekamaan Musxafaa Harawwee isa tokko. Musxafaa Harawwee wallee qabsoo inni baasaa tureef jecha qabamee yeroo dheeraaf erga hiraarfamee booda toora bara ~1991 keessa ajjeefame. Hiraar Musxafaarra geessifamaa ture keessa tokko aara wallee isaatirraa qaban garsiisuuf muka afaanitti dhiibuun a’oo isaa cabsuun ni yaadatama.

 

Baroota 1990moota keessas Oromoonni kumaatamaan tilmaamaman warra amma aangorra jiru kanaan achitti hidhamanii, hedduun isaanii achumaan dhabamuun yaadannoo yeroo dhihooti.

 

Haqxi dukkana halkaniitiin ajjeesanii lafa jalatti awwaalan kunoo har’a rabbi as baase. Dhugaan Oromoo tun kan amma as bahe, mootummaa kaampii waraanaa kana diiguun warra lafa isaa warra Turkiitiif kennuuf osoo qopheessuuf yaaluti. Lafee warra dhumee akkuma arganiin dhoksaan achirra gara biraatti dabarsuuf osoo yaalanii hojjattonni ummata naannotti iccitii san himan. Ummanniis dafee wal-dammaqsuun bakka sanitti argamuun ekeraan nama keenyaa akka achii hin kaafamneefi siidaan yaadannoo akka jaaramu gaafachaa jiran.

 

Hamma feetes turtu dhugaan Oromoo awwaalamtee hin haftu.

 

-----

More on the Mass Grave of Oromos at Hameressa:

1) OLF on the Hameressa Mas Grave: gadaa.net/FinfinneTribune/2014/06/olf-press-release-one-o... .... or gadaa.net/FinfinneTribune/2014/06/ibsa-abo-ajjeechaa-ilma...

 

2) gadaa.net/FinfinneTribune/2014/06/jaal-araarsoo-biqilaa-h...

 

3) gadaa.net/FinfinneTribune/2014/06/oromoprotests-fdg-hamma...

 

4) gadaa.net/FinfinneTribune/2014/06/gulelepost-hameressa-ma...

Headstone marking the grave of Kelley Moss in the Crayne Cemetery

 

Crayne, Kentucky....

 

Kelley Moss was born on March 23, 1913 in Crayne. Moss spent much of his life incarcerated for a variety of crimes ranging from assault to robbery.

 

In September 1957, he was released from the Kentucky State Penitentiary in Eddyville, Kentucky after serving a three-year sentence for robbery. Less than two months later, Moss beat his elderly stepfather to death in the kitchen of his home.

 

Kelley Moss was executed in the electric chair at the Kentucky State Penitentiary on the night of March 2, 1962 for the beating death of his stepfather. He was given a porterhouse steak and steak fries for his last meal but refused to eat any of it. Those in attendance at his execution stated that tears rolled down Moss' face just before the hood was placed over his head....

 

Moss was the last man executed by the state of Kentucky until 1997....

  

The Kentucky State Penitentiary where Moss was executed....the prison is home to Kentucky's Death Row:

 

www.flickr.com/photos/144957155@N06/34813506426/in/photol...

Herman Heinrich C. J. Faje, one of fourteen people charged in civilian courts with aiding eight Nazi saboteurs who landed by submarine on U.S. shores In June 1942, is shown in a mugshot after his arrest.

 

Faje was aa close friend of Henrich Heinck, one of a group of German Nazi saboteurs who landed by U-boat near what is now Atlantic Beach on June 17, 1942.

 

Herman Faje born 1906 in Hamburg Germany and came to the United States in 1928. He lived in New York with his wife Hildegarde who was two years his junior. Upon arrival in the U.S., Faje worked as a steward aboard the Hamburg-American Line and on private yachts, in New York restaurants and as a hairdresser.

 

The German couple were naturalized citizens with Herman Fage becoming a citizen in 1936. Herman Faje and his wife Hlldegarde (no photo available), were Indicted on treason charges in November 1942 for harboring and helping Heinck.

 

They were specifically charged with holding $3,600 in money that Heinck had been provided and hiding the money belt in a radiator in their home. They were also allegedly fully aware of how Heinck and Richard Quirin had arrived and what their plans were.

 

Heinck allegedly told Faje that any German who helped the saboteurs would get an Iron Cross 2nd class medal for their efforts.

 

The eight saboteurs were quickly convicted--six of whom, including Heinck and Quirin, were executed in August 1942; one received a life sentence; and one received 30 years imprisonment following a Washington, D.C. military trial.

 

Fourteen other people, including the Fajes, were charged with aiding the eight saboteurs. The Fages were charged with treason and the government was seeking the death penalty.

 

The Fage’s trial was postponed in late 1942, but the two were apparently held as enemy aliens until January 1946 when Herman Faje pled guilty to a lesser charge. He was sentenced to five years in prison while charges were dropped against his wife.

 

Of the others charged with aiding the saboteurs some received various prison terms, some had charges dropped, some were detained as enemy aliens and deported after the war ended.

 

For more information and related images, see flic.kr/s/aHsmPiRmT4

 

The photographer is unknown. The image is believed to be a U.S. government photograph. It is housed in the D.C. Library Washington Star Collection.

 

4 May is the feast of the English Martyrs who died during the Reformation. Saint Alexander Briant was an English Jesuit and martyr, born in Somerset about 1556; executed at Tyburn, 2 December 1581.

 

He entered Hart Hall, Oxford (now Hertford College), at an early age. While there, he became a pupil of Father Robert Persons to which fact, together with his association with Richard Holtby, is attributed his conversion.

 

Having left the university he entered the English college at Reims, and was ordained priest 29 March 1578. Assigned to the English mission in August of the following year he labored with zeal in his own county of Somersetshire.

 

A party of the persecution, searching for Father Robert Persons, placed Alexander Briant under arrest on 28 April 1581, in the hope of extorting information. After fruitless attempts to this end at Counter Prison, London, he was taken to the Tower where he was subjected to excruciating tortures. To the rack, starvation, and cold was added the inhuman forcing of needles under the nails. With six other priests he was arraigned, 16 November 1581, in Queen's Bench, Westminster, on the charge of high treason, and condemned to death. The details of this last great suffering, which occurred on the 2 December following, like those of the previous torture are revolting. Through either malice or carelessness of the executioner he was put to needless suffering. His face is said to have been strikingly beautiful even up to his death.

 

In his letter to the Jesuit Fathers he protests that he felt no pain during the tortures he underwent, and adds: "Whether this that I say be miraculous or no, God knowth". He was scarcely more than twenty-five years of age at the time of his martyrdom.

 

He was canonised in 1970 as one of the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales.

13 th. KOREA ORIGAMI CREATION CONTEST

   

korea origami association encourages creation of origami, and execute origami creation

contest to prepare origami's base extension and origami's culture on every year.

   

* WORK OF PARTICIPATION

 

1.one sheet and unpublished work.

2.unit work.

3.complex Work that use paper of more than 2 sheets.

   

* TARGET OF PARTICIPATION

 

- korea and foreign countries.

   

* METHOD OF APPLICATION

 

1.work (your original model)

- diagram or scrap also crease pattern is possible.

 

2.size of work

- in case of plane work : should be small more than A3 paper.

- in case of solid work : almost size of 30cm x 30cm x 30cm.

 

(Should be packaged well in the box so that your model is not damaged.)

 

3.the number of work

 

- maximum is 5 work about one person.

 

4.money for registration is no charge but you should pay delivery fare of work.

   

* PERIOD FOR REGISTRATION

 

- 2011.7.1 ~ 2011.7.30 (year/month/day)

- Your work is not returned and will be exhibited to 2th korea origami convention in seoul.

www.origami.or.kr/culture/noticeBoard.asp?section=view&am...

   

* METHOD OF DELIVERY AND ADDRESS

 

- by post

- KOREA ORIGAMI ASSOCIATION OFFICE,

Myeongjin Building-First Floor, 366-104 Bunji,

Sindang 3-dong, Jung-gu, Seoul,

100-830, South Korea (Republic of Korea)

   

* WINNER OF CONTEST THE ANNOUNCEMENT

 

- 2011.8.9 (year/month/day)

   

* PRESENTATION OF PRIZES AND EXHIBITION IN 2th KOREA ORIGAMI CONVENTION

 

- 2011.8.19 ~ 2011.8.21 (year/month/day)

- You can know your winning a prize at here.

www.origami.or.kr/home/home.asp

- location of convention is sookmyung women's university in seoul.

www.sookmyung.ac.kr/

   

* ABOUT PRIZE

 

first prize - testimonial and approximately USD 450 (1person)

gold prize - testimonial and approximately USD 270 (1person)

silver prize - testimonial and approximately USD 180 (2people)

copper prize - tsstimonial and approximately USD 90 (3people)

prize for encouragement - testimonial and approximately USD 45 (a few persons)

only wining a prize - testimonial and goods (a few persons)

   

* CAUTION

 

- a prize will cancel in case of is not your creation work.

 

BY THE WAY if you need more information or question.

- e mail address : linetest@naver.com (responsible person is Lee, Kyung Gu)

   

* ORIGINAL POSTER OF CONTEST

 

www.jongiejupgi.or.kr/culture/contestBoard.asp?section=vi...

 

[출처] 공모전 해외홍보관련 (접지가인) |작성자 조폭군종

   

the iliveisl sim, Enercity Park, goes away shortly after these pics were taken. it was one of only 100 or so remaining openspace sims.

 

it had been 3750 prims but when Linden Lab poorly executed their change in policy and pricing and went from $75 to $95 per month and from 3750 prims to 750 prims, this became the most expensive type of land isl

 

but i promised my residents that Enercity would have a park so kept it until the estate was transferred to the very best residents in all of second life

 

the park was the closest to a home that Ener Hax had. two sparse fallout shelters would become Ener's homes

 

one just a bare mattress and cardboard boxes to reduce drafts from broken windows and had and old turret slowly rotating that stood as a silent sentinel to bygone eras when we humans could have taken a lesson from our own avatars and the other a small emergency shelter for the bus stop

 

the lake in the park was called Butterfly Lake from its shape when viewed from the air and had a swan and ducklings swimming and a nice bench for friends to sit and visit under a weeping willow. near that spot was an old underground shelter to park military vehicles. that spot became an underground skatepark and was connected to the city's catacombs. these catacombs, like in Paris, ran below the city streets

 

zombies lived in one section near a small graveyard. no one knew why zombies were there, some suspect it was related to the war time bunkers. the manhole cover near the zombies was opened and the catacombs tagged with "i <3 ener hax" and "subQuark sux"

 

the most favourite spot for Ener Hax was near the bus stop and the 1950's era rotating and steaming coffee billboard (hmm, maybe the chemical smoke from that big coffee cup is to blame for the zombies? after all, the "steam" does drift over the grave yard

 

the fave spot looked over the smaller lake west of the bus stop and was in view of one of the parks two waterfalls. that spot was made very special because of Mr. Bunny. Ener loved to sit on the ground and just watch Mr. Bunny hop around and doze occasionally. what a cute bunny =) he even had his own carrots planted by Ener

 

high above the eastern part of the park was the huge zebra striped zeppelin. a bit of a trademark of the iliveisl estate

 

it was a lovely spot, even had tai chi on the big bunker and a zip line from the water tower

 

ooh, the water tower! as a surprise gift, DreamWalker scripted the water tower and turned it int a funky hang out spot. there was an abandoned pool inside the tower (???) and place to sit and talk. even a cute ladybug called it home. the water tower's top would slide up and down and also turn invisible. for romance, a moon beam came through the towers top port and could even have its brightness changed

 

even though the park was outrageously expensive, it was Ener Hax and Mr. Bunnies home and will be sincerely missed

 

namas te

Klinkicht, Gerhard, * 1915, † 14.03.2000 Bavaria, Wehrmacht Captain. A commemorative plaque on St. Stephen's Cathedral (side of the gate Singertor) recalls that in April 1945 Klinkicht refused to execute the order to bombard the cathedral.

 

Klinkicht, Gerhard, * 1915, † 14.03.2000 Bayern, Wehrmachtshauptmann. Eine Gedenktafel am Stephansdom (Seite des Singertors) hält in Erinnerung, dass sich Klinkicht im April 1945 geweigert hatte, den Befehl zur Beschießung des Doms auszuführen.

 

Fire in St. Stephen's Cathedral: eyewitnesses cried in the face of devastation.

Despite great need after the war, the landmark of Austria was rebuilt within seven years.

04th April 2015

What happened in the heart of Vienna 70 years ago brought tears to many horrified residents. On 12 April 1945, the Pummerin, the largest bell of St. Stephen's Cathedral, fell as a result of a roof fire in the tower hall and broke to pieces. The following day, a collapsing retaining wall pierced through the vault of the southern side choir, the penetrating the cathedral fire destroyed the choir stalls and choir organ, the Imperial oratory and the rood screen cross. St. Stephen's Cathedral offered a pitiful image of senseless destruction, almost at the end of that terrible time when the Viennese asked after each bombing anxiously: "Is Steffl still standing?"

100 grenades for the cathedral

Already on April 10, the cathedral was to be razed to the ground. In retaliation for hoisting a white flag on St. Stephen's Cathedral, the dome must be reduced to rubble and ash with a fiery blast of a hundred shells. Such was the insane command of the commander of an SS Artillery Division in the already lost battle for Vienna against the Red Army.

The Wehrmacht Captain Gerhard Klinkicht, from Celle near Hanover, read the written order to his soldiers and tore the note in front of them with the words: "No, this order will not be executed."

What the SS failed to do, settled looters the day after. The most important witness of the events from April 11 to 13, became Domkurat (cathedral curate) Lothar Kodeischka (1905-1994), who, as the sacristan director of St. Stephen, was practically on the spot throughout these days. When Waffen-SS and Red Army confronted each other on the Danube Canal on April 11, according to Kodeischka a report had appeared that SS units were making a counter-attack over the Augarten Bridge. Parts of the Soviet artillery were then withdrawn from Saint Stephen's square. For hours, the central area of ​​the city center was without occupying forces. This was helped by gangs of raiders who set fire to the afflicted shops.

As a stone witness to the imperishable, the cathedral had defied all adversity for over 800 years, survived the conflagrations, siege of the Turks and the French wars, but in the last weeks of the Second World War St. Stephen was no longer spared the rage of annihilation. Contemporary witness Karl Strobl in those days observed "an old Viennese lady who wept over the burning cathedral".

The stunned spectators of destruction were joined, according to press reports, by a man in baggy trousers and a shabby hat, who incidentally remarked, "Well, we'll just have to rebuild him (the dome)." It was Cardinal Theodor Innitzer. Only a few weeks later, on May 15, 1945, the Viennese archbishop proclaimed to the faithful of his diocese: "Helping our cathedral, St. Stephen's Cathedral, to regain its original beauty is an affair of the heart of all Catholics, a duty of honor for all."

 

April 1945

In April 1945, not only St. Stephen's Cathedral burned. We did some research for you this month.

April 6: The tallest wooden structure of all time, the 190 meter high wooden tower (short-wave transmitter) of the transmitter Mühlacker, is blown up by the SS.

April 12: Following the death of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman is sworn in as the 33rd US President.

April 13: Vienna Operation: Soviet troops conquer Vienna.

April 25: Björn Ulvaeus, Swedish singer, member of the ABBA group, is born.

April 27: The provisional government Renner proclaims the Austrian declaration of independence.

April 30: The Red Army hoists the Soviet flag on the Reichstag building. Adolf Hitler, the dictator of the Third Reich, commits suicide with Eva Braun.

 

Brand im Stephansdom: Augenzeugen weinten angesichts der Verwüstung.

Trotz großer Not nach dem Krieg wurde das Wahrzeichen Österreichs binnen sieben Jahren wieder aufgebaut.

04. April 2015

Was vor 70 Jahren im Herzen Wiens passierte, trieb vielen entsetzten Bewohnern die Tränen in die Augen. Am 12. April 1945 stürzte die Pummerin, die größte Glocke des Stephansdoms, als Folge eines Dachbrandes in die Turmhalle herab und zerbrach. Tags darauf durchschlug eine einbrechende Stützmauer das Gewölbe des südlichen Seitenchors, das in den Dom eindringende Feuer zerstörte Chorgestühl und Chororgel, Kaiseroratorium und Lettnerkreuz. Der Stephansdom bot ein erbarmungswürdiges Bild sinnloser Zerstörung, und das fast am Ende jener Schreckenszeit, in der die Wiener nach jedem Bombenangriff bang fragten: "Steht der Steffl noch?"

100 Granaten für den Dom

Bereits am 10. April sollte der Dom dem Erdboden gleichgemacht werden. Als Vergeltung für das Hissen einer weißen Fahne auf dem Stephansdom ist der Dom mit einem Feuerschlag von 100 Granaten in Schutt und Asche zu legen. So lautete der wahnwitzige Befehl des Kommandanten einer SS-Artillerieabteilung im schon verlorenen Kampf um Wien gegen die Rote Armee.

Der aus Celle bei Hannover stammende Wehrmachtshauptmann Gerhard Klinkicht las die schriftlich übermittelte Anordnung seinen Soldaten vor und zerriss den Zettel vor aller Augen mit den Worten: "Nein, dieser Befehl wird nicht ausgeführt."

Was der SS nicht gelang, besorgten einen Tag später Plünderer: Zum wichtigsten Zeugen der Geschehnisse vom 11. bis 13. April wurde Domkurat Lothar Kodeischka (1905–1994), der als Sakristeidirektor von St. Stephan in diesen Tagen praktisch durchgehend an Ort und Stelle war. Als am 11. April Waffen-SS und Rote Armee einander am Donaukanal gegenüberstanden, war laut Kodeischka die Nachricht aufgetaucht, SS-Einheiten würden einen Gegenstoß über die Augartenbrücke unternehmen. Teile der sowjetischen Artillerie wurden daraufhin vom Stephansplatz abgezogen. Für Stunden sei der zentrale Bereich der Innenstadt ohne Besatzung gewesen. Dies nützten Banden von Plünderern, die Feuer in den heimgesuchten Geschäften legten.

Als steinerner Zeuge des Unvergänglichen hatte der Dom über 800 Jahre hinweg "allen Widrigkeiten getrotzt, hatte Feuersbrünste, Türkenbelagerungen und Franzosenkriege überstanden. Doch in den letzten Wochen des Zweiten Weltkrieges blieb auch St. Stephan nicht mehr verschont vor der Wut der Vernichtung. Zeitzeuge Karl Strobl beobachtete damals "eine alte Wienerin, die über den brennenden Dom weinte".

Zu den fassungslosen Betrachtern der Zerstörung gesellte sich laut Presseberichten ein Mann in ausgebeulten Hosen und mit abgeschabtem Hut, der so nebenbei bemerkte: "Na, wir werden ihn (den Dom) halt wieder aufbauen müssen." Es handelte sich um Kardinal Theodor Innitzer. Nur wenige Wochen danach, am 15. Mai 1945, ließ der Wiener Erzbischof an die Gläubigen seiner Diözese verlautbaren: "Unsere Kathedrale, den Stephansdom, wieder in seiner ursprünglichen Schönheit erstehen zu helfen, ist eine Herzenssache aller Katholiken, eine Ehrenpflicht aller."

 

April 1945

Im April 1945 brannte nicht nur der Stephansdom. Wir haben für Sie recherchiert wa noch in diesem Monat geschah.

6. April: Das höchste Holzbauwerk aller Zeiten, der 190 Meter hohe Holzsendeturm des Senders Mühlacker, wird von der SS gesprengt.

12. April: Nach dem Tod von Präsident Franklin D. Roosevelt wird Harry S. Truman als 33. Präsident der USA vereidigt.

13. April: Wiener Operation: Sowjetischen Truppen erobern Wien.

25. April: Björn Ulvaeus, schwedischer Sänger, Mitglied der Gruppe ABBA, kommt zur Welt.

27. April: Von der provisorischen Regierung Renner wird die österreichische Unabhängigkeitserklärung proklamiert.

30. April: Die Rote Armee hisst die sowjetische Fahne auf dem Reichstagsgebäude. Adolf Hitler, der Diktator des Dritten Reiches, begeht mit Eva Braun Selbstmord.

www.nachrichten.at/nachrichten/150jahre/ooenachrichten/Vo...

Klinkicht, Gerhard, * 1915, † 14.03.2000 Bavaria, Wehrmacht Captain. A commemorative plaque on St. Stephen's Cathedral (side of the gate Singertor) recalls that in April 1945 Klinkicht refused to execute the order to bombard the cathedral.

 

Klinkicht, Gerhard, * 1915, † 14.03.2000 Bayern, Wehrmachtshauptmann. Eine Gedenktafel am Stephansdom (Seite des Singertors) hält in Erinnerung, dass sich Klinkicht im April 1945 geweigert hatte, den Befehl zur Beschießung des Doms auszuführen.

 

Fire in St. Stephen's Cathedral: eyewitnesses cried in the face of devastation.

Despite great need after the war, the landmark of Austria was rebuilt within seven years.

04th April 2015

What happened in the heart of Vienna 70 years ago brought tears to many horrified residents. On 12 April 1945, the Pummerin, the largest bell of St. Stephen's Cathedral, fell as a result of a roof fire in the tower hall and broke to pieces. The following day, a collapsing retaining wall pierced through the vault of the southern side choir, the penetrating the cathedral fire destroyed the choir stalls and choir organ, the Imperial oratory and the rood screen cross. St. Stephen's Cathedral offered a pitiful image of senseless destruction, almost at the end of that terrible time when the Viennese asked after each bombing anxiously: "Is Steffl still standing?"

100 grenades for the cathedral

Already on April 10, the cathedral was to be razed to the ground. In retaliation for hoisting a white flag on St. Stephen's Cathedral, the dome must be reduced to rubble and ash with a fiery blast of a hundred shells. Such was the insane command of the commander of an SS Artillery Division in the already lost battle for Vienna against the Red Army.

The Wehrmacht Captain Gerhard Klinkicht, from Celle near Hanover, read the written order to his soldiers and tore the note in front of them with the words: "No, this order will not be executed."

What the SS failed to do, settled looters the day after. The most important witness of the events from April 11 to 13, became Domkurat (cathedral curate) Lothar Kodeischka (1905-1994), who, as the sacristan director of St. Stephen, was practically on the spot throughout these days. When Waffen-SS and Red Army confronted each other on the Danube Canal on April 11, according to Kodeischka a report had appeared that SS units were making a counter-attack over the Augarten Bridge. Parts of the Soviet artillery were then withdrawn from Saint Stephen's square. For hours, the central area of ​​the city center was without occupying forces. This was helped by gangs of raiders who set fire to the afflicted shops.

As a stone witness to the imperishable, the cathedral had defied all adversity for over 800 years, survived the conflagrations, siege of the Turks and the French wars, but in the last weeks of the Second World War St. Stephen was no longer spared the rage of annihilation. Contemporary witness Karl Strobl in those days observed "an old Viennese lady who wept over the burning cathedral".

The stunned spectators of destruction were joined, according to press reports, by a man in baggy trousers and a shabby hat, who incidentally remarked, "Well, we'll just have to rebuild him (the dome)." It was Cardinal Theodor Innitzer. Only a few weeks later, on May 15, 1945, the Viennese archbishop proclaimed to the faithful of his diocese: "Helping our cathedral, St. Stephen's Cathedral, to regain its original beauty is an affair of the heart of all Catholics, a duty of honor for all."

 

April 1945

In April 1945, not only St. Stephen's Cathedral burned. We did some research for you this month.

April 6: The tallest wooden structure of all time, the 190 meter high wooden tower (short-wave transmitter) of the transmitter Mühlacker, is blown up by the SS.

April 12: Following the death of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman is sworn in as the 33rd US President.

April 13: Vienna Operation: Soviet troops conquer Vienna.

April 25: Björn Ulvaeus, Swedish singer, member of the ABBA group, is born.

April 27: The provisional government Renner proclaims the Austrian declaration of independence.

April 30: The Red Army hoists the Soviet flag on the Reichstag building. Adolf Hitler, the dictator of the Third Reich, commits suicide with Eva Braun.

 

Brand im Stephansdom: Augenzeugen weinten angesichts der Verwüstung.

Trotz großer Not nach dem Krieg wurde das Wahrzeichen Österreichs binnen sieben Jahren wieder aufgebaut.

04. April 2015

Was vor 70 Jahren im Herzen Wiens passierte, trieb vielen entsetzten Bewohnern die Tränen in die Augen. Am 12. April 1945 stürzte die Pummerin, die größte Glocke des Stephansdoms, als Folge eines Dachbrandes in die Turmhalle herab und zerbrach. Tags darauf durchschlug eine einbrechende Stützmauer das Gewölbe des südlichen Seitenchors, das in den Dom eindringende Feuer zerstörte Chorgestühl und Chororgel, Kaiseroratorium und Lettnerkreuz. Der Stephansdom bot ein erbarmungswürdiges Bild sinnloser Zerstörung, und das fast am Ende jener Schreckenszeit, in der die Wiener nach jedem Bombenangriff bang fragten: "Steht der Steffl noch?"

100 Granaten für den Dom

Bereits am 10. April sollte der Dom dem Erdboden gleichgemacht werden. Als Vergeltung für das Hissen einer weißen Fahne auf dem Stephansdom ist der Dom mit einem Feuerschlag von 100 Granaten in Schutt und Asche zu legen. So lautete der wahnwitzige Befehl des Kommandanten einer SS-Artillerieabteilung im schon verlorenen Kampf um Wien gegen die Rote Armee.

Der aus Celle bei Hannover stammende Wehrmachtshauptmann Gerhard Klinkicht las die schriftlich übermittelte Anordnung seinen Soldaten vor und zerriss den Zettel vor aller Augen mit den Worten: "Nein, dieser Befehl wird nicht ausgeführt."

Was der SS nicht gelang, besorgten einen Tag später Plünderer: Zum wichtigsten Zeugen der Geschehnisse vom 11. bis 13. April wurde Domkurat Lothar Kodeischka (1905–1994), der als Sakristeidirektor von St. Stephan in diesen Tagen praktisch durchgehend an Ort und Stelle war. Als am 11. April Waffen-SS und Rote Armee einander am Donaukanal gegenüberstanden, war laut Kodeischka die Nachricht aufgetaucht, SS-Einheiten würden einen Gegenstoß über die Augartenbrücke unternehmen. Teile der sowjetischen Artillerie wurden daraufhin vom Stephansplatz abgezogen. Für Stunden sei der zentrale Bereich der Innenstadt ohne Besatzung gewesen. Dies nützten Banden von Plünderern, die Feuer in den heimgesuchten Geschäften legten.

Als steinerner Zeuge des Unvergänglichen hatte der Dom über 800 Jahre hinweg "allen Widrigkeiten getrotzt, hatte Feuersbrünste, Türkenbelagerungen und Franzosenkriege überstanden. Doch in den letzten Wochen des Zweiten Weltkrieges blieb auch St. Stephan nicht mehr verschont vor der Wut der Vernichtung. Zeitzeuge Karl Strobl beobachtete damals "eine alte Wienerin, die über den brennenden Dom weinte".

Zu den fassungslosen Betrachtern der Zerstörung gesellte sich laut Presseberichten ein Mann in ausgebeulten Hosen und mit abgeschabtem Hut, der so nebenbei bemerkte: "Na, wir werden ihn (den Dom) halt wieder aufbauen müssen." Es handelte sich um Kardinal Theodor Innitzer. Nur wenige Wochen danach, am 15. Mai 1945, ließ der Wiener Erzbischof an die Gläubigen seiner Diözese verlautbaren: "Unsere Kathedrale, den Stephansdom, wieder in seiner ursprünglichen Schönheit erstehen zu helfen, ist eine Herzenssache aller Katholiken, eine Ehrenpflicht aller."

 

April 1945

Im April 1945 brannte nicht nur der Stephansdom. Wir haben für Sie recherchiert wa noch in diesem Monat geschah.

6. April: Das höchste Holzbauwerk aller Zeiten, der 190 Meter hohe Holzsendeturm des Senders Mühlacker, wird von der SS gesprengt.

12. April: Nach dem Tod von Präsident Franklin D. Roosevelt wird Harry S. Truman als 33. Präsident der USA vereidigt.

13. April: Wiener Operation: Sowjetischen Truppen erobern Wien.

25. April: Björn Ulvaeus, schwedischer Sänger, Mitglied der Gruppe ABBA, kommt zur Welt.

27. April: Von der provisorischen Regierung Renner wird die österreichische Unabhängigkeitserklärung proklamiert.

30. April: Die Rote Armee hisst die sowjetische Fahne auf dem Reichstagsgebäude. Adolf Hitler, der Diktator des Dritten Reiches, begeht mit Eva Braun Selbstmord.

www.nachrichten.at/nachrichten/150jahre/ooenachrichten/Vo...

Mark Rothko, born Markus Yakovlevich Rothkowitz (Russian: Ма́ркус Я́ковлевич Ротко́вич, Latvian: Markuss Rotkovičs; name not Anglicized until 1940; September 25, 1903 – February 25, 1970), was a Latvian-born American abstract painter. He is best known for his color field paintings that depicted irregular and painterly rectangular regions of color, which he produced from 1949 to 1970.

 

Although Rothko did not personally subscribe to any one school, he is associated with the American Abstract Expressionist movement of modern art. Originally emigrating to Portland, Oregon, from Russian Empire (Latvia) with his family, Rothko later moved to New York City where his youthful period of artistic production dealt primarily with urban scenery. In response to World War II, Rothko's art entered a transitional phase during the 1940s, where he experimented with mythological themes and Surrealism to express tragedy. Toward the end of the decade, Rothko painted canvases with regions of pure color which he further abstracted into rectangular color forms, the idiom he would use for the rest of his life.

 

In his later career, Rothko executed several canvases for three different mural projects. The Seagram murals were to have decorated the Four Seasons Restaurant in the Seagram Building, but Rothko eventually grew disgusted with the idea that his paintings would be decorative objects for wealthy diners and refunded the lucrative commission, donating the paintings to museums including the Tate Modern. The Harvard Mural series was donated to a dining room in Harvard's Holyoke Center (now Smith Campus Center); their colors faded badly over time due to Rothko's use of the pigment Lithol Red together with regular sunlight exposure. The Harvard series has since been restored using a special lighting technique. Rothko contributed 14 canvases to a permanent installation at the Rothko Chapel, a non-denominational chapel in Houston, Texas.

 

Although Rothko lived modestly for much of his life, the resale value of his paintings grew tremendously in the decades following his suicide in 1970. In 2021, one of his works sold at auction for $82.5 million.

 

Childhood

 

Mark Rothko was born in Dvinsk, in the Russian Empire (now Daugavpils, Latvia). His father, Jacob (Yakov) Rothkowitz, was a pharmacist and intellectual who initially provided his children with a secular and political, rather than religious, upbringing. According to Rothko, his Marxist father was "violently anti-religious". In an environment where Jews were often blamed for many of the evils that befell Russia, Rothko's early childhood was plagued by fear.

 

Despite Jacob Rothkowitz's modest income, the family was highly educated ("We were a reading family", Rothko's sister recalled), and Rothko spoke Lithuanian Yiddish (Litvish), Hebrew and Russian. Following his father's return to the Orthodox Judaism of his own youth, Rothko, the youngest of four siblings, was sent to the cheder at age five, where he studied the Talmud, although his elder siblings had been educated in the public school system.

 

Migration from Russia to the U.S.

 

Fearing that his elder sons were about to be drafted into the Imperial Russian Army, Jacob Rothkowitz emigrated from Russia to the United States. Markus remained in Russia with his mother and elder sister Sonia. They arrived as immigrants, at Ellis Island, in late 1913. From there, they crossed the country, to join Jacob and the elder brothers, in Portland, Oregon. Jacob's death, a few months later, of colon cancer, left the family without economic support. Sonia operated a cash register, while Markus worked in one of his uncle's warehouses, selling newspapers to employees. His father's death also led Rothko to sever his ties with religion. After he had mourned his father's death for almost a year at a local synagogue, he vowed never to set foot in one again.

 

Rothko started school in the United States in 1913, quickly accelerating from third to fifth grade. In June 1921, he completed the secondary level, with honors, at Lincoln High School in Portland, Oregon, at age 17. He learned his fourth language, English, and became an active member of the Jewish community center, where he proved adept at political discussions. Like his father, Rothko was passionate about issues such as workers' rights and contraception. At the time, Portland was a center of revolutionary activity in the U.S. and the region where the revolutionary syndicalist union Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) was active.

 

Having grown up around radical workers' meetings, Rothko attended meetings of the IWW, including such speakers as the radical socialist Bill Haywood and the anarchist Emma Goldman, where he developed strong oratorical skills he later used in defense of Surrealism. With the onset of the Russian Revolution, Rothko organized debates about it. Despite the repressive political atmosphere, he wished to become a labor union organizer.

 

Rothko received a scholarship to Yale. At the end of his first year in 1922, the scholarship was not renewed, and he worked as a waiter and delivery boy to support his studies. He found Yale elitist and racist. Rothko and a friend, Aaron Director, started a satirical magazine, The Yale Saturday Evening Pest, that lampooned the school's stuffy, bourgeois tone. Rothko was more an autodidact than a diligent pupil:

 

One of his fellow students remembers that he hardly seemed to study, but that he was a voracious reader.

 

At the end of his sophomore year, Rothko dropped out, and he did not return until he was awarded an honorary degree 46 years later.

 

Early career

 

In the autumn of 1923, Rothko found work in New York's garment district. While visiting a friend at the Art Students League of New York, he saw students sketching a model. According to Rothko, this was the beginning of his life as an artist. He later enrolled in the Parsons The New School for Design, where one of his instructors was Arshile Gorky. Rothko characterized Gorky's leadership of the class as "overcharged with supervision." That same autumn, he took courses at the Art Students League taught by Cubist artist Max Weber, who had been a part of the French avant-garde movement. To his students eager to know about Modernism, Weber was seen as "a living repository of modern art history". Under Weber's tutelage, Rothko began to view art as a tool of emotional and religious expression. Rothko's paintings from this era reveal the influence of his instructor. Years later, when Weber attended a show of his former student's work and expressed his admiration, Rothko was immensely pleased.

 

Rothko's circle

 

Rothko's move to New York landed him in a fertile artistic atmosphere. Modernist painters regularly exhibited in New York galleries, and the city's museums were an invaluable resource for a budding artist's knowledge and skills. Among the important early influences on him were the works of the German Expressionists, the surrealist art of Paul Klee, and the paintings of Georges Rouault.

 

In 1928, with a group of other young artists, Rothko exhibited works at the Opportunity Gallery. His paintings, including dark, moody, expressionist interiors and urban scenes, were generally well accepted among critics and peers. To supplement his income, in 1929 Rothko began instructing schoolchildren in drawing, painting, and clay sculpture at the Center Academy of the Brooklyn Jewish Center, where he remained active for over twenty years.

 

During the early 1930s, Rothko met Adolph Gottlieb, who, along with Barnett Newman, Joseph Solman, Louis Schanker, and John Graham, was part of a group of young artists surrounding the painter Milton Avery. According to Elaine de Kooning, it was Avery who "gave Rothko the idea that [the life of a professional artist] was a possibility." Avery's abstract nature paintings, utilizing a rich knowledge of form and color, had a tremendous influence on him. Soon, Rothko's paintings took on the subject matter and color similar to Avery's, as seen in Bathers, or Beach Scene of 1933–1934.

 

Rothko, Gottlieb, Newman, Solman, Graham, and their mentor, Avery, spent considerable time together, vacationing at Lake George, New York, and Gloucester, Massachusetts. In the daytime, they painted, then discussed art in the evenings. During a 1932 visit to Lake George, Rothko met Edith Sachar, a jewelry designer, whom he married later that year. The following summer, his first one-person show was held at the Portland Art Museum, consisting mostly of drawings and aquarelles. For this exhibition, Rothko took the very unusual step of displaying works done by his pre-adolescent students from the Center Academy, alongside his own. His family was unable to understand Rothko's decision to be an artist, especially considering the dire economic situation of the Depression. Having suffered serious financial setbacks, the Rothkowitzes were mystified by Rothko's seeming indifference to financial necessity. They felt he was doing his mother a disservice by not finding a more lucrative and realistic career.

 

First solo show in New York

 

Returning to New York, Rothko had his first East Coast one-person show at the Contemporary Arts Gallery. He showed fifteen oil paintings, mostly portraits, along with some aquarelles and drawings. Among these works, the oil paintings especially captured the art critics' eyes. Rothko's use of rich fields of colors moved beyond Avery's influence. In late 1935, Rothko joined with Ilya Bolotowsky, Ben-Zion, Adolph Gottlieb, Louis Harris, Ralph Rosenborg, Louis Schanker and Joseph Solman to form "The Ten". According to a gallery show catalog, the mission of the group was "to protest against the reputed equivalence of American painting and literal painting."

 

Rothko was earning a growing reputation among his peers, particularly among the group that formed the Artists' Union. The Artists' Union, including Gottlieb and Solman, hoped to create a municipal art gallery, to show self-organized group exhibitions. In 1936, the group exhibited at the Galerie Bonaparte in France, which resulted in some positive critical attention. One reviewer remarked that Rothko's paintings "display authentic coloristic values." Later, in 1938, a show was held at the Mercury Gallery in New York, intended as a protest against the Whitney Museum of American Art, which the group regarded as having a provincial, regionalist agenda. Also during this period, Rothko, like Avery, Gorky, Pollock, de Kooning, and many others, found employment with the Works Progress Administration.

 

Development of style

 

Rothko's work has been described in eras. His early period (1924-1939) saw representational art inflected by impressionism, usually depicting urban scenes. His middle, "transitional" years (1940-1950) involved phases of figurative mythological abstraction, "biomorphic" abstraction, and "multiforms", the latter being canvases with large regions of color. Rothko's transitional decade was influenced by World War II, which prompted him to seek novel expression of tragedy in art. During this time Rothko was influenced by ancient Greek tragedians such as Aeschylus and his reading of Nietzsche's The Birth of Tragedy. In Rothko's mature or "classic" period (1951-1970), he consistently painted rectangular regions of color, intended as "dramas" to elicit an emotional response from the viewer.

 

In 1936, Rothko began writing a book, never completed, about similarities between the art of children and the work of modern painters. According to Rothko, the work of modernists, influenced by primitive art, could be compared to that of children in that "child art transforms itself into primitivism, which is only the child producing a mimicry of himself." In this manuscript, he observed: "Tradition of starting with drawing in academic notion. We may start with color." Rothko was using fields of color in his aquarelles and city scenes. His style was already evolving in the direction of his renowned later works. Despite this newfound exploration of color, Rothko turned his attention to other formal and stylistic innovations, inaugurating a period of surrealist paintings influenced by mythological fables and symbols.

 

Maturity

 

Rothko separated temporarily from his wife Edith in mid-1937. They reconciled several months later, but their relationship remained tense and they would divorce in 1944. On February 21, 1938, Rothko finally became a citizen of the United States, prompted by fears that the growing Nazi influence in Europe might provoke the sudden deportation of American Jews. Concerned about antisemitism in America and Europe, Rothko abbreviated his name from "Markus Rothkowitz" to "Mark Rothko". The name "Roth", a common abbreviation, was still identifiably Jewish, so he settled upon "Rothko."

 

Inspiration from mythology

 

Fearing that modern American painting had reached a conceptual dead end, Rothko was intent on exploring subjects other than urban and nature scenes. He sought subjects that would complement his growing interest in form, space, and color. The world crisis of war gave this search a sense of immediacy. He insisted that the new subject matter have a social impact, yet be able to transcend the confines of current political symbols and values. In his essay "The Romantics Were Prompted," published in 1948, Rothko argued that the "archaic artist ... found it necessary to create a group of intermediaries, monsters, hybrids, gods and demigods," in much the same way that modern man found intermediaries in Fascism and the Communist Party.[citation needed] For Rothko, "without monsters and gods, art cannot enact a drama".

 

Rothko's use of mythology as a commentary on current history was not novel. Rothko, Gottlieb, and Newman read and discussed the works of Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung. In particular, they took interest in psychoanalytical theories concerning dreams, and archetypes of a collective unconscious. They understood mythological symbols as images, operating in a space of human consciousness, which transcends specific history and culture. Rothko later said that his artistic approach was "reformed" by his study of the "dramatic themes of myth". He allegedly stopped painting altogether in 1940, to immerse himself in reading Sir James Frazer's study of mythology The Golden Bough, and Freud's The Interpretation of Dreams.

 

Nietzsche's influence

 

Rothko's new vision attempted to address modern man's spiritual and creative mythological requirements. The most crucial philosophical influence on Rothko in this period was Friedrich Nietzsche's The Birth of Tragedy. Nietzsche claimed that Greek tragedy served to redeem man from the terrors of mortal life. The exploration of novel topics in modern art ceased to be Rothko's goal. From this time on, his art had the goal of relieving modern man's spiritual emptiness. He believed that this emptiness resulted partly from lack of mythology, which, according to Nietzsche, "The images of the myth have to be the unnoticed omnipresent demonic guardians, under whose care the young soul grows to maturity and whose signs help the man to interpret his life and struggles." Rothko believed his art could free unconscious energies, previously bound by mythological images, symbols, and rituals. He considered himself a "mythmaker", and proclaimed that "the exhilarated tragic experience is for me the only source of art".

 

Many of his paintings in this period contrast barbaric scenes of violence with civilized passivity, using imagery drawn primarily from Aeschylus's Oresteia trilogy. A list of Rothko's paintings from this period illustrates his use of myth: Antigone, Oedipus, The Sacrifice of Iphigenia, Leda, The Furies, Altar of Orpheus. Rothko evokes Judeo-Christian imagery in Gethsemane, The Last Supper, and Rites of Lilith. He also invokes Egyptian (Room in Karnak) and Syrian (The Syrian Bull) myths. Soon after World War II, Rothko believed his titles limited the larger, transcendent aims of his paintings. To allow maximum interpretation by the viewer, he stopped naming and framing his paintings, referring to them only by numbers.

 

"Mythomorphic" abstractionism

 

At the root of Rothko and Gottlieb's presentation of archaic forms and symbols, illuminating modern existence had been the influence of Surrealism, Cubism, and abstract art. In 1936, Rothko attended two exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art, "Cubism and Abstract Art", and "Fantastic Art, Dada, and Surrealism".

 

In 1942, following the success of shows by Ernst, Miró, Wolfgang Paalen, Tanguy, and Salvador Dalí, artists who had immigrated to the United States because of the war, Surrealism took New York by storm. Rothko and his peers, Gottlieb and Newman, met and discussed the art and ideas of these European pioneers, as well as those of Mondrian.

 

New paintings were unveiled at a 1942 show at Macy's department store in New York City. In response to a negative review by The New York Times, Rothko and Gottlieb issued a manifesto, written mainly by Rothko. Addressing the Times critic's self-professed "befuddlement" over the new work, they stated "We favor the simple expression of the complex thought. We are for the large shape because it has the impact of the unequivocal. We wish to reassert the picture plane. We are for flat forms because they destroy illusion and reveal truth." On a more strident note, they criticized those who wanted to live surrounded by less challenging art, noting that their work necessarily "must insult anyone who is spiritually attuned to interior decoration".

 

Rothko viewed myth as a replenishing resource for an era of spiritual void. This belief had begun decades earlier, through his reading of Carl Jung, T. S. Eliot, James Joyce and Thomas Mann, among other authors.

 

Break with Surrealism

 

On June 13, 1943, Rothko and Sachar separated again. Rothko suffered depression following their divorce. Thinking that a change of scenery might help, Rothko returned to Portland. From there, he traveled to Berkeley, where he met artist Clyfford Still, and the two began a close friendship. Still's deeply abstract paintings would be of considerable influence on Rothko's later works. In the autumn of 1943, Rothko returned to New York. He met with noted collector and art dealer Peggy Guggenheim, but she was initially reluctant to take on his artworks. Rothko's one-person show at Guggenheim's The Art of This Century Gallery, in late 1945, resulted in few sales, with prices ranging from $150 to $750. The exhibit also attracted less-than-favorable reviews from critics. During this period, Rothko had been stimulated by Still's abstract landscapes of color, and his style shifted away from surrealism. Rothko's experiments in interpreting the unconscious symbolism of everyday forms had run their course. His future lay with abstraction:

 

I insist upon the equal existence of the world engendered in the mind and the world engendered by God outside of it. If I have faltered in the use of familiar objects, it is because I refuse to mutilate their appearance for the sake of an action which they are too old to serve, or for which perhaps they had never been intended. I quarrel with surrealists and abstract art only as one quarrels with his father and mother; recognizing the inevitability and function of my roots, but insistent upon my dissent; I, being both they and an integral completely independent of them.

 

Rothko's masterpiece Slow Swirl at the Edge of the Sea (1945) illustrates his newfound propensity towards abstraction. It has been interpreted as a meditation on Rothko's courtship of his second wife, Mary Alice "Mell" Beistle, whom he met in 1944 and married in early 1945. Other readings have noted echoes of Botticelli's The Birth of Venus, which Rothko saw at an "Italian Masters" loan exhibition, at the Museum of Modern Art, in 1940. The painting presents, in subtle grays and browns, two human-like forms embraced in a swirling, floating atmosphere of shapes and colors. The rigid rectangular background foreshadows Rothko's later experiments in pure color. The painting was completed, not coincidentally, in the year the Second World War ended.[66]

 

Despite the abandonment of his "Mythomorphic Abstractionism", Rothko would still be recognized by the public primarily for his surrealist works, for the remainder of the 1940s. The Whitney Museum included them in their annual exhibit of contemporary art from 1943 to 1950.

 

"Multiforms"

 

In 1946, Rothko created what art critics have since termed his transitional "multiform" paintings. Although Rothko never used the term multiform himself, it is nonetheless an accurate description of these paintings. Several of them, including No. 18[68] and Untitled (both 1948), are less transitional than fully realized. Rothko himself described these paintings as possessing a more organic structure, and as self-contained units of human expression. For him, these blurred blocks of various colors, devoid of landscape or the human figure, let alone myth and symbol, possessed their own life force. They contained a "breath of life" he found lacking in the most figurative painting of the era. They were filled with possibility, whereas his experimentation with mythological symbolism had become a tired formula. The "multiforms" brought Rothko to a realization of his signature style of rectangular regions of color, which he continued to produce for the rest of his life.

 

In the middle of this crucial period of transition, Rothko had been impressed by Clyfford Still's abstract fields of color, which were influenced in part by the landscapes of Still's native North Dakota.

 

In 1947, during a summer semester teaching at the California School of Fine Art, Rothko and Still flirted with the idea of founding their own curriculum. In 1948, Rothko, Robert Motherwell, William Baziotes, Barnett Newman, and David Hare founded the Subjects of the Artist School at 35 East 8th Street. Well-attended lectures there were open to the public, with speakers such as Jean Arp, John Cage, and Ad Reinhardt, but the school failed financially and closed in the spring of 1949. Although the group separated later in the same year, the school was the center of a flurry of activity in contemporary art. In addition to his teaching experience, Rothko began to contribute articles to two new art publications, Tiger's Eye and Possibilities. Using the forums as an opportunity to assess the current art scene, Rothko also discussed in detail his own work and philosophy of art. These articles reflect the elimination of figurative elements from his painting, and a specific interest in the new contingency debate launched by Wolfgang Paalen's Form and Sense publication of 1945.

 

Rothko described his new method as "unknown adventures in an unknown space", free from "direct association with any particular, and the passion of organism". Breslin described this change of attitude as "both self and painting are now fields of possibilities – an effect conveyed ... by the creation of protean, indeterminate shapes whose multiplicity is let be."

 

In 1947, he had a first solo exhibition at the Betty Parsons Gallery (March 3 to 22).

 

In 1949, Rothko became fascinated by Henri Matisse's Red Studio, acquired by the Museum of Modern Art that year. He later credited it as another key source of inspiration for his later abstract paintings.

 

Late period

 

Soon, the "multiforms" developed into the signature style; by early 1949 Rothko exhibited these new works at the Betty Parsons Gallery. For critic Harold Rosenberg, the paintings were nothing short of a revelation. After painting his first "multiform", Rothko had secluded himself in his home in East Hampton on Long Island. He invited only a select few, including Rosenberg, to view the new paintings. The discovery of his definitive form came at a period of great distress to the artist; his mother Kate had died in October 1948. Rothko happened upon the use of symmetrical rectangular blocks of two to three opposing or contrasting, yet complementary, colors, in which, for example, "the rectangles sometimes seem barely to coalesce out of the ground, concentrations of its substance. The green bar in Magenta, Black, Green on Orange, on the other hand, appears to vibrate against the orange around it, creating an optical flicker." Additionally, for the next seven years, Rothko painted in oil only for large canvases with vertical formats. Very large-scale designs were used in order to overwhelm the viewer, or, in Rothko's words, to make the viewer feel "enveloped within" the painting. For some critics, the large size was an attempt to make up for a lack of substance. In retaliation, Rothko stated:

 

I realize that historically the function of painting large pictures is painting something very grandiose and pompous. The reason I paint them, however ... is precisely because I want to be very intimate and human. To paint a small picture is to place yourself outside your experience, to look upon an experience as a stereopticon view or with a reducing glass. However you paint the larger picture, you are in it. It isn't something you command!

 

Rothko even went so far as to recommend that viewers position themselves as little as eighteen inches away from the canvas[80] so that they might experience a sense of intimacy, as well as awe, a transcendence of the individual, and a sense of the unknown.

 

As Rothko achieved success, he became increasingly protective of his works, turning down several potentially important sales and exhibition opportunities:

 

A picture lives by companionship, expanding and quickening in the eyes of the sensitive observer. It dies by the same token. It is therefore a risky and unfeeling act to send it out into the world. How often it must be permanently impaired by the eyes of the vulgar and the cruelty of the impotent who would extend the affliction universally!

 

Rothko's aims, in the estimation of some critics and viewers, exceeded his methods.[82] Many of the abstract expressionists discussed their art as aiming toward a spiritual experience, or at least an experience that exceeded the boundaries of the purely aesthetic. In later years, Rothko emphasized more emphatically the spiritual aspect of his artwork, a sentiment that would culminate in the construction of the Rothko Chapel.

 

Many of the "multiforms" and early signature paintings are composed of bright, vibrant colors, particularly reds and yellows, expressing energy and ecstasy. By the mid-1950s, however, close to a decade after the completion of the first "multiforms," Rothko began to employ dark blues and greens; for many critics of his work, this shift in colors was representative of growing darkness within Rothko's personal life.

 

Rothko's method was to apply a thin layer of a binder mixed with pigment directly onto uncoated and untreated canvas and to paint significantly thinned oils directly onto this layer, creating a dense mixture of overlapping colors and shapes. His brushstrokes were fast and light, a method he would continue to use until his death. His increasing adeptness at this method is apparent in the paintings completed for the Chapel. With an absence of figurative representation, what drama there is to be found in a late Rothko is in the contrast of colors, radiating against one another. His paintings can then be likened to a sort of fugue-like arrangement: each variation counterpoised against one another, yet all existing within one architectonic structure.

 

Rothko used several original techniques that he tried to keep secret even from his assistants. Electron microscopy and ultraviolet analysis conducted by the MOLAB showed that he employed natural substances such as egg and glue, as well as artificial materials including acrylic resins, phenol formaldehyde, modified alkyd, and others. One of his objectives was to make the various layers of the painting dry quickly, without mixing of colors, so that he could soon create new layers on top of the earlier ones.

 

In 1968 Rothko, in declining health, began painting most of his large works in acrylic paint instead of oils.

 

European travels: increasing fame

 

Rothko and his wife visited Europe for five months in early 1950. The last time he had been in Europe was during his childhood in Latvia, at that time part of Russia. Yet he did not return to his homeland, preferring to visit the important painting collections in the major museums of England, France, and Italy. The frescoes of Fra Angelico in the monastery of San Marco, Florence, most impressed him. Fra Angelico's spirituality and concentration on light appealed to Rothko's sensibilities, as did the economic adversities the artist faced, which Rothko saw as similar to his own.

 

Rothko had one-man shows at the Betty Parsons Gallery in 1950 and 1951 and at other galleries across the world, including in Japan, São Paulo, and Amsterdam. The 1952 "Fifteen Americans" show curated by Dorothy Canning Miller at the Museum of Modern Art formally heralded the abstract artists and included works by Jackson Pollock and William Baziotes. It also created a dispute between Rothko and Barnett Newman, after Newman accused Rothko of having attempted to exclude him from the show. Growing success as a group was leading to infighting and claims of supremacy and leadership. When Fortune magazine named a Rothko painting in 1955 as a good investment. Newman and Clyfford Still branded him a sell-out with bourgeois aspirations. Still wrote to Rothko to ask that the paintings he had given him over the years be returned. Rothko was deeply depressed by his former friends' jealousy.

 

During the 1950 Europe trip, Rothko's wife, Mell, became pregnant. On December 30, when they were back in New York, she gave birth to a daughter, Kathy Lynn, called "Kate" in honor of Rothko's mother, Kate Goldin.

 

Reactions to his own success

 

Shortly thereafter, due to the Fortune magazine plug and further purchases by clients, Rothko's financial situation began to improve. In addition to sales of paintings, he also had money from his teaching position at Brooklyn College. In 1954, he exhibited in a solo show at the Art Institute of Chicago, where he met art dealer Sidney Janis, who represented Pollock and Franz Kline. Their relationship proved mutually beneficial.

 

Despite his fame, Rothko felt a growing personal seclusion and a sense of being misunderstood as an artist. He feared that people purchased his paintings simply out of fashion and that the true purpose of his work was not being grasped by collectors, critics, or audiences. He wanted his paintings to move beyond abstraction, as well as beyond classical art. For Rothko, the paintings were objects that possessed their own form and potential, and therefore, must be encountered as such. Sensing the futility of words in describing this decidedly non-verbal aspect of his work, Rothko abandoned all attempts at responding to those who inquired after its meaning and purpose, stating finally that silence is "so accurate":

 

"My paintings' surfaces are expansive and push outward in all directions, or their surfaces contract and rush inward in all directions. Between these two poles, you can find everything I want to say."

 

Rothko began to insist that he was not an abstractionist and that such a description was as inaccurate as labeling him a great colorist. His interest was:

 

... only in expressing basic human emotions—tragedy, ecstasy, doom, and so on. And the fact that a lot of people break down and cry when confronted with my pictures shows that I can communicate those basic human emotions ... The people who weep before my pictures are having the same religious experience I had when I painted them. And if you, as you say, are moved only by their color relationship, then you miss the point."

 

For Rothko, color is "merely an instrument". The multiforms and the signature paintings are, in essence, the same expression of basic human emotions as his surrealistic mythological paintings, albeit in a purer form. What is common among these stylistic innovations is a concern for "tragedy, ecstasy and doom". It was Rothko's comment on viewers breaking down in tears before his paintings that may have convinced the de Menils to construct the Rothko Chapel. Whatever Rothko's feeling about interpretations of his work, it is apparent that, by 1958, the spiritual expression he meant to portray on canvas was growing increasingly dark. His bright reds, yellows, and oranges were subtly transformed into dark blues, greens, grays, and blacks.

 

Rothko's friend, the art critic Dore Ashton, points to the artist's acquaintance with poet Stanley Kunitz as a significant bond in this period ("conversations between painter and poet fed into Rothko's enterprise"). Kunitz saw Rothko as "a primitive, a shaman who finds the magic formula and leads people to it". Great poetry and painting, Kunitz believed, both had "roots in magic, incantation, and spell-casting" and were, at their core, ethical and spiritual. Kunitz instinctively understood the purpose of Rothko's quest.

 

In November 1958, Rothko gave an address to the Pratt Institute. In a tenor unusual for him, he discussed art as a trade and offered the

 

"recipe of a work of art—its ingredients—how to make it—the formula

 

There must be a clear preoccupation with death—intimations of mortality ... Tragic art, romantic art, etc., deals with the knowledge of death.

Sensuality. Our basis of being concrete about the world. It is a lustful relationship with things that exist.

Tension. Either conflict or curbed desire.

Irony, This is a modern ingredient—the self-effacement and examination by which a man for an instant can go on to something else.

Wit and play ... for the human element.

The ephemeral and chance ... for the human element.

Hope. 10% to make the tragic concept more endurable.

 

I measure these ingredients very carefully when I paint a picture. It is always the form that follows these elements and the picture results from the proportions of these elements."

 

In 1958, Rothko was awarded the first of two major mural commissions, which proved both rewarding and frustrating. The beverage company Joseph Seagram and Sons had recently completed the new Seagram Building skyscraper on Park Avenue, designed by architects Mies van der Rohe and Philip Johnson. Rothko agreed to provide paintings for the building's new luxury restaurant, the Four Seasons. This was, as art historian Simon Schama put it, "bring[ing] his monumental dramas right into the belly of the beast".

 

For Rothko, this Seagram murals commission presented a new challenge, since it was the first time he was required not only to design a coordinated series of paintings but to produce an artwork space concept for a large, specific interior. Over the following three months, Rothko completed forty paintings, comprising three full series in dark red and brown. He altered his horizontal format to vertical, to complement the restaurant's vertical features: columns, walls, doors, and windows.

 

The following June, Rothko and his family again traveled to Europe. While on the SS Independence he disclosed to journalist John Fischer, who was publisher of Harper's Magazine, that his true intention for the Seagram murals was to paint "something that will ruin the appetite of every son-of-a-bitch who ever eats in that room". He hoped, he told Fischer, that his painting would make the restaurant's patrons "feel that they are trapped in a room where all the doors and windows are bricked up, so that all they can do is butt their heads forever against the wall".

 

While in Europe, the Rothkos traveled to Rome, Florence, Venice, and Pompeii. In Florence, he visited Michelangelo's Laurentian Library, to see first-hand the library's vestibule, from which he drew further inspiration for the murals. He remarked that "the room had exactly the feeling that I wanted ... it gives the visitor the feeling of being caught in a room with the doors and windows walled-in shut." He was further influenced by the somber colors of the murals in the Pompeiian Villa of the Mysteries. Following the trip to Italy, the Rothkos voyaged to Paris, Brussels, Antwerp and Amsterdam, before going to London where Rothko spent time in the British Museum studying the Turner watercolors. They then traveled to Somerset and stayed with the artist William Scott who was just starting a large mural project and they discussed the respective issues of public and private sponsorship. After the visit the Rothkos continued to St. Ives in the West of England and met up with Patrick Heron and other Cornish painters before returning to London and then the United States.[citation needed]

 

Once back in New York, Rothko and his wife Mell visited the nearly-completed Four Seasons restaurant. Upset with the restaurant's dining atmosphere, which he considered pretentious and inappropriate for the display of his works, Rothko refused to continue the project and returned his cash advance to the Seagram and Sons Company. Seagram had intended to honor Rothko's emergence to prominence through his selection, and his breach of contract and public expression of outrage was unexpected.

 

Rothko kept the commissioned paintings in storage until 1968. Given that Rothko had known in advance about the luxury decor of the restaurant, and the social class of its future patrons, the motives for his abrupt repudiation remain mysterious, although he did write to his friend William Scott in England, "Since we had discussed our respective murals I thought you might be interested to know that mine are still with me. When I returned, I looked again at my paintings and then visited the premises for which they were destined, it seemed clear to me at once that the two were not for each other." A temperamental personality, Rothko never fully explained his conflicted emotions over the incident. One reading is offered by his biographer, James E.B. Breslin: the Seagram project could be seen as an acting-out of a familiar, in this case self-created "drama of trust and betrayal, of advancing into the world, then withdrawing, angrily, from it ... He was an Isaac who at the last moment refused to yield to Abraham." The final series of Seagram Murals was dispersed, and now hangs in three locations: London's Tate Britain, Japan's Kawamura Memorial Museum, and the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. This episode was the main basis for John Logan's 2009 play Red.

 

In October 2012, Black on Maroon, one of the paintings in the Seagram series, was defaced with writing in black ink, while on display at Tate Modern. Restoration of the painting took eighteen months to complete. The BBC's Arts Editor Will Gompertz explained that the ink from the vandal's marker pen had bled all the way through the canvas, causing "a deep wound, not a superficial graze", and that the vandal had caused "significant damage".

 

Rising American prominence

 

Rothko's first completed space was created in the Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C., following the purchase of four paintings by collector Duncan Phillips. Rothko's fame and wealth had substantially increased; his paintings began to sell to notable collectors, including the Rockefeller family. In January 1961, Rothko sat next to Joseph Kennedy at John F. Kennedy's inaugural ball. Later that year, a retrospective of his work was held at the Museum of Modern Art, to considerable commercial and critical success. In spite of this newfound fame, the art world had already turned its attention from the now passé abstract expressionists to the "next big thing", pop art, particularly the work of Warhol, Lichtenstein, and Rosenquist.

 

Rothko labeled pop-art artists "charlatans and young opportunists", and wondered aloud during a 1962 exhibition of pop art, "Are the young artists plotting to kill us all?" On viewing Jasper Johns's flags, Rothko said, "We worked for years to get rid of all that."

 

On August 31, 1963, Mell gave birth to a second child, Christopher. That autumn, Rothko signed with the Marlborough Gallery for sales of his work outside the United States. In New York, he continued to sell the artwork directly from his studio.

 

Harvard Murals

 

Rothko received a second mural commission project, this time for a room of paintings for the penthouse of Harvard University's Holyoke Center. He made twenty-two sketches, from which ten wall-sized paintings on canvas were painted, six were brought to Cambridge, Massachusetts, and only five were hung: a triptych on one wall and opposite two individual panels. His aim was to create an environment for a public place. Harvard President Nathan Pusey, following an explanation of the religious symbology of the Triptych, had the paintings hung in January 1963, and later shown at the Guggenheim. During installation, Rothko found the paintings to be compromised by the room's lighting. Despite the installation of fiberglass shades, the paintings were all removed by 1979 and, due to the fugitive nature of some of the red pigments, in particular lithol red, were placed in dark storage and displayed only periodically. The murals were on display from November 16, 2014, to July 26, 2015, in the newly renovated Harvard Art Museums, for which the fading of the pigments has been compensated by using an innovative color projection system to illuminate the paintings.

 

The Rothko Chapel is located adjacent to the Menil Collection and the University of St. Thomas in Houston, Texas. The building is small and windowless except for a skylight and features a geometric, postmodern structure. The Chapel, the Menil Collection, and the nearby Cy Twombly gallery were funded by Texas oil millionaires John and Dominique de Menil.

 

In 1964, Rothko moved into his last New York studio at 157 East 69th Street. To simulate the lighting he desired for the chapel, Rothko equipped the studio with pulleys carrying large walls of canvas material to regulate light from a central cupola. Rothko reportedly intended the chapel to be his most important artistic statement. He became extremely involved in the building's layout and insisted that it feature a central cupola like that of his studio. Architect Philip Johnson, unable to compromise with Rothko's vision about the kind of light he wanted in the space, left the project in 1967 and was replaced by Howard Barnstone and Eugene Aubry. The architects frequently flew to New York to consult. On one occasion they brought a miniature of the building for Rothko's approval.

 

For Rothko, the chapel was a place of pilgrimage far from the center of art (in this case, New York) where seekers of Rothko's newly "religious" artwork could journey. The chapel is now non-denominational, but it was originally intended to be Roman Catholic. During the first three years of the project (1964–67), Rothko believed it would remain so. The design of the building and the religious implications of the paintings were inspired by Roman Catholic art and architecture. Its octagonal shape is based on a Byzantine church of St. Maria Assunta, and the format of the triptychs is based on paintings of the Crucifixion. The de Menils believed the universal "spiritual" aspect of Rothko's work would complement the elements of Roman Catholicism.

 

Rothko's painting technique necessitated physical strength and stamina that the ailing artist could no longer muster. Rothko hired two assistants to apply the multiple layers of paint. On half of the works, Rothko applied none of the paint himself and was content to supervise the slow, arduous process. He felt the completion of the paintings to be "torment", and the inevitable result was to create "something you don't want to look at".

 

The chapel represents six years of Rothko's life and his growing concern for the transcendent. For some, viewing the chapel's these paintings is akin submitting to a spiritual experience. The paintings have been likened to self-awareness, hermeticism, and contemplativeness.

 

The chapel paintings consist of a monochrome triptych in soft brown, on the central wall, comprising three 5-by-15-foot panels and a pair of triptychs on the left and right made of opaque black rectangles. Between the triptychs are four individual paintings, measuring 11-by-15 feet each. One additional individual painting faces the central triptych, from the opposite wall. The effect is to surround the viewer with massive, imposing visions of darkness. Despite its basis in religious symbolism and imagery, the paintings may be considered distinct from traditional Christian motifs and may act on the viewers subliminally. Rothko's erasure of symbols both removes and creates barriers to the work.

 

The paintings were unveiled at the chapel's opening in 1971. Rothko never saw the completed chapel and never installed the paintings. On February 28, 1971, at the dedication, Dominique de Menil said, "We are cluttered with images and only abstract art can bring us to the threshold of the divine", noting Rothko's courage in painting "impenetrable fortresses" of color.

 

Suicide and estate lawsuit

 

In early 1968, Rothko was diagnosed with a mild aortic aneurysm. Ignoring doctor's orders, Rothko continued to drink and smoke heavily, avoided exercise, and maintained an unhealthy diet. "Highly nervous, thin, restless", was his friend Dore Ashton's description of Rothko at this time. However, he did follow the medical advice given not to paint pictures larger than a yard in height, and turned his attention to smaller, less physically strenuous formats, including acrylics on paper. Meanwhile, Rothko's marriage had become increasingly troubled, and his poor health and impotence resulting from the aneurysm compounded his feeling of estrangement in the relationship. Rothko and his wife Mell, to whom he was married from 1944 to 1970, separated on New Year's Day 1969; he moved into his studio.

 

On February 25, 1970, Oliver Steindecker, Rothko's assistant, found the artist lying dead on the kitchen floor in front of the sink, covered in blood. He had overdosed on barbiturates and cut an artery in his right arm with a razor blade. There was no suicide note. He was 66. The Seagram Murals arrived in London for display at the Tate Gallery on the day of his suicide.

 

Near the end of his life, Rothko painted a series known as the "Black on Grays", uniformly featuring a black rectangle above a gray rectangle. These canvases and Rothko's later work in general have been associated with his depression and suicide, although the association has been criticized. Rothko's suicide has been studied in the medical literature where his later paintings have been interpreted as "pictorial suicide notes" due to their somber palettes and especially in contrast with the brighter colors Rothko employed more frequently during the 1950s. Although art critic David Anfam acknowledged that the Black and Grays are interpreted as premonitions of suicide or as "moonscapes" (the first Apollo Moon landings were contemporaneous with their execution), he rejected the interpretations as "naive", arguing instead that the paintings were a continuation of his lifelong artistic themes and not symptoms of depression. Susan Grange also observed that, following his aneurysm, Rothko executed several smaller works on paper using lighter hues, which are less well-known. Throughout his life Rothko consistently intended his works to evoke serious dramatic content, regardless of the colors used in an individual painting. When a woman visited his studio asking to buy a "happy" painting featuring warm colors, Rothko retorted, "Red, yellow, orange – aren't those the colors of an inferno?"

 

Shortly before his death, Rothko and his financial advisor, Bernard Reis, had created a foundation, intended to fund "research and education", that would receive the bulk of Rothko's work following his death. Reis later sold the paintings to the Marlborough Gallery, at substantially reduced values, and then split the profits from sales with Gallery representatives. In 1971, Rothko's children filed a lawsuit against Reis, Morton Levine, and Theodore Stamos, the executors of his estate, over the sham sales. The lawsuit continued for more than 10 years and became known as the Rothko Case. In 1975, the defendants were found liable for negligence and conflict of interest, were removed as executors of the Rothko estate by court order, and, along with Marlborough Gallery, were required to pay a $9.2 million damages judgment to the estate. This amount represents only a small fraction of the eventual vast financial value, since achieved, by numerous Rothko works produced in his lifetime.

 

Rothko's estranged wife Mell, also a heavy drinker, died six months after him at the age of 48. The cause of death was listed as "hypertension due to cardiovascular disease".

 

Legacy

 

Rothko's complete works on canvas, 836 paintings, have been cataloged by art historian David Anfam, in his Mark Rothko: The Works on Canvas: Catalogue Raisonné (1998), published by Yale University Press.

 

A previously unpublished manuscript by Rothko, The Artist's Reality (2004), about his philosophies on art, edited by his son Christopher, was published by Yale University Press.[citation needed]

 

Red, a play by John Logan based on Rothko's life, opened at the Donmar Warehouse in London, on December 3, 2009. The play, starring Alfred Molina and Eddie Redmayne, centered on the period of the Seagram Murals. This drama received excellent reviews and usually played to full houses. In 2010 Red opened on Broadway, where it won six Tony Awards, including Best Play. Molina played Rothko in both London and New York. A recording of Red was produced in 2018 for Great Performances with Molina playing Rothko and Alfred Enoch playing his assistant.

 

In Rothko's birthplace, the Latvian city of Daugavpils, a monument to him, designed by sculptor Romualds Gibovskis, was unveiled on the bank of the Daugava River in 2003. In 2013 the Mark Rothko Art Centre opened in Daugavpils after the Rothko family had donated a small collection of his original works.

 

A number of Rothko's works are held by the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía and by the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, both in Madrid. The Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller Empire State Plaza Art Collection in Albany, NY includes both Rothko's late painting, Untitled (1967) and a large mural by Al Held entitled Rothko's Canvas (1969–70).

(Wikipedia)

 

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