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I really don't do birthdays, I like to ignore them. But any excuse for a bit of girl time, and a chance to try on another new dress (or is it just a top?). ;-)

in our garden, yesterday......

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A couple of photos taken by others from Spetember's LFF outing - left to right is Demi, Gemma, Sonya and Emily.

Taken in the Viaduct.

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A night in black and white!

Trying out a few different angles and poses in my black and white palm tree print dress.

Being blessed with a Scots mother and an English father, and having lived in England, Scotland and Wales, I consider myself British. And I'm proud to be British, with a heart often in Scotland, a body in England, memories of Wales and thoughts of travelling the world. My country is Great Britain, the United Kingdom. It says so on my passport. As it does for every other British person in the UK, whichever part they live in or were born in.

We are a cosmopolitan nation made up of every race in the world, all living in relative harmony. Except a few.

They are a small minority who have made a fuss and a noise about being miserable, put on, repressed and disadvantaged. They are the sort of people who want things given to them without making any effort to give in return. They are takers, not givers. People who look at their glass as half empty rather than half full. They are people who do not appreciate what we have, but always moan about what they don't have. Unfortunately they are easily led and persuaded, with the promise of extra giveaways and benefits.

The socialist movement in Scotland has, over the years, made empty promise after empty promise to these dependent classes and with a divisive strategy has led the country into a referendum to separate itself from the other members that make up the United Kingdom: England, Wales and Northern Ireland. It is a Union of four countries that has existed for over 300 years.

As someone who is half Scottish and half English, because I currently live in England, I am denied a vote on the future of my country. Nor can the estimated 20 million 'Scots' who live elsewhere around the world.

The Yes Campaigners for Scottish Independence wish to cherry pick all the best parts of being part of the United Kingdom, and none of the negative parts of the 'marriage'. They demand the rest of the UK allows them into a currency union so they get the benefits of our strong currency, debt protection, low interest rates. They want to inherit the UK's EU membership and gain the same EU rebates. They want the protection of the nuclear alliance NATO yet will not permit nuclear submarines to use NATO's most strategic submarine base which is in Scotland and protects all of Europe. And they want to keep the Queen as head of state, but have nothing to do with the Royal Family.They wish to create a Nordic nirvana without realising the Nordic countries and peoples are nothing like the Scots.

They wish to build a better country based on pie in the sky economics and a wish list that would bankrupt the country. The rest of the UK, some 60 million people do not wish the population of 5 million in Scotland to become a separate and isolated country.

If the Yes Campaign manage to sleepwalk enough people to vote for their Fool's Paradise, I foresee a two tier Britain after separation. England, Wales and Northern Ireland will become a little more right thinking and Scotland will lurch to the left. The Scots have always sown their oats and fanned out across the world, but isolation as a separate country would only speed up the brain drain. And those Scots will seek their fortune in the rest of the UK as they always have, because the UK will out pace Scotland in enterprise and opportunity. Scotland will sit in the rest of the UK's shadow. Perhaps it will find itself in the same situation again as it did in 1707, when Scotland, a poor country, had fallen so far behind England that it chose to form a Union with its neighbour, creating the United Kingdom. Together they were better, Scotland playing a significant contribution in creating the British Empire. Ah well, they say things go in cycles.

The people living in Scotland vote on independence on 18th September. My opinion is they would be foolish to give away everything we have. I would hate to think that the nation so many of our forefathers fought to protect should be split by a minority of whingers. I would hate to think of my family separated from me in a foreign country. I would hate to lose my identity of "British". I would hate to lose part of my country (I think I know a little what it must feel like to be Ukrainian and to have lost part of my country to Putin).

To those outside the UK of other nationalities, are you baffled as to why some Scots wish to split up this country, the United Kingdom? I would be interested to hear your thoughts.

BTW the photo shows Balvicar, a little hamlet, with one shop and no pub, on the Isle of Seil near Oban, Argyll, Scotland.

I consider myself so very lucky to know the people I know, and to get to do the things I get to do.

Thanks so much to the "Owl Guys," Richard and Corey for allowing us to watch the release of this beauty. This is Corey, one of the youngest naturalists in the province allowed to capture and release raptors.

The snowy owl makes it summer home far up past the Arctic Circle...and makes winter visits to Alberta.

A rare treat!

Love and hugs to all my Flickr friends. Wishing you a weekend filled with blessings, love, and laughter.

~~Sheree~~

Lower Antelope Canyon, Page, AZ.

We were lucky to get to see this at all. The previous day there was a flash flood, and the canyon was only open halfway because of standing water in some areas. We had to leave early, too, because more rain was moving in. The light might not have been ideal due to the overcast skies, but it was still an incredible experience just to be in this beautiful place.

Manually merged from two exposures.

In search of a romantic wedding venue infused with coastal allure? Your search ends here! Welcome to our exquisite seaside event space and coffee shop, perfectly situated amidst a captivating beach backdrop. Consider this your ideal venue for hosting unforgettable events.

maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Paesolu%20di%20Corsica/176...

Many consider Gandy Street to be one of the most charming, and interesting streets in Exeter. Lined with bijou gift shops, bistros and restaurants, it is an essential stop for those visiting Exeter.

È considerata una delle più belle librerie del mondo. E va bene. Tuttavia col tempo la fama ha rischiato di soffocarla. Quindi i proprietari, in accordo con l'amministrazione di Porto, hanno deciso di chiedere il pagamento di un biglietto per l'ingresso.

Che però viene scalato dal conto quando si comprano i libri. Se si comprano ovviamente: altrimenti avete pagato il biglietto per entrare.

"Consider Jesus as He walked this road with the cross on His shoulders, thinking of us, and offering to His Father in our behalf, the death He was about to suffer."

This Station of the Cross is from a set painted by Utah artist Roger (Sam) Wilson in 1992 and 1993. They were installed in the Cathedral of the Madeleine in Salt Lake City, Utah.

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Day 3 of our Newcastle stay - Saturday.

Ready to go out to see the show 'The Ladyboys Of Bangkok'.

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So it was another fantastic weekend in Leeds. Friday night was probably the most sociable LFF I have ever had, meeting so many people old and new. Great times, great conversations, great memories!

In Viaduct with Sonya, Gemma and Jess.

“The Sun will rise and set regardless. What we choose to do with the light while it's here is up to us. Journey wisely.”

― Alexandra Elle

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January Leeds First Friday is generally quite a quiet, laid back affair after the madness of Christmas and New Year. Not this time tough - it was crazy busy at Leeds First Friday - a very busy and sociable night with lots of friends old and new!

In the hotel room ready to go out.

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Friday night pictures from an epic, incredible weekend in Leeds. As well as the usual Leeds First Friday event, we were also staying for Leeds Pride on the Sunday - my very first Pride. I met so many wonderful people and had an amazing time, one I will never ever forget.

Photo posing in the hotel room ready to go out.

It is not easy to buy land. We have to consider few important things before buying a land else we might get hooked up by some unknown dark zones. Here are five factors to consider before buying a land:

-> Look for properties with easy exit options.

-> Choose mid-range property as high-end ones will have minimum capital growth.

-> For quick returns, invest in smaller and unique projects with limited availability.

-> Location plays an important role. Choose the area that is under development.

-> Be cautious of “Phenomenal development”, “Best deal”, “Best project” and “Best location”.

If you consider these 5 factors, then we, Hindustan Multistate Cooperative Housing society would be the right choice.

என்றும் நம்பிக்கையுடன்,

#HindustanMultiStateCooperativeHousingSociety

Ph: 9698244888, 9698144888

www.hindustanhousingsociety.com

#land,#properties,#Location,#trust

El monasterio de San Jerónimo de Granada es un conjunto arquitectónico del Renacimiento formada por iglesia y monasterio situada en la ciudad española de Granada, comunidad autónoma de Andalucía.

Actualmente, está considerado como BIC (Bien de Interés Cultural) (la «iglesia basílica de San Gerónimo» (sic.) fue declarada monumento histórico artístisco digno de ser conservado por la Nación por R.O. de 24 de mayo de 1874 y posteriormente el monasterio fue declarado monumento histórico-artístico perteneciente al Tesoro Artístico Nacional mediante decreto de 3 de junio de 1931

Su fundación, anterior a la toma de la ciudad, se debe a los Reyes Católicos. En seguida se desplazó desde Santa Fe a Granada, y fue en 1504 cuando se empezó a construir el conjunto actual. La obra se debe en su mayoría a Diego de Siloé, aunque participaron en su construcción otros arquitectos y artistas, como Jacobo Florentino, Juan de Aragón, Juan Bautista Vázquez el Mozo, Pedro de Orea y Pablo de Rojas, los tres últimos de la escuela granadina.

La iglesia, de planta de cruz latina, responde a los condicionantes de las iglesias de la orden jerónima, con coro elevado en los pies y altar tras una amplia escalinata. Es destacable el retablo manierista de la capilla mayor, que supone el punto de partida de la escultura andaluza con entidad propia, y en donde es capital la intervención del maestro Pablo de Rojas. La rica decoración renacentista que presenta, con casetones, veneras y grupos escultóricos, es un canto de cisne del humanismo en España. El programa iconográfico fue pensado con el fin de resaltar las grandezas militares y la heroicidad del Gran Capitán, que se halla enterrado en el crucero junto a su esposa, María de Manrique.

El monasterio cuenta con dos claustros ajardinados, siendo el primero de ellos el que concentra la más genuina decoración del Renacimiento. Siete arcosolios a modo de capillas, de trazas clásicas, decoradas con todo el repertorio formal de este estilo, configuran un espacio fúnebre para cuando los restos de don Gonzalo llegaron al monasterio. En el segundo claustro, hoy clausura de la comunidad de monjas jerónimas que lo habitan, residió la emperatriz Isabel de Portugal en su viaje de bodas, tras la celebración de su matrimonio con el emperador Carlos I.

En la iglesia se trabajaba ya en 1513 bajo las órdenes de Jacobo Florentino. Muerto éste, las siguió Diego de Siloé. Cuando en 1522 se acabó la capilla mayor fueron trasladados los cuerpos del Gran Capitán y su esposa desde la Casa Grande del Convento de San Francisco.

Tras pasar por diversas vicisitudes adversas, como la invasión francesa y la exclaustración por expulsión de la Orden Jerónima, que casi llevaron a la ruina, el Estado decidió su restauración, que se llevó a cabo entre 1916 y 1920 por el arquitecto Fernando Wilhelmi.

En los años anteriores a 1989 fue vuelta a erigir la esbelta torre de la iglesia tras haber sido derruida por los franceses durante la invasión napoleónica para construir con sus piedras el Puente Verde que une el Paseo de la Bomba con la Avenida de Cervantes, sobre el río Genil.

La portada que separa el compás del Monasterio de la Calle Rector López Argueta, aunque originariamente pertenecía al monasterio, se repuso en la década de 1960, después de que en el siglo XIX desapareciera y se encontrara posteriormente abandonada en un cortijo de la Vega.

En la actualidad preside dicha portada una bella imagen de la Virgen de las Angustias que no es la que originariamente estaba en dicha portada.

A principios del año 2004 comenzaron unas obras de restauración del retablo mayor por el Ministerio de Cultura, que duraron hasta el año siguiente.

El templo fue el primero en todo el mundo en consagrarse a la Inmaculada Concepción de María.

A brief history of railways in New South Wales.

It all began with the calling of a public meeting to consider the issue of building railways in 1846. Lines were being considered to Windsor, Bathurst and Goulburn. It proposed the American solution to railway building – government grants of land along the proposed line but with an added bonus of a government guarantee of 6% per annum on the first £100,000 of capital and a government grant of cash. In 1848 the Sydney Tramroad and Railway Company was formed. After some delays work began in 1850 but by 1851 not much had happened and the company wanted a further £150,000 which was granted for a line only from Sydney to Parramatta. In 1855 the line was finally completed with the first train to Parramatta in September 1855. The line was only completed with substantial government investment and in 1856 the government decided to take over the railway and have it run by three government Commissioners. In 1861 parliament authorised lines to Campbelltown and Goulbourn, another to Bathurst across the Blue Mountains and a third from Newcastle to Murrurundi in the Hunter Valley. The line from Newcastle to Maitland opened in 1857.

Westwards to Bathurst.

At the end of 1860, with the royalties from gold mining the government had completed lines from Sydney to Penrith and Richmond; to Picton in the south; and from Maitland to Morpeth. The biggest engineering challenges were still ahead of the railways department – crossing the Blue Mountains to Bathurst and climbing into the Southern Highlands to reach Goulburn. The problems of crossing the Blue Mountain ridges were immense and two zig zag railway sections near Lithgow were eventually approved and several major viaducts. They line was completed to Wentworth Falls in 1867 and it was 1875 before the railway line reached Kelso across the Macquarie River from Bathurst. The official opening into Bathurst was in April 1876. The 1870s were a decade of significant railway expansion and new lines. At one stage there was even a proposal to have a direct rai link to South Australia from Cootamundra westwards to Pooncarie on the River Darling and then across the SA border near Renmark. That never eventuated. But a link to Queensland was pursued more vigorously and completed as was a line to Albury with a link to Melbourne.

Southwards to Goulburn and Albury.

A main truck railway line to the South was important to peon up the Western Slopes of NSW in the 1870s. The rail head was settled at Picton in 1863 and with tunnels it was extended into the Highlands to Mittagong in 1867. It was quickly pushed on to Goulburn reaching there in 1869. It was important to extend this line south to Albury to prevent the Victorian railways taking more trade from the Riverina Districts. The Goulburn to Yass section was finished in 1876. It was extended to Wagga Wagga in 1878 but the line did not cross the Murrumbidgee River into Wagga Wagga until 1879. From here the line pushed onwards to Albury where the railway opened in February 1881. It was June 1883 before the River Murray was bridged and a connection was made with the line to Melbourne.

Northwards to Newcastle and beyond.

Newcastle was a rail terminal like Sydney with the first line to Maitland completed in 1857.This line was eventually extended to Muswellbrook in 1869 and on to Aberdeen in 1870 and Scone in 1871. Murrurundi was reached in 1872. Work began on pushing the line north through Quirindi to Tamworth in 1874 with it being completed in 1878. From here the railway was extended towards the Queensland border and the northern tablelands. The first section with steep gradients reached Uralla in 1882 and Armidale in 1883. In 1884 the railway reached Glen Innes and then Tenterfield. The Queensland border was reached in January 1888 linking up with the Queensland railway system. Queensland railways had extended their lines to Wallangarra which is across the border from Jennings in NSW. But there was no connection to Brisbane from Sydney as there was no connection between Sydney and Newcastle.

Linking Sydney and Newcastle.

It was Premier Sir Henry Parkes who appropriate funds for a railway northwards from Sydney with the first stage to the Hawkesbury River and a section southwards from Hamilton just outside of Newcastle to Gosford. The line to the Hawksbury River was completed in 1887 and that to Gosford in 1888. The 3,000 feet wide (914 metres) stretch of the Hawkesbury River were still to be spanned by a railway. A competition called for engineering designs and the contract was let to an American company. Despite difficulties the bridge was completed in May 1889 with piers deeper than those of any other bridge and it was largest bridge of its kind in Australia and the third largest in the world at that time. It was a milestone in Australian railway history as it provided a rail link from Sydney to Brisbane via Wallangarra and this service was already linked with the line from Sydney to Albury and Melbourne and Adelaide and Melbourne had been the first colonial capital cities linked by rail in January 1887. So now there was railway link from Adelaide to Brisbane (1,789 miles or2, 8880 kilometres) albeit with many changes of gauge along the way and with no coordinated railway timetable for such a service. But this 1889 bridge was not stable enough for bigger and heavier trains and a new bridge was constructed across the Hawkesbury River between 1939 and 1946.

The North Coast line.

A new coastal line from Newcastle/Maitland to Taree and Gloucester opened in 1913 before reaching Wauchope in 1915. This lien was extended to Coffs Harbour and South Grafton in 1915. Earlier a railway line had headed south from Murwillumbah to Lismore. It was constructed in 1894 but extended to Lismore and Casino in 1903 and northwards to Tweed Heads at the same time. The section from Casino to Grafton opened in 1905 but it did not cross the Clarence River. This was not bridged until 1932. A branch line was built to Kyogle from Casino in 1910 and this was linked to a new line to Brisbane in 1930 which necessitated a rail spiral and a long tunnel across the border between the two rail systems to get the rail tracks up into the Great Dividing Range. A through train service was not possible until the Clarence River was bridged by rail in 1932. The introduction of the Brisbane Limited train via Casino and Kyogle reduced the train travel time from Sydney to Brisbane via Wallangarra by six hours. The service ended at South Brisbane until 1986 when it was rerouted to Brisbane Roma Street railway station. The Brisbane Limited train between Sydney and Brisbane ceased in 1990 when it was replaced with an XPT service. The line from Casino to Murwillumbah closed in 2004.

Extensions to the main truck lines.

By 1900 most major towns and cities of New South Wales had a railway service. The 1880s and the 1890s were decades of considerable railway expansion.

•The urge to get a railway to the Darling River at Bourke branched out from Bathurst firstly to Orange and then on to Dubbo in 1881. The north western line reached Bourke in 1885. From Nyngan a line was built to Cobar.

• The discovery of silver, lead and zinc in the Barrier Ranges near the South Australian border spurred the growth of Broken Hill but it was not linked to Sydney by train until 1927. Earlier a railway had been built from Broken Hill to Menindee in 1919. Then the links were made between Parkes and Condobolin and Roto to Menindee in 1927. The air conditioned Silver City Comet train began the service between Sydney and Broken Hill in 1937.

•New lines in the Riverina were designed to stop the leakage of trade across the River Murray to the Victorian railways. A line from Wagga wagga reached Narrandera in 1881 and Hay on the banks of the Murrumbidgee River in 1882.

•A branch line from Cootamundra to Gundagai was completed in 1886 and later extended to Tumut in 1903. Another line which stretched from Cootamundra to Temora opened in 1893. The Temora line was extended to Lake Cargelligo in 1917. Also from Temora the line went west to Griffith in 1916 and on to Hillston in 1923. It was then joined with the Broken Hill line at Roto in 1926 to provide alternative routes to the west.

•A new southern coast line opened to Wollongong and North Kiama in 1887. The section from Kiama to Bomaderry on the outskirts of Nowra opened in 1893.

•Over a few years a north western railway branched from the New England railway at Werris Creek. The first section to Gunnedah opened in 1879 and the second section to Narrabri opened in 1884. The line reached Moree in 1897. The line extended to the Queensland border at Mungindi in 1914.

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HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL!

What better way to start 2018 than in a dress? Especially my favourite pink dress.

It was a bit of a quiet and sad night, as Gemma had to go back home after spending Christmas and New Year with me, so it was a quiet night on my own. I tried to make the most of it though! ;-) xx

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Just a few selfies from a quiet midweek night relaxing at home.

Trying something different, hummingbird photos. Now I consider myself as someone that has a lot of patience, but this little guys were so hard to catch. I was running around like a mental case, so I recomposed myself, found my happy place and waited for them to come to me. A side note, I don't have a big enough lens for bird photography. There were some photographers that showed up with some massive lenses. This one guy had to carry it like it was a child... Lol, yeah that is a bit much. So this was as close as I got to the little fellas.

Basílica da Sagrada Família

Texto, em português, da Wikipédia, a enciclopédia livre:

Templo Expiatório da Sagrada Família

Templo Expiatório da Sagrada Família, e também conhecido simplesmente como Sagrada Família, é um grande templo católico da cidade catalã de Barcelona (Espanha), desenhado pelo arquiteto catalão Antoni Gaudí, e considerado por muitos críticos como a sua obra-prima e expoente da arquitetura modernista catalã. Financiado unicamente por contribuições privadas , o projeto foi iniciado em 1882 e assumido por Gaudí em 1883, quando tinha 31 anos de idade, dedicando-lhe os seus últimos 40 anos de vida, os últimos quinze de forma exclusiva. A construção foi suspensa em 1936 devido à Guerra Civil Espanhola e não se estima a conclusão para antes de 2026, centenário da morte de Gaudí.

A construção começou em estilo neogótico, mas o projeto foi reformulado completamente por Gaudí ao assumi-lo. O templo foi projetado para ter três grandes fachadas: a Fachada da Natividade, quase terminada com Gaudí ainda em vida, a Fachada da Paixão, iniciada em 1952, e a Fachada da Glória, ainda por completar. Segundo o seu proceder habitual, a partir de esboços gerais do edifício Gaudí improvisou a construção à medida que esta avançava. O templo, quando estiver terminado, disporá de 18 torres : quatro em cada uma das três entradas-portais, a jeito de cúpulas; irá ter um sistema de seis torres, com a torre do zimbório central dedicada a Jesus Cristo, de 170 metros de altura, outras quatro ao redor desta, dedicadas aos evangelistas, e um segundo zimbório dedicado à Virgem. O interior estará formado por inovadoras colunas arborescentes inclinadas e abóbadas baseadas em hiperboloides e paraboloides buscando a forma ótima da catenária. Estima-se que poderá levar no seu coro 1500 cantores, 700 crianças e cinco órgãos. Em 1926, ano em que faleceu Gaudí, apenas estava construída uma torre. Do projeto do edifício só ficaram planos e um modelo em gesso que resultou muito danificado durante a Guerra Civil Espanhola. Desde então prosseguiram as obras: atualmente (2015) estão terminados os portais da Natividade e da Paixão, e foi iniciado o da Glória, estando em construção as abóbadas interiores.

A obra que realizou Gaudí - a fachada da Natividade e a cripta - foi incluída pela UNESCO em 2005 no Sítio do Patrimônio Mundial com o título «Obras de Antoni Gaudí».

História

O propósito de construir um templo expiatório dedicado à Sagrada Família em uns novos terrenos do Eixample barcelonês foi do livreiro Josep Maria Bocabella, para o que fundou a Associação de Devotos de São José. Para isso foi adquirido um quarteirão inteiro do Eixample num lugar conhecido como El Poblet, perto do Camp de l'Arpa, em Sant Martí de Provençals, entre as ruas Provença, Maiorca, Marina e Sardenya.

O projeto foi entregue em primeiro lugar a Francisco de Paula del Villar y Lozano, que propôs um conjunto neogótico, recusando a sugestão de Bocabella de fazer uma réplica do Santuário da Santa Casa de Loreto . O projeto de Villar consistia numa igreja de três naves, com os elementos típicos do gótico, como os vitrais alveolados, os contrafortes exteriores e um alto campanário em forma de agulha. A primeira pedra foi colocada a 19 de Março de 1882, dia de São José, com a presença do então bispo de Barcelona José María Urquinaona. Gaudí assistiu à cerimônia, já que tinha trabalhado como ajudante de Villar em vários projetos. As obras não se iniciaram até 25 de Agosto de 1883, sendo adjudicadas ao empreiteiro Macari Planella i Roura.

Em 1883, Villar renunciou por desavenças com Joan Martorell, arquiteto assessor de Bocabella. O projeto foi oferecido ao próprio Martorell, mas, ao recusar, este foi oferecido a um jovem Gaudí de 31 anos; Gaudí fora ajudante de Martorell em várias construções, fato que motivara a recomendação de Gaudí, que ainda não executara grandes obras. Ao encarregar-se Gaudí do projeto, modificou-o por inteiro - salvo a parte já construída da cripta -, imprimindo-lhe o seu estilo peculiar. Durante os remanescentes 43 anos da sua vida trabalhou intensamente na obra, os últimos 15 anos de forma exclusiva. Esta dedicação tão intensa tem a sua explicação, para além da magnitude da obra, pela circunstância de Gaudí definir muitos aspetos à medida que a construção avançava, em lugar de os ter concretizado previamente nos seus planos e instruções. Por isso a sua presença pessoal na obra era de grande importância.

Durante a vida de Gaudí somente foi feita a fachada da Natividade , com escultura de Carles Mani, Llorenç Matamala e Joan Matamala, contando com os desenhos de Ricard Opisso; Gaudí apenas chegou a ver coroada a torre de São Barnabé antes do seu falecimento. À morte de Gaudí encarregou-se das obras o seu ajudante Domènec Sugrañes, durante os anos 1926-1936, acabando as três torres que ficavam na fachada da Natividade.

Durante a Guerra Civil Espanhola ficou destruída na sua maior parte a oficina na qual Gaudí trabalhara, e onde se encontravam os seus croquis, maquetes e modelos . Por esta causa e pela particular maneira de trabalhar Gaudí, não ficaram planos nem diretrizes a respeito de como devia terminar-se o templo. Portanto, quando em 1944 prosseguiu a construção da Sagrada Família, teve de definir-se em primeiro lugar como devia proceder-se, para edificar o templo da forma mais fiel aos princípios de Gaudí.

À frente desta gigantesca tarefa estiveram os arquitetos Francesc Quintana, Isidre Puig i Boada e Lluís Bonet i Garí, enquanto da obra escultórica se encarregou Jaume Busquets. Posteriormente, quando se construiu a fachada da Paixão, o conjunto principal das figuras escultóricas foi encarregado a Josep Maria Subirachs . As obras deste último originaram certa polêmica, devido a ter criado esculturas totalmente contemporâneas afastadas do estilo realista que Gaudí incluiu na fachada da Natividade. O escultor japonês Etsuro Sotoo colaborou em algumas esculturas da fachada da Natividade . Desde 1987 que as obras estão sob a direção do arquiteto Jordi Bonet i Armengol.

Projeto de praça estrelada para a Sagrada Família (1916).

Um dos pontos que suscitou maior controvérsia em relação ao templo é a sua situação no tecido urbanístico de Barcelona: quando começaram as obras encontrava-se num descampado, mas rapidamente ficou integrado no rápido desenvolvimento da cidade em princípios do século XX. Em 1905 Gaudí realizou um projeto para englobar a Sagrada Família dentro do Plano Jaussely, o novo projeto de alargamento barcelonês: concebeu situar o templo dentro de uma zona ajardinada em forma de estrela octogonal, que teria proporcionado uma excelente visão do templo a partir de todas as zonas circundantes. Finalmente, devido ao custo dos terrenos, reduziu o projeto a uma estrela de quatro pontas, que permitia uma ampla visão de todos os vértices. Contudo, o plano de Gaudí não se levou a cabo: em 1975 o Município de Barcelona realizou um estudo urbanístico que previa reabilitar uma zona em forma de cruz em torno da Sagrada Família, com quatro praças ajardinadas em cada extremo do templo ; mesmo assim, atualmente existem apenas duas destas praças, e a criação das novos espaços implicaria demolir vários edifícios, pelo qual ainda se estuda a solução ideal para enquadrar a Sagrada Família numa envolvente apropriada.

O Templo da Sagrada Família teve vários eventos destacados: em 1920 celebrou-se o Ano Jubilar de São José com procissões, peregrinações e missas, e cantou-se o Aleluia de O Messias de Händel por mil cantores de orfeões vindos de toda a Catalunha, dirigidos por Lluís Millet. Em 1953, por ocasião do 35º Congresso Eucarístico Internacional celebrado em Barcelona, foi inaugurada a iluminação artística da fachada da Natividade. Em 1981 abriu-se a praça Gaudí frente à Sagrada Família, com um projeto de jardins de Nicolau Maria Rubió i Tudurí, onde se destaca o tanque, em cujas águas fica refletido o templo. Ao ano seguinte, por ocasião do centenário da colocação da primeira pedra, o templo recebeu a visita do Papa João Paulo II. Igualmente, a 18 de Março de 2007 foi comemorado o 125.º aniversário da colocação da primeira pedra do templo com uma festa, concertos e bailando uma sardana em redor de todo o templo. O templo é palco habitual de numerosos atos culturais e encontros religiosos.

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A text, in english, from barcelona.de/en/barcelona-sagrada-familia.html

The basilica Sagrada Familia

Antoni Gaudí's life work is an UNESCO world heritage

The Sagrada Familia is one of the most famous landmarks in Barcelona. Since 1882 it was built at the church in the district Eixample built. From 1883 the Catalan architect Antoni Gaudí took over the leadership of the works until his death in 1926. The building is significantly influenced by him. The church is such a huge size, so they often referred it as "cathedral", but without having a bishop's seat. Pope Benedict XVI. inaugurates the Sagrada Familia on November 7, 2010. The church building is raised to a basilica.

Much time should allow for the visit of the details of the facades, where many embassies and biblical stories are hidden.

With the completion in 2026 expected, the construction is financed solely from donations and ticket money. Currently, 8 out of 12 about 100 meters tall bell towers are completed. The higher towers of the facade of the glory will be built and the central dome with a height of over 170 meters. Currently, part of the cloister is the building of the apse dome.

The start of construction of the Sagrada Familia.

Mid-19th Century the booksellers José María Boca Bella , Chairman of the Holy Brotherhood, planned a church in Barcelona to build and to devote the Holy Family ( "Sagrada Familia"). The land he choose was a parcel within the "Poblet (village). He preferred a fundamental step closer to the city centre out. Because of the already high land prices this was not possible.

The planning of the church began with the architect of the Diocese Francisco del Villar. He designed a church in Gothic style and began in 1882 with the construction of the crypt. Because of fundamental disagreements with Boca Bella he had to resign from his job. A few months later in 1883, the young architect Antoni Gaudí took over his work.

Gaudí took place in the Sagrada Familia his life's work. He worked until his death on 10th June 1926.

Under Gaudí the church won because of their extensive dimension and its lush design with such importance that they soon called it "the Cathedral". Also Gaudí even called it, although they do not house a bishop. He was convinced that one day the city would be known as "his" church.

Gaudí shaped espacially the Sagrada Familia . Many new parts are built according to plans, which are hardly ever received and often depend on assumptions as the great architect had originally planned. Of course everyone is sure of one thing: the Church Sagrada family in case of completion in respect to all previously built churches of Christendom will surpass all in greatness.

As a church, the Sagrada Familia should not only be seen in the artistic point of view. It must be the consideration of building facades with its towers and even religion.

Tips for visiting the Sagrada Familia.

The Sagrada Familia is the most visited monument in Spain. At peak times therefore sometimes one can queue in front of the house and cash in on the elevators of the towers which go up, on the other. The largest are the queues in the late morning. So if you dont want to stay in the queue, use the time to the cathedral from a distance, the two places right and left of the Sagrada Familia from them.

On the rear lifts, in the towers of the facade of the birth of Christ which goes up, the queue is much shorter. Do not return to down the lifts, use the stairs. Only then do you see the absolutely stunning spiral staircase.

Piotr Ilich Chaikovski (en ruso: Пётр Ильич Чайковский) (Vótkinsk, 25 de abriljul./ 7 de mayo de 1840greg.-San Petersburgo, 25 de octubrejul./ 6 de noviembre de 1893greg.) fue un compositor ruso del período del Romanticismo. Es autor de algunas de las obras de música clásica más famosas del repertorio actual, como los ballets El lago de los cisnes, La bella durmiente y El cascanueces, la Obertura 1812, la obertura-fantasía Romeo y Julieta, el Primer concierto para piano, el Concierto para violín, sus sinfonías Cuarta, Quinta y Sexta y la ópera Eugenio Oneguin.

Nacido en una familia de clase media, la educación que recibió Chaikovski estaba dirigida a prepararle como funcionario, a pesar del interés musical que mostró. En contra de los deseos de su familia, decidió seguir una carrera musical y en 1862 accedió al Conservatorio de San Petersburgo, graduándose en 1865. La formación que recibió, formal y orientada al estilo musical occidental, lo apartó del movimiento contemporáneo nacionalista conocido como el «Grupo de los Cinco» conformado por un grupo de jóvenes compositores rusos, con los cuales Chaikovski mantuvo una relación profesional y de amistad a lo largo de su carrera.

Mientras desarrollaba su estilo, Chaikovski escribió música en varios géneros y formas, incluyendo la sinfonía, ópera, ballet, música instrumental, de cámara y la canción. A pesar de contar con varios éxitos, nunca tuvo mucha confianza o seguridad en sí mismo y su vida estuvo salpicada por crisis personales y periodos de depresión. Como factores que quizá contribuyeron a esto, pueden mencionarse su homosexualidad reprimida y el miedo a que se revelara su condición, su desastroso matrimonio y el repentino colapso de la única relación duradera que mantuvo en su vida adulta: su asociación de trece años con la rica viuda Nadezhda von Meck. En medio de esta agitada vida personal, la reputación de Chaikovski aumentó; recibió honores por parte del zar, obtuvo una pensión vitalicia y fue alabado en las salas de conciertos de todo el mundo. Su repentina muerte a los cincuenta y tres años suele atribuirse generalmente al cólera, pero algunos lo atribuyen a un suicidio.

A pesar de ser popular en todo el mundo, Chaikovski recibió a veces duras críticas por parte de críticos y compositores. Sin embargo, su reputación como compositor es hoy en día segura,2 y ha desaparecido por completo el desdén con el que los críticos occidentales a principios y mediados del siglo XX catalogaban su música como vulgar y falta de pensamiento.

De hecho, Chaikovski está considerado actualmente como el más destacado músico de Rusia y una de las figuras más importantes de la cultura de ese país a lo largo de su historia.

Piotr Chaikovski nació en Vótkinsk, un pequeño pueblo en la actual Udmurtia, que anteriormente fue parte de la provincia de Vyatka del Imperio ruso. Su padre, Iliá Petróvich Chaikovski, era el hijo de Piotr Fiódorovich Chaika (conocido posteriormente como Piotr Fiódorovich Chaikovski quien obtuviera un título nobiliario por sus servicios como médico militar para la zarina Catalina II de Rusia). Su padre fue un ingeniero de minas del Estado, de ascendencia ucraniana. Chaika (ucr. Чайка, significa gaviota) es un apellido tradicional de Ucrania. Nació en 1745 en Nikoláevka, cerca de Poltava, Ucrania, fue el segundo hijo de Fiódor Chaika (ca. 1695-1767) y su mujer Anna (1717-?), y estudió en un seminario en Kiev, pero más tarde recibió enseñanzas de medicina en San Petersburgo.5 La madre de Piotr, Aleksandra Andréyevna, de soltera d'Assier, provenía de raíces parcialmente francesas y fue la segunda de las tres esposas de Iliá. El dramaturgo, libretista y traductor Modest Ilich Chaikovski6 fue uno de los hermanos menores de Piotr.

En 1843, los padres de Chaikovski contrataron los servicios de una institutriz francesa llamada Fanny Dürbach. Su pasión y afecto por el cargo contrarrestaban la actitud de Aleksandra, descrita por un biógrafo como una madre fría, infeliz y distante, no dada a mostrar afecto físico.7 Sin embargo, otros autores afirman que Aleksandra adoraba a su hijo.

Piotr Chaikovski empezó las lecciones de piano a los cinco años. Fue un alumno precoz, en tres años fue capaz de leer música tan bien como su profesor. Sin embargo, la pasión de sus padres sobre su talento musical pronto se enfrió. En 1850, la familia decidió enviarlo a la Escuela Imperial de Jurisprudencia de San Petersburgo. Esta institución atendía principalmente a la pequeña nobleza y prepararía a Chaikovski como funcionario. Dado que la edad mínima para acceder era de doce años, Chaikovski tuvo que pasar dos años en un internado de la escuela preparatoria de la Escuela Imperial de Jurisprudencia, a unos 1300 km de su familia. Una vez que estos dos años pasaron, Chaikovski fue trasladado a la Escuela Imperial de Jurisprudencia para empezar un curso de estudios que duraría siete años.

El 25 de junio de 1854, Chaikovski se vio profundamente afectado por la muerte de su madre Aleksandra a causa del cólera. Lo afectó tanto que se sintió incapaz de darle la noticia a Fanny Dürbach hasta transcurridos dos años. Sin embargo, unos meses después de la muerte de su madre, realizó el primer intento serio de composición, un vals en su memoria. Varios autores afirman que la pérdida de su madre contribuyó al desarrollo sexual de Chaikovski, así como su experiencia con las supuestamente extendidas prácticas homosexuales entre estudiantes de la Escuela Imperial de Jurisprudencia. Sea cual fuere la verdad de esto, algunas amistades con sus compañeros, como Alekséi Apujtin y Vladímir Gerard, fueron suficientemente intensas para durar el resto de su vida.

La música no era una prioridad alta en la Escuela, pero Chaikovski asistía regularmente al teatro y a la ópera con otros estudiantes. Se aficionó a las obras de Rossini, Bellini, Verdi y Mozart. El fabricante de pianos Franz Becker realizaba visitas de vez en cuando a la Escuela como profesor de música simbólico. Esta fue la única instrucción formal sobre música que recibió allí. Desde 1855, su padre, Iliá Chaikovski, le financió lecciones privadas con Rudolph Kündinger, un reconocido profesor de piano de Núremberg. Iliá además le preguntó a Kündinger sobre la posibilidad de una carrera musical para su hijo. Kündinger contestó que nada sugería que fuera un compositor potencial o incluso un buen intérprete. A Chaikovski se le dijo que acabara su curso y luego intentara acceder a un puesto en el Ministerio de Justicia.

Chaikovski se graduó el 25 de mayo de 1859 con el rango de consejero titular, el rango más bajo en la carrera de funcionario. El 15 de junio fue admitido en el Ministerio de Justicia. Seis meses más tarde alcanzó el puesto de asistente subalterno y dos meses después de esto, asistente superior. En ese cargo se quedó Chaikovski para el resto de su carrera de funcionario, que duraría tres años.

En 1861, asistió a las clases de teoría musical organizadas por la Sociedad Musical Rusa (SMR) impartidas por Nikolái Zaremba. Un año más tarde siguió a Zaremba para entrar en el nuevo Conservatorio de San Petersburgo. Chaikovski no dejaría su puesto en el Ministerio hasta «que no estuviera bastante seguro de que estaba destinado a ser músico en vez de funcionario». Desde 1862 hasta 1865 estudió armonía, contrapunto y fuga con Zaremba, y Antón Rubinstein, director y fundador del Conservatorio, le impartió instrumentación y composición. En 1863 abandonó su carrera de funcionario y se dedicó a estudiar música a tiempo completo, graduándose en diciembre de 1865. Rubinstein estaba impresionado por el talento musical de Chaikovski, pero esto no evitó tanto los conflictos con él como con Zaremba acerca de la Primera Sinfonía del joven compositor, escrita tras su graduación, cuando la envió para que le dieran una lectura concienzuda. La sinfonía recibió su primera interpretación completa en Moscú en febrero de 1868, donde fue bien recibida.

La orientación de Rubinstein hacia la música occidental le trajo la oposición del grupo nacionalista musical conocido como Grupo de los Cinco. Al ser el alumno más conocido de Rubinstein, Chaikovski fue tratado como un blanco fácil, especialmente como carne de cañón para las críticas de César Cui. Esta actitud cambió ligeramente cuando Rubinstein abandonó el panorama musical de San Petersburgo en 1867. En 1869 Chaikovski inició una relación laboral con el compositor Mili Balákirev, líder de Los Cinco; el resultado fue el reconocimiento de la primera obra maestra de Chaikovski, la fantasía-obertura Romeo y Julieta, una obra que Los Cinco adoptaron incondicionalmente. Permaneció cordial con ellos, pero nunca intimó con la mayoría del grupo de Los Cinco, dado que su música le parecía ambivalente; sus metas y estilo estético no iban con él. Se aseguró de mantener una independencia musical de ellos así como de la facción conservadora del Conservatorio de San Petersburgo, una actitud que facilitó su aceptación como profesor del Conservatorio de Moscú, puesto que le fue ofrecido por Nikolái Rubinstein.

Chaikovski compaginó sus quehaceres profesionales con la realización de críticas musicales mientras seguía componiendo. Algunas de sus obras más conocidas de este periodo son Primer concierto para piano, las Variaciones sobre un tema rococó para violonchelo y orquesta, la Sinfonía «Pequeña Rusia» y el ballet El lago de los cisnes. El Primer concierto para piano recibió un rechazo inicial por parte de Nikolái Rubinstein, persona a la cual el concierto iba dedicado, tal y como contó Chaikovski tres años después. La obra fue entonces ofrecida al pianista Hans von Bülow, cuya manera de interpretar había impresionado a Chaikovski durante una aparición en Moscú en marzo de 1874. Bülow estrenó la obra en Boston en octubre de 1875; Rubinstein finalmente acabó apoyando la obra.

El escritor Aleksandr Poznanski mostró a través de su investigación que Chaikovski tuvo sentimientos homosexuales y que algunas de las relaciones más cercanas que mantuvo fueron con personas del mismo sexo. El criado de Chaikovski, Alekséi Sofrónov y el sobrino del compositor, Vladímir "Bob" Davýdov, han sido citados como intereses románticos.

Más dudas plantea la conformidad que tenía Chaikovski de su propia naturaleza sexual. Tras leer toda la correspondencia de Chaikovski, incluyendo la no publicada, Poznanski concluye que el compositor «finalmente empezó a ver sus peculiaridades sexuales como algo inevitable e incluso como una parte natural de su personalidad... sin haber sufrido ningún daño psicológico grave». También han sido publicadas secciones importantes de la autobiografía de su hermano Modest, en las cuales se refiere a esta orientación sexual de su hermano, que comprendía por ser similar a la suya. Algunas cartas que fueron suprimidas por los censores soviéticos, en las cuales Chaikovski habla abiertamente sobre su homosexualidad, han sido publicadas en ruso, así como traducidas al inglés por Poznanski. Sin embargo, el biógrafo Anthony Holden afirma que la búsqueda del musicólogo y erudito británico Henry Zajaczkowski «mediante líneas psicoanalíticas» tiende en cambio a «una inhibición severa inconsciente por parte del compositor acerca de sus sentimientos sexuales»:

"Una consecuencia de esto podría ser una indulgencia sexual excesiva como una especie de solución falsa: el individuo de ese modo se engaña a sí mismo diciéndose que acepta sus impulsos sexuales. Complementando esto y, además, como sistema de defensa psicológica, sería precisamente la idealización por Chaikovski de algunos jóvenes de su círculo [el así denominado «Cuarta Suite»], en la cual Poznanski centra su atención. Si la respuesta del compositor a posibles objetivos sexuales era o usarlos y rechazarlos o idealizarlos, aquello muestra que era incapaz de iniciar una relación íntegra y segura con otro hombre. Esto era, sin lugar a duda, la tragedia [de Chaikovski]."

El musicólogo e historiador Roland John Wiley sugiere una tercera alternativa, basada en las cartas de Chaikovski. Sugiere que a pesar de que Chaikovski no sufría «ningún sentimiento insoportable de culpabilidad» sobre su homosexualidad, permaneció temeroso de las consecuencias negativas de que eso saliera a la luz, especialmente en las ramas de su familia. Su decisión de casarse e intentar llevar una doble vida fue propiciada por varios factores: la posibilidad de que se revelara su situación, la voluntad de agradar a su padre, su propio deseo de una casa permanente y su amor por los niños y la familia. A pesar de que Chaikovski pudiera haber tenido una vida activa en cuanto a romances, las pruebas sobre emplear «argot sexual y tener encuentros apasionados» son limitadas. Buscó la compañía de homosexuales en su círculo durante largos periodos, «asociándose abiertamente y estableciendo conexiones profesionales con ellos». Wiley añade, «las críticas de inexpertos en la materia sobre lo contrario, que no justifican su asunción, salvo por el periodo de [corta vida matrimonial], afirman que la sexualidad de Chaikovski incluso afectó a su inspiración profundamente, o hizo de su música una confesión idiosincrática o incapaz de comunicar contenido filosófico». Lo cierto es que el último movimiento de la Sexta Sinfonía de Chaikovski, más conocida como la Patética, refleja la progresiva desesperación del autor ante la hostilidad de su entorno social y anuncia acaso su suicidio, camuflado bajo el manto de una enfermedad autoinducida, nueve días después de su estren

En 1868, Chaikovski conoció a la soprano belga Désirée Artôt, que por aquel entonces se encontraba en una gira por Rusia. Se encapricharon el uno del otro y se comprometieron al matrimonio. Chaikovski le dedicó su Romance en fa menor para piano, Op. 5. Sin embargo, el 15 de septiembre de 1869, sin decirle nada a Chaikovski, Artôt se casó con un miembro de su grupo, el barítono español Mariano Padilla y Ramos. La opinión generalizada es que Chaikovski superó el asunto bastante pronto. Sin embargo, se ha postulado que codificó su nombre en el Concierto para piano n.º 1 en si bemol menor y el poema sinfónico Fatum. Se volvieron a ver, más tarde, en varias ocasiones y en octubre de 1888 Chaikovski escribió Seis canciones francesas, Op. 65, para ella, como respuesta a su simple petición de una única canción. Chaikovski más tarde llegó a decir que fue la única mujer que jamás amó.

En abril de 1877, el alumno favorito de Chaikovski, Vladímir Shilovski, se casó de repente con la aristócrata Anna Vasílieva, hija del conde Alekséi Vasíliev. La boda de Shilovski pudo incitarlo en cambio a plantearse tomar también tal paso. Declaró su intención de casarse en una carta a su hermano. A esto le siguió el desdichado matrimonio de Chaikovski con una de sus antiguas estudiantes de composición, Antonina Miliukova. El poco tiempo que duró con su mujer lo llevó a una crisis emocional, seguida de una estancia en Clarens (Suiza) para descansar y recuperarse. Permanecieron casados legalmente pero nunca volvieron a vivir juntos ni tuvieron ningún hijo, aunque ella más tarde tendría tres hijos con otro hombre.

La debacle marital de Chaikovski pudo haberlo obligado a enfrentarse a la verdad en lo concerniente a su sexualidad. Aparentemente, nunca más consideró el matrimonio como camuflaje o vía de escape, ni se consideró capaz de amar a una mujer de la misma forma que a un hombre. Le escribió una carta a su hermano Anatoli desde Florencia (Italia) el 19 de febrero de 1878:

"Gracias a la rutina de mi vida ahora, a la algunas veces tediosa pero siempre inviolable tranquilidad, y por encima de todo, al tiempo que cura todas las heridas, me he recuperado totalmente de mi locura. No hay ninguna duda de que durante algunos meses he estado un poco loco, y sólo ahora, al estar completamente recuperado, he aprendido a relacionar objetivamente con todo lo que hice durante mi breve periodo de locura. El hombre que en mayo se le ocurrió casarse con Antonina Ivánovna, quien durante junio escribió una ópera entera como si nada hubiera pasado, quien en septiembre huyó de su mujer, quien en noviembre se embarcó destino a Roma y otras cosas por el estilo; ese hombre no era yo, sino otro Piotr Ilich."

Unos días más tarde, en otras cartas dirigidas a Anatoli, añadió que no había «nada más en vano que intentar ser alguien distinto al que soy por naturaleza».

Se suele afirmar que la tensión del matrimonio y el estado emocional de Chaikovski justo antes, en realidad, pudieron haber mejorado la creatividad del compositor. Hasta cierto punto, pudo darse este caso. Mientras la Cuarta Sinfonía se inició algunos meses antes de que Chaikovski se casara con Antonina, tanto la sinfonía como la ópera Eugenio Oneguin, que podría decirse que son dos de sus mejores composiciones, se sostienen como una prueba de esta mejoría en su creatividad. Acabó ambas obras en los seis meses que pasaron desde su compromiso hasta el fin de la cura de reposo tras su crisis matrimonial. Cuando estuvo en Clarens además compuso su Concierto para violín, recibiendo para ello ayuda técnica de uno de sus antiguos estudiantes, el violinista Iósif Kotek. Kotek posteriormente le ayudaría a establecer contacto con Nadezhda von Meck, la viuda de un magnate de los ferrocarriles, que se convirtió en su mecenas y confidente.

Como el Primer concierto para piano, el Concierto para violín fue rechazado inicialmente por la persona a la cual el concierto iba dedicado, en este caso el notable virtuoso y pedagogo Leopold Auer. Recibió el estreno en manos de otro solista (Adolph Brodsky), y a pesar de que finalmente contaría con el favor del público, la audiencia silbó durante su estreno en Viena, y fue denigrado por el crítico musical Eduard Hanslick:

"El compositor ruso Chaikovski seguramente posea un talento no ordinario, pero más bien, uno exagerado, obsesionado con actuar como un hombre de letras, pero careciendo de criterio y gusto... lo mismo puede decirse de su nuevo, largo y ambicioso Concierto para violín. Durante un rato avanza discretamente, con sobriedad, con musicalidad y sin ser irreflexivo, pero pronto la vulgaridad toma la mano superior y sigue así hasta el final del primer movimiento. El violín a partir de entonces no se toca: es zarandeado, rasgado, maltrecho... El Adagio intentaba en un principio reconciliarnos y convencernos cuando, demasiado pronto, se interrumpe para dirigirse a un final que nos transporta a la brutal y espantosa jovialidad de una celebración de iglesia rusa. Vemos una gran cantidad de caras burdas y soeces, escuchar insultos groseros y oler el aliento a alcohol. Durante una discusión sobre ilustraciones obscenas, Friedrich Vischer una vez sostuvo que había pinturas cuyo hedor uno podía incluso ver. El Concierto para violín de Chaikovski nos enfrenta por primera vez con la espantosa idea de que puede haber composiciones musicales cuyo tufo hediondo uno puede escuchar."

uer tardíamente aceptaría el concierto y finalmente lo tocaría con gran éxito entre el público. En el futuro enseñó la obra a sus alumnos, incluyendo Jascha Heifetz y Nathan Milstein. Auer más tarde diría sobre el comentario de Hanslick que «el hecho de que el último movimiento tuviera un ligero aroma a vodka [...] no iba acorde con su buen juicio ni con su reputación como crítico».

La intensidad de la emoción personal fluyendo ahora a través de las obras de Chaikovski era totalmente nueva en la música rusa. Esto instó a algunos comentaristas rusos a colocar su nombre junto con el del novelista Fiódor Dostoyevski. Como los personajes de Dostoyevski, sentían que el héroe musical de Chaikovski persistía al explorar el significado de la vida mientras se está atrapado en un triángulo fatal de amor, muerte y destino. El crítico Ossovski escribió sobre Chaikovski y Dostoyevski: «Con una pasión oculta ambos se detienen ante los momentos de horror, ante el sentimiento total de derrumbe y encuentran aguda dulzura en la fría trepidación del corazón ante el abismo, ambos obligan al lector a experimentar estos sentimientos también».

La fama de Chaikovski entre las audiencias de conciertos empezó a expandirse fuera de Rusia y continuó creciendo. Hans von Bülow se convirtió en un ferviente defensor de la música del compositor tras escuchar algunas de sus obras en un concierto en Moscú durante la cuaresma de 1874. En un periódico alemán a finales de ese año, alabó el Primer cuarteto de cuerda, Romeo y Julieta y otras obras, e interpretaría algunas otras obras de Chaikovski tanto como pianista y como director. En Francia, Camille Benoit empezó a introducir la música de Chaikovski a los lectores de la Revue et gazette musicale de Paris. La música también recibió bastante publicidad durante la Exhibición Internacional de 1878 en París. Mientras, la reputación de Chaikovski crecía, el aumento correspondiente de interpretaciones de sus obras no tuvo lugar hasta que empezó a dirigirlas él mismo, empezando a mediados de la década de 1880. Sin embargo, en el año 1880 todas las óperas que Chaikovski había completado hasta la fecha ya habían contado con una puesta en escena y todas sus obras orquestales habían tenido interpretaciones recibidas con comprensión.

Nadezhda von Meck era la viuda de un rico empresario de ferrocarriles ruso y una mecenas influyente en las artes. Tras oír alguna obra de Chaikovski, fue animada por el violinista Kotek para que le encargara algunas piezas de música de cámara. Su apoyo llegó a significar un elemento importante en la vida de Chaikovski; finalmente von Meck le acabaría pagando un subsidio anual de 6000 rublos, lo que le permitió dejar el puesto en el Conservatorio de Moscú en octubre de 1878 y concentrarse en la composición. Con el mecenazgo de von Meck se inició una relación que, debido a la insistencia de ella, fue principalmente epistolar: ella estipuló desde un principio que nunca se conocieran cara a cara. Intercambiaron unas 1000 cartas desde 1877 hasta 1890. En estas cartas Chaikovski fue mucho más abierto sobre su vida y proceso creativo que con ninguna otra persona.

Además de ser una adepta entregada a las obras musicales de Chaikovski, von Meck se convirtió en una parte vital para su existencia en el día a día. Tal y como le explicó a ella,

"Hay algo tan especial sobre nuestra relación que a veces me deja atónito. Te he contado más de una vez, creo que tú eres para mí la misma mano del Destino, vigilándome y protegiéndome. El mismo hecho de que no te conozco personalmente, junto con el hecho de sentirme tan cerca de ti, hace que te imagine como una presencia oculta pero benevolente, como una Providencia divina."

En 1884 Chaikovski y von Meck quedaron emparentados por el matrimonio de uno de sus hijos, Nikolái, y la sobrina de Chaikovski, Anna Davýdova. Sin embargo, en 1890 von Meck de repente dio por terminada la relación. Padecía problemas de salud que dificultaban su escritura; también había presiones por parte de la familia además de dificultades financieras debido a la mala gestión de sus propiedades por parte de su hijo Vladímir. La ruptura con Chaikovski fue anunciada en una carta entregada por un criado de confianza, en lugar del servicio postal habitual. Contenía la petición de que nunca la olvidara y venía con el adelanto del subsidio de un año. Justificaba esto al estar en bancarrota, lo cual, si no literalmente cierto, era evidentemente una amenaza real por aquel entonces.

Chaikovski se enteró casi un año más tarde de los problemas financieros de su benefactora.63 Esto no le impidió continuar dando por sentado el subsidio (con frecuentes expresiones efusivas sobre su gratitud eterna), ni se ofreció a devolver el anticipo que recibió con la carta de despedida. A pesar de su creciente popularidad por toda Europa, la asignación de von Meck seguía siendo una tercera parte de los ingresos del compositor. Aunque ya no necesitara su dinero tanto como en el pasado, la pérdida de su amistad, apoyo y ánimo fue devastadora; permaneció confundido y resentido sobre su abrupta desaparición durante los restantes tres años de su vida.

Chaikovski volvió al Conservatorio de Moscú en otoño de 1879, tras haber abandonado Rusia durante un año al desintegrarse su matrimonio. Sin embargo, rápidamente dimitió, estableciéndose en Kámenka aunque viajando sin cesar. Durante estos años, contando con la seguridad de los ingresos regulares de von Meck, erró por Europa y la Rusia rural, sin permanecer mucho tiempo en un sitio y viviendo principalmente solo, evitando el contacto social siempre que le fuera posible. Esto pudo haberse debido en parte a problemas con Antonina, quien accedería o rechazaría alternativamente la opción de divorciarse, llegando hasta un punto en el que se trasladó a un apartamento justo debajo del de su marido. Chaikovski enumera las acusaciones de Antonina hacia él en detalle a Modest: «Soy un impostor que se casó con ella para ocultar mi verdadera naturaleza... La insultaba cada día, sus padecimientos por mi culpa eran grandes... a ella le horroriza mi vergonzosa voz, etc., etc.». Es posible que viviera durante el resto de su vida con el miedo de que Antonina pudiera revelar públicamente su inclinación sexual. Estos factores pueden explicar el por qué, excepto por el Trío para piano que escribió tras la muerte de Nikolái Rubinstein, sus mejores trabajos durante este periodo sean en géneros que no dependen mucho de la expresión personal.

Conforme la reputación de Chaikovski crecía rápidamente fuera de Rusia, se consideró, tal y como Alexandre Benois lo escribió en sus memorias, «obligatorio [en los círculos progresistas musicales en Rusia] tratar a Chaikovski como un renegado, un maestro dependiente principalmente de Occidente». En 1880 esta opinión cambió, prácticamente de la noche a la mañana. Durante las ceremonias de conmemoración para el monumento dedicado a Pushkin en Moscú, Fiódor Dostoyevski dijo que el poeta había recibido un aviso profético de que Rusia conformaría una «unión universal» con Occidente. Un clamor sin precedentes a raíz del mensaje de Dostoyevski se extendió por toda Rusia y el desdén por la música de Chaikovski se disipó. Incluso creó un culto siguiendo a varios jóvenes intelectuales de San Petersburgo, incluyendo Benois, Léon Bakst y Serguéi Diáguilev.

En 1880 la Catedral de Cristo Salvador de Moscú, encargo del zar Alejandro I para conmemorar la derrota de Napoleón Bonaparte en 1812, estaba a punto de finalizarse; el 25 aniversario de la coronación de Alejandro II tendría lugar en 1881 y la Exhibición de Artes e Industria de Moscú de 1882 estaba en los preparativos. Nikolái Rubinstein sugirió una pieza conmemorativa grandiosa para emplearse en las festividades relacionadas. Chaikovski empezó el proyecto en octubre de 1880, acabándolo en seis semanas. Le escribió a von Meck que la obra resultante, la Obertura 1812, sería «demasiado fuerte y ruidosa, pero la escribí sin un cálido sentimiento de amor, por tanto no tendrá ningún mérito artístico». También le advirtió al director Eduard Nápravník que «no me sorprenderé ni ofenderé si encuentras que la obra está escrita en un estilo inapropiado para conciertos sinfónicos». Sin embargo, esta obra se ha convertido para muchos, tal y como la autoridad en Chaikovski, David Brown lo expresa, en «la pieza de Chaikovski que mejor conocen».

El 23 de marzo de 1881, Nikolái Rubinstein murió en París. Chaikovski estaba de vacaciones en Roma y acudió inmediatamente para asistir al funeral en París de su respetado mentor, pero llegó demasiado tarde (aunque formaría parte del grupo de gente que vio el féretro de Rubinstein al volver a Rusia). En diciembre, empezó a trabajar en un Trío para piano en la menor, «dedicado a la memoria de un gran artista». El trío fue estrenado de forma privada en el Conservatorio de Moscú, en el cual Rubinstein había sido director, durante el primer aniversario de su muerte por tres de sus profesores: el pianista Serguéi Tanéyev, el violinista Jan Hřímalý y el violonchelista Wilhelm Fitzenhagen. La pieza se hizo extremadamente popular en vida del compositor y, como un irónico giro del destino, sería la elegía del propio compositor cuando se interpretó en los conciertos memoriales que tuvieron lugar en Moscú y San Petersburgo en noviembre de 1893.

Durante 1884 Chaikovski empezó a deshacerse de su insociabilidad y preocupaciones. En marzo de ese año, el zar Alejandro III le otorgó la Orden de San Vladimiro (de cuarta clase), llevada por la nobleza hereditaria. La condecoración del zar fue una muestra visible del apoyo oficial, que ayudó a la rehabilitación social del compositor. Esta recuperación se sustentó en la confianza ganada tras el tremendo éxito de su Tercera Suite orquestal en su estreno de enero de 1885 en San Petersburgo, bajo la dirección de Hans von Bülow. Chaikovski le escribió a Nadezhda von Meck: «No había visto nunca tal triunfo. Vi como toda la audiencia se conmovía y me daba las gracias. Estos momentos suponen el mejor reconocimiento de toda la vida de un artista. Hacen que toda la vida empleada y todo el trabajo valgan la pena». La prensa al igual se mostró unánimemente favorable.

En 1885, Chaikovski se estableció de nuevo en Rusia. El zar le pidió personalmente una nueva producción de Eugenio Oneguin para que se representara en San Petersburgo. La ópera se había visto previamente solo en Moscú de la mano de un conjunto de estudiantes del Conservatorio. Aunque la recepción de la crítica de la producción de Oneguin que tuvo lugar en San Petersburgo fue negativa, la ópera llenaba cada noche; 15 años más tarde el hermano del compositor Modest identificó este momento como el momento en el que Chaikovski empezó a ser conocido y apreciado por las masas, alcanzando el mayor grado de popularidad que jamás contara un compositor ruso. Las noticias sobre el éxito de la ópera se extendieron y la obra se interpretó en los teatros de ópera de toda Rusia y el extranjero.

Una peculiaridad de la producción de Oneguin que tuvo lugar en San Petersburgo fue que Alejandro III solicitó que la ópera se representara no en el Teatro Mariinski sino en el Teatro Bolshói Kámenny. Esto supuso que la música de Chaikovski estaba reemplazando la ópera italiana como el arte imperial oficial. Además, gracias a Iván Vsévolozhski, director de los Teatros Imperiales y mecenas del compositor, Chaikovski fue recompensado con una pensión vitalicia de 3000 rublos al año por parte del zar. En esencia este hecho hizo que se convirtiera en el compositor principal de la corte en la práctica, no siendo un título en realidad.

En enero de 1887 se produjo el debut de Chaikovski como director invitado, realizando una sustitución de última hora en el Teatro Bolshói de Moscú para las primeras tres interpretaciones de su ópera Cherevichki.81 Dirigir era una actividad que el compositor quería conquistar desde hace una década, dado que se dio cuenta de que obtener éxito fuera de Rusia dependía hasta cierto punto de dirigir uno mismo sus propias obras. En un año de interpretaciones de la obra Cherevichki, Chaikovski contaba con considerable demanda por toda Europa y Rusia, que le ayudaron a superar el miedo escénico que tenía desde siempre y potenciar su confianza en sí mismo. Le escribió a von Meck, «¿¡Reconocerías ahora en este músico ruso que viaja por toda Europa a aquel hombre que, solo unos años atrás, huyó de la vida en sociedad y vivió recluido en el extranjero o en el país!?» En 1888 dirigió el estreno de su Quinta Sinfonía en San Petersburgo, repitiendo la obra una semana más tarde con el estreno de su poema sinfónico Hamlet. A pesar de que ambas obras fueron recibidas con gran entusiasmo por la audiencia, los críticos se mostraron hostiles, con César Cui tildando la sinfonía de «rutinaria» y «rimbombante». No obstante, Chaikovski continuó dirigiendo la sinfonía en Rusia y Europa. Esta etapa como director lo llevó a Norteamérica en 1891, donde dirigió la orquesta de la Sociedad de la Orquesta Sinfónica de Nueva York en su Marcha Eslava en el concierto inaugural de la sala de conciertos Carnegie Hall de Nueva York. En 1893, la Universidad de Cambridge en Reino Unido le otorgó a Chaikovski un grado honorario como Doctor of Music.

Chaikovski murió en San Petersburgo el 6 de noviembre de 1893, nueve días después del estreno de su Sexta Sinfonía, la Patética. Fue enterrado en el Cementerio Tíjvinskoye en el Monasterio de Alejandro Nevski, cerca de las tumbas de sus compañeros compositores Aleksandr Borodín, Mijaíl Glinka, Nikolái Rimski-Kórsakov, Mili Balákirev y Modest Músorgski. Debido a la innovación formal de la Patética y el contenido emocionalmente incontenible en sus movimientos centrales, la obra fue recibida por el público con silenciosa incomprensión durante su primera interpretación. La segunda interpretación, dirigida por Nápravník, tuvo lugar veinte días después en un concierto memorial y fue aceptada de manera más favorable. La Patética desde entonces se ha convertido en una de las obras más conocidas de Chaikovski.

La muerte de Chaikovski ha sido atribuida tradicionalmente al cólera, contraído con mayor probabilidad al beber agua contaminada durante varios días antes. Sin embargo, algunos han elaborado teorías sobre la base de un supuesto suicidio. De acuerdo con una variación de esta teoría, se le impuso una sentencia de muerte en un «tribunal de honor» por un compañero de la Escuela Imperial de Jurisprudencia de San Petersburgo, como reprobación por la homosexualidad del compositor. Esta teoría no demostrada salió a la luz por la musicóloga rusa Aleksandra Orlova en 1979, cuando emigró a Occidente. Wiley afirma en el New Grove (2001), «La polémica acerca de la muerte [de Chaikovski] puede que haya llegado a un punto muerto... Estos rumores, por culpa de su fama, tardaron en extinguirse... Con respecto a la enfermedad, existen problemas con las pruebas que no ofrecen ninguna esperanza de hallar un resultado satisfactorio; la confusión de los testigos; sin tener en cuenta los efectos a largo plazo del tabaco y el alcohol. No sabemos cómo murió Chaikovski. Puede que jamás lo descubramos...»

Chaikovski escribió varias obras que son populares entre el público aficionado a la música clásica, entre las que se encuentran Romeo y Julieta, la Obertura 1812, sus tres ballets (El cascanueces, El lago de los cisnes y La bella durmiente) y la Marcha Eslava. Estas, junto con dos de sus cuatro conciertos, tres de sus seis sinfonías numeradas y, de sus diez óperas, La dama de picas y Eugenio Oneguin, son probablemente sus obras más familiares. Casi tan populares son la Sinfonía Manfredo, Francesca da Rimini, el Capricho italiano y la Serenata para cuerdas. Sus tres cuartetos de cuerdas y tríos para piano contienen bellos pasajes, así como sus ciento seis canciones siguen siendo interpretadas en recitales. Chaikovski también escribió unas cien obras para piano, a lo largo de su vida. Brown afirma que «aunque algunas de ellas pueden ser exigentes técnicamente, la mayoría son composiciones encantadoras, no pretenciosas, dirigidas a pianistas aficionados». Añade, no obstante, que «hay más atractivo e ingenio en estas piezas de las que cabría esperar».

La educación formal que recibió Chaikovski en el conservatorio le permitió escribir obras con tendencias y técnicas orientadas al estilo occidental. Su música es una muestra de un amplio ámbito y amplitud de técnicas, desde una forma «clásica» equilibrada simulando la elegancia rococó del siglo XVIII, hasta un estilo más característico de los nacionalistas rusos, o (según Brown) un idioma musical expreso para canalizar sus propias emociones trastornadas. A pesar de su reputación como «máquina de hacer llorar», la auto-expresión no era un principio central para Chaikovski. En una carta a von Meck del 5 de diciembre de 1878, le explicó que hay dos tipos de inspiración para un compositor sinfónico, una subjetiva y otra objetiva, y que la música programática puede y debe existir, al igual que es imposible exigir que la literatura se las arregle sin el elemento épico y se limite únicamente al lirismo. Igualmente, las grandes obras orquestales que Chaikovski compuso pueden dividirse en sendas categorías: las sinfonías en una y otras obras, como los poemas sinfónicos, en otra. De acuerdo con el musicólogo Francis Maes, la música programática como Francesca da Rimini o la Sinfonía Manfredo eran en su mayor parte el credo artístico del compositor como una expresión de su «ego lírico». Maes también identifica un grupo de composiciones que están fuera de la dicotomía de la música programática contra el «ego lírico», donde Chaikovski tiende a la estética pre-romántica. Entre las obras de este grupo se encuentran las cuatro suites orquestales, el Capricho italiano, el Concierto para violín y la Serenata para cuerdas.

Aunque la música de Chaikovski ha sido siempre popular entre el público, frecuentemente fue juzgada duramente por músicos y compositores. Sin embargo, su reputación como compositor de importancia está hoy en día aceptada. Su música ha ganado seguidores en las salas de conciertos de todo el mundo, en segundo lugar justo por detrás de Beethoven, gracias en gran parte a lo que Harold C. Schonberg califica de «una dulce, inagotable y supersensual fuente de melodía... con un toque de neurosis, tan emotivo como un grito desde una ventana en una noche oscura». Según Wiley, esta combinación de melodía sobrecargada y emoción recargada polariza a los oyentes, con un popular ruego de la música de Chaikovski compensada con el desdén crítico hacia ella entendida como vulgar y carente de pensamiento elevado o filosofía. Recientemente, la música de Chaikovski ha recibido una revaluación profesional, en la que los músicos reaccionan favorablemente a la música llena de melodías y su artesanía.

Chaikovski creía que su profesionalidad en combinar su talento y altos niveles de calidad en sus obras le distanciaban de sus contemporáneos del «Grupo de los Cinco». Compartía varios ideales suyos, incluyendo un énfasis en el carácter nacionalista en su música. Su intención era, no obstante, unir esos ideales con un estándar lo suficientemente alto para satisfacer los criterios de Europa Oriental. Su perfeccionismo, además, impulsó su deseo de alcanzar un público mayor, no sólo nacional sino internacional, que fue lo que finalmente logró.

Chaikovski pudo haber recibido influencias para sus composiciones del mecenazgo mayoritario denominado «del siglo XVIII» prevalente en la Rusia de aquella época, que todavía estaba profundamente influido por su aristocracia. En este estilo de mecenazgo, el mecenas y el artista a menudo estarían en igualdad de condiciones. Las dedicatorias dirigidas a los benefactores no eran un acto de humilde gratitud sino expresiones de su asociación artística. La dedicatoria de la Cuarta Sinfonía a von Meck se sabe que significó un sello sobre su amistad. La relación de Chaikovski con el duque Konstantín Konstantínovich nació a partir del fruto creativo de las Seis canciones, Op. 63, para las cuales el gran duque escribió la letra. Chaikovski no tuvo conflictos de estilo en tocar para los gustos del público, aunque nunca se demostró que satisficiera otros gustos aparte del suyo propio. Los temas patrióticos y el estilismo de las melodías del siglo XVIII en sus obras concordaban con los valores de la aristocracia rusa.

Según Brown en el New Grove (1980), las melodías de Chaikovski van del «estilo occidental al estilismo de canciones populares y en ocasiones las mismas canciones populares». Su empleo de repeticiones con estas melodías generalmente reflejan el estilo secuencial de las prácticas occidentales, las cuales Chaikovski extendía en una inmensa longitud, construyendo «una emocionante experiencia de intensidad casi insostenible». Experimentó en ocasiones con métricas inusuales, aunque usualmente, como en sus melodías de danza, empleaba una firma, en esencia un compás regular que «a veces se convertía en el agente más expresivo en algunos movimientos debido a su enérgico uso». Chaikovski además practicó con un amplio rango de armonías, desde las prácticas de las armonías y texturas occidentales de sus primeros dos cuartetos de cuerda al empleo de la escala de tonos enteros en el centro del final de su Segunda Sinfonía; esta última era una práctica que solían usar el Grupo de los Cinco.

Debido a que Chaikovski escribió la mayoría de su música para orquesta, sus texturas musicales estaban condicionadas cada vez más con los colores orquestales que empleaba, especialmente tras la Segunda suite orquestal. Brown mantiene que mientras que el compositor estaba habituado a las prácticas orquestales de Occidente, él «prefería diferenciar los colores orquestales haciéndolos más brillantes y definidos según la tradición establecida por Glinka». Tendía a emplear más los instrumentos agudos por su «veloz delicadeza», aunque equilibra esta tendencia con «una certera exploración de los sonidos oscuros e incluso lúgubres de los instrumentos de metal».

Wiley cita a Chaikovski como «el primer compositor ruso de un nuevo tipo, totalmente profesional, que asimiló con firmeza la maestría sinfónica de la tradición de Europa Occidental; en un estilo profundamente original, personal y nacional en el cual unificó el saber hacer de Beethoven y Schumann con las obras Glinka y transformó los logros de Liszt y Berlioz en la música programática en materias de elevación shakesperiana y de importancia psicológica».

Chaikovski creía que su profesionalidad en combinar su talento y altos niveles de calidad en sus obras le distanciaban de sus contemporáneos del Grupo de los Cinco. Compartía varios ideales suyos, incluyendo un énfasis en el carácter nacionalista en su música. Su intención era, no obstante, unir esos ideales con un estándar lo suficientemente alto para satisfacer los criterios de Europa Oriental. Holden sostiene que Chaikovski fue el primer compositor ruso profesional legitimado, afirmando que sólo las tradiciones de música popular y la música de la Iglesia ortodoxa rusa existían antes de nacer él. Holden continúa, «Veinte años después de la muerte de Chaikovski, en 1913, La consagración de la primavera de Ígor Stravinski estalló en la escena musical, marcando la llegada de Rusia en la música del siglo XX. Entre estos dos mundos, la música de Chaikovski se convirtió en el único puente».

Su perfeccionismo, además, impulsó su deseo de alcanzar un público mayor, no sólo nacional sino internacional, que fue lo que finalmente logró. El musicólogo ruso Solomón Vólkov sostiene que Chaikovski fue quizás el primer compositor ruso en pensar sobre el sitio de su país en la cultura musical europea." Como el compositor escribe a von Meck desde París,

"Qué agradable es estar convencido de antemano del éxito de nuestra literatura en Francia. Cada libro étalage contiene traducciones de Tolstói, Turguénev y Dostoyevski... Los periódicos están imprimiendo constantemente artículos muy entusiastas sobre uno u otro de estos escritores. ¡Quizás algún día esto también ocurra con la música rusa!

Chaikovski se convirtió en el primer compositor ruso en dar a conocer personalmente al público extranjero sus obras así como las de otros compositores rusos. Además mantuvo lazos cercanos de negocios y personales con muchos de los principales músicos de Europa y de los Estados Unidos. Para los rusos, según Vólkov, esto era algo totalmente nuevo e inusual.

Por último, el impacto de las propias obras de Chaikovski, especialmente en el ballet, no pueden subestimarse; su dominio de las danseuse (melodías que se ajustan a los movimientos físicos a la perfección), junto con su viva orquestación, temas efectivos y continuidad de ideas eran inauditas en el género, estableciendo nuevos estándares para el papel de la música en el ballet clásico. Noel Goodwin caracteriza El lago de los cisnes como «una obra maestra imperecedera [en el género del ballet]» y La bella durmiente como «el ejemplo supremo de ballet clásico del siglo XIX», mientras que Wiley calificó la última obra como «potente, variada y rítmicamente compleja».

es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piotr_Ilich_Chaikovski

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es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piotr_Ilich_Chaikovski_y_Los_Cinco

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (Russian: Пётр Ильи́ч Чайко́вский; 7 May 1840 [O.S. 25 April] – 6 November [O.S. 25 October] 1893) was a Russian composer of the romantic period, whose works are among the most popular music in the classical repertoire. He was the first Russian composer whose music made a lasting impression internationally, bolstered by his appearances as a guest conductor in Europe and the United States. He was honored in 1884 by Emperor Alexander III, and awarded a lifetime pension.

Although musically precocious, Tchaikovsky was educated for a career as a civil servant. There was scant opportunity for a musical career in Russia at that time and no system of public music education. When an opportunity for such an education arose, he entered the nascent Saint Petersburg Conservatory, from which he graduated in 1865. The formal Western-oriented teaching he received there set him apart from composers of the contemporary nationalist movement embodied by the Russian composers of The Five, with whom his professional relationship was mixed. Tchaikovsky's training set him on a path to reconcile what he had learned with the native musical practices to which he had been exposed from childhood. From this reconciliation he forged a personal but unmistakably Russian style—a task that did not prove easy. The principles that governed melody, harmony and other fundamentals of Russian music ran completely counter to those that governed Western European music; this seemed to defeat the potential for using Russian music in large-scale Western composition or for forming a composite style, and it caused personal antipathies that dented Tchaikovsky's self-confidence. Russian culture exhibited a split personality, with its native and adopted elements having drifted apart increasingly since the time of Peter the Great. This resulted in uncertainty among the intelligentsia about the country's national identity—an ambiguity mirrored in Tchaikovsky's career.

Despite his many popular successes, Tchaikovsky's life was punctuated by personal crises and depression. Contributory factors included his early separation from his mother for boarding school followed by his mother's early death, the death of his close friend and colleague Nikolai Rubinstein, and the collapse of the one enduring relationship of his adult life, which was his 13-year association with the wealthy widow Nadezhda von Meck who was his patron even though they never actually met each other. His homosexuality, which he kept private, has traditionally also been considered a major factor, though some musicologists now downplay its importance. Tchaikovsky's sudden death at the age of 53 is generally ascribed to cholera; there is an ongoing debate as to whether cholera was indeed the cause of death, and whether his death was accidental or self-inflicted.

While his music has remained popular among audiences, critical opinions were initially mixed. Some Russians did not feel it was sufficiently representative of native musical values and expressed suspicion that Europeans accepted the music for its Western elements. In an apparent reinforcement of the latter claim, some Europeans lauded Tchaikovsky for offering music more substantive than base exoticism and said he transcended stereotypes of Russian classical music. Others dismissed Tchaikovsky's music as "lacking in elevated thought," according to longtime New York Times music critic Harold C. Schonberg, and derided its formal workings as deficient because they did not stringently follow Western principles.

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky was born in Votkinsk, a small town in Vyatka Governorate (present-day Udmurtia) in the Russian Empire, into a family with a long line of military service. His father, Ilya Petrovich Tchaikovsky, had served as a lieutenant colonel and engineer in the Department of Mines, and would manage the Kamsko-Votkinsk Ironworks. His grandfather, Pyotr Fedorovich Tchaikovsky (né Petro Fedorovych Chaika), was born in the village of Mikolayivka, Poltava Gubernia, Russian Empire (present day Ukraine), and served first as a physician's assistant in the army and later as city governor of Glazov in Vyatka. His great-grandfather, a Ukrainian Cossack named Fyodor Chaika, distinguished himself under Peter the Great at the Battle of Poltava in 1709. Tchaikovsky's mother, Alexandra Andreyevna was the second of Ilya's three wives, 18 years her husband's junior and French on her father's side. Both Ilya and Alexandra were trained in the arts, including music—a necessity as a posting to a remote area of Russia also meant a need for entertainment, whether in private or at social gatherings. Of his six siblings, Tchaikovsky was close to his sister Alexandra and twin brothers Anatoly and Modest. Alexandra's marriage to Lev Davydov would produce seven children and lend Tchaikovsky the only real family life he would know as an adult, especially during his years of wandering. One of those children, Vladimir Davydov, whom the composer would nickname 'Bob', would become very close to him.

In 1844, the family hired Fanny Dürbach, a 22-year-old French governess. Four-and-a-half-year-old Tchaikovsky was initially thought too young to study alongside his older brother Nikolai and a niece of the family. His insistence convinced Dürbach otherwise. By the age of six, he had become fluent in French and German. Tchaikovsky also became attached to the young woman; her affection for him was reportedly a counter to his mother's coldness and emotional distance from him, though others assert that the mother doted on her son. Dürbach saved much of Tchaikovsky's work from this period, including his earliest known compositions, and became a source of several childhood anecdotes.

Tchaikovsky began piano lessons at age five. Precocious, within three years he had become as adept at reading sheet music as his teacher. His parents, initially supportive, hired a tutor, bought an orchestrion (a form of barrel organ that could imitate elaborate orchestral effects), and encouraged his piano study for both aesthetic and practical reasons. However, they decided in 1850 to send Tchaikovsky to the Imperial School of Jurisprudence in Saint Petersburg. They had both graduated from institutes in Saint Petersburg and the School of Jurisprudence, which mainly served the lesser nobility, and thought that this education would prepare Tchaikovsky for a career as a civil servant. Regardless of talent, the only musical careers available in Russia at that time—except for the affluent aristocracy—were as a teacher in an academy or as an instrumentalist in one of the Imperial Theaters. Both were considered on the lowest rank of the social ladder, with individuals in them enjoying no more rights than peasants. His father's income was also growing increasingly uncertain, so both parents may have wanted Tchaikovsky to become independent as soon as possible. As the minimum age for acceptance was 12 and Tchaikovsky was only 10 at the time, he was required to spend two years boarding at the Imperial School of Jurisprudence's preparatory school, 1,300 kilometres (800 mi) from his family. Once those two years had passed, Tchaikovsky transferred to the Imperial School of Jurisprudence to begin a seven-year course of studies.

Tchaikovsky's early separation from his mother caused an emotional trauma that lasted the rest of his life and was intensified by her death from cholera in 1854, when he was fourteen. The loss of his mother also prompted Tchaikovsky to make his first serious attempt at composition, a waltz in her memory. Tchaikovsky's father, who had also contracted cholera but recovered fully, sent him back to school immediately in the hope that classwork would occupy the boy's mind. Isolated, Tchaikovsky compensated with friendships with fellow students that became lifelong; these included Aleksey Apukhtin and Vladimir Gerard. Music, while not an official priority at school, also bridged the gap between Tchaikovsky and his peers. They regularly attended the opera and Tchaikovsky would improvise at the school's harmonium on themes he and his friends had sung during choir practice. "We were amused," Vladimir Gerard later remembered, "but not imbued with any expectations of his future glory". Tchaikovsky also continued his piano studies through Franz Becker, an instrument manufacturer who made occasional visits to the school; however, the results, according to musicologist David Brown, were "negligible".

In 1855, Tchaikovsky's father funded private lessons with Rudolph Kündinger and questioned him about a musical career for his son. While impressed with the boy's talent, Kündinger said he saw nothing to suggest a future composer or performer. He later admitted that his assessment was also based on his own negative experiences as a musician in Russia and his unwillingness for Tchaikovsky to be treated likewise. Tchaikovsky was told to finish his course and then try for a post in the Ministry of Justice.

On 10 June 1859, the 19-year-old Tchaikovsky graduated as a titular counselor, a low rung on the civil service ladder. Appointed to the Ministry of Justice, he became a junior assistant within six months and a senior assistant two months after that. He remained a senior assistant for the rest of his three-year civil service career.

Meanwhile, the Russian Musical Society (RMS) was founded in 1859 by the Grand Duchess Elena Pavlovna (a German-born aunt of Tsar Alexander II) and her protégé, pianist and composer Anton Rubinstein. Previous tsars and the aristocracy had focused almost exclusively on importing European talent. The aim of the RMS was to fulfill Alexander II's wish to foster native talent. It hosted a regular season of public concerts (previously held only during the six weeks of Lent when the Imperial Theaters were closed) and provided basic professional training in music. In 1861, Tchaikovsky attended RMS classes in music theory taught by Nikolai Zaremba at the Mikhailovsky Palace (now the Russian Museum). These classes were a precursor to the Saint Petersburg Conservatory, which opened in 1862. Tchaikovsky enrolled at the Conservatory as part of its premiere class. He studied harmony and counterpoint with Zaremba and instrumentation and composition with Rubinstein.

The Conservatory benefited Tchaikovsky in two ways. It transformed him into a musical professional, with tools to help him thrive as a composer, and the in-depth exposure to European principles and musical forms gave him a sense that his art was not exclusively Russian or Western. This mindset became important in Tchaikovsky's reconciliation of Russian and European influences in his compositional style. He believed and attempted to show that both these aspects were "intertwined and mutually dependent". His efforts became both an inspiration and a starting point for other Russian composers to build their own individual styles.

Rubinstein was impressed by Tchaikovsky's musical talent on the whole and cited him as "a composer of genius" in his autobiography. He was less pleased with the more progressive tendencies of some of Tchaikovsky's student work. Nor did he change his opinion as Tchaikovsky's reputation grew. He and Zaremba clashed with Tchaikovsky when he submitted his First Symphony for performance by the RMS in Saint Petersburg. Rubinstein and Zaremba refused to consider the work unless substantial changes were made. Tchaikovsky complied but they still refused to perform the symphony. Tchaikovsky, distressed that he had been treated as though he were still their student, withdrew the symphony. It was given its first complete performance, minus the changes Rubinstein and Zaremba had requested, in Moscow in February 1868.

Once Tchaikovsky graduated in 1865, Rubinstein's brother Nikolai offered him the post of Professor of Music Theory at the soon-to-open Moscow Conservatory. While the salary for his professorship was only 50 rubles a month, the offer itself boosted Tchaikovsky's morale and he accepted the post eagerly. He was further heartened by news of the first public performance of one of his works, his Characteristic Dances, conducted by Johann Strauss II at a concert in Pavlovsk Park on 11 September 1865 (Tchaikovsky later included this work, re-titled, Dances of the Hay Maidens, in his opera The Voyevoda).

From 1867 to 1878, Tchaikovsky combined his professorial duties with music criticism while continuing to compose. This activity exposed him to a range of contemporary music and afforded him the opportunity to travel abroad. In his reviews, he praised Beethoven, considered Brahms overrated and, despite his admiration, took Schumann to task for poor orchestration. He appreciated the staging of Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen at its inaugural performance in Bayreuth, Germany, but not the music, calling Das Rheingold "unlikely nonsense, through which, from time to time, sparkle unusually beautiful and astonishing details". A recurring theme he addressed was the poor state of Russian opera.

In 1856, while Tchaikovsky was still at the School of Jurisprudence and Anton Rubinstein lobbied aristocrats to form the RMS, critic Vladimir Stasov and an 18-year-old pianist, Mily Balakirev, met and agreed upon a nationalist agenda for Russian music, one that would take the operas of Mikhail Glinka as a model and incorporate elements from folk music, reject traditional Western practices and use exotic harmonic devices such as the whole tone and octatonic scales. They saw Western-style conservatories as unnecessary and antipathetic to fostering native talent. Eventually, Balakirev, César Cui, Modest Mussorgsky, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov and Alexander Borodin became known as the moguchaya kuchka, translated into English as the Mighty Handful or The Five. Rubinstein criticized their emphasis on amateur efforts in musical composition; Balakirev and later Mussorgsky attacked Rubinstein for his musical conservatism and his belief in professional music training. Tchaikovsky and his fellow conservatory students were caught in the middle.

While ambivalent about much of The Five's music, Tchaikovsky remained on friendly terms with most of its members. In 1869, he and Balakirev worked together on what became Tchaikovsky's first recognized masterpiece, the fantasy-overture Romeo and Juliet, a work which The Five wholeheartedly embraced. The group also welcomed his Second Symphony, subtitled the Little Russian. Despite their support, Tchaikovsky made considerable efforts to ensure his musical independence from the group as well as from the conservative faction at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory.

he infrequency of Tchaikovsky's musical successes, won with tremendous effort, exacerbated his lifelong sensitivity to criticism. Nikolai Rubinstein's private fits of rage critiquing his music, most famously attacking the First Piano Concerto, did not help matters. His popularity grew, however, as several first-rate artists became willing to perform his compositions. Hans von Bülow premiered the First Piano Concerto and championed other Tchaikovsky works both as pianist and conductor. Other artists included Adele Aus der Ohe, Max Erdmannsdörfer, Eduard Nápravník and Sergei Taneyev.

Another factor that helped Tchaikovsky's music become popular was a shift in attitude among Russian audiences. Whereas they had previously been satisfied with flashy virtuoso performances of technically demanding but musically lightweight compositions, they gradually began listening with increasing appreciation of the music itself. Tchaikovsky's works were performed frequently, with few delays between their composition and first performances; the publication from 1867 onward of his songs and great piano music for the home market also helped boost the composer's popularity.

During the late 1860s, Tchaikovsky began to compose operas. His first, The Voyevoda, based on a play by Alexander Ostrovsky, premiered in 1869. The composer became dissatisfied with it, however, and, having re-used parts of it in later works, destroyed the manuscript. Undina followed in 1870. Only excerpts were performed and it, too, was destroyed. Between these projects, Tchaikovsky started to compose an opera called Mandragora, to a libretto by Sergei Rachinskii; the only music he completed was a short chorus of Flowers and Insects.

The first Tchaikovsky opera to survive intact, The Oprichnik, premiered in 1874. During its composition, he lost Ostrovsky's part-finished libretto. Tchaikovsky, too embarrassed to ask for another copy, decided to write the libretto himself, modelling his dramatic technique on that of Eugène Scribe. Cui wrote a "characteristically savage press attack" on the opera. Mussorgsky, writing to Vladimir Stasov, disapproved of the opera as pandering to the public. Nevertheless, The Oprichnik continues to be performed from time to time in Russia.

The last of the early operas, Vakula the Smith (Op.14), was composed in the second half of 1874. The libretto, based on Gogol's Christmas Eve, was to have been set to music by Alexander Serov. With Serov's death, the libretto was opened to a competition with a guarantee that the winning entry would be premiered by the Imperial Mariinsky Theatre. Tchaikovsky was declared the winner, but at the 1876 premiere, the opera enjoyed only a lukewarm reception. After Tchaikovsky's death, Rimsky-Korsakov wrote the opera Christmas Eve, based on the same story.

Other works of this period include the Variations on a Rococo Theme for cello and orchestra, the Third and Fourth Symphonies, the ballet Swan Lake, and the opera Eugene Onegin.

Discussion of Tchaikovsky's personal life, especially his sexuality, has perhaps been the most extensive of any composer in the 19th century and certainly of any Russian composer of his time. It has also at times caused considerable confusion, from Soviet efforts to expunge all references to same-sex attraction and portray him as a heterosexual, to efforts at armchair analysis by Western biographers. Biographers have generally agreed that Tchaikovsky was homosexual. He sought the company of other men in his circle for extended periods, "associating openly and establishing professional connections with them". His first love was reportedly Sergey Kireyev, a younger fellow student at the Imperial School of Jurisprudence. According to Modest Tchaikovsky, this was Pyotr Ilyich's "strongest, longest and purest love". The degree to which the composer might have felt comfortable with his sexual nature has, however, remained open to debate. It is still unknown whether Tchaikovsky, according to musicologist and biographer David Brown, "felt tainted within himself, defiled by something from which he finally realized he could never escape" or whether, according to Alexander Poznansky, he experienced "no unbearable guilt" over his sexual nature and "eventually came to see his sexual peculiarities as an insurmountable and even natural part of his personality ... without experiencing any serious psychological damage". Relevant portions of his brother Modest's autobiography, where he tells of the composer's sexual orientation, have been published, as have letters previously suppressed by Soviet censors in which Tchaikovsky openly writes of it. Such censorship has persisted in the current Russian government, resulting in many officials, including the current culture minister Vladimir Medinsky, to outright deny his homosexualit

Sei que foi ontem, mas não poderia deixar de desejar a todos vocês um feliz dia do amigo!

Desde que entrei nesse mundo lindo das dolls conheci pessoas maravilhosas, pessoas que considero verdadeiramente minhas amigas. Sou muito feliz por ter vocês na minha vida! <3

Mas, "E essas duas?", vocês devem estar perguntando.

Paciência, jovens Padawans! Logo logo apresentarei essas meninas que são amigas desde sempre praticamente e são perfeitas para retratar o dia. ^u^

Um maravilhoso inicio de semana para todos vocês!!!

Please consider leaving a comment if you fave, it is lovely to hear from you! xx

Gemma came up to visit again this weekend, so we were out and about again having a great time as always!

At The Star again on Saturday night. We ended u spending the rest of the evening here.

I realise it is a sequence of 4 very similar photos, but I could't choose a favourite - I love them all! So I decided to upload all 4! :-)

-Consider Yourself, from Oliver

Ils sont toujours 2 et volants donc on peut considérer qu'ils sont presque sortis d'affaire.

Avec ces 2 là nous sommes donc pour cette année à 7 poussins volants:

Les 2 poussins nés le 24 mai aux Kaolins

Le poussin né le 30 mai aux Kaolin

Les 2 poussins nés le 10 juin à Fort Bloqué

et ces 2 ci nés le 27 juin à Fort Bloqué

Synthèse des poussins observés ce jour sur la plage de Fort Bloqué: 5

les 3 nés le 1er juillet de 25 jours

les 2 nés le 27 juin de 28 jours

+ 1 juvénile au niveau du Maeva

et 3 GCI mâles sur la plage des amoureux.

Le dernier né le 10 juillet n'a pas été revu depuis le 20 juillet. Je suppose qu'il n'a pas survécu. Je n'étais pas très optimiste à la suite de son comportement de défense où il restait figé dans le sable même à 10 jours le rendant vulnérable au piétinement. De plus il semble qu'avec le temps variable, de nombreux chiens étaient présents sans laisse sur la plage au niveau de la zone où était le poussin....

I find negative space to be one of the most fascinating aspects of composition, which is probably due to my interest in eastern philosophy, which has always emphasized the dynamic relationship between objects and emptiness, form and formlessness. In these philosophies the “void” acquires a mystically powerful role in the process of creation. For example, Japanese Zen Buddhism considers “ma” – which can be roughly translated as “empty,” “gap,” or “space” – to be the critical compositional element of all art forms. The Taoist philosopher Lao Tzu also stressed the importance of the emptiness that gives purpose to things, as he illustrates in this passage from his Tao Te Ching:

Thirty spokes share the wheel’s hub;

It is the center hole that makes it useful.

Shape clay into a pot;

It is the space within that makes it useful.

Build walls for a room;

It is the space within that makes it useful.

But maybe I’m getting ahead of myself. What exactly is negative space? And if there’s negative space, then what is positive space?

Defined simply, negative space is the area around and between the subject of an image. It is the area that is NOT your subject. In Gestalt psychology, they would say that the subject is the “figure” and the negative space is the “ground.” Unfortunately, the term is misleading because space isn’t negative in a bad sense. As we’ll see, it plays a vital and very good role in composition.

On the other hand, positive space is the area occupied by the subject, which is basically the same thing as saying that it IS the subject. It’s the figure or form that your mind focuses on, while the rest is “background.”

So if you imagine a shot of a person standing against a bright clear sky with his arms and legs stretched out, the positive space is the area where you see the person, while the negative space is the sky around him which has probably blown out to pure white, assuming the person is properly exposed. Or say you correctly expose the sky rather than the person. In that case the person becomes a dark silhouette, but the positive space is still the person and the negative space is still the surrounding sky. Your mind focuses on the silhouetted person and doesn’t consciously notice the space around it.

This second example of a silhouetted body with arms and legs stretched out is particularly good for understanding how negative space serves the function of defining the subject. Because the subject is dark and maybe even totally black, we can’t see any details of his body. Nevertheless, the clear sky around the body and between the arms and legs guides the mind into seeing the silhouetted shape and recognizing it as a human form.

This simple definition, as well as the examples I just described, might lead us to believe that negative space is empty space. This is what the term “negative” suggests, that things are absent and there’s nothing there. However, that’s not quite true, at least not in most photographs. While some areas of a photo may be clipped to pure white or pure black, which is as close to a visual “nothing” as we can get, most seemingly empty areas do contain some kind of texture, form, or detail, even if very faint or blurry. All negative space, even areas of total white or black, has weight and mass that helps define the subject. Besides, the human mind, which cannot fathom absolute emptiness, will perceive even pure white or black as something – like a wall or a dark sky.

Because negative space usually contains some kind of subtle form or texture, a more accurate definition of it is any non-distracting, seemingly unimportant area, such as the background or foreground, that doesn’t immediately draw the conscious attention of the viewer, but nevertheless helps define and enhance the shape, action, or size of the subject. It’s anything other than the main subject or focal point of your photograph, but it in some way supports the viewer’s attention on that subject or focal point.

So imagine a magnificent tree in a field of grass. The area around the tree isn’t empty. It’s a field of grass, but because the color and texture is uniform, it doesn’t capture the eye like the tree does. The field is negative space that supports the subject of the tree.

A narrow depth of field might also be used to create negative space by selectively focusing on the subject while blurring the details in the background, foreground, or both. Because the human mind doesn’t like to dwell on blurry areas, this negative space in a sense pushes the eye back to the subject.

From a purely psychological point of view, we might define negative space as any area of the photograph that the mind perceives as “space” around, between, or behind the subject, no matter what might be in that space. Because some photographers think of negative space as a place for the eye to rest while viewing the photo (think of the silent moments in music), any area that the mind perceives as a respite from the subject may be considered negative space.

The fascinating thing about negative and positive space, figure and ground, subject and background – whatever terms you might use – is that they depend on each other. In Taoist fashion, they create each other. Space is defined when you place an object into it, and the object is defined by the space around it.

Noticing Negative Space

Because negative space is the area that the eye doesn’t focus on, it’s easy to overlook it when creating and analyzing a photo. You have to train your eye to see it. You have to focus on the space around the subject rather than the subject itself.

As an exercise in sensitizing themselves to negative space, artists concentrate on painting or drawing the shape of the space around a subject rather than the subject itself. For those of us who aren’t particularly good at drawing or painting, try to think like a stencil - how the paper, plastic, or metal of the stencil makes up the negative space that in turn gives us the shape of the hole that is the positive space, the subject.

Negative space has its most effective visual impact when it forms an interesting or artistically meaningful shape. In visual design, they say the space is “activated” or “on” -as opposed to uninteresting space that is “off.” In some photos, activated negative space actually may be the subject of the image. And yet, you may not consciously notice it, or at least not right away.

One thing you can do to appreciate negative space is turn a photos sideways or upside down to look at it. By doing so, you bypass the part of your brain that wants to categorize and label things. Instead you give your eye a chance to just notice the shapes of the subject and space, and how they interact with each other. You’ll see that negative space can appear anywhere in an image: usually along the edges, if the subject is near the center, but sometimes in the middle, as in a shot through a tunnel. The space is said to be “trapped” when the subjects enclose it.

Sensitizing yourself to the relationship between negative space and the subject will help you notice when they interact with each other in clumsy or unsightly ways. For example, consider a shot of a woman alongside a country road. The woman is the subject and the background road with surrounding fields and trees become the space. At first the mind thinks of them as separate – subject and background space – but then on closer inspection you notice a tree extending out of the woman’s head. Rather than being part of the negative space, the tree now becomes, perceptually speaking, part of the positive space and a grotesque appendage to the woman’s head!

The Role of the Frame

The frame plays an important role in shaping negative space, whether that frame consists of the edges of a print, a digital image, or the camera’s viewfinder. The frame bounds the negative space on the outside, while the positive space (the subject) bounds it on the inside. However, it’s easy to overlook this function of the frame because the mind tends to perceive it as something extraneous to the image, as a kind of container or handle for the image rather than part of the image. We probably develop this perceptual blind spot as adults because children tend to notice the effect of the frame on composition more quickly. Adults often have to train themselves to see it.

Consider this example. You’re shooting up towards the top of several tall buildings that surround you. As you move the viewfinder around, the shape of the sky, which is the negative space, changes as it becomes bounded between the edges of the frame and the sides of the buildings. Is the shape of the sky square, rectangular, triangular, long, squat, thin, horizontal, vertical, diagonal? What happens to the shape of the negative space when different corners of the buildings touch the frame and therefore “trap” different sections of the negative space? How do the sizes and shapes of the sky compare to those of the buildings?

Negative space is not constant. It is always being shaped by the edges of the frame. It keeps changing in size and shape as you move the viewfinder to find different ways to bound the space. The proportions and balance of negative and positive space shift, sometimes in a more aesthetically pleasing way, sometimes not. If the subject fills most of the frame, the negative space is smaller than if the subject fills only a portion of the frame. The ratio of negative to positive space can make or break the composition.

It’s a good idea to train yourself to see negative space as you are looking through the viewfinder to take a shot, but you can also modify its size and shape by cropping the image. Sometimes it’s quite amazing to see how an ordinary image suddenly pops when cropping alters the negative space in an interesting way or creates an intriguing balance of negative and positive space. Unlike the camera viewfinder, which forces specific dimensions to the shot, cropping has the advantage of letting you choose different widths and heights of the frame, which gives you more freedom in adjusting the size and position of the negative space relative to the subject.

Strategies for Using Negative Space

Thanks to the creative talents of artists, photographers, and graphic designers, there are many useful ideas about how to work with negative space. In fact, “working space” is a term that refers to negative space that serves the composition. Don’t simply fill empty space, use it effectively! Here are some of those ideas:

Distribution of Space: Centering a subject tends to neutralize space by pushing it to the perimeter of the image and making it evenly symmetrical. Space on all sides creates a static, calm, formal feeling. It may not be very interesting to the eye. Placing a subject off center can activate the space and make it come alive. Unevenly distributed space tends to do a better job of connecting the elements of an image because they will seem to be grouped. Evenly distributed space tends to make elements “float” independently of each other.

Shape of the Space: Consider the shape of the space in an image. Is it interesting? How might you make it compliment, echo, or contrast with the shape of the subject? Space with a very interesting shape can compete with the subject. It can become the subject. Or it might establish a “figure/ground reversal” in which the space and the subject alternate as the focus of the eye, resulting in a sensation of movement, competition and tension between figure and ground, or even that the eye is being tricked. When the elements of an image create “closure” they may activate the shape of negative space – for example, a curved line of chairs that suggest a circle.

Amount of Space: Some people like to create equal amounts of negative and positive space in a composition to produce a harmonious balance. Having too much or too little of one or the other might ruin a photograph by making the composition seem awkward, overwhelming, or unstable. Too much space can make the subject look insignificant, insubstantial, or lost. Too little space makes the subject appear cramped and the image too crowded; there’s no sense of “absorbability.”

However, a perfect balance often is not necessary or even desirable. Playing with the proportions of negative to positive space can yield interesting results. A generous amount of space can make the subject stand. As the subject gets bigger, it begins to activate and balance the space, eventually reaching a point where the figure dominates the ground, especially when the space is evenly distributed and uninteresting in shape. When the subject is small and the shape of the space is interesting, the ground dominates the figure. In some compositions, you might deliberately tilt the balance of negative and positive space in order to create a feeling of the subject being awkward, unstable, insignificant, cramped, or lost.

Space Providing Direction: Space can generate a sense of direction and movement that can compliment or contrast with the direction and movement of the subject. Space on the bottom creates a vertical “up” feeling. Space on the top emphasizes “down.” Space on the left pushes elements to the right while space on the right pushes elements to the left. Space can draw the eye into an image and also lead the eye out of the image.

Distracting Space: Try to avoid using space as a ploy that draws too much attention to itself. Sometimes the viewer might be too conscious of it. It can be distracting and might detract from the message of the image.

Emotional Reactions to Space: Different presentations of space can conjure up different emotional reactions. Space, especially lots of it, might suggest quality, solitude, absence, cleanliness, purity, heaven, sky, abundance, openness, barrenness, vastness, silence, calmness, rarity, quality, luxury, style, wealth, generosity, simplicity, wastefulness, arrogance, or elitism. Think about space as a basic human need for emotional health. Also think about the psychological concept of “personal space” – how people have a zone around their bodies that they consider their own.

* This image and essay are part of a book on Photographic Psychology that I’m writing within Flickr. Please see the set description.

I love the color compound of this image. This series of daisies was taken under the extremely sunny weather before the winter comes.

Ponte da Boa Vista

Considerada a ponte mais típica e original do Recife, ela liga atualmente a rua Nova, no bairro de Santo Antônio, à rua da Imperatriz, na Boa Vista.

Sua origem é do tempo dos holandeses. Em 1640, o príncipe Maurício de Nassau mandou construir uma ponte por onde os moradores pudessem atravessar o rio Capibaribe, do continente para a ilha de Santo Antônio, e desta para o Recife, indo e voltando continuamente sem estorvo.

A ponte holandesa da Boa Vista, assim chamada por ligar o bairro da Boa Vista ao de Santo Antônio ia da frente do Palácio da Boa Vista, onde hoje se encontra o convento do Carmo, até a altura correspondente ao local onde foi construída depois a Casa de Detenção, atual Casa da Cultura.

Foi construída em sete semanas, de madeira resistente e era guarnecida por parapeitos, para que não detivessem o caminho do rio quando as águas subissem, principalmente nas luas cheias. Segundo documento de 1699, media 3.000 palmos.

Essa primeira ponte da Boa Vista resistiu por um século, e poderia ter resistido mais, se o governador da província de Pernambuco, Henrique Luís Pereira Freire (1737-1746), não a tivesse destruído para construir uma outra em local diferente, nos meados do século XVIII.

Essa nova ponte, construída no mesmo local da que existe hoje, era também em madeira e media 899 palmos de comprimento por 20 de largura. Passou por vários reparos, sendo praticamente reconstruída pelo engenheiro Antônio Bernardino Pereira do Lago, em 1815, quando recebeu gradis de ferro e calçamento com seixos irregulares trazidos da ilha de Fernando de Noronha, além de varandas, de cada lado, onde foram colocados bancos de madeira.

Os bancos da ponte da Boa Vista ficaram famosos na cidade. Segundo Pereira da Costa, durante o dia eram ocupados por mendigos e à tardinha eram disputados pelos faladores da vida alheia, quando enterravam-se os vivos e desenterravam-se os mortos. Surgiu, inclusive, um periódico intitulado A Ponte da Boa Vista, cujo primeiro número circulou no dia 11 de junho de 1835, trazendo abaixo do título uma alusão aos apreciados e decantados bancos. Segundo Luis do Nascimento, A Ponte da Boa Vista publicou mais sete edições, em 1835, e mais seis no ano de 1836, todas anunciadas pelo jornal Diario de Pernambuco.

Em agosto de 1874, por ordem do então governador da província, Henrique Pereira de Lucena, o futuro Barão de Lucena, foram iniciadas as obras de reconstrução da atual ponte da Boa Vista, dessa vez com projeto do engenheiro Francisco Pereira Passos, que lhe deu uma aparência mais moderna e menos provinciana.

Desapareceram os famosos bancos. Com estrutura inteiramente metálica, fabricada na Inglaterra, toda em ferro batido, a nova ponte foi inaugurada no dia 7 de setembro de 1876. Media 145,10 m de comprimento por 13,224 m de largura, com duas passarelas laterais de 2 m de largura, destinadas aos pedestres, e um vão central para veículos e animais, medindo 7,70 m. Com a aparência de uma ponte ferroviária é muito semelhante a Ponte Nova, de Paris, construída, em 1578, no reinado de Henrique III.

Existem nas suas quatro pilastras de entrada, diversas inscrições que registram datas e fatos históricos relevantes de Pernambuco e do Brasil, como a invasão dos holandeses (1630); as Batalhas das Tabocas, de Casa Forte (1645) e dos Guararapes (1648-1649); a restauração de Pernambuco (1654); a Guerra dos Mascates (1710); a Revolução de 1817; a Confederação do Equador (1824); a abdicação de Pedro I e início do reinado de Pedro II (1831).

Durante as décadas de 1940 e 1950, a ponte era um local importante na vida social da cidade. Pelas suas passarelas laterais desfilavam as últimas versões de vestidos, chapéus e maquiagens. Surgiram também os fotógrafos do retrato instantâneo, que ofereciam seus serviços e faziam ótimos negócios. Na época, as máquinas fotográficas ainda eram uma novidade.

Parcialmente destruída pelas enchentes do rio Capibaribe em 1965 e 1966, a ponte da Boa Vista foi restaurada, em 1967, na gestão do então prefeito Augusto Lucena. A restauração, no entanto, a descaracterizou um pouco. O Instituto do Patrimônio Histórico e Artístico Nacional (IPHAN) embargou a obra, porém suas passarelas já haviam sido alargadas, seus pilares unidos por um revestimento de concreto até o nível da água e toda a estrutura do lastro inferior já havia sido concretada.

FONTE: www.fundaj.gov.br

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A Recife's bridge.

This is a supplemental to my "Origin of the States" narrative, the first supplemental since Independence but the fourth overall. ... we'll call it part 34.3 of 50 in a sporadic series.

Consider this a prologue.

The admission of Kansas into the Union on January 29, 1861, brings us to a pivotal moment in this train of accumulating states. Five weeks later, the nation inaugurated a lanky lawyer from Illinois named Abraham Lincoln as its 16th President. A month after that, a rebel militia in South Carolina fired on American soldiers at a fort in Charleston harbor. Overnight, the number of United States dropped by eleven, and the Confederate States of America was born. The Civil War was on.

Ask anybody to name the cause of the Civil War, and you'll likely get one of two answers, depending on where the person you ask grew up. If you're quizzing somebody from the South or from some rural part of various states in the West or Midwest, they'll likely say it was a dispute over "state's rights." Anybody else -- probably the majority, though it's hard to say these days -- will say it was slavery. The truth of it is deeply complicated and denies simple answers, and we as a nation are still fighting over those answers even a century and a half later.

But I'm going to give my own shot at answering the questions anyway. The next two installments of the "Origin of States" series will examine what I see as the two primary factors that lead to the war, followed by a look at the birth of a state that only exists because of it. Finally, we'll cap this arc with a look at what happened during the war and why, and then what happened afterward.

And we'll start now by examining the origin of the biggest motivation for Civil War of them all, which I sum up in that picture of an Arkansas cotton field above and what John Calhoun, the famous senator from South Carolina, called "the peculiar institution" of slavery.

The Conquest

The concept of "slavery" has been part of what we typically think of as Western culture as long as Western culture has been a thing, though it's meant different things at different times to different collections of people. Ancient Greeks had slaves. Ancient Romans had slaves. People had slaves in the Bible. A significant portion of Judeo-Christian tradition holds that the Israelites were all slaves of Egypt until God had Moses lead them all across a suddenly dry patch of Red Sea.

The roots of the Atlantic slave trade that gave us the American form of slavery trace back to the Iberian Peninsula and the period known in Spanish history as the Reconquista. This was a centuries-long series of invasions and counter-invasions that ended around 1400 AD, when European Christians moved across the Pyrenees and pushed Islamic migrants known as Moors off the peninsula and back into Africa. These Christian groups set up various little kingdoms as they went, places like Aragon or Castile or Galicia, and one way the noble classes of these little kingdoms displayed their wealth was by taking captive Muslims as slaves. So in the beginning, Western-style slavery wasn't based on race. It was based on religion.

The end of the Reconquista had two consequences important to our story. One, over the course of the 15th century, the little Iberian kingdoms reorganized themselves into two distinct entities: Portugal and a collection of everybody else that would eventually call itself Spain. Two, the Portuguese and Spanish suddenly had the money and time they needed to kick off the Age of Exploration. Portugal soon started poking their way down the west coast of Africa, and by 1450 or so, they made contact with a number of African kingdoms that were open to trading things like sugar or spices or textiles. Or, in some cases, fellow Africans they'd captured in war and taken as slaves. Which was convenient, because with all the Moorish Muslims kicked off Iberia, the Portuguese had no handy source for slaves of their own. And so, the Portuguese slave trade was born.

Meanwhile, the Spanish kingdoms focused their attention west across the Atlantic, and in 1492, a couple of Spanish monarchs hired an Italian to go bumble into the Caribbean Islands. Two years later, the Spaniards used this find to talk the Portuguese into signing the Treaty of Tordesillas, which guaranteed the Portuguese exclusive rights to the African trade in exchange for exclusive Spanish rights to everything a certain distance west of the Cape Verde Islands. This translated to pretty much the entire New World except Brazil, though it was a while before anybody realized that.

The Spanish found lots of silver and gold in the New World, and they initially forced the indigenous American population into slavery to go digging for it all. But the indigenous Americans had no resistance to the European diseases the Spanish carried, and within a very few years, about 90% of the Americans died. But a Spanish conquistador isn't going to do all that digging himself, so the Spanish turned to the Portuguese. They traded their American silver for African slaves, and the Atlantic slave trade was born.

Over the next three centuries, about 10 million Africans would be kidnapped and stuffed onto ships bound for the Americas. Most of them would wind up in South America or in the Caribbean, where they'd work as miners or farmhands on sugar plantations. Somewhere around 500,000 of them would end up in mainland North America, forced to work in a bunch of colonies that would someday be states.

Indendured Servitude

Some time in 1619, Portuguese colonial forces captured about 300 native Africans from the Kongo and Ndongo kingdoms, marched them to Luanda, and forced them to board a slave ship called the San Juan Bautista. Near the end of its voyage, the Bautista was attacked by two ships full of British "privateers," which is a fancy name for pirates operating with the permission of the King. These privateers seized the Bautista's cargo, including the hundred or so slaves who had survived the crossing, and went looking for someplace to unload their plunder. On August 20, 1619, one of these privateer ships called the White Lion stopped at Point Comfort near the decade-old Jamestown Colony and traded about 20 Africans to the Virginia colonists for food. Those 20 Africans signified the beginning of African slavery in what would become the United States.

Some historians like to say that from a technical standpoint, those first Africans in Jamestown weren't really "slaves" so much as they were "indentured servants," which basically means "slave with an expiration date." Indentured servitude was a big thing in Virginia and the other early colonies, and was usually defined as a process where a wealthy person paid the cost of a ticket to America for somebody downtrodden in exchange for a term of slave-like service, usually about seven years. After the term of service was up, the indentured servant would be freed. This wasn't yet a race-based system; most indentured servants in the British colonies were also British. But this left open a window to define indentured servants from Africa as something else.

History didn't track what happened to all the 20-someodd Jamestown slaves/servants from the White Lion, but it's known that at least some of them did eventually get their freedom. But it didn't take long for the colonists to realize that things didn't have to go that way. Buying a person is a lot more economical when you get to keep that person for life, and the 17th-century version of morality isn't really a concern if that person you bought is just some African captive.

The colonies soon started building the legal framework that legitimized a slave empire. In 1640, a Virginia judge sentenced an indentured servant from Africa to a lifetime of slavery for rowdiness. In 1641, the colonial Massachusetts General Court adopted the Body of Liberties, a legal code that outlined the rights guaranteed to individual colonists, including the right to own slaves. Rhode Island merchants started importing and selling slaves in the 1650s, and one of the largest slave markets ever to operate in North America took shape in Providence. In 1662, a court in Virginia ruled that a child born to an enslaved mother was the property of the mother's owner, establishing the notion that enslavement was a hereditary condition. The rest of the colonies soon followed suit, condemning at least ten generations to enslavement. More laws across the colonies firmly established the racial basis for American slavery, so that by the end of the 1600s, every American held in chains was a black person descended from Africans.

The Peculiar Institution

Slavery took hold in different ways in different parts of the colonies, and it took a while for things to settle into its final form. In the South, the Virginia tobacco planters took advantage of the free labor to offset their vast and everlasting tsunami of debt. The start of the 1700s saw plantation culture take hold on the rice farms of South Carolina and the sugar plantations of French Louisiana. As the decades passed, the Southern economy became more and more dependent on slavery, and Southerners grew more and more willing to overlook and explain away the lives slavery destroyed.

The situation was different in the North, where more rugged terrain and shorter growing seasons made slavery less economical. This gave northerners more financial freedom to start factoring the morality of slavery into their cost/benefit analysis. Northerners could afford to notice the scars whips left on their slaves' backs, as slavery allowed white men and women to abuse black men and women in ways so horrific that even the longest Flickr post couldn't capture it. (Thankfully, I don't have those kinds of pictures.) More and more people looked at slavery with revulsion.

By the 1750s, a few people in the north were suggesting that maybe there shouldn't be such a thing as slavery. The Pennsylvania Quakers went so far as to ban slavery among their followers in 1758. As the idea of "freedom" and "independence" took hold of the American psyche in the 1760s and 1770s, many people, especially in the north, grew convinced that all this new freedom should include the slaves. The new state of Pennsylvania outlawed slavery in 1780. New Hampshire and Massachusettes followed suit in 1783, and Rhode Island and Connecticut did the same a year later. New York finally got around to banning slavery in 1799, and Vermont never had legal slavery to begin with. And when in the years following the Revolution the newly United States looked across the Alleghenies at what it called the Northwest Territories, it decided that freedom for slaves should be the way of things there. The Northwest Ordinance of 1787, the only significant legislation to pass in the era of the Articles of Confederation, banned slavery north of the Ohio River and East of the Mississippi for all time.

The assumption among many of America's founding leaders was that even in the South, slavery was on an economic downswing anyway, and that within a generation or so, the problem would take care of itself. That's partly how a Virginia planter who owned about 200 slaves in 1776 could write a document that said, "all men are created equal" without a hint of irony. He assumed that the slave question would just fade away by the time he retired to Monticello.

Antebellum

Jefferson and the other founding leaders of the United States had good reason to believe slavery was in its final days when they declared independence in 1776 and ratified the Constitution in 1788. Four of the first five United States Presidents were Virginia planters, and the buckets of red ink in the personal accounting books of each of those four Presidents told them just where the plantation economy was headed. All four spent their lives hovering near bankruptcy, and three of the four had their estates sold off to cover their debts once they died. Tobacco markets were chaotic, and tobacco was a labor intensive plant that quickly killed the soil where it grew. Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, and a host of other Southern planters knew this couldn't go on.

But then it did, and we explored the reasons why when we talked about Mississippi. The answer was in the picture above: cotton. Cotton wasn't a new thing, and the crop itself wasn't hard to grow -- at least, it was no harder to grow than tobacco. But processing the grown cotton was expensive, because the finished plant was full of seeds that had to be removed by hand. But then in 1794, Eli Whitney invented a machine that removed the seeds automatically, and overnight, a labor-intensive crop that had been impossible to sell suddenly found a market. Former tobacco and rice producers in South Carolina and Georgia turned their plantations over to cotton, while settlers moved into new southern territories like Alabama and Mississippi and Arkansas to build new plantations.

The demand for slaves suddenly skyrocketed. This was compounded when Congress enacted a ban on the importation of new African slaves into the United States in 1807. With the supply of slaves cut off, all these new cotton plantations turned to the dying tobacco plantations in states like North Carolina and Virginia and Tennessee. Tobacco plantations had been faced with the horror of freeing their slaves in a dying slave market and ... I don't know, maybe industrializing or something. Now, they could simply send their slaves down the river to markets in Natchez or New Orleans. In a sense, those old tobacco farms became livestock producers, only the livestock in question was human beings.

By the time settlers jumped the Mississippi River and started carving states from the Louisiana Territory like Missouri and Arkansas, it was apparent that slavery and the plantation economy wasn't going anywhere, maybe ever. The very notion of an end to slavery horrified the Southerners, who saw abolition as a threat to their way of life, and even possibly their very existence. Many, like South Carolina Senator John Calhoun, responded with specious arguments that slavery was justified in the Bible, that it was almost a Biblical commandment, that it was the burden of the white man to take care of his lowly inferiors. Slavery was a gift to the Africans, Calhoun said, something that allowed this once savage race to live civilized, Christian lives their forebears could never have imagined. Slavery wasn't an abomination. It was simply a "peculiar institution" that followed God's mandate to make the world a better place. Calhoun spent decades forcefully declaring that it would be a sin to allow some Union of Northern States to take away his own state's right to follow God's will. And if, perchance, the Union tried to take the right anyway? Well then it would be South Carolina's right to tell the Union to shove it.

But did South Carolina really have such a right? Was it the right of a state to tell the Union to shove it? Did a state have a right to secede? That's the question we'll explore next time.

Please consider leaving a comment if you fave, it is lovely to hear from you! xx

Friday night pictures from an epic, incredible weekend in Leeds. As well as the usual Leeds First Friday event, we were also staying for Leeds Pride on the Sunday - my very first Pride. I met so many wonderful people and had an amazing time, one I will never ever forget.

It was a busy and very sociable night in the Cosmo on Firday! Lots of friends old and new!

Please consider a donation for the free photos at lucid-motion-images.com/donation

Fly Away Home considers the dialogue between people's lives, their homes and the natural world. Inspired by human nature and the built environment the artist explores social difference, the thinning hierarchical divide and how the inherent need to dwell unites us all. No matter the difference in our surroundings, we are all products of our habitat.

‘A house, like the mind and body, contains us and allows us to dwell, but also to hide. The fabric constructing our houses witnesses interruptions in our lives and our history leaves traceable paths within the structure. Circumstances form us and our stories become imprinted in the buildings of our lives.’ Asha Munn, 2013

Munn has created sculptures that fuse together her photographic practice with reflections on therapeutic art and contemporary architecture. Selected sculptures create functioning homes for birds living in the YSP woodland. The decorative surfaces of the structures create a dichotomy between human and bird habitats, with the urban origins of the photographs contrasting starkly with the natural environment of YSP. The differing configurations of the bird boxes create communities within communities. Planted and rooted in the land they create conversations not only with each other, but also their surroundings.

I decided to do an open project which I'd like to call "Consider me an official fan". I will upload an image whenever i want to there is no limited time or spisific period. And I'll pick an artist I truly like his/her works and I'll link him/her to the photo then I'll talk a little about their works.. cause I really like to show my admiration. Other than that, I think there are way a lot of people in flickr deserve a stop from us to observe, enjoy their works and to say well done :).

I'll start with *Shadows

it was really hard to pick who's first, but regarding that she's my cousin. I truly think the 17 year old girl holds a powerful talent. her digital works saying it all, she doesn't only present beauty!. she also presents concepts and ideas, the most things attracted me in her work are simplicity and her personal touch. through the tones, textures or even the elements she uses in her graphics. We might enjoy a wonderful art a piece of perfection yet, we may not feel that art inside our hearts!, her works touched my soul deeply, entertained my eyes and inspired my mind.

With full honesty her stream really makes you stop, enjoy and think. She's recently entered the photography world, I do think she need to practice but as a flower may grow from the mud, her photographs may blow us all!.

"consider me an official fan, shadows"

PS: Mo0ry, happy birthday my dearest friend ;*

Angkor Wat (/ˌæŋkɔːr ˈwɒt/; Khmer: អង្គរវត្ត, "City/Capital of Temples") is a Hindu-Buddhist temple complex in Cambodia, located on a site measuring 162.6 hectares (1,626,000 m2; 402 acres). It resides within the ancient Khmer capital city of Angkor. The Guinness World Records considers it as the largest religious structure in the world. Originally constructed as a Hindu temple dedicated to the god Vishnu for the Khmer Empire by King Suryavarman II during the 12th century, it was gradually transformed into a Buddhist temple towards the end of the century; as such, it is also described as a "Hindu-Buddhist" temple.

Angkor Wat was built at the behest of the Khmer King Suryavarman II in the early 12th century in Yaśodharapura (Khmer: យសោធរបុរៈ, present-day Angkor), the capital of the Khmer Empire, as his state temple and eventual mausoleum. Angkor Wat combines two basic plans of Khmer temple architecture: the temple-mountain and the later galleried temple. It is designed to represent Mount Meru, home of the devas in Hindu mythology: within a moat more than 5 kilometres (3 mi) long and an outer wall 3.6 kilometres (2.2 mi) long are three rectangular galleries, each raised above the next. At the centre of the temple stands a quincunx of towers. Unlike most Angkorian temples, Angkor Wat is oriented to the west; scholars are divided as to the significance of this. The temple is admired for the grandeur and harmony of the architecture, its extensive bas-reliefs, and for the numerous devatas adorning its walls. The modern name Angkor Wat, alternatively Nokor Wat, means "Temple City" or "City of Temples" in Khmer. Angkor (អង្គរ ângkôr), meaning "city" or "capital city", is a vernacular form of the word nokor (នគរ nôkôr), which comes from the Sanskrit/Pali word nagara (Devanāgarī: नगर). Wat (វត្ត vôtt) is the word for "temple grounds", also derived from Sanskrit/Pali vāṭa (Devanāgarī: वाट), meaning "enclosure"

The original name of the temple was Vrah Viṣṇuloka or Parama Viṣṇuloka meaning "the sacred dwelling of Vishnu".

History

Angkor Wat lies 5.5 kilometres (3+1⁄2 mi) north of the modern town of Siem Reap, and a short distance south and slightly east of the previous capital, which was centred at Baphuon. In an area of Cambodia where there is an essential group of ancient structures, it is the southernmost of Angkor's main sites.

The construction of Angkor Wat took place over 28 years from 1122 to 1150 CE during the reign of King Suryavarman II (ruled 1113–c. 1150).[1] A brahmin by the name of Divākarapaṇḍita (1040–c. 1120) was responsible for urging Suryavarman II to construct the temple. All of the original religious motifs at Angkor Wat derived from Hinduism. Breaking from the Shaiva tradition of previous kings, Angkor Wat was instead dedicated to Vishnu. It was built as the king's state temple and capital city. As neither the foundation stela nor any contemporary inscriptions referring to the temple have been found, its original name is unknown, but it may have been known as Vrah Viṣṇuloka after the presiding deity. Work seems to have ended shortly after the king's death, leaving some of the bas-relief decoration unfinished. The term Vrah Viṣṇuloka or Parama Viṣṇuloka literally means "The king who has gone to the supreme world of Vishnu", which refer to Suryavarman II posthumously and intend to venerate his glory and memory.

In 1177, approximately 27 years after the death of Suryavarman II, Angkor was sacked by the Chams, the traditional enemies of the Khmer. Thereafter the empire was restored by a new king, Jayavarman VII, who established a new capital and state temple (Angkor Thom and the Bayon, respectively), a few kilometers north, dedicated to Buddhism, because the king's new wife, Indratevi, a devout Mahayana Buddhist, encouraged him to convert. Angkor Wat was therefore also gradually converted into a Buddhist site, and many Hindu sculptures were replaced by Buddhist art.

Towards the end of the 12th century, Angkor Wat gradually transformed from a Hindu centre of worship to Buddhism, which continues to the present day. Angkor Wat is unusual among the Angkor temples in that although it was largely neglected after the 16th century, it was never completely abandoned. Fourteen inscriptions dated from the 17th century, discovered in the Angkor area, testify to Japanese Buddhist pilgrims that had established small settlements alongside Khmer locals. At that time, the temple was thought by the Japanese visitors to be the famed Jetavana garden of the Buddha, which was originally located in the kingdom of Magadha, India. The best-known inscription tells of Ukondayu Kazufusa, who celebrated the Khmer New Year at Angkor Wat in 1632.

The first Western visitor to the temple was António da Madalena, a Portuguese friar who visited in 1586 and said that it "is of such extraordinary construction that it is not possible to describe it with a pen, particularly since it is like no other building in the world. It has towers and decoration and all the refinements which the human genius can conceive of."

In 1622, The Poem of Angkor Wat composed in Khmer verse describes the beauty of Angkor Wat and creates a legend around the construction of the complex, supposedly a divine castle built for legendary Khmer king Preah Ket Mealea by Hindu god Preah Pisnukar (or Braḥ Bisṇukār, Vishvakarman), as Suryavarman II had already vanished from people's minds.

In 1860, with the help of French missionary Father Charles-Émile Bouillevaux, the temple was effectively rediscovered by the French naturalist and explorer Henri Mouhot, who popularised the site in the West through the publication of travel notes, in which he wrote:

One of these temples, a rival to that of Solomon, and erected by some ancient Michelangelo, might take an honorable place beside our most beautiful buildings. It is grander than anything left to us by Greece or Rome, and presents a sad contrast to the state of barbarism in which the nation is now plunged.

In 1861 German anthropologist Adolf Bastian undertook a four-year trip to Southeast Asia. His account of this trip, The People of East Asia, ran to six volumes. When Bastian finally published the studies and observations during his Journey through Cambodia to Cochinchina in Germany in 1868 – told in detail but uninspiredly, above all without a single one of his drawings of the Angkorian sites – this work hardly made an impression, while everyone was talking about Henri Mouhot's posthumous work with vivid descriptions of Angkor, Travels in the Central Parts of Indo-China, Siam, Cambodia and Laos, published in 1864 through the Royal Geographical Society.

There were no ordinary dwellings or houses or other signs of settlement, including cooking utensils, weapons, or items of clothing usually found at ancient sites.

The artistic legacy of Angkor Wat and other Khmer monuments in the Angkor region led directly to France adopting Cambodia as a protectorate on 11 August 1863 and invading Siam to take control of the ruins. This quickly led to Cambodia reclaiming lands in the northwestern corner of the country such as the areas of Siem Reap, Battambang, and Sisophon which were under Siamese rule from 1795 to 1907.

Angkor Wat's aesthetics were on display in the plaster cast museum of Louis Delaporte called musée Indo-chinois which existed in the Parisian Trocadero Palace from c.1880 to the mid-1920s.

The 20th century saw a considerable restoration of Angkor Wat. Gradually teams of laborers and archeologists pushed back the jungle and exposed the expanses of stone, permitting the sun to once again illuminate the dark corners of the temple. Angkor Wat caught the attention and imagination of a wider audience in Europe when the pavilion of French protectorate of Cambodia, as part of French Indochina, recreated the life-size replica of Angkor Wat during Paris Colonial Exposition in 1931.

Cambodia gained independence from France on 9 November 1953 and has controlled Angkor Wat since then. From the colonial period onwards, until the site was nominated a UNESCO World Heritage in 1992, the temple of Angkor Wat was instrumental in the formation of the modern and gradually globalised concept of built cultural heritage.

Restoration work was interrupted by the Cambodian Civil War and Khmer Rouge control of the country during the 1970s and 1980s, but relatively little damage was done during this period. Camping Khmer Rouge forces used whatever wood remained in the building structures for firewood, and a shoot-out between Khmer Rouge and Vietnamese forces put a few bullet holes in a basrelief. Far more damage was done after the wars, by art thieves working out of Thailand, which, in the late 1980s and early 1990s, claimed almost every head that could be lopped off the structures, including reconstructions.

The temple is a symbol of Cambodia and is a source of national pride that has factored into Cambodia's diplomatic relations with France, the United States, and its neighbour Thailand. A depiction of Angkor Wat has been a part of Cambodian national flags since the introduction of the first version circa 1863. From a larger historical and transcultural perspective, however, the temple of Angkor Wat did not become a symbol of national pride sui generis but had been inscribed into a larger politico-cultural process of French-colonial heritage production in which the original temple site was presented in French colonial and universal exhibitions in Paris and Marseille between 1889 and 1937.

In December 2015, it was announced that a research team from the University of Sydney had found a previously unseen ensemble of buried towers built and demolished during the construction of Angkor Wat, as well as a massive structure of unknown purpose on its south side and wooden fortifications. The findings include evidence of low-density residential occupation in the region, with a road grid, ponds, and mounds. These indicate that the temple precinct, bounded by a moat and wall, may not have been used exclusively by the priestly elite, as was previously thought. The team used LiDAR, ground-penetrating radar and targeted excavation to map Angkor Wat.

According to a myth, the construction of Angkor Wat was ordered by Indra to serve as a palace for his son Precha Ket Mealea. According to the 13th-century Chinese traveller Zhou Daguan, some believed that the temple was constructed in a single night by a divine architect.

Architecture

Angkor Wat is a unique combination of the temple mountain (the standard design for the empire's state temples) and the later plan of concentric galleries, most of which were originally derived from religious beliefs of Hinduism. The construction of Angkor Wat suggests that there was a celestial significance with certain features of the temple. This is observed in the temple's east–west orientation, and lines of sight from terraces within the temple that show specific towers to be at the precise location of the solstice at sunrise. The temple is a representation of Mount Meru, the home of the gods according to Hindu mythology: the central quincunx of towers symbolise the five peaks of the mountain, and the walls and moat symbolise the surrounding mountain ranges and ocean. Access to the upper areas of the temple was progressively more exclusive, with the laity being admitted only to the lowest level.

The Angkor Wat temple's main tower aligns with the morning sun of the spring equinox. Unlike most Khmer temples, Angkor Wat is oriented to the west rather than the east. This has led many (including Maurice Glaize and George Coedès) to conclude that Suryavarman intended it to serve as his funerary temple. Further evidence for this view is provided by the bas-reliefs, which proceed in a counter-clockwise direction—prasavya in Hindu terminology—as this is the reverse of the normal order. Rituals take place in reverse order during Brahminic funeral services.

Archaeologist Charles Higham also describes a container that may have been a funerary jar that was recovered from the central tower. It has been nominated by some as the greatest expenditure of energy on the disposal of a corpse. Freeman and Jacques, however, note that several other temples of Angkor depart from the typical eastern orientation, and suggest that Angkor Wat's alignment was due to its dedication to Vishnu, who was associated with the west.

Drawing on the temple's alignment and dimensions, and on the content and arrangement of the bas-reliefs, researcher Eleanor Mannikka argues that the structure represents a claimed new era of peace under King Suryavarman II: "as the measurements of solar and lunar time cycles were built into the sacred space of Angkor Wat, this divine mandate to rule was anchored to consecrated chambers and corridors meant to perpetuate the king's power and to honour and placate the deities manifest in the heavens above." Mannikka's suggestions have been received with a mixture of interest and scepticism in academic circles. She distances herself from the speculations of others, such as Graham Hancock, that Angkor Wat is part of a representation of the constellation Draco.

The oldest surviving plan of Angkor Wat dates to 1715 and is credited to Fujiwara Tadayoshi. The plan is stored in the Suifu Meitoku-kai Shokokan Museum in Mito, Japan.

Style

Angkor Wat is the prime example of the classical style of

Khmer architecture—the Angkor Wat style—to which it has given its name. By the 12th century, Khmer architects had become skilled and confident in the use of sandstone (rather than brick or laterite) as the main building material. Most of the visible areas are sandstone blocks, while laterite was used for the outer wall and hidden structural parts. The binding agent used to join the blocks is yet to be identified, although natural resins or slaked lime has been suggested.

The temple has drawn praise above all for the harmony of its design. According to Maurice Glaize, a mid-20th-century conservator of Angkor, the temple "attains a classic perfection by the restrained monumentality of its finely balanced elements and the precise arrangement of its proportions. It is a work of power, unity, and style."

Architecturally, the elements characteristic of the style include the ogival, redented towers shaped like lotus buds; half-galleries to broaden passageways; axial galleries connecting enclosures; and the cruciform terraces which appear along the main axis of the temple. Typical decorative elements are devatas (or apsaras), bas-reliefs, pediments, extensive garlands and narrative scenes. The statuary of Angkor Wat is considered conservative, being more static and less graceful than earlier work. Other elements of the design have been destroyed by looting and the passage of time, including gilded stucco on the towers, gilding on some figures on the bas-reliefs, and wooden ceiling panels and doors.

Architect Jacques Dumarçay believes the layout of Angkor Wat borrows Chinese influence in its system of galleries which join at right angles to form courtyards. However, the axial pattern embedded in the plan of Angkor Wat may be derived from Southeast Asian cosmology in combination with the mandala represented by the main temple.

Features

The outer wall, 1,024 m (3,360 ft) by 802 m (2,631 ft) and 4.5 m (15 ft) high, is surrounded by a 30 m (98 ft) apron of open ground and a moat 190 m (620 ft) wide and over 5 kilometres (3 mi) in perimeter. The moat extends 1.5 kilometres from east to west and 1.3 kilometres from north to south. Access to the temple is by an earth bank to the east and a sandstone causeway to the west; the latter, the main entrance, is a later addition, possibly replacing a wooden bridge. There are gopuras at each of the cardinal points; the western is by far the largest and has three ruined towers. Glaize notes that this gopura both hides and echoes the form of the temple proper.

Under the southern tower is a statue known as Ta Reach, originally an eight-armed statue of Vishnu that may have occupied the temple's central shrine. Galleries run between the towers and as far as two further entrances on either side of the gopura often referred to as "elephant gates", as they are large enough to admit those animals. These galleries have square pillars on the outer (west) side and a closed wall on the inner (east) side. The ceiling between the pillars is decorated with lotus rosettes; the west face of the wall with dancing figures; and the east face of the wall with balustered windows, dancing male figures on prancing animals, and devatas, including (south of the entrance) the only one in the temple to be showing her teeth.

The outer wall encloses a space of 820,000 square metres (203 acres), which besides the temple proper was originally occupied by the city and, to the north of the temple, the royal palace. Like all secular buildings of Angkor, these were built of perishable materials rather than of stone, so nothing remains of them except the outlines of some of the streets. Most of the area is now covered by forest. A 350 m (1,150 ft) causeway connects the western gopura to the temple proper, with naga balustrades and six sets of steps leading down to the city on either side. Each side also features a library with entrances at each cardinal point, in front of the third set of stairs from the entrance, and a pond between the library and the temple itself. The ponds are later additions to the design, as is the cruciform terrace guarded by lions connecting the causeway to the central structure.

Central structure

The temple stands on a terrace raised higher than the city. It is made of three rectangular galleries rising to a central tower, each level higher than the last. The two inner galleries each have four large towers at their ordinal corners (that is, NW, NE, SE, and SW) surrounding a higher fifth tower. This pattern is sometimes called a quincunx and represents the mountains of Meru. Because the temple faces west, the features are set back towards the east, leaving more space to be filled in each enclosure and gallery on the west side; for the same reason, the west-facing steps are shallower than those on the other sides.

Mannikka interprets the galleries as being dedicated to the king, Brahma, the moon, and Vishnu. Each gallery has a gopura at each of the points. The outer gallery measures 187 m (614 ft) by 215 m (705 ft), with pavilions rather than towers at the corners. The gallery is open to the outside of the temple, with columned half-galleries extending and buttressing the structure. Connecting the outer gallery to the second enclosure on the west side is a cruciform cloister called Preah Poan (meaning "The Thousand Buddhas" Gallery). Buddha images were left in the cloister by pilgrims over the centuries, although most have now been removed. This area has many inscriptions relating to the good deeds of pilgrims, most written in Khmer but others in Burmese and Japanese. The four small courtyards marked out by the cloister may originally have been filled with water. North and south of the cloister are libraries.

Beyond, the second and inner galleries are connected to two flanking libraries by another cruciform terrace, again a later addition. From the second level upwards, devatas abound on the walls, singly or in groups of up to four. The second-level enclosure is 100 m (330 ft) by 115 m (377 ft), and may originally have been flooded to represent the ocean around Mount Meru. Three sets of steps on each side lead up to the corner towers and gopuras of the inner gallery. The steep stairways may represent the difficulty of ascending to the kingdom of the gods. This inner gallery, called the Bakan, is a 60 m (200 ft) square with axial galleries connecting each gopura with the central shrine and subsidiary shrines located below the corner towers.

The roofings of the galleries are decorated with the motif of the body of a snake ending in the heads of lions or garudas. Carved lintels and pediments decorate the entrances to the galleries and the shrines. The tower above the central shrine rises 43 m (141 ft) to a height of 65 m (213 ft) above the ground; unlike those of previous temple mountains, the central tower is raised above the surrounding four. The shrine itself, originally occupied by a statue of Vishnu and open on each side, was walled in when the temple was converted to Theravada Buddhism, the new walls featuring standing Buddhas. In 1934, the conservator George Trouvé excavated the pit beneath the central shrine: filled with sand and water it had already been robbed of its treasure, but he did find a sacred foundation deposit of gold leaf two metres above ground level.

Decoration

Integrated with the architecture of the building, one of the causes for its fame is Angkor Wat's extensive decoration, which predominantly takes the form of bas-relief friezes. The inner walls of the outer gallery bear a series of large-scale scenes mainly depicting episodes from the Hindu epics the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. Higham has called these "the greatest known linear arrangement of stone carving". From the north-west corner anti-clockwise, the western gallery shows the Battle of Lanka (from the Ramayana, in which Rama defeats Ravana) and the Battle of Kurukshetra (from the Mahabharata, showing the mutual annihilation of the Kaurava and Pandava clans). On the southern gallery follow the only historical scene, a procession of Suryavarman II, then the 32 hells and 37 heavens of Hinduism.

On the eastern gallery is one of the most celebrated scenes, the Churning of the Sea of Milk, showing 92 asuras and 88 devas using the serpent Vasuki to churn the sea under Vishnu's direction (Mannikka counts only 91 asuras and explains the asymmetrical numbers as representing the number of days from the winter solstice to the spring equinox, and from the equinox to the summer solstice). It is followed by Vishnu defeating asuras (a 16th-century addition). The northern gallery shows Krishna's victory over Bana (where according to Glaize, "The workmanship is at its worst").

Angkor Wat is decorated with depictions of apsaras and devata; there are more than 1,796 depictions of devata in the present research inventory. Angkor Wat architects employed small apsara images (30–40 cm or 12–16 in) as decorative motifs on pillars and walls. They incorporated larger devata images (all full-body portraits measuring approximately 95–110 cm or 37–43 in) more prominently at every level of the temple from the entry pavilion to the tops of the high towers. In 1927, Sappho Marchal published a study cataloging the remarkable diversity of their hair, headdresses, garments, stance, jewellery, and decorative flowers, which Marchal concluded were based on actual practices of the Angkor period.

Construction techniques

The monument was made of five to ten million sandstone blocks with a maximum weight of 1.5 tons each. The entire city of Angkor used far greater amounts of stone than all the Egyptian pyramids combined and occupied an area significantly greater than modern-day Paris. Moreover, unlike the Egyptian pyramids, which use limestone quarried 0.5 km (1⁄4 mi) away, the entire city of Angkor was built with sandstone quarried 40 km (25 mi) (or more) away. This sandstone was transported from Mount Kulen, a quarry approximately 40 kilometres (25 mi) northeast.

The route has been suggested to span 35 kilometres (22 mi) along a canal towards Tonlé Sap lake, another 35 kilometres (22 mi) crossing the lake, and finally 15 kilometres (9 mi) against the current along Siem Reap River, making a total journey of 90 kilometres (55 mi). However, Etsuo Uchida and Ichita Shimoda of Waseda University in Tokyo, Japan have discovered in 2011 a shorter 35-kilometre (22 mi) canal connecting Mount Kulen and Angkor Wat using satellite imagery. The two believe that the Khmer used this route instead.

Virtually all of its surfaces, columns, lintels and even roofs are carved. There are kilometres of reliefs illustrating scenes from Indian literature including unicorns, griffins, winged dragons pulling chariots, as well as warriors following an elephant-mounted leader, and celestial dancing girls with elaborate hairstyles. The gallery wall alone is decorated with almost 1,000 m2 (11,000 sq ft) of bas reliefs. Holes on some of the Angkor walls indicate that they may have been decorated with bronze sheets. These were highly prized in ancient times and were prime targets for robbers.

While excavating Khajuraho, Alex Evans, a stonemason, and sculptor recreated a stone sculpture under 1.2 metres (4 ft), this took about 60 days to carve. Roger Hopkins and Mark Lehner also conducted experiments to quarry limestone which took 12 quarrymen 22 days to quarry about 400 tons of stone. The labour force to quarry, transport, carve and install so much sandstone probably ran into the thousands including many highly skilled artisans. The skills required to carve these sculptures were developed hundreds of years earlier, as demonstrated by some artefacts that have been dated to the seventh century, before the Khmer came to power.

Restoration and conservation

The contrast between restored and unrestored figures is deliberate. The major restoration of the causeway was first initiated in the 1960s by the French.

As with most other ancient temples in Cambodia, Angkor Wat has faced extensive damage and deterioration by a combination of plant overgrowth, fungi, ground movements, war damage, and theft. The war damage to Angkor Wat's temples however has been very limited, compared to the rest of Cambodia's temple ruins, and it has also received the most attentive restoration.

The restoration of Angkor Wat in the modern era began with the establishment of the Conservation d'Angkor (Angkor Conservancy) by the École française d'Extrême-Orient (EFEO) in 1908; before that date, activities at the site were primarily concerned with exploration. The Conservation d'Angkor was responsible for the research, conservation, and restoration activities carried out at Angkor until the early 1970s, and a major restoration of Angkor was undertaken in the 1960s.

Work on Angkor was abandoned during the Khmer Rouge era and the Conservation d'Angkor was disbanded in 1975. Between 1986 and 1992, the Archaeological Survey of India carried out restoration work on the temple, as France did not recognise the Cambodian government at the time. Criticisms have been raised about both the early French restoration attempts and the later Indian work, with concerns over the damage done to the stone surface by the use of chemicals and cement.

In 1992, following an appeal for help by Norodom Sihanouk, Angkor Wat was listed in UNESCO's World Heritage in Danger (later removed in 2004) and as a World Heritage Site together with an appeal by UNESCO to the international community to save Angkor. Zoning of the area was designated to protect the Angkor site in 1994, APSARA was established in 1995 to protect and manage the area, and a law to protect Cambodian heritage was passed in 1996.

Several countries such as France, Japan, and China are now involved in Angkor Wat conservation projects. The German Apsara Conservation Project (GACP) is working to protect the devatas, and other bas-reliefs that decorate the temple, from damage. The organisation's survey found that around 20% of the devatas were in very poor condition, mainly because of natural erosion and deterioration of the stone but in part also due to earlier restoration efforts. Other work involves the repair of collapsed sections of the structure, and prevention of further collapse: the west facade of the upper level, for example, has been buttressed by scaffolding since 2002, while a Japanese team completed the restoration of the north library of the outer enclosure in 2005.

Microbial biofilms have been found degrading sandstone at Angkor Wat, Preah Khan, and the Bayon and West Prasat in Angkor. The dehydration- and radiation-resistant filamentous cyanobacteria produce organic acids that degrade the stone. A dark filamentous fungus was found in internal and external Preah Khan samples, while the alga Trentepohlia was found only in samples taken from external, pink-stained stone at Preah Khan. Replicas have been made to replace some of the lost or damaged sculptures.

Tourism

Since the 1990s, Angkor Wat has become a major tourist destination. In 1993, there were only 7,650 visitors to the site; by 2004, government figures show that 561,000 foreign visitors had arrived in Siem Reap province that year, approximately 50% of all foreign tourists in Cambodia. The number reached over a million in 2007, and over two million by 2012. Most visited Angkor Wat, which received over two million foreign tourists in 2013, and 2.6 million by 2018.

The site was managed by the private SOKIMEX group between 1990 and 2016, which rented it from the Cambodian government. The influx of tourists has so far caused relatively little damage, other than some graffiti. Ropes and wooden steps have been introduced to protect the bas-reliefs and floors, respectively. Tourism has also provided some additional funds for maintenance—as of 2000 approximately 28% of ticket revenues across the entire Angkor site was spent on the temples—although most work is carried out by teams sponsored by foreign governments rather than by the Cambodian authorities.

Since Angkor Wat has seen significant growth in tourism throughout the years, UNESCO and its International Co-ordinating Committee for the Safeguarding and Development of the Historic Site of Angkor (ICC), in association with representatives from the Royal Government and APSARA, organised seminars to discuss the concept of "cultural tourism". Wanting to avoid commercial and mass tourism, the seminars emphasised the importance of providing high-quality accommodation and services for the Cambodian government to benefit economically, while also incorporating the richness of Cambodian culture. In 2001, this incentive resulted in the concept of the "Angkor Tourist City" which would be developed about traditional Khmer architecture, contain leisure and tourist facilities, and provide luxurious hotels capable of accommodating large numbers of tourists.

The prospect of developing such large tourist accommodations has encountered concerns from both APSARA and the ICC, claiming that previous tourism developments in the area have neglected construction regulations and that more of these projects have the potential to damage landscape features. Also, the large scale of these projects have begun to threaten the quality of the nearby town's water, sewage, and electricity systems. It has been noted that such high frequency of tourism and growing demand for quality accommodations in the area, such as the development of a large highway, has had a direct effect on the underground water table, subsequently straining the structural stability of the temples at Angkor Wat.

Locals of Siem Reap have also voiced concern that the charm and atmosphere of their town have been compromised to entertain tourism.[103] Since this local atmosphere is the key component to projects like Angkor Tourist City, the local officials continue to discuss how to successfully incorporate future tourism without sacrificing local values and culture.

At the ASEAN Tourism Forum 2012, it was agreed that Borobudur and Angkor Wat would become sister sites and the provinces sister provinces.

In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic led to travel restrictions being introduced across the world, which had a severe impact on Cambodia's tourism sector. As a result, visitors to Angkor Wat plummeted, leaving the usually crowded complex almost deserted. Cambodia, including Angkor Wat, reopened to international visitors in late 2021, but as of the end of 2022 had only received a fraction of its pre-pandemic traffic: a total of 280,000 tourists visited the complex in 2022, versus 2.6 million in 2018. In 2023, the temple is seeing an increase in numbers over the previous year, having over 400,000 tourists by late July.

Texas A&M Aggie Ring ’84 considers himself a bit of a “foodie.” Aggie Ring was quite surprised when he noticed a new “Greek” themed “fast food” place next to the building where our UPS Store account is located in Shrewsbury, New Jersey. It’s called “Greekamolé” and apparently is NOT a chain. Aggie Ring was impressed that you could actually get food that was healthy and not drowned in salt, yet… still tasted great.

Aggie Ring told me “Thank goodness they didn't have the same stereotypical foods that every other "Greek" restaurant has. No gyro, no Pastiche, no Moussaka - you can find that elsewhere! Sure, there are some Greek influenced items here, but the food reminded me more of the food in the Middle East, North Africa or Southwest Asia. Not Greek. Regardless, the food was delicious and healthier than what you find at a Greek diner.”

With the exception of the pulled beef short ribs, all of the main courses were veggie, chicken, or fish! They all looked delicious.

I had the Mediterranean Chicken platter with greens, rice and Turkish salad, and mixed salad with feta. The layout of the salad selections reminded me of the restaurants I frequently visited in Turkey during the two years I lived in Istanbul.

After you pick your two sides, you move on to the sauce bar where you select from at least 9 different toppings. They had tzatziki (OK, that's Greek) but the others were definitely Middle Eastern or Central American inspired. They all looked delicious.

Both Aggie Ring and I liked how the dessert menu was a healthier yogurt variety of options with fruit and other toppings and not heavy pastries. They even have higher quality Jones Cane Sugar Soda, which, If you have to drink soda, is much better than corn syrup based Pepsi or Coke products.

They also had appetizer hot pita with a selection of dipping sauces as well as a kid's menu.

Aggie Ring said, “They did their homework before opening this place.”

"Consider how thy Jesus, after three hours’ Agony on the Cross, consumed at length with anguish, abandons Himself to the weight of His body, bows His head, and dies.

O my dying Jesus, I kiss devoutly the Cross on which Thou didst die for love of me. I have merited by my sins to die a miserable death; but Thy death is my hope. Ah, by the merits of Thy death, give me grace to die, embracing Thy feet, and burning with love for Thee. I yield my soul into Thy hands. I love Thee with my whole heart; I repent of ever having offended Thee. Never permit me to offend Thee again. Grant that I may love Thee always; and then do with me what Thou wilt."

– Reflection by St Alphonsus Liguori.

This station made from copper is in the chapel of the Scots College in Rome.

During Passiontide, I am posting one Station of the Cross a day, each taken from a different location around the world.

BJD Meme

No one tagged me, but I read Lucy's ages ago and she said "consider yourself tagged" so yeah...

1. How long have you been in the BJD hobby?

Umm.. on and off for about 6 years I think. I go through periods of inactivity when other parts of my life kind of take over, but I always wind up back with my dolls sooner or later.

2. How many dolls do you have at home?

I have 7 at home right now.

3. What are their names and sculpts?

In order of arrival:

Pip - Pukipuki Cupid

Squeak - Pukipuki Flora

Imogen - Lati Yellow Rabbit Cookie

Rowan - Lati Yellow X-Mas Elf Miel

Whimsy - Pukipuki Pongpong

Bronwyn - Minifee Shushu

Tibbie - Pipos Caramel Ringo

4. Who have you had the longest? How long has it been?

I've had Pip and Squeak the longest. I bought them in the summer of 2008, so they've been around just under 6 years.

6. Which doll is your favourite?

Imogen. I've been having a hard time with her recently, especially since she's so old and floppy, but she is still very very special to me.

7. Are you waiting on any dolls?

Yes. I have a Minifee Mirwen and Pukipuki Pipi on order. They should hopefully be shipping sometime in the next few weeks. I'm really excited about them because Mirwen is going to become a character I've been planning for as long as Bronwyn, and Pipi is a doll I've wanted ever since they came out and just never bought for some reason.

8. What is your grail doll?

Oh man. I don't know. I have a lot of larger dolls that I love but would never buy because I'm not into the larger sizes... does that count? If so then maybe I will go with Migidoll Ryu or Luts Delf If (what a beauty).

9. Has the hobby taught you anything new?

I've learned a few new skills, like photo editing and photography in general. I wouldn't say that my photos are anything special, but I'm pleased with how much I've improved.

10. Have you made any friends through the hobby?

Not really. I'm shy and I keep to myself, so I've never really connected with any other doll owners on a deeper "friendship" level. I'm a bit jealous of those people who can just make friends no problem. I've never been like that.

11. What are your doll plans this year?

Hmm... right now I'm saving up for a boy, probably Luts Model Delf Dion. I posted a wishlist a while ago and I would love to get some more of those dolls too, but I think right now I ought to focus on getting clothes and shoes and eyes for the ones already at home. Bronwyn and Imogen in particular could really use some new clothes.

The Western End of the M5 Motorway travelling over the Old Line of the Birmingham Main Line

Canal in West Bromwich, Sandwell, West Midlands.

On 24 January 1767 a number of prominent Birmingham businessmen, including Matthew Boulton and others from the Lunar Society, held a public meeting in the White Swan, High Street, Birmingham to consider the possibility of building a canal from Birmingham to the Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal near Wolverhampton, taking in the coalfields of the Black Country. They commissioned the canal engineer James Brindley to propose a route. Brindley came back with a largely level route via Smethwick, Oldbury, Tipton, Bilston and Wolverhampton to Aldersley.

On 24 February 1768 an Act of Parliament was passed to allow the building of the canal, with branches at Ocker Hill and Wednesbury where there were coal mines. The first phase of building was to Wednesbury whereupon the price of coal sold to domestic households in Birmingham halved overnight. Vested interests of the sponsors caused the creation of two terminal wharves in Birmingham. The 1772 Newhall Branch and wharf (now built upon) originally extended north of, and parallel to Great Charles Street. The 1773 Paradise Street Branch split off at Old Turn Junction and headed through Broad Street Tunnel, turned left at what is now Gas Street Basin and under Bridge Street to wharves on a tuning fork-shaped pair of long basins: Paradise Wharf, also called Old Wharf. The Birmingham Canal Company head office was finally built there, opposite the western end of Paradise Street.

By 6 November 1769, 10 miles (16 km) had been completed to Hill Top collieries in West Bromwich, with a one mile summit pound at Smethwick. Brindley had tried to dig a cutting through the hill at Smethwick but had encountered ground too soft to cope with. The canal rose through six narrow (7 ft) locks to the summit level and descended through another six at Spon Lane.

In 1770 work started towards Wolverhampton. On 21 September 1772 the canal was joined with the Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal at Aldersley Junction via another 20 locks (increased to 21 in 1784 to save water). Brindley died a few days later. The canal measured 22 miles and 5 fur-longs (22⅝ miles), mostly following the contour of the land but with deviations to factories and mines in the Black Country and Birmingham.

Over the next thirty years, as more canals and branches were built or connected it became necessary to review the long, winding, narrow Old Main Line. With a single towpath boats passing in opposite directions had to negotiate their horses and ropes. In 1824 Thomas Telford was commissioned to examine alternatives.

Telford proposed major changes to the section between Birmingham and Smethwick, widening and straightening the canal, providing towpaths on each side, and cutting through Smethwick Summit to bypass the locks, allowing lock-free passage from Birmingham to Tipton.

By 1827 the New Main Line passed straight through, and linked to, the loops of the Old Main Line, creating Oozells Loop, Icknield Port Loop, Soho Loop, Cape Loop and Soho Foundry Loop, allowing continued access to the existing factories and wharves.

A year earlier he had built an improved Rotton Park Reservoir (Edgbaston Reservoir) on the site of an existing fish pool, bringing its capacity to 300 million imperial gallons (1,400,000 m3). A canal feeder took water to, and along, a raised embankment on the south side of the New Main Line to his new Engine Arm branch canal and across an elegant cast iron aqueduct to top up the higher Wolverhampton Level at Smethwick Summit. The reservoir also fed water to the Birmingham Level at the adjacent Icknield Port Loop.

The Smethwick Summit was bypassed by 71 ft cutting through Lunar Society member, Samuel Galton's land, creating the Galton Valley, 70 feet deep and 150 feet wide, running parallel to the Old Main Line. Telford's changes here were completed in 1829.

By 1838 the New Main Line was complete: 22⅝ miles of slow canal reduced to 15⅝; between Birmingham and Tipton, a lock-free dual carriageway. It was also called the Island Line as it was cut straight through the hill at Smethwick known as the Island.

UN POCO DE INFORMACIÓN:

Es considerada un símbolo de longevidad, lazo de amor, feliz matrimonio, fortuna, victoria y felicidad.

De sus semillas se extrae un aceite que utilizan las japonesas para teñir sus cabellos.

El aceite de camelia, conocido como tsubaki, es considerado el “aceite de oliva de Asia”.

¿Qué significa tener una camelia en casa?

En camelia se fomenta la armonía fortaleciendo las relaciones interpersonales y propiciando un ambiente cálido entre familiares y amigos.

Alineado con el elemento Fuego, camelia ayuda a dispersar la energía estancada al tiempo que revitaliza el espacio y aporta energía positiva fresca.

FELIZ NOCHE, MUCHA FUERZA, TODA LA SALUD POSIBLE Y USANDO MUCHO HUMOR.

Y SEGUIMOS,,,,

💪💪💪😄✨✨✨🌟🌟🌟🎄🎄🎄🎅💖💖💖

Please consider leaving a comment if you fave, it is lovely to hear from you! xx

A quiet weekend at home, the last one for a while. I'm out and about for the next 4 weekends!

I haven't worn this dress in a little while, so Idecided to give it a run out, along with stilettos rather than wedges for a chiange. This is the first time I've been able to wear this dress without a corset underneath, so I am quite pleased about that.

Situada en la franja oriental de Polonia, es famosa por su Ayuntamiento renacentista levantado gracias a la familia aristocrática de los Zamoyski.

El casco antiguo de la ciudad, de los siglos XVI y XVII, está incluido en la lista de monumentos del Patrimonio de la Humanidad de la UNESCO. La distribución de la ciudad fue diseñada tomando como modelo las de ciudades

italianas del siglo XVI.

Zamosc esta considerada la ciudad renacentista en mejor estado de toda Polonia.

One can consider the presentation of this spectacular hardtop coupe as an ultimate afford to gain attention of the audience to persuade them for buying a Packard. The financial position of Packard was terrible in 1956. But it wasn't much of a help.

Richard 'Dick' Teague (Los Angeles, 1923-1991) designed the Predictor. It was built at Carrozzeria Ghia, Torino in Italy on a Clipper platform. In ninety days the Italians managed to get this project ready, just in time for the Chicago Car Show (see photo).

The Predictor had all kinds of new automotive features, like tilting headlights, roof doors rolled back when opening the door, lowering back window, swiveling seats, dashboard design which followed the hood profile, a power operated trunk lid, and a wraparound windshield that curved into the roof.

Many car brands copied several novelties: the grille at the 1958 Edsel, the roof line at the 1958 Lincoln Premier, the rear bumper at the 1958 Oldsmobile, opera windows or portholes in the rear pillar at the 1957 Thunderbird, and the headlights at the 1962 Corvette.

Only one Predictor was made. It still exists and is on display at the Studebaker National Museum, South Bend, Indiana.

6128 cc V8 engine.

Production Packard Predictor: 1956.

Image source:

Rob de la Rive Box, Amerikanen uit de jaren '50, Rijswijk, Elmar, 1993.

Original photographer, place and date unknown.

Halfweg, July 27, 2024.

© 2024 Sander Toonen Halfweg | All Rights Reserved

Baeza es un municipio de España, la ciudad capital de dicho municipio y cabeza del partido judicial homónimo. Se encuentra en el mismo centro geográfico de la provincia de Jaén (en el noreste de la Comunidad Autónoma de Andalucía) enclavada en la comarca de La Loma de la que se considera su capital occidental.

En la actualidad es conocida por su ingente producción olivarera, su abundante legado monumental, y por ser sede universitaria desde el siglo XVI, albergando hoy día una de las sedes de la Universidad Internacional de Andalucía.

Denominada "Nido Real de Gavilanes" por el romancero, fue un punto clave en la conquista de al-Ándalus por los reyes cristianos; pasando definitivamente al reino de Castilla en 1227. Atalaya sobre el Guadalquivir, la posesión de su alcázar (considerado como inexpugnable) aseguró la retaguardia castellana, la vez que supuso una amenaza constante para los reinos islámicos situados al oeste y al sur del Guadalquivir; una amenaza que se hizo efectiva durante los más de dos siglos de lucha fronteriza que separaron la incorporación de Baeza al reino de Castilla y la caída del reino nazarí de Granada (1492).

Durante el período de gran crecimiento demográfico y económico que supuso la mayor parte del siglo XVI, y aún en parte del XVII, Baeza construyó sus edificios públicos y administrativos con alto sentido de capitalidad y con la más alta dignidad, conformando así, junto con las construcciones eclesiásticas, un tejido urbano caracterizado por una monumentalidad que ha dado a la ciudad un encanto especial a los ojos del visitante.

En 1943 se fundó en Baeza la academia de las escalas de Cabos y Guardias y de Suboficiales de la Guardia Civil.

Se encuentra a unos 48 km al noreste de la capital provincial, y limita por el este con el municipio de Úbeda, con el que comparte la capitalidad de la histórica Comarca de La Loma.

El 3 de julio de 2003, y tras varios años de intentos, la UNESCO declara finalmente a Baeza (junto a Úbeda) Patrimonio de la Humanidad. Este acontecimiento profundiza el relanzamiento de la ciudad al incrementar considerablemente el interés del sector turístico.

es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baeza_(España)

www.lonelyplanet.com/spain/andalucia/baeza

Baeza se asienta sobre un terreno que ha estado continuamente habitado, al menos desde la Edad del Bronce. Por esta razón, y a pesar de las sucesivas destrucciones sufridas por las construcciones de todos los períodos, la ciudad aún retiene un destacado patrimonio monumental en el que están representadas diversas culturas, períodos y estilos artísticos. En Baeza pueden contemplarse restos de la Edad del Bronce, de la Época Romana, y de la Hispania visigoda, islámica y cristiana. No obstante, el más rico patrimonio monumental conservado corresponde a los diversos estilos artísticos presentes en la Baeza cristiana: desde el tardo-románico y el gótico, al renacentista, manierista, barroco y neoclásico. No en vano en 2003 el casco histórico de la población, con su antigua ciudad intramuros, fue declarado Patrimonio Mundial por la Unesco.

Baeza, situada en la cornisa sur de la gran meseta que es La Loma, se asoma al valle del Guadalquivir desde un acantilado que domina un paisaje de cerros infinitos; dicho acantilado, visto desde el llano parece sustentar la catedral como un faro.

La ciudad originaria estaba edificada sobre este cerro y en torno a una ciudadela, hoy desconocida: el celebérrimo alcázar de Baeza, reputado como inexpugnable y dentro del cual se encontraban el castillo-palacio de la autoridad real y la iglesia (luego colegiata) de Santa María del Alcázar. Estas construcciones, lejos de surgir ex novo, fueron una continuación de similares edificaciones de los períodos oretano, cartaginés y romano; restos de los cuales aún pueden contemplarse en el cerro junto a otros de la precedente Edad del Bronce.

Desde esta atalaya entendemos que la ciudad fuera una gran plaza fuerte donde, un día, se remansó la gran epopeya reconquistadora revitalizada por Las Navas de Tolosa. No obstante, a fines del s. XV el alcázar fue derribado por mandato de la reina Isabel la Católica de modo que no siguiera siendo utilizado como defensa con ocasión de las pugnas nobiliarias que enfrentaban por entonces (como en toda Castilla) a los linajes dominantes de la ciudad (Carvajales y Benavides).

Consecuencia del derribo del alcázar, el cerro fue perdiendo pobladores hasta el punto de estar casi despoblado en el s. XVIII y trasladarse por ello la colegiata a la parroquia de San Andrés. También desaparecido el frente sur de la muralla, adyacente al alcázar, el paseo que lo reemplaza es hoy día un mirador excepcional sobre el valle alto del Guadalquivir, y el cerro mismo, un parque arqueológico de primer nivel pendiente de excavaciones más ambiciosas.

Su centro neurálgico es la Plaza de Santa María establecida en la baja edad media, y hasta el s. XIX, como sede de los poderes que rigen la ciudad: el civil y el religioso; en ella se encuentran hoy:

La Catedral de la Natividad de Nuestra Señora: edificada sobre la antigua mezquita que (según tradición histórica) había sido construida a su vez sobre un templo visigodo anterior, fue la primera consagrada en Andalucía con ocasión de la reconquista castellana.

Las Cancillerías góticas o Casas Consistoriales Altas: sede del concejo de la ciudad entre fines del s. XV y el s. XIX, cuando el consistorio municipal traslada su sede al antiguo palacio del corregidor.

La Fuente de Santa María: situada en el centro de la plaza fue edificada en el año 1564 para marcar la finalización de las obras de traída de aguas a la ciudad.

El Seminario de San Felipe Neri (1660): tiene fachada de buena sillería, puerta de medio punto, frontón partido y vítores estudiantiles.

Al norte de este conjunto, y junto a la Puerta del Barbudo, se halla la sede de la antigua universidad Santísima Trinidad, otra importante Institución eclesiástica de la Edad Moderna hoy Instituto. El edificio es de estilo manierista (fines del s. XVI) y consta de claustro, en torno al cual se organizan las dependencias universitarias, y una amplia capilla; contando cada uno de estos elemento con portada propia. Destaca, sobre la puerta de acceso al claustro, el medallón labrado con el tema de la Santísima Trinidad. En esa misma fachada pueden verse los escudos del canónigo Fernández de Córdoba (donante del edificio) timbrados con un impropio galero arzobispal.

De las primeras parroquias intramuros han desaparecido por completo la colegiata de Santa María, San Miguel y San Gil; solo permanecen:

Las Ruinas de la parroquia de San Pedro: iglesia románica de la que sólo se conservan el ábside (parcialmente visible al exterior) y restos considerables de la portada norte (dentro de propiedad particular). Parcelada en viviendas desde el s. XIX, su fábrica ha ido deteriorándose y se han abierto nuevos vanos en el ábside.

Las Ruinas de la parroquia de San Juan: iglesia tardorrománica de la que sólo se conservan los tres ábsides de la cabecera, el muro del lado del evangelio y los capiteles y basas de sus seis columnas. Recientemente, estos restos han sido consolidados y su acceso abierto al público.

La Iglesia de Santa Cruz

Esta última se halla en la plaza del mismo nombre frente al Palacio de Jabalquinto, el más destacado de la ciudad intramuros y uno de los emblemas de Baeza. Pero la ciudad intramuros está, además, plagada de rincones con otros palacios y casonas de interés, como la Casa de Avilés (mediados del s. XVI), la Casa de los Galeote (segunda mitad del s. XVI), la Casa de los Ávila (comienzos del s. XVII), la Casa de los Fuentecilla, la Casa de los Canónigos, el Palacio de los Obispos (todos del s. XVIII) o el Palacio Rubín de Ceballos (principios del s. XIX).

El trazado de la muralla históricamente conocida, y de la que aún subsisten importantes elementos, obedece a un diseño islámico del s. XI. No obstante, las edificaciones conservadas responden más bien a reconstrucciones cristianas posteriores.

La Plaza del Pópulo (o de Los Leones) está inmediatamente al norte de la ciudad amurallada y al oeste de El Paseo, organizándose en torno a la Puerta de Jaén, única construcción de la plaza perteneciente a la muralla; las otras edificaciones de la misma han ido añadiéndose en distintas épocas:

El Arco de Villalar: directamente a continuación de la Puerta de Jaén, fue erigido con ocasión de la visita del rey Carlos I (1526) y conmemora la victoria real en la batalla de Villalar.

La Casa del Pópulo: edificio plateresco que albergaba la audiencia civil y las escribanías públicas; hoy, oficina de turismo.

La Fuente de los Leones: manantial natural que la interpretación histórica tradicional postula monumento arqueológico procedente de la antigua ciudad iberorromana de Cástulo, hipótesis que se sustenta en la continuidad histórica deliberadamente mantenida con ocasión del traslado a Baeza de la capitalidad administrativa y episcopal de la desaparecida Cástulo. Según esta interpretación, parejas de felinos y équidos (actuando como surtidores) rodean una figura femenina identificada como Himilce. Más recientemente, se ha propuesto identificar esta fuente como previamente proveniente de un patio del alcázar.

La Antigua Carnicería (s. XVI): trasladada a su emplazamiento actual en los sesenta del s. XX, estaba originalmente apoyada contra la muralla en la antaño populosa plaza intramuros sita al otro lado de la Puerta de Jaén; hoy cumple las funciones de palacio de justicia del Partido judicial de Baeza.

Al este del conjunto anterior, más allá de El Paseo (plaza cuyo lado sur se antepone a la Puerta del Barbudo) encontramos:

La Torre de los Aliatares (o de los Altares): denominada así de acuerdo con la tradición que la hace, en tiempos anteriores a la reconquista, posesión del linaje musulmán de ese mismo nombre. Tiene veinticinco metros de altura, con almenas copiadas del Arco de Villalar y ostenta el reloj público de la ciudad.

Hacia el sureste de la anterior hallamos:

La Puerta de Úbeda: de las principales de la muralla; protegida por su torre albarrana hoy sólo conserva uno de sus arcos, habiendo sido desmantelados los otros dos en el s. XIX.

La actual Plaza de España, situada en el extremo noreste de lo que fue la ciudad amurallada; se conoce como tal la gran plaza edificada sobre la rambla por la que vienen a desaguar las tres colinas sobre las cuales se asienta la urbe. Su fisonomía es porticada, muy castellana. Servía de escenario para los eventos taurinos, fiestas y ajusticiamientos públicos. A partir del s. XIX fue cuando se convirtió en un paseo romántico.

En su lado sur encontramos la mencionada torre de Los Aliatares y La Alhondiga, e inmediatamente tras ella El Pósito. En su cara norte se hallan las Casas Consistoriales Bajas o Balcón del Concejo (s. XVII), lugar desde donde los munícipes presenciaban las corridas de toros celebradas en la plaza. Finalmente, y de este a oeste, también encontramos en las inmediaciones de su lado septentrional:

La Iglesia de la Purísima Concepción: capilla del antiguo hospital homónimo edificada a principios del s. XVII (el hospital desapareció en el s. XX).

Convento de San Francisco y Ruinas de la Capilla de los Benavides: sustituyendo un templo gótico construido en el que era tercer solar ocupado en Baeza por la comunidad franciscana, Diego de Valencia Benavides encargó en 1538 a Andrés de Vandelvira la construcción de la cabecera de un nuevo templo conventual, que habría de albergar su capilla funeraria y que acabó siendo la obra maestra de aquel artista y un hito de la arquitectura renacentista española. Lamentablemente el terremoto de Lisboa quebrantó la bóveda cruzada y la invasión napoleónica acabó de arruinar el templo.

Ayuntamiento de Baeza: magnífico edificio plateresco construido originalmente como Palacio de Justicia y Cárcel del Corregidor.

es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrimonio_histórico_de_Baeza_(Jaén)

La Plaza del Pópulo (o de Los Leones) está inmediatamente al norte de la ciudad amurallada y al oeste de El Paseo, organizándose en torno a la Puerta de Jaén, única construcción de la plaza perteneciente a la muralla; las otras edificaciones de la misma han ido añadiéndose en distintas épocas:

El Arco de Villalar: directamente a continuación de la Puerta de Jaén, fue erigido con ocasión de la visita del rey Carlos I (1526) y conmemora la victoria real en la batalla de Villalar.

La Casa del Pópulo: edificio plateresco que albergaba la audiencia civil y las escribanías públicas; hoy, oficina de turismo.

La Fuente de los Leones: manantial natural que la interpretación histórica tradicional postula monumento arqueológico procedente de la antigua ciudad iberorromana de Cástulo, hipótesis que se sustenta en la continuidad histórica deliberadamente mantenida con ocasión del traslado a Baeza de la capitalidad administrativa y episcopal de la desaparecida Cástulo. Según esta interpretación, parejas de felinos y équidos (actuando como surtidores) rodean una figura femenina identificada como Himilce. Más recientemente, se ha propuesto identificar esta fuente como previamente proveniente de un patio del alcázar.

es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrimonio_histórico_de_Baeza_(Jaén)

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After spending the day in T-shirt and jeans, what better way to enjoy thge evening than to slip on heels, tights and a dress? :-)

I was too lazy to redo my makeup though, so it's just the basics there!