our lives are comprised of stories;

whether written in the stars, our genetics,

childhood circumstances and experiences,

or written of our own accord.

 

the longest running story of my life

began at age 3, my first memory of mind.

sans details, i will just say that it is quite

the existential tale of endless singular,

solitary suffering.

 

from that memory, stories wove webs

of despair, hopeless/helplessness;

tangled weaves of self-loathing

wrapped their delicate and silk-strong

fibers around my heart, spirit.

 

i have lived with a chronic illness

as long as the day, the night, the years.

depression.

 

i'm not speaking of periods of,

i am speaking of

period.

 

the various stories based on that first one

whisper, shout, mumble, rant

tales of woe, within, on & off, daily.

i insistently, fervently, laboriously

edit & rewrite over & over & on & on

as equally long as those first-writes speak.

 

at times i do well.

yet also in line with the twisted power of the nihilistic tellings

at times i do not.

 

the other day i said to a friend: "my life has been wasted, a waste."

as is his teasing, joking, clever, lighten-things-up wont, he responded:

"it hasn't been a waste, it's just been fruitless."

 

he didn't know, that just that day i had been musing

on my childlessness - literal and metaphoric -

musing with sadness, regret,

thinking of those i know who have children,

who have careers.

he didn't know, that as he said that,

even knowing he intended no ill will or harm,

at that moment i felt a tremble of recognition,

of rightness in that sentiment:

 

"o. yes. i have been thinking that.

my life has borne no fruit

with which to nourish myself

and others.

i have not pollinated, fertilized,

i have not accomplished, produced,

from egg, seed to flower to fruit,

that which would've created

greater health & well-being,

greater possibilities of happiness, fulfillment,

that with which to draw from now

and sip, sup, drink, eat, share with loved ones,

that with which to sustain

in these middle-ish-and-on years of my life.

 

barrenness must emanate from this,

others must see this, know this,

instinctively, reasonably,

and choose

not to dine

with me."

 

one greatly abbreviated chapter

in this book i bear.

 

i offer this story

in the hopes of communicating to some of you:

you are not alone.

 

This project takes a view on how seeking acknowledgment in a rapid stream of external demands and expectations influences this particular human being. It can increase a sense of existential loneliness - and the feeling of being numb.

 

See the full project on www.bendikjohan.com

Fort Kochi, Cochin, Kerela.

Nature is a refuge where we find the tranquility necessary for the existential balance of human beings.

Character Creation

 

Batman[b] is a superhero who appears in American comic books published by DC Comics. Batman was created by artist Bob Kane and writer Bill Finger, and debuted in the 27th issue of the comic book Detective Comics on March 30, 1939.

 

In the DC Universe, Batman is the alias of Bruce Wayne, a wealthy American playboy, philanthropist, and industrialist who resides in the fictional Gotham City. His origin story features him swearing vengeance against criminals after witnessing the murder of his parents, Thomas and Martha, as a child, a vendetta tempered by the ideal of justice. He trains himself physically and intellectually, crafts a bat-inspired persona, and monitors the Gotham streets at night. Kane, Finger, and other creators accompanied Batman with supporting characters, including his sidekicks Robin and Batgirl; allies Alfred Pennyworth and James Gordon; love interest and occasional adversary Catwoman; as well as foes such as the Penguin, the Riddler, Two-Face, and his archenemy, the Joker, among others.

 

Kane conceived Batman in early 1939 to capitalize on the popularity of Superman. Along with Kane, Finger substantially developed the concept from a generic superhero into something more bat-like. They drew inspiration from pulp fiction characters like the Shadow, Sherlock Holmes, & The Green Hornet. Batman received a spin-off publication, Batman, in 1940.

 

Kane and Finger introduced Batman as a ruthless vigilante who frequently killed or maimed criminals, but he evolved into a just, tempered superhero with a stringent moral code that prohibits killing during the 1940s. Unlike most superheroes, Batman does not possess any superpowers, instead relying on his intellect, fighting skills, and wealth.

 

The 1960s Batman television series used a camp aesthetic, which continued to be associated with Batman for years after it ended. Various creators worked to return Batman to his darker roots in the 1970s and 1980s, culminating with the 1986 miniseries The Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller.

 

DC has featured Batman in many comic books, including comics published under its imprints such as Vertigo and Black Label; he has been considered DC's flagship character since the 1990s. The longest-running Batman comic, Detective Comics, is the longest-running comic book in the United States. Batman is frequently depicted alongside other DC superheroes, such as Superman and Wonder Woman, as a member of organizations such as the Justice League and the Outsiders.

 

In addition to Bruce Wayne, other characters used the Batman persona, such as Jean-Paul Valley / Azrael in the 1993–1994 "Knightfall" story arc; Dick Grayson, the first Robin, from 2009 to 2011; and Jace Fox, the son of Wayne's ally Lucius, since 2021. DC has also published comics featuring alternate versions of Batman, including the incarnation seen in The Dark Knight Returns and its successors, the incarnation from the Flashpoint (2011) event, and numerous interpretations in comics published under the Elseworlds label.

 

Batman is one of the most iconic characters in popular culture and has been listed among the greatest comic book superheroes and characters ever created. He is one of the most commercially successful superheroes, and his likeness has been licensed and featured in various media and merchandise sold around the world; this includes toy lines such as Lego Batman and video games such as the Batman: Arkham series.

 

Batman has been adapted in many live-action and animated television series and films. Adam West portrayed him in the 1960s Batman television series, and he has been portrayed in film by Michael Keaton, Val Kilmer, George Clooney, Christian Bale, Ben Affleck, and Robert Pattinson. Many actors, most prolifically Kevin Conroy, have provided Batman's voice in animation and video games. In September 2024, Batman was given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, being the first superhero to receive the honor.

 

Publication History

 

Creation and early history

 

In early 1939, following the success of Superman, DC Comics' editors requested more superheroes.[7] Bob Kane created Batman, initially drawing a character with red tights, bat wings, and a domino mask. Bill Finger, a collaborator, made significant contributions by suggesting a cowl, cape, gloves, and a darker costume.[8] The character's alter ego, Bruce Wayne, was inspired by historical figures Robert the Bruce and Mad Anthony Wayne.[9] Batman's early adventures drew inspiration from contemporary pulp fiction and characters like Zorro and the Shadow, establishing Batman as a master detective with a dark, brooding persona driven by the murder of his parents.[10][11]

 

Golden, Silver and Bronze Ages

 

Batman debuted in Detective Comics #27 in 1939. Early stories were dark, featuring a Batman who did not shy away from killing. The character quickly became popular, leading to his own solo title in 1940. Robin, Batman's sidekick, was introduced in 1940, lightening the tone and boosting sales. Over the next few years, Batman's rogues' gallery expanded with iconic villains like the Joker and Catwoman.

 

The 1950s saw Batman in lighter, science fiction-influenced stories. However, declining sales led to a 1964 revamp by editor Julius Schwartz, who returned Batman to his detective roots and updated his appearance. The 1966 Batman TV series introduced a campy, humorous tone, which was reflected in the comics until its cancellation in 1968. In the 1970s, writers Dennis O'Neil and Neal Adams restored Batman's dark, gritty nature, a trend that continued despite fluctuating sales.

 

Modern Age and reboots

 

In the Modern Age of Comic Books Batman comics have undergone significant transformations, reflecting changing storytelling trends and audience interests. Beginning with seminal works like The Dark Knight Returns in the 1980s, which reintroduced Batman in a grittier, more mature context, the character's narrative evolved to explore deeper themes and darker tones. This period also saw the exploration of Batman's origins and psyche through works like Batman: Year One, and Batman: The Killing Joke, which delved into the complexities of heroism and villainy.

 

In the 1990s, storylines such as "Knightfall" introduced new adversaries like Bane, who physically and mentally challenged Batman, leading to a temporary replacement by Jean-Paul Valley. The aftermath of an earthquake in "No Man's Land" depicted Gotham City in chaos, further pushing Batman to new limits of heroism and survival.

 

Entering the 21st century, Grant Morrison's influential run introduced Damian Wayne as Batman's son and heir, bringing familial dynamics and a new generation of challenges to the forefront. Morrison's storytelling also delved into surreal and existential themes, such as in Batman R.I.P. and Final Crisis, which tested Batman's resolve and sanity against cosmic threats and personal demons.

 

The New 52 reboot in 2011 refreshed Batman's continuity while preserving core elements of his character. This era introduced modern interpretations of classic storylines, like Night of the Owls, where Batman confronts the Court of Owls, a clandestine society controlling Gotham for centuries. The chilling return of the Joker in "Death of the Family" explored the intricate relationships within Batman's extended family of allies and adversaries. More recent developments under DC Rebirth and Infinite Frontier have continued to evolve Batman's universe, exploring new characters like Gotham and Gotham Girl, and tackling contemporary issues within the context of Gotham City's ever-evolving landscape of crime and heroism.

 

Bruce Wayne

 

Batman's secret identity is Bruce Wayne, a wealthy American industrialist. As a child, Bruce witnessed the murder of his parents, Dr. Thomas Wayne and Martha Wayne, which ultimately led him to craft the Batman persona and seek justice against criminals. He resides on the outskirts of Gotham City in his personal residence, Wayne Manor.

 

Wayne averts suspicion by acting the part of a superficial playboy idly living off his family's fortune and the profits of Wayne Enterprises, his inherited conglomerate. He supports philanthropic causes through his nonprofit Wayne Foundation, which in part addresses social issues encouraging crime as well as assisting victims of it, but is more widely known as a celebrity socialite.

 

In public, he frequently appears in the company of high-status women, which encourages tabloid gossip while feigning near-drunkenness with consuming large quantities of disguised ginger ale since Wayne is actually a strict teetotaler to maintain his physical and mental prowess. Although Bruce Wayne leads an active romantic life, his vigilante activities as Batman account for most of his time. While Bruce Wayne is never depicted as being especially religious, he is ethnically Jewish on his mother's side; his maternal cousin Batwoman (Kate Kane) is practising. His father, Thomas, raised Bruce as a Christian.

 

Various modern stories have portrayed the extravagant, playboy image of Bruce Wayne as a facade. In Batman Unmasked, a television documentary about the psychology of the character, behavioral scientist Benjamin Karney notes that Batman's personality is driven by Bruce Wayne's inherent humanity; that "Batman, for all its benefits and for all of the time Bruce Wayne devotes to it, is ultimately a tool for Bruce Wayne's efforts to make the world better". Bruce Wayne's principles include the desire to prevent future harm and a vow not to kill. Bruce Wayne believes that our actions define us, we fail for a reason, and anything is possible.

 

Writers of Batman and Superman stories have often compared and contrasted the two. Interpretations vary depending on the writer, the story, and the timing. Grant Morrison notes that both heroes "believe in the same kind of things" despite the day/night contrast their heroic roles display. Morrison notes an equally stark contrast in their real identities. Bruce Wayne and Clark Kent belong to different social classes: "Bruce has a butler, Clark has a boss." T. James Musler's book Unleashing the Superhero in Us All explores the extent to which Bruce Wayne's vast personal wealth is important in his life story, and the crucial role it plays in his efforts as Batman.

 

Will Brooker notes in his book Batman Unmasked that "the confirmation of the Batman's identity lies with the young audience ...he doesn't have to be Bruce Wayne; he just needs the suit and gadgets, the abilities, and most importantly the morality, the humanity."

 

Personality

 

Batman's primary character traits can be summarized as "wealth; physical prowess; deductive abilities and obsession". The details and tone of Batman comic books have varied over the years with different creative teams. Dennis O'Neil noted that character consistency was not a major concern during early editorial regimes: "Julie Schwartz did a Batman in Batman and Detective and Murray Boltinoff did a Batman in the Brave and the Bold and apart from the costume they bore very little resemblance to each other. Julie and Murray did not want to coordinate their efforts, nor were they asked to do so. Continuity was not important in those days."

 

The driving force behind Bruce Wayne's character is his parents' murder and their absence. Bob Kane and Bill Finger discussed Batman's background and decided that "there's nothing more traumatic than having your parents murdered before your eyes". Despite his trauma, he sets his mind on studying to become a scientist and to train his body into physical perfection to fight crime in Gotham City as Batman, an inspired idea from Wayne's insight into the criminal mind. He also speaks over 40 languages.

 

Another of Batman's characterizations is that of a vigilante; in order to stop evil that started with the death of his parents, he must sometimes break the law himself. Although manifested differently by being re-told by different artists, it is nevertheless that the details and the prime components of Batman's origin have never varied at all in the comic books, the "reiteration of the basic origin events holds together otherwise divergent expressions".

The origin is the source of the character's traits and attributes, which play out in many of the character's adventures.

 

Batman is often treated as a vigilante by other characters in his stories. Frank Miller views the character as "a dionysian figure, a force for anarchy that imposes an individual order". Dressed as a bat, Batman deliberately cultivates a frightening persona in order to aid him in crime-fighting, a fear that originates from the criminals' own guilty conscience.

 

Miller is often credited with reintroducing anti-heroic traits into Batman's characterization, such as his brooding personality, willingness to use violence and torture, and increasingly alienated behavior. Batman, shortly a year after his debut and the introduction of Robin, was changed in 1940 after DC editor Whitney Ellsworth felt the character would be tainted by his lethal methods and DC established their own ethical code, subsequently he was retconned to have a stringent moral code, which has stayed with the character of Batman ever since. Miller's Batman was closer to the original pre-Robin version, who was willing to kill criminals if necessary.

 

Others as Batman

 

On several occasions former Robin Dick Grayson has served as Batman; most notably in 2009 while Wayne was believed dead, and served as a second Batman even after Wayne returned in 2010. As part of DC's 2011 continuity relaunch, Grayson returned to being Nightwing following the Flashpoint crossover event.

 

In an interview with IGN, Morrison detailed that having Dick Grayson as Batman and Damian Wayne as Robin represented a "reverse" of the normal dynamic between Batman and Robin, with, "a more light-hearted and spontaneous Batman and a scowling, badass Robin". Morrison explained their intentions for the new characterization of Batman: "Dick Grayson is kind of this consummate superhero.

 

The guy has been Batman's partner since he was a kid, he's led the Teen Titans, and he's trained with everybody in the DC Universe. So he's a very different kind of Batman. He's a lot easier; He's a lot looser and more relaxed."

 

Over the years, there have been numerous others to assume the name of Batman, or to officially take over for Bruce during his leaves of absence. Jean-Paul Valley, also known as Azrael, assumed the cowl after the events of the Knightfall saga. Jim Gordon donned a mecha-suit after the events of Batman: Endgame, and served as Batman in 2015 and 2016. In 2021, as part of the Fear State crossover event, Lucius Fox's son Jace Fox succeeds Bruce as Batman in a 2021 storyline, depicted in the series I Am Batman, after Batman was declared dead.

 

Additionally, members of the group Batman Incorporated, Bruce Wayne's experiment at franchising his brand of vigilantism, have at times stood in as the official Batman in cities around the world. Various others have also taken up the role of Batman in stories set in alternative universes and possible futures, including, among them, various former proteges of Bruce Wayne.

 

Enemies

 

Batman faces a variety of foes ranging from common criminals to outlandish supervillains. Many of them mirror aspects of the Batman's character and development, often having tragic origin stories that lead them to a life of crime. These foes are commonly referred to as Batman's rogues gallery. Batman's "most implacable foe" is the Joker, a homicidal maniac with a clown-like appearance. The Joker is considered by critics to be his perfect adversary, since he is the antithesis of Batman in personality and appearance; the Joker has a maniacal demeanor with a colorful appearance, while Batman has a serious and resolute demeanor with a dark appearance. As a "personification of the irrational", the Joker represents "everything Batman opposes".

 

Other long-time recurring foes that are part of Batman's rogues gallery include Catwoman (a cat burglar anti-heroine who is variously an ally and romantic interest), the Penguin, Ra's al Ghul, Two-Face (Harvey Dent), the Riddler, the Scarecrow, Mr. Freeze, Poison Ivy, Harley Quinn, Bane, Clayface, and Killer Croc, among others. Many of Batman's adversaries are often psychiatric patients at Arkham Asylum.

 

Allies

 

Alfred Pennyworth, Batman's loyal butler and father figure, first appeared in Batman #16 (1943). After Bruce Wayne's parents were killed, Alfred raised Bruce and became one of the few people to know his secret identity. He is often portrayed as a steadying presence in Bruce's life, offering both emotional support and practical assistance in Batman's crime-fighting endeavors. More than just a caretaker, Alfred is a trusted ally and sometimes sidekick, sharing Wayne Manor with Bruce and contributing to Batman's mission.

 

One of Batman's most crucial allies is Commissioner James Gordon. Their relationship is built on mutual respect and a shared commitment to justice in Gotham City. In Batman: Year One, Gordon and Batman learn to trust each other, which transforms their efforts against crime into a more effective partnership. Gordon's perspective as a police officer complements Batman's vigilantism, allowing them to tackle Gotham's challenges together. Another important ally is the Justice League, which further emphasizes the importance of collaboration. Batman's relationship with Superman showcases how their contrasting ideologies can complement each other. In stories like World's Finest, their friendship highlights how Batman's methods benefit from Superman's optimism and strength.

 

Sidekicks

 

Robin, Batman's vigilante partner, has been a widely recognized supporting character for many years; each iteration of the Robin character, of which there have been five in the mainstream continuity, function as members of the Batman family, but additionally, as Batman's "central" sidekick in various media.

 

Bill Finger stated that he wanted to include Robin because "Batman didn't have anyone to talk to, and it got a little tiresome always having him thinking." The first Robin, Dick Grayson, was introduced in 1940. In the 1970s he finally grew up, went off to college and became the hero Nightwing. A second Robin, Jason Todd was introduced in the 1980s, following Dick Grayson's departure from the role. Initially impulsive and rebellious, Jason's tenure as Robin was controversial among fans. In 1988, DC held a fan vote to determine his fate in the iconic A Death in the Family storyline, where the Joker brutally beat Jason with a crowbar and left him to die in an explosion. The fans voted for his death. However, Jason was later resurrected and returned as the antihero Red Hood.

 

The third Robin in the mainstream comics is Tim Drake, who first appeared in 1989. He went on to star in his own comic series, and goes by the name Red Robin, a variation on the traditional Robin persona. In the first decade of the new millennium, Stephanie Brown served as the fourth in-universe Robin between stints as her self-made vigilante identity the Spoiler, and later as Batgirl.

 

After Brown's apparent death, Drake resumed the role of Robin for a time. The role eventually passed to Damian Wayne, the 10-year-old son of Bruce Wayne and Talia al Ghul, in the late 2000s.[58] Damian's tenure as du jour Robin ended when the character was killed off in the pages of Batman Incorporated in 2013.

 

Batman's next young sidekick is Harper Row, a streetwise young woman who avoids the name Robin but followed the ornithological theme nonetheless; she debuted the codename and identity of the Bluebird in 2014. Unlike the Robins, the Bluebird is willing and permitted to use a gun, albeit non-lethal; her weapon of choice is a modified rifle that fires taser rounds. In 2015, a new series began titled We Are...Robin, focused on a group of teenagers using the Robin persona to fight crime in Gotham City. The most prominent of these, Duke Thomas, later becomes Batman's crimefighting partner as The Signal.

 

Romantic interests

 

Batman's romantic history spans decades, filled with relationships that reflect his struggle between personal happiness and his duty as Gotham's protector. His first love interest was Julie Madison, introduced in Detective Comics #31 (1939). Though engaged to Bruce Wayne, she left due to his distant and playboy persona, highlighting the conflict between Bruce's dual life and his desire for a normal relationship.

 

Selina Kyle, also known as Catwoman, is perhaps the most notable figure in Batman's romantic history. Debuting in Batman #1 (1940), their relationship is characterized by a blend of romance and rivalry. Over the years, they have shared intense connections, often navigating the fine line between love and conflict. Their relationship culminated in an engagement during the DC Rebirth.

 

Another important figure is Vicki Vale, a journalist introduced in Batman #49 (1948). Vicki's attempts to uncover Batman's true identity lead to a complicated romantic involvement that waxed and waned over the years, especially during the early 1980s when their relationship became more serious.

 

Talia al Ghul, introduced in Detective Comics #411 (1971), is another key player in Batman's love life. Their relationship is fraught with conflict due to her father, Ra's al Ghul, and his criminal ambitions. Despite the challenges, their love story resulted in the birth of Damian Wayne, who would grow to become the latest Robin and add a new layer of complexity to Batman's character.

 

Additionally, Batman's relationship with Wonder Woman has been explored in various storylines, including a passionate kiss in JLA (2003) during a moment of crisis. However, their relationship remains largely unexplored, often overshadowed by their respective commitments.

 

Abilities

 

Skills and training

 

Batman has no inherent superhuman powers; he relies on "his own scientific knowledge, detective skills, and athletic prowess". Batman's inexhaustible wealth gives him access to advanced technologies, and as a proficient scientist, he is able to use and modify these technologies to his advantage.

 

In the stories, Batman is regarded as one of the world's greatest detectives, if not the world's greatest crime solver. Batman has been repeatedly described as having a genius-level intellect, being one of the greatest martial artists in the DC Universe, and having peak human physical and mental conditioning. As a polymath, his knowledge and expertise in countless disciplines is nearly unparalleled by any other character in the DC Universe. He has shown prowess in assorted fields such as mathematics, biology, physics, chemistry, and several levels of engineering. He has traveled the world acquiring the skills needed to aid him in his endeavors as Batman. In the Superman: Doomed story arc, Superman considers Batman to be one of the most brilliant minds on the planet.

 

Batman has trained extensively in various fighting styles, making him one of the best hand-to-hand fighters in the DC Universe. He possesses a photographic memory, and has fully utilized his photographic memory to master a total of 127 forms of martial arts. In terms of his physical condition, Batman is described as peak human and far beyond an Olympic-athlete-level condition, able to perform feats such as easily running across rooftops in a Parkour-esque fashion, pressing thousands of pounds regularly, and even bench pressing six hundred pounds of soil and coffin in a poisoned and starved state.

 

Superman describes Batman as "the most dangerous man on Earth", able to defeat an entire team of superpowered extraterrestrials by himself in order to rescue his imprisoned teammates in Grant Morrison's first storyline in JLA.

 

Batman is strongly disciplined, and he has the ability to function under great physical pain and resist most forms of telepathy and mind control. He is a master of disguise, multilingual, and an expert in espionage, often gathering information under the identity of a notorious gangster named Matches Malone. Batman is highly skilled in stealth movement and escapology, which allows him to appear and disappear at will and to break free of nearly inescapable deathtraps with little to no harm. He is also a master strategist, considered DC's greatest tactician, with numerous plans in preparation for almost any eventuality.

 

Batman is an expert in interrogation techniques and his intimidating and frightening appearance alone is often all that is needed in getting information from suspects. Despite having the potential to harm his enemies, Batman's most defining characteristic is his strong commitment to justice and his reluctance to take a life. This unyielding moral rectitude has earned him the respect of several heroes in the DC Universe, most notably that of Superman and Wonder Woman.

 

Among physical and other crime fighting related training, he is also proficient at other types of skills. Some of these include being a licensed pilot (in order to operate the Batplane), as well as being able to operate other types of machinery. In some publications, he even underwent some magician training.

 

Technology

 

Batman utilizes a vast arsenal of specialized, high-tech vehicles and gadgets in his war against crime, the designs of which usually share a bat motif. Batman historian Les Daniels credits Gardner Fox with creating the concept of Batman's arsenal with the introduction of the utility belt in Detective Comics #29 (July 1939) and the first bat-themed weapons the batarang and the "Batgyro" in Detective Comics #31 and 32 (Sept. and October 1939).

 

Personal armor - Batsuit

 

Batman's batsuit aids in his combat against enemies, having the properties of both Kevlar and Nomex. It protects him from gunfire and other significant impacts, and incorporates the imagery of a bat in order to frighten criminals.

 

The details of the Batman costume change repeatedly through various decades, stories, media and artists' interpretations, but the most distinctive elements remain consistent: a scallop-hem cape; a cowl covering most of the face; a pair of bat-like ears; a stylized bat emblem on the chest; and the ever-present utility belt. His gloves typically feature three scallops that protrude from long, gauntlet-like cuffs, although in his earliest appearances he wore short, plain gloves without the scallops. The overall look of the character, particularly the length of the cowl's ears and of the cape, varies greatly depending on the artist. Dennis O'Neil said, "We now say that Batman has two hundred suits hanging in the Batcave so they don't have to look the same ...Everybody loves to draw Batman, and everybody wants to put their own spin on it."

 

Finger and Kane originally conceptualized Batman as having a black cape and cowl and grey suit, but conventions in coloring called for black to be highlighted with blue. Hence, the costume's colors have appeared in the comics as dark blue and grey; as well as black and grey. In the Tim Burton's Batman and Batman Returns films, Batman has been depicted as completely black with a bat in the middle surrounded by a yellow background. Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight Trilogy depicted Batman wearing high-tech gear painted completely black with a black bat in the middle. Ben Affleck's Batman in the DC Extended Universe films wears a suit grey in color with a black cowl, cape, and bat symbol. Seemingly following the suit of the DC Extended Universe outfit, Robert Pattinson's uniform in The Batman restores the more traditional gray bodysuit and black appendage design, notably different from prior iterations by mostly utilizing real world armor and apparel pieces from modern military and motorcycle gear.

 

Batmobile

 

The 1966 television Batmobile, built by George Barris from a Lincoln Futura concept car

Batman's primary vehicle is the Batmobile, which is usually depicted as an imposing black car, often with tailfins that suggest a bat's wings.

 

Batman also has an aircraft called the Batplane (originally a relatively traditionally, but bat-motifed plane, later seen as the much more unique "Batwing" starting in the 1989 film), along with various other means of transportation.

 

In proper practice, the "bat" prefix (as in Batmobile or batarang) is rarely used by Batman himself when referring to his equipment, particularly after some portrayals (primarily the 1960s Batman live-action television show and the Super Friends animated series) stretched the practice to campy proportions. For example, the 1960s television show depicted a Batboat, Bat-Sub, and Batcycle, among other bat-themed vehicles. The 1960s television series Batman has an arsenal that includes such "bat-" names as the Bat-computer, Bat-scanner, bat-radar, bat-cuffs, bat-pontoons, bat-drinking water dispenser, bat-camera with polarized bat-filter, bat-shark repellent bat-spray, and Bat-rope. The storyline "A Death in the Family" suggests that given Batman's grim nature, he is unlikely to have adopted the "bat" prefix on his own. In The Dark Knight Returns, Batman tells Carrie Kelley that the original Robin came up with the name "Batmobile" when he was young, since that is what a kid would call Batman's vehicle.

 

The Batmobile, which was before frequently depicted to resemble a sports car, was redesigned in 2011 when DC Comics relaunched its entire line of comic books, with the Batmobile being given heavier armor and new aesthetics.

 

Utility belt

 

Batman keeps most of his field equipment in his utility belt. Over the years it has shown to contain an assortment of crime-fighting tools, weapons, and investigative and technological instruments. Different versions of the belt have these items stored in compartments, often as pouches or hard cylinders attached evenly around it.

 

Since the 1989 film, Batman is often depicted as carrying a projectile which shoots a retractable grappling hook attached to a cable (before this, a he employed a traditionally thrown grappling hook.) This allows him to attach to distant objects, be propelled into the air, and thus swing from the rooftops of Gotham City.

 

An exception to the range of Batman's equipment are hand guns, which he refuses to use on principle, since a gun was used in his parents' murder. In modern stories in terms of his vehicles, Batman compromises on that principle to install weapon systems on them for the purpose of non-lethally disabling other vehicles, forcing entry into locations and attacking dangerous targets too large to defeat by other means.

 

Bat-Signal

 

When Batman is needed, the Gotham City police activate a searchlight with a bat-shaped insignia over the lens called the Bat-Signal, which shines into the night sky, creating a bat-symbol on a passing cloud which can be seen from any point in Gotham. The origin of the signal varies, depending on the continuity and medium.

 

In various incarnations, most notably the 1960s Batman TV series, Commissioner Gordon also has a dedicated phone line, dubbed the Bat-Phone, connected to a bright red telephone (in the TV series) which sits on a wooden base and has a transparent top. The line connects directly to Batman's residence, Wayne Manor, specifically both to a similar phone sitting on the desk in Bruce Wayne's study and the extension phone in the Batcave.

 

Batcave

 

The Batcave is Batman's secret headquarters, consisting of a series of caves beneath his mansion, Wayne Manor. As his command center, the Batcave serves multiple purposes; supercomputer, surveillance, redundant power-generators, forensics lab, medical infirmary, private study, training dojo, fabrication workshop, arsenal, hangar and garage. It houses the vehicles and equipment Batman uses in his campaign to fight crime. It is also a trophy room and storage facility for Batman's unique memorabilia collected over the years from various cases he has worked on.

 

Fictional Character History

 

The Man Who Laughs

 

Gotham City got its first taste of Batman's greatest enemy, the Joker, when the police found an abandoned warehouse filled with mutilated corpses, all having ghastly rictus grins on their faces. While Batman was tracking down the killer, the Joker himself appeared on live TV, on a news report on Arkham Asylum, killing the reporter with his mysterious laughing venom and predicting the deaths of some of the richest individuals in Gotham. Bruce wondered whether the Joker was a deformed version of the Red Hood, a criminal who fell into chemical waste while being engaged by Batman. The Joker carried out his hits as promised, using his venom, despite Batman's efforts to stop him. The city was thrown into chaos when he invaded a prison facility and sets its inmates free, providing them with weapons and killing all of its guard personnel in the process.

 

The criminals wrought great havoc throughout the city, but ware apprehended by Batman. When the Joker's next target became Bruce Wayne, Wayne Manor came under strict surveillance and guard by the police, rendering Bruce unable to act as Batman. He secretly injected himself with some Joker venom he had gathered. The venom took instant effect, and Bruce was rushed to the hospital.

 

But on the way, Alfred Pennyworth administered him with an antidote that Bruce had synthesized after careful study, and as Bruce recovered, he understood the Joker's true plan. He had gained an understanding of what drove the Joker while under the effects of the venom and had realized that Bruce Wayne's assassination was only a diversion from his real mission, which was killing everyone in Gotham City by poisoning its water reservoir, which Batman deduced from the clues he had gained in the last few days while tracking the Joker. He found and stopped the Joker at the reservoir and refrains from killing him, though not without giving him a severe beating. The Joker was confined to the reopened Arkham Asylum.

 

The Long Halloween

 

In Batman's early years, his main objective was to take down Gotham's biggest crime lord Carmine "The Roman" Falcone. To do this, Batman required the help of two of Gotham's finest, "hero cop" Jim Gordon and District Attorney Harvey Dent. Despite dealing massive blows to the criminal empire, the Roman still stood tall until a killer by the name of Holiday started making his move and killing a member of the Falcone Crime family on every occasion.

 

Over the course of the story, the trio's morals are put into question, notably Dent's, who has let it be known that he does not care for the deaths of criminals and even contemplated stealing some of the weakened Roman's money. Jealous by the attention Holiday has received, the Joker attempts to release his gas on Gotham Square on New Year's Eve to kill everyone in attendance, and hopefully Holiday but he is stopped by Batman.

 

Later on, it is revealed that Dent owned the same type of gun that was used in the Holiday murders, turning him into a prime suspect. Despite Gordon's suspicions, Batman refuses to believe that his friend, who shares his love for justice, would be a killer. On the Roman's birthday, Sal Maroni, Falcone's rival, is set to testify against Carmine, prosecuted by Dent.

 

Just as things seemed to go Dent's way, Maroni ends up throwing acid in the attorney's face, physically and mentally scarring him. After being rushed to the hospital, Harvey escapes in a crazed state and kills a doctor. Gordon moves Maroni to a new cell, suspecting that he may be Holiday's next target.

 

Surely enough, Holiday makes his move and kills Maroni, and just as he is about to kill Gordon, who was escorting the gangster, Batman appears just in time to save his friend and take down the killer, and he is revealed to be Falcone's son, Alberto, who holds a grudge against his father for neglecting him and keeping him out of the family business. A while later, Dent makes his return, with half his face disfigured, now calling himself Two-Face. He regroups all the costume freaks including Joker, Scarecrow, and Poison Ivy, among others, and bursts into the disgraced Roman penthouse to signify the change that has come to Gotham.

 

Batman appears and takes down the villains except for Dent who holds Falcone hostage. Despite Batman's pleads, Two-Face ends up killing Falcone and then surrenders himself. In the end, when confronted by Batman and Gordon, Dent claims that his methods were the most effective in taking down Falcone. Despite witnessing the corruption of their friend, Batman and Gordon's resolve remains strong and they both vow to never give up on ridding Gotham of evil.

 

Dark Victory and Robin

 

In the aftermath of Roman's death, Falcone's daughter, Sofia Gigante has taken over the family business and vows to kill Two-Face who managed to escape from Arkham Asylum. Meanwhile, a killer by the name of Hangman has been killing various cops and implying that Two-Face is responsible. A gang war erupts between the crime families and the costumed freaks, recruited by Two-Face, and in the crossfire, circus acrobats, the Flying Graysons are killed by Falcone associate, Tony Zucco, leaving the performers' son, Dick, an orphan.

 

Feeling sympathy for the child and remembering his own trauma, Bruce Wayne adopts Dick as his son. However, since Bruce was too busy trying to stop the war as Batman, Dick would often sneak out at night looking for his parent's killer. A terrified Tony Zucco, who knows that Batman is looking for him, is confronted by Dick and due to his poor health, ends up dying of a heart attack. Realizing the boy's vigilante tendencies, Bruce reveals his identity and decides to train him to avoid his death. It is later revealed that Hangman is actually Sofia Gigante and sets Gotham on fire to bring Dent out of hiding but before she could kill him, Batman saves him, allowing Dent to kill her and escape into the sewers with the rest of the super-villains with Batman in pursuit.

 

In the climactic battle, Two-Face and his villainous group find themselves in the bat cave but Dick's presence prevented them from discovering Batman's secret. Batman and Dick end up fighting off and defeating the villains once and for all. In the end, Batman offers Dick a chance to live a normal life away from vigilantism, but Dick insists on joining his war, and so, he becomes Robin, assisting Batman in his mission, and thus the Dynamic Duo was born.

 

Tales of the Ghul

 

While trying to stop the criminal Doctor Dark, who was leading the League of Assassins at the time, Batman meets the enigmatic Talia Al Ghul, who was kidnapped by Dark in an attempt to blackmail her father, the wealthy Ra's Al Ghul. Batman saves Talia and she ends up falling in love with the Dark Knight. One night, Batman discovers that Robin has been kidnapped and then, Ra's Al Ghul, who has used his immense resources to discover Batman's secret identity, appears to him in the Bat-Cave to ask for his help, as his daughter has also been kidnapped, possibly by the same person who kidnapped Robin.

 

The two work together and, accompanied by Ra's' faithful bodyguard Ubu, travels the world looking for the kidnapper. Batman solves various puzzles and obstacles thrown in his path, and after finding both Talia and Robin, he deduces that Ra's was behind the entire ordeal as a personal test, which Ra declares he has passed. Ra's reveals that he wants to change the world into a better place, but to that, he wants to eradicate most of mankind. However, he is growing old and reveals that this machination took place because he needed a successor, and Batman has proven himself worthy of that position as well as the affections of his only daughter, Talia. However, Batman, appalled by his view of the world, sees him as a dangerous criminal mastermind and vows to stop him at all costs.

 

In his crusade to take down the criminal mastermind, he discovers in the story that Ra's has lived for centuries due to the mystical Lazarus Pit, which restores Ra's youth as well as gives him immense strength that allowed him to defeat Batman in a fight. In his pursuit of Ra's and his league, Batman finds himself in Nanda Parbat where Ra's challenges him to a swordfight. After fighting a stalemate, a scorpion stings Batman, leaving him incapacitated. Though Ra's sees Batman as a worthy foe, because he refused his offer, he leaves him to die.

 

However, Talia, still having feelings for the Dark Knight, gives him a final kiss that contained the antidote. Batman recovers from the scorpion's poison, and in a fit of rage, confronts Ra's, who was immobilized with fear at the sight of the recovered vigilante, and decisively defeats him. In the end, Batman embraces Talia and offers her the chance to come back with him, but she refuses, because, despite her feelings for Bruce, she feels that she must remain by her father's side.

 

Just Another Kid on Crime Alley

 

During an encounter with the Joker, Robin is seriously wounded and the media believes him to be dead. Worried about Dick's safety, Batman decides to keep it that way and retires the Robin mantle, but Dick's insists that he will remain a crime-fighter and he would, later on, become the superhero known as Nightwing. On the anniversary of his parent's death, Batman, as is his tradition, keeps watching over Crime Alley, the site of that tragic night. However, on his way back to the Batmobile, he finds a young street orphan by the name of Jason Todd attempting to steal the tires of the car. Though impressed by the kid's courage, he decides to take him to a school for the homeless, but when it is revealed that the school housed criminals, Batman, with Jason's help, takes it down.

 

With nowhere for Jason to go and at the risk of him becoming another criminal on the streets, Batman decides to take Jason in as his own son, and seeing his potential to be a hero and also partly due to the loneliness he experienced after Dick Grayson's departure, offers Jason the mantle of Robin, which Jason gladly accepts. Batman later discovers that Jason's mother died of an overdose and his father was a reluctant partner of Two-Face, who ended up getting killed by the criminal. Although Batman attempted to hide this from Robin, fearing what he may do, his faith in Jason is restored when Robin, having discovered Two-Face's acts, spared him even though he had the chance to avenge his father's death. This made Batman see Jason as a worthy sidekick.

 

A Death in the Family

 

As time passed, it quickly became evident to Batman that Jason was far from the ideal crime-fighter. His conduct on the field was in stark contrast to that of Batman's cold professionalism. Jason would often thrust himself into exceedingly dangerous situations, endangering both student and mentor, giving vent to his inner emotions, which seemed to be dominated by rage. This became even more evident when Jason seemingly killed a serial rapist who had walked free after causing the death of one of his victims. Batman soon realized Robin hadn't coped with the death of his parents and felt it was best to make him inactive.

 

Back at his birthplace in Crime Alley, Jason finds his birth certificate and learns that his mother wasn't the late Catherine Todd, but that three women could be his mother, and all there are out of the country, so he left off in search of the first one, in the Middle East where he coincidentally meets up with Batman who was there tracking down the Joker. Together, they thwart the Joker's plans and take down the terrorists, but to Jason's dismay, the suspected woman is not his mother.

 

Continuing their investigation, and after an encounter with the deadly assassin Lady Shiva, they eventually track down Sheila Haywood, who was working in famine relief efforts in Ethiopia and it is revealed that she is, in fact, Jason's real mother. Bruce leaves Jason to spend time with his mother while he chases after the Joker, but it is later revealed that Sheila was being blackmailed by the Joker into giving him shipments of medical supplies that he can sell in the black market while transferring his deadly Joker gas to relief destinations.

 

Batman orders Jason to stay put while he chases the Joker, but Jason defies Batman's orders and leaves for the warehouse to find his mother. Jason manages to find her and reveals his secret identity to her, but she turns him over to the Joker in an attempt to save her own life. Joker savagely beats Jason with a crowbar, then detonates an explosion that kills both Jason and his mother.

 

Batman arrives just as the explosion goes off, and as he searches through the rubble, he finds, to his horror, the corpse of Jason. Batman grieves over the horrible site and vows to avenge Jason's death and take down the Joker once and for all. Batman vengefully tracks down the Joker, and though he manages to stop his latest death plot, the madman escapes, ending this counter the same way as others, unresolved. Batman continues grieving over Jason's death, considering it to be his greatest failure, and vows to never endanger anyone else in this line of work. Since then, he keeps Jason's costume in a glass casing in the Bat-Cave as a memorial, underneath it reads "A Good Soldier".

 

A Lonely Place of Dying

 

After Jason's tragic death, Batman became more violent and almost self-destructing when he battled crime. Tim Drake, a young boy who witnessed the death of the Graysons, noticed the dark nature of Batman after the loss of Robin. Tim once idolized the Flying Graysons and was in attendance when Dick's parents were killed. He also idolized Batman and Robin, as he saw them as heroes. Tim was able to deduce that Dick Grayson was, in fact, Robin when he noticed the costumed fighter perform an acrobatic move that only Dick could do, and knowing that the former acrobat was adopted by Bruce Wayne, he pieced things together and deduced that the millionaire is indeed Batman. He had figured out that the original Robin was Dick Grayson and thus, Bruce Wayne had to be Batman.

 

Tim knew that Batman needed an ally in his war and after being unsuccessful in convincing Dick to return to the role, Dick petitions Bruce to train Tim to become the next Robin, to keep Batman sane, but Batman refuses, vowing to never endanger anyone but himself in his war on crime. Meanwhile, Two-Face is on the loose and has prepared a plot to kill Batman once and for all, and this would have happened if not for the timely intervention of Tim Drake, wearing the Robin costume with Alfred's blessing and providing the necessary distraction for Batman to defeat his foe. In the end, both Alfred and Nightwing insist that the boy is capable of doing much good, especially under the guidance of Batman, and after much reluctance, Batman ends up agreeing. After a grueling training regime, Tim finally becomes the new Robin.

 

Knightfall

 

After a long time of hard work, Batman and Robin finally succeed in placing all of the worst villains in Arkham Asylum and thus apparently ensuring peace for Gotham. At one point he also encounters Jean-Paul Valley who is called Azrael, a victim of "The System" who was brainwashed into becoming an assassin for the sinister order known as The Order of Dumas, but Batman comforts Valley and takes him in as an ally to fight crime alongside him and reject his previous life.

 

Just when it seemed that Gotham was at peace, a new villain makes his way to Gotham seeking to conquer it and defeat its guardian, the Batman. The villain, known only as Bane, destroys the walls of Arkham and frees every single inmate to rage havoc on the city. Batman, who was also sick at the time, is forced to run a gauntlet of his worst enemies, putting both his body and mind to the test.

 

After a series of plots and encounters that weigh heavily on him, mentally and physically, fighting the likes of the Mad Hatter, the Ventriloquist, Amygdala, Victor Zsasz, Firefly, Riddler, Killer Croc, Poison Ivy, Scarecrow, Joker, and Two-Face, as well as encountering Bane's henchmen Zombie, Trogg and Bird, Batman finally manages to put them all back in prison however still oblivious to the mastermind behind this Gauntlet.

 

Batman finally returns home to rest only to be confronted by Bane, whose plan has come full circle and has come to Gotham to conquer it and defeat its protector. Though having almost no strength left, Batman accepts Bane's challenge and has one final fight. However, he is no match for this skilled foe, whose strength has also increased due to a drug known as Venom, and despite his best efforts Batman is horribly beaten and has his back broken by Bane in his own Batcave, paralyzing him.

 

Bane throws Batman's body in the middle of a crowded street so that everyone sees the fall of the Dark Knight. Before his identity is compromised, Alfred and Robin quickly take him back to the manor to nurse him back to health. However, his will is just as broken as his body, as he realizes that he cannot don the costume again, and since Gotham needs a protector, he entrusts the mantle of Batman to Jean-Paul Valley and instructs a distraught Robin to be his ally.

 

Knightquest and Knightsend

 

After his paralysis, Batman is tended to by Shondra Kinsolving, a doctor whom Bruce met before and the two shared romantic feelings. However, one night, Shondra is kidnapped along with one of her patients, Jack Drake, Robin's father, and so, despite being in a wheelchair, Bruce, along with Alfred go after the kidnappers, and track them down to London, leaving Gotham under the care of Robin (who is oblivious to his father's kidnapping) and the new Batman. It is revealed in the story that Shondra had psychic powers, and was kidnapped by her brother Asp who intended to use those powers for his own gain. Bruce is caught in a telepathic exchange between Shondra and Asp, and the energy released causes Bruce to regain mobility of his legs.

 

Now healed, he defeats Asp and saves Drake and Shondra, but the doctor's mental state was regressed to childhood due to the drugs given to her by her brother and she loses all memory of her relationship with Bruce. Preparing to get back into shape and regain his strength, Batman seeks the help of the skilled martial artist and assassin, Lady Shivam who agrees with the condition that he must kill. After several weeks of intense training, when it was time for Batman to kill, he refuses, causing Shiva to send variously skilled assassins after him to force his hand. Bruce defeats the assassins and appears to kill the final one, much to Shiva's delight. However, he had used a technique that appeared to be lethal even though it was not. With his strength now regained, Batman is ready to come back to Gotham.

 

Meanwhile, back in Gotham, Valley, now operating as Batman, attempts to track down Bane, who has now taken control of Gotham's underworld. However, Valley's brainwashing by the Order resurfaces, causing him to become more violent and to start losing control over his sanity. Donning a new tech-heavy costume and refusing Robin as a partner, Valley becomes a far darker and much more violent Batman and eventually manages to defeat Bane and end his reign of terror.

 

As the new Batman watches over Gotham, his vicious and reckless methods became intolerable by Robin, especially when he caused the deaths of the villain the Abattoir and his victims. When Robin tried to reason with him, Valley lashed out at him, almost killing him as he now considers himself to be superior to the real Batman. When Batman returns, having healed from his back injury, Jean-Paul tried to kill him to prove his superiority but Batman defeats and tricks him into removing his costume, thereby getting rid of "the system" in his head. Humbled and regretting his actions, Valley admits to Bruce that he (Bruce) is the one and only Batman and vows to redeem himself in his eyes.

 

Though having regained the use of his legs, Batman decides to travel the world to fully regain his strength, and in his absence gives the mantle to the man he should have given it to in the first place, Nightwing until he comes back.

 

No Man's Land

 

Gotham is struck by a massive Earthquake, one which claims the lives of many people in Gotham. Batman had anticipated the arrival of an earthquake and had all Wayne-funded buildings be protected from such an event, including Oracle's Watchtower and Tim Drake's home, however, his own house did not receive such protection because that may compromise his identity as Batman.

 

Bruce and Alfred barely survive the earthquake, and once out of the rubble, Batman watches in horror his city in ruins and there's nothing he could do about it. With most of the city destroyed, criminals run rampant around the remains, and chaos ensues to the point where Gotham is declared a No Man's Land by the government and it is cut off from the rest of the country. Batman travels to Washington, and as Bruce Wayne does his best to convince Congress to help the city he loves, but he fails to do so, causing him to be distraught and almost loses all hope himself in exile until he is motivated back into action by Talia Al Ghul.

 

Meanwhile in Gotham, with very limited food and resources, new rules are applied and the criminals divide the city into territories and use spray paint to claim ownership of said territories. Members of the GCPD that stayed in Gotham are now known as the Blue boys and they try to maintain order in Gotham. Others join the fight as well, including Oracle, who monitors the entire city and serves as information broker while Helena Bartinelli aka the Huntress, dons a Batman-inspired costume to be more effective as a crime-fighter.

 

Batman eventually returns and adapts to the new rules of Gotham, using spray paint to mark his territory and does everything he can to help his city. He allows Huntress to operate as Batgirl for a while until Two-Face's gang invades his territory and kill several people. Helena was forced to flee and when she refuses to follow Batman's orders anymore, he forces her to relinquish the Batgirl mantle.

 

When things become more dire Batman assembles all his allies including Nightwing, Robin, Jean-Paul Valley and Oracle as well as new Batgirl, the mute Cassandra Caine, who proved herself when she saved Gordon's life from her father the assassin David Caine, and they all fight to take back their city.

 

No Man's Land comes to an end thanks to Lex Luthor, who used legal and illegal means as well as political machinations to fund the renovation of Gotham city all in an attempt to take over himself. Batman allows Luthor to do his work while having Catwoman collect necessary evidence against Luthor regarding his illegal business, thereby preventing Lex from claiming ownership over Gotham.

 

Hush

 

Batman finds himself to be the target of a mysterious conspiracy that pits him against some of his worst villains. While giving chase to Catwoman who was under Poison Ivy's mind control, his bat-rope is cut, causing him to fracture his skull though he is eventually saved by his childhood friend and surgeon Thomas Elliot. Later on, Batman and Catwoman track down Poison Ivy to Metropolis and despite using a mind-controlled Superman against them, Batman manages to get past the Man of Steel and stop the villain. Over the course of this adventure, Batman and Catwoman start to develop a relationship and Batman even reveals his identity to her.

 

Later on, after encounters with Killer Croc, Ra's Al Ghul, Joker and Scarecrow, all seemingly manipulated under the same conspiracy as well as the apparent death of his friend Tommy, he is confronted by someone claiming to be Jason Todd, Batman's old sidekick who was killed years ago, however it turned out to be another ruse.

 

Frustrated and desperate to know who has been manipulating all these villains, Batman investigates further until the villain known as Hush finally makes his presence known and reveals that he is in fact, Tommy Elliot. Tommy had always hated his parents and wanted them dead to collect his inheritance, so he staged a car accident that caused his father's death but Bruce's father managed to save his mother, and because of this Tommy held a grudge against the entire Wayne family. He faked his death using Clayface to throw Batman off his trail, as he was the mastermind behind the entire ordeal. After the intervention of Gordon and a recovered Harvey Dent, Hush falls into a river and manages to escape.

 

In the aftermath, Batman learns that Riddler was the one who told Hush his secret having learned it after using the Lazarus Pit to cure himself of cancer. However, Batman warns Riddler that if he ever decides to reveal this information again, he will feel the wrath of Ra's Al Ghul, ensuring his silence. After all these events, Batman has become more suspicious, causing him to drive Catwoman away as he won't allow himself to fall in love again.

 

War Drums and War Games

 

When Tim Drake's father discovers his alter-ego, Tim is forced to retire as Robin and Batman goes back to working alone, that is until Stephanie Brown, aka the young vigilante known as Spoiler and Tim's ex-girlfriend, petitions to be the next Robin, and though reluctant at first, as he previously didn't see her as hero material, Bruce ends up accepting with the condition that she follow his every order. After training her, he hands her a costume and she officially becomes the fourth Robin. Though initially there were some problems, especially when she used lethal force on the villain Mr. Zsasz, she starts proving herself when she handily takes down Tiger Moth.

 

Stephanie's infectious energy and enthusiasm grow on Batman and he starts to see her as a worthy partner. However, while tracking down the assassin Scarab, she disobeys Batman's order to stay put and ends up getting herself held hostage and almost compromising the mission. Because of that, Batman ends her tenure as Robin. Determined to win back Batman's trust, Stephanie steals from the Bat-cave one of his contingency plans that was supposed to take place in case of crime in Gotham got too out of control. The plan, which she put into motion behind Batman's back, dealt with unifying all the Gotham crime-families under one man, Matches Malone.

 

What Stephanie didn't know was that Malone is actually one of Batman's underground alter-egos, and because Malone was not present at the staged meeting between crime-lords, things went awry and a huge gang war raged in Gotham, causing the deaths of many. Batman's reputation takes a major hit when he is seen by the media in broad day light holding the dead body of a young student who was killed in the crossfire of the gang war, and even more so when makes several morally questionable actions, including forcefully taking over command of the GCPD (which the results in the death of many), and attempting to put his underground ally, Orpheus, as the leader of all the gangs, but the Black Mask makes his move, kills Orpheus and becomes Gotham's kingpin of crime instead.

 

Another consequence of this war was Stephanie Brown's death after intense torture at the hands of Black Mask. Batman was at her side in her last moments and comforted her with the fact that she did earn her place as Robin.

 

Under the Red Hood

 

After the recent war, Batman has lost too much. Robin, Batgirl and Oracle have left Gotham City, Stephanie Brown is dead, Nightwing is injured, the GCPD sees Batman as a criminal and the Black Mask controls all crime in Gotham. However, a mysterious figure known as The Red Hood has been making his move on Black Mask's operations and taking control of his gangs.

 

While intercepting one of Black Mask's shipments, Batman and Nightwing encounter Red Hood for the first time, and as they chase after him, they encounter the cyborg Amazo, which they barely manage to defeat. The Red Hood then steals another one of Mask's shipments tries to blackmail him, but the meeting turns sour with Freeze and Batman and Nightwing getting involved, and all the villains end up escaping. However, during the battle, Batman is intrigued by Red Hood's skills, as he sees something familiar.

 

While intercepting another one of Black Mask's operations, Red Hood is confronted by Batman where they fight to a stalemate. Red Hood finally takes off his mask and to Batman's horror, reveals that he is in fact, Jason Todd, the Robin who apparently died many years ago and even gives him samples of his DNA to prove it before escaping.

 

It is revealed in the story that Jason came back after he was dipped in a Lazarus Pit by Talia Al Ghul. After this revelation, Alfred offers to remove Jason's memorial from the Cave, but Batman refuses, claiming that the recent developments don't change anything.

 

After Red Hood blows up Black Mask's penthouse, the desperate crime lord seeks the help of Deathstroke of the Secret Society, who sends Hyena, Captain Nazi and Count Vertigo to kill the Red Hood. Batman intervenes and together they manage to take down the trio of super-villains, but not without Red Hood killing one of them and escaping.

 

After tricking Black Mask into killing the last of his lieutenants, Red Hood, who has been holding the Joker captive, challenges Batman to come to Crime Alley to end things once and for all. After apprehending Black Mask, Batman complies and meets up with Jason. After an intense back and forth fight, Batman defeats Jason and apologizes for failing him.

 

Disgusted, Jason reveals that the reason he holds a grudge against Batman is that he never killed Joker to avenge his death. He then holds Joker hostage and throws Bruce a gun, and challenges him to make a choice: either kill Joker or kill him. Batman refuses both choices and ends up incapacitating Jason with a Batarang. An ecstatic Joker ends up blowing the entire place and in the aftermath, Jason manages to escape.

 

Infinite Crisis

 

Bruce also becomes more suspicious of other heroes, creating a super satellite called Brother Eye, which is stolen and eventually causes the death of Ted Kord. Things then hit a personal low for Bruce during the story Infinite Crisis when he almost murders megalomaniac Alex Luthor. Bruce realizes his morality is at an all-time low and decides to take a sabbatical from fighting crime.

 

⚡ Happy 🎯 Heroclix 💫 Friday! 👽

_____________________________

 

A year of the shows and performers of the Bijou Planks Theater.

 

Secret Identity: Bruce Wayne

 

Publisher: DC

 

First appearance: Detective Comics #27 (March 30, 1939)

 

Created by: Bob Kane (Writer)

Bill Finger (Artist)

 

DC Comics Nanoscene

The Batcave

2020, Jada Toys

 

First appearance cover:

www.flickr.com/photos/paprihaven/51710275435/

 

always lookin existential

Pride and Prejudice: on Raphael Perez's Artwork

   

Raphael Perez, born in 1965, studied art at the College of Visual Arts in Beer Sheva, and from 1995 has been living and working in his studio in Tel Aviv. Today Perez plays an important role in actively promoting the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transsexual) art and culture in Tel Aviv, and the internet portal he set up helps artists from the community reach large audiences in Israel and abroad. Hundreds of his artworks are part of private collections in Israel and abroad, and his artworks were shown in several group exhibitions: in Tel Aviv Museum of Art, "Zman Le'Omanut" art gallery, Camera Obscura, The Open House in Jerusalem, Ophir Gallery, The Haifa Forum and other private businesses and galleries.

 

In 2003-4 his paintings and studio appeared in a full-length movie, three student films and two graduation films.

   

Raphael Perez is the first Israeli artist to express his lifestyle as a Gay. His life and the life of the LGBT community are connected and unfold over hundreds of artwork pieces. His art creation is rare and extraordinary by every Israeli and international artistic standard. His sources of inspiration are first and foremost life events intertwined in Jewish and Israeli locality as well as influences and quotes from art history (David Hockney, Matisse). This uniqueness has crossed international borders and has succeeded in moving the LGBT and art communities around the world.

   

This is the first time we meet an Israeli artist who expresses all of his emotions in a previously unknown strength. The subjects of the paintings are the everyday life of couples in everyday places and situations, along with the aspiration to a homosexual relationship and family, equality and public recognition. Perez's works bring forward to the cultural space and to the public discourse the truth about living as LGBT and about relationships, with all of their aspects – casual relationships and sex, the yearning for love, the everyday life and the mundane activities that exist in every romantic relationship – whether by describing two men in an intimate scene in the bathroom, the bedroom or the toilet, a male couple raising a baby or the homosexual version of the Garden of Eden, family dinners, relationship ups and downs, the complexity in sharing a life as well as mundane, everyday life competing with the aspiration to self realization – through Perez's life.

     

Perez's first artworks are personal diaries, which he creates at 14 years of age. He makes sure to hide these diaries, as in them he keeps a personal journal describing his life events in the most genuine way. In these journals he draws thousands of drawings and sketches, next to which he alternately writes and erases his so-called "problematic texts", texts describing his struggle with his sexual orientation. His diaries are filled with obsessive cataloging of details, daily actions, friends and work, as well as repeating themes, such as thoughts, exhibits he has seen, movies, television, books and review of his work.

   

When he is done writing, Perez draws on his diaries. Each layer is done from beginning to end all along the journal. In fact, the work on the diaries never ends.

 

This struggle never ends, and when the emotion is passed on to paper, and it ends its role and becomes meaningless in a way, the visual-graphic side becomes dominant, due to the need to hide the written text, according to Perez. In books and diaries this stands out even more – when he chooses to draw in a style influenced by children's drawings, the characters are cheerful, happy, naïve and do not portray any sexuality, and when he tries drawing as an adult the sketches became more depressed and somber. During these years Perez works with preschool children, teaching them drawing and movement games. Perez says that during this period he completely abandoned the search for a relationship, either with a woman or a man, and working with children has given him existential meaning. This creation continues over 10 years, and Perez creates about 60 books-personal journals in various sizes (notepads, old notebooks, atlases and even old art books).

   

In his early paintings (1998-1999) the transition from relationships with women to relationships with men can be seen, from restraint to emotional outburst in color, lines and composition. Some characters display strong emotional expression. The women are usually drawn in restraint and passiveness, while a happy and loving emotional outburst is expressed in the colors and style of the male paintings.

   

"I fantasized that in a relationship with a woman I could fly in the sky, love, fly. However, I felt I was hiding something; I was choked up, hidden behind a mask, as if there was an internal scream wanting to come out. I was frustrated, I felt threatened…"

   

His first romance with a man in 1999 has drawn out a series of naïve paintings dealing with love and the excitement of performing everyday actions together in the intimate domestic environment.

   

"The excitement from each everyday experience of doing things together and the togetherness was great, so I painted every possible thing I liked doing with him."

   

From the moment the self-oppression and repression stopped, Perez started the process of healing, which was expressed in a burst of artworks, enormous in their size, amount, content and vivid colors – red, pink and white.

   

In 2000 Perez starts painting the huge artworks describing the hangouts of the LGBT community (The Lake, The Pool) and the Tel Avivian balcony paintings describing the masculine world, which, according to him, becomes existent thanks to the painting. Perez has dedicated this year to many series of drawings and paintings of the experience of love, in which he describes his first love for his new partner, and during these months he paints from morning to night. These paintings are the fruit of a long dialogue with David Hockney, and the similarity can be seen both in subjects and in different gestures.

   

In 2001 Perez creates a series of artworks, "Portraits from The Community". Perez describes in large, photorealistic paintings over 20 portraits of active and well-known members of the LGBT community. The emphasis is on the achievements that reflect the community's strong standing in Tel Aviv.

 

As a Tel-Avivian painter, in the past two years Perez has been painting urban landscapes of central locations in his city. Perez wanders around the city and chooses familiar architectural and geographical landmarks, commerce and recreation, and historical sites, and paints them from a homosexual point of view, decorated with the rainbow flag, which provide a sense of belonging to the place. His artworks are characterized by a cheerful joie de vivre and colors, and they also describe encounters and meetings. The touristic nature of his paintings makes them a declaration of Tel Aviv's image as a place where cultural freedom prevails.

 

Perez's Tel Aviv is a city where young families and couples live and fill the streets, the parks, the beach, the houses and the balconies – all the city's spaces. The characters in his paintings are similar, which helps reinforcing the belonging to the LGBT community in Tel Aviv. The collective theme in Perez's artwork interacts with the work of the Israeli artist Yohanan Simon, who dealt with the social aspects of the Kibbutz. Simon, who lived and worked in a Kibbutz, expressed the human model of the Kibbutznik (member of a Kibbutz) and the uniqueness of the Kibbutz members as part of a group where all are equal. Simon's works, and now Perez's, have contributed to the Israeli society what is has been looking for endlessly, which is a sense of identity and belonging.

 

Perez maps his territory and marks his boundaries, and does not forget the historical sites. Unlike other Tel Avivian artists, Perez wishes to present the lives of the residents of the city and the great love in their hearts. By choosing the historical sites in Tel Aviv, he also pays tribute to the artist Nachum Gutman, who loved the city and lived in it his whole life. In his childhood Gutman experienced historical moments (lighting the first oil lamp, first concert, first pavement), and as an adult he recreated the uniqueness of those events while keeping the city's magic.

 

Like Gutman, Perez has also turned the city into an object of love, and it has started adorning itself in rich colors and supplying the energy of a city that wishes to be "the city that never sleeps", combining old and new. Perez meticulously describes the uniqueness and style of the Bauhaus houses and balconies along the modern glass and steel buildings, all from unusual angles in a rectangular format that wishes to imitate the panorama of a diverse city in its centennial celebrations.

   

Daniel Cahana-Levensohn, curator.

       

Interview with the painter Raphael Perez about his family artist book

 

An interview with the painter Raphael Perez about an artist's book he created about his family, the Peretz family from 6 Nissan St. Kiryat Yuval Jerusalem

     

Question: Raphael Perez, tell me about the family artist book you created

 

Answer: I created close to 40 artist books, notebooks, diaries, sketch books and huge books. I dedicated one of the books to my dear family, a book in which I took a childhood photograph of my family, my parents and brothers and sisters.. I pasted the photographs inside a book (the photograph is 10 percent of the total painting) and I drew with acrylic paints, markers and ink on the book and the photograph, so that the image of the photograph was an inspiration to me Build the story that includes page by page..

     

Question: Tell me when you were born, where, and a little about your family

 

Answer: I was born on March 4, 1965 in the Kiryat Yuval neighborhood in Jerusalem

 

I have a twin brother named Miki Peretz and we are seven brothers and sisters, five boys and two girls

   

Question: Tell us a little about your parents

 

Answer: My parents were new immigrants from Morocco, both immigrated young.

 

My mother's name before the wedding was Alice - Aliza ben Yair and my father's name was Shimon Peretz,

 

My mother was born in the Atlas Mountains and was orphaned at a young age and was later adopted by my father's family at the age of 10, so that my mother and father spent childhood and adolescence together....

 

They had a beautiful and happy relationship but sometimes when they argued my mother would say "even when she was a child she was like that..." This means that their acquaintance and relationship dates back to childhood..

     

Question: What did your parents Shimon and Aliza Peretz work for?

 

Answer: My father, Shimon Perez, born in 1928 - worked in a building in his youth and then for thirty years worked as a receptionist at Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital in Jerusalem... My father's great love was actually art, he loved to draw as a hobby, write, read, solve crossword puzzles and research Regarding the issue of medicinal plants, as a breadwinner he could not fulfill his dream of becoming an artist, in order to support and feed seven children. But we are the next generation, his children are engaged in the world of creativity and education, a field in which both of my parents were engaged during their lives. My father died at the age of 69

   

My mother, Alice Aliza Perez, born in 1934, worked as an assistant to a kindergarten teacher, and later took care of a baby at home. She is a woman of wholehearted giving and caring for children and people, a warm, generous and humble woman.. and took care of us in our childhood for every emotional and physical deficiency.. My mother is right For the year 2023, the 89-year-old is partly happy and happy despite the difficulties of age.. May you have a long life..

   

My mother really loved gardening and nature and both of them together created a magnificent garden, my parents have a relatively large garden so they could grow many types of special and rare medicinal plants and my father even wrote a catalog (unpublished) of medicinal plants and we even had botany students come to us who were interested in the field... today they They also grow ornamental plants, and fruit trees...

   

Question: A book about the brothers and sisters

 

Answer: My elder brother David Perez repented in his mid-twenties.. He was a very sharp, opinionated, curious and very charismatic guy who brought many people back to repentance, and also helped people with problems through the yeshiva and the synagogue to return to the normal path of life, he died young at the age of 56

   

Hana Peretz: My lovely sister, raised eight children, worked in the field of education, a kindergarten teacher, and child care.

 

She has a very large extended family of grandchildren, great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren...

   

My brother Avi (Abraham) Peretz studied in Israel at the University of Philosophy and Judaism, he married a wonderful woman named Mira Drumi, a nurse by profession, and together they had three wonderful children, when they moved to the United States in their mid-twenties, where my brother Avi Peretz completed his master's degree in education, worked in the field Education and for the last twenty years is A conservative rabbi

   

The fourth brother is Asher Peretz - a great man of the world, very fond of traveling and has been to magical places all over the world, engaged in the creation of jewelry with two children.

   

I am Rafi Peretz english raphael perez the fifth and after fifteen minutes my twin brother was born

 

My mother still gets confused and can't remember who was born first :-)

   

My twin brother Miki micky - Michael Peretz, a beloved brother (everyone is beloved), a talented industrial designer, he has three children, his wife Revital Peretz Ben, who is a well-known art curator, active and responsible for the art field in Tel Aviv, they are a dynamic and talented couple, full of talents and action

   

The lovely little sister Shlomit Peretz - has been involved in the Bezeq telephone company for almost three decades, and is there in management positions, raising her lovely and beloved child.

     

The art book I dedicated to my family is colorful, rich in details, shows a very intense childhood, happy, cheerful, colorful, ... We were taught to be diligent and to be happy in our part and to see the glass half full in life, to have emotional intelligence and to put the relationship and love at the center with self-fulfillment in work that will interest you us and you will give us satisfaction.

   

Each of us is different in our life decisions and my family is actually a mosaic of the State of Israel that includes both religious and secular people from the entire political spectrum who understand that the secret to unity is mutual respect for each other... when my mother these days is also the family glue in everyone's gatherings on Shabbat and holidays..

   

The personification of the flower couple paintings by the Israeli painter Raphael Perez

 

Raphael Perez, also known as Rafi Peretz, is an Israeli painter who

 

explores his personal and sexual identity through his flower paintings. He created a series of flower paintings from 1995 to 1998, when he was in his early thirties and still in relationships with women, despite feeling gay. His flower paintings reflect his emotional turmoil and his struggle with his sexual orientation. He painted two flowers, one blooming and one wilting, to represent the contrast and conflict between his heterosexual relationships and his true self. He also painted single flowers or two flowers in their prime, to express his longing for a harmonious relationship that matches his nature. He chose sunflowers, white lilies, and red lilies as symbols of expression, purity, and joy, respectively. He painted from real flowers, using different styles and light to create drama and mood. Perez’s paintings of the flower couples are minimalist and focused on the theme of the complex relationship. He omitted any background or context, leaving only the canvas and the drawing of the flower couples. In some of the paintings, he added a very airy abstract surface with thin oil paints that give an atmosphere of watercolors. He also made drawings of flowers in ink, markers and gouache on paper. Later on, he created large acrylic paintings of flowers and still life. Perez’s flower paintings are not mere illustrations or decorations. They are autobiographical and psychological expressions of his inner state and his struggle with his sexuality. He wanted to reveal his loneliness, distress and concealment through these paintings, and to connect with people who are in a similar situation. He deliberately chose only two flowers and no more to intensify the engagement in the charged and complex relationship. Perez also painted and drew couples of men and women with charged psychological states, as well as states of desire for connection and realization of a heterosexual relationship that did not succeed. He used hyperrealism and expressive styles to convey his frozen and calculated state, as well as his mental stress. He used harsh lighting to create contrast and drama, with one side very bright and the other side darker. Perez was influenced by some of the famous artists who painted flowers, such as Van Gogh, who also used sunflowers as a symbol of expression. He also used white lilies and red lilies to convey freshness, cleanliness, purity, color, joy, movement, eruption, and splendor. Perez also painted some single flowers or two flowers in their prime, to show his aspiration for a future where he will have a harmonious relationship. Today, he is 58 years old and in a happy relationship for 10 years with his partner Assaf Henigsberg. He is surrounded by female friends and soulmates and not conflicted with heterosexual relationships as he used to be. He occasionally paints flowers in pots to symbolize home, stability, and peace. Sometimes I paint flowers in pots, which represent home, stability, and solid ground for me. I don’t paint just a couple of flowers, but pots full of flowers that overflow with life. This means that we also have a supportive network of family, friends, and peers around us. We live in a rich, supportive, and protective world. These paintings are a personification of my psychological state, when I had no words to express my feelings to myself. The painting began In 35 years of my creation (starting in 1998), you can read more about how my art and style evolved over time. Perez’s flower paintings are a unique and extraordinary artistic creation that reveals his personal journey and his sexual identity. His work is honest, expressive, and emotional, as well as beautiful and vibrant.

   

The characteristics of the naive painting of the painter Raphael Perez

 

A full interview with the Israeli painter Raphael Perez (Hebrew name: Rafi Peretz) about the ideas behind the naive painting, resume, personal biography and curriculum vitae Question: Raphael Perez Tell us about your work process as a naive painter? Answer: I choose the most iconic and famous buildings in every city and town that are architecturally interesting and have a special shape and place the iconic buildings on boulevards full of trees, bushes, vegetation, flowers. Question: How do you give depth in your naive paintings? Answer: To give depth to the painting, I build the painting with layers of vegetation, after those low famous buildings, followed by a tall avenue of trees, and behind them towers and skyscrapers, in the sky I sometimes put innocent signs of balloons, kites. A recurring motif in some of my paintings is the figure of the painter who is in the center of the boulevard and paints the entire scene unfolding in front of him, also there are two kindergarten teachers who are walking with the kindergarten children with the state flags that I paint, and loving couples hugging and kissing and family paintings of mother, father and child walking in harmony on the boulevard. Question: Raphael Perez, what characterizes your naive painting? Answer: Most naive paintings have the same characteristics (Definition as it appears in Wikipedia) • Tells a simple story to absorb from everyday life, usually with humans. • The representation of the painter's idealization to reality - the mapping of reality. • Failure to maintain perspective - especially details even in distant details. • Extensive use of repeating patterns - many details. • Warm and bright colors. • Sometimes the emphasis is on outlines. • Most of the characters are flat, lack volume • No interest in texture, expression, correct proportions • No interest in anatomy. • There is not much use of light and shade, the colors create a three-dimensional effect. I find these definitions to be valid for all my naive paintings Question: Raphael Perez, why do you choose the city of Tel Aviv? Answer: I was born in Jerusalem, the capital city which I love very much and also paint, I love the special Bauhaus buildings in Tel Aviv, the ornamental buildings that were built a century ago in the 1920s and 1930s, the beautiful boulevards, towers and modern skyscrapers give you the feeling of the hustle and bustle of a large metropolis and there are quite a few low and tall buildings that are architecturally fascinating in their form the special one Also, the move to Tel Aviv, which is the capital of culture, freedom, and secularism, allowed me to live my life as I chose, to live in a relationship with a man, Jerusalem, which is a traditional city, it is more complicated to live a homosexual life, also, the art world takes place mainly in the city of Tel Aviv, and it is possible that from a professional point of view, this allows I can support myself better in Tel Aviv than in any other city in Israel. Question: Raphael Perez, are the paintings of the city of Tel Aviv different from the paintings of the city of Jerusalem? Answer: Most of the paintings of Jerusalem have an emphasis on the color yellow, gold, the color of the old city walls, the subjects I painted in Jerusalem are mainly a type of idealization of a peaceful life between Jews and Arabs and paintings that deal with the Jewish religious world, a number of paintings depict all shades of the currents of Judaism today In contrast, the Tel Aviv paintings are more colorful, with skyscrapers, the sea, balloons and more secular motifs Question: Raphael Perez, tell me about which buildings and their architects you usually choose in your drawings of cities Answer: My favorite buildings are those that have a special shape that anyone can recognize and are the symbols of the city and you will give several examples: In the city of Tel Aviv, my favorite buildings are: the opera building with its unusual geometric shape, the Yisrotel tower with its special head, the Hail Bo Shalom tower that for years was the symbol of the tallest building in Tel Aviv, the Levin house that looks like a Japanese pagoda, the burgundy-colored Nordeau hotel with the special dome at the end of the building, A pair of Alon towers with the special structure of the sea, Bauhaus buildings typical of Tel Aviv with the special balconies and the special staircase, the Yaakov Agam fountain in Dizengoff square appears in a large part of the paintings, many towers that are in the stock exchange complex, the Aviv towers and other tall buildings on Ayalon, in some of the paintings I took plans An outline of future buildings that need to be built in the city and I drew them even before they were built in reality, In the paintings of Jerusalem, I mainly chose the area of the Old City and East Jerusalem, a painting of the walls of the Old City, the Western Wall, the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, the El Akchea Mosque, the Tower of David, most of the famous churches in the city, the right hand of Moses, in most of the paintings the Jew is wearing a blue shirt with a red male cord I was in the youth movement and the Arab with a galabia, and in the paintings of the religious public then, Jews with black suits and white shirts, tallitas, kippahs, special hats, synagogues and more I also created three paintings of the city of Haifa and one painting of Safed In the Haifa paintings I drew the university, the Technion, the famous Egged Tower, the Sail Tower, well-known hotels, of course the Baha'i Gardens and the Baha'i Temple, Haifa Port and the boats and other famous buildings in the city Question: Raphael Perez, have you created series of other cities from around the world? Answer: I created series of New York City with all the iconic and famous buildings such as: the Guggenheim Museum, the famous skyscrapers - the Chrysler Building, the Empire State Building, Lincoln Center, the famous synagogue in the city, the Statue of Liberty, the flags of the United States and other famous buildings Two paintings of London and all its famous sites, Big Ben, famous monuments, the Ferris wheel, Queen Elizabeth and her family, the double bus, the famous public telephone, palaces, famous churches, well-known monuments I created 4 naive paintings of cities in China, a painting of Shanghai, two paintings of the city of Suzhou and a painting of the World Park in the city of Beijing... I chose the famous skyline of Shanghai with all the famous towers, the famous promenade, temples and old buildings, two Paintings of the city of Suzhou with the famous canals, bridges, special gardens, towers and skyscrapers of the city Question: Raphael Perez What is the general idea that accompanies your paintings Answer: To create a good, beautiful, naive, innocent world in which we will see the innovation of the modern city through the skyscrapers in front of small and low buildings that bring the history and past of each country, all with an abundance of vegetation, boulevards, trees Resume, biography, CV of the painter Rafi Peretz and his family Question: When was Raphael Perez born in hebrew his name rafi peretz? Answer: Raphael Perez in Hebrew his name Rafi Peretz was born on March 4, 1965 Question: Where was Raphael Perez born? Answer: Raphael Perez was born in Jerusalem, Israel Question: What is the full name of Raphael Perez? Answer: His full name is Raphael Perez Question: Which art institution did Raphael Perez graduate from? Answer: Raphael Perez graduated from the Visual Arts Center in Be'er Sheva Question: When did Raphael Perez start painting? Answer: Raphael Perez started painting in 1989 Question: When did you start making a living selling art? Answer: Raphael Perez started making a living selling art in 1999 Question: Where does Raphael Perez live and work? Answer: Since 1995, Raphael Perez has been living and working from his studio in Tel Aviv Question: In which military framework did Raphael Perez serve in the IDF? Answer: Raphael Perez served in the artillery corps Question: Raphael Perez, what jobs did he work after his military service? Answer: Raphael Perez worked for 15 years in education in therapeutic settings for children and taught arts and movement Question: How many brothers and sisters does Raphael Perez, the Israeli painter, have? Answer: There are seven children in total, with the painter 5 sons and two daughters, that means the painter Raphael Perez has 4 more brothers and two sisters Question: What do the brothers and sisters of the painter Raphael Perez do? Answer: The elder brother David Peretz Perez was involved in the field of religious studies, the sister Hana Peretz Perez is involved in the field of education, a kindergarten teacher and child care, the brother Avi Peretz Perez who is in the United States today is a conservative rabbi but in the past was involved in education and therapy, the brother Asher Peretz Perez is involved in the fields of creativity and jewelry The twin brother Mickey Peretz Perez is a well-known industrial designer and seller. The younger sister Shlomit Peretz Perez works in a managerial position at Bezeq. Question: Tell me about the parents of the painter Raphael PerezAnswer: The painter Raphael Perez's parents are Shimon Perez Peretz and Eliza Alice Ben Yair, they were married in 1950 in Jerusalem, both were born in Morocco and immigrated to Israel in 1949, Shimon Peretz worked in a building in his youth and later as a receptionist at the Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital, Eliza Alice Peretz dealt in child care Kindergarten, working in kindergartens and of course taking care of and raising her seven children

 

====================

רפי פרץ צייר אמן ישראלי עכשווי מודרני אמנים ישראלים אומנים ישראליים עכשוויים מודרניים האמנים הישראלים העכשוויים המודרניים האומנים הישראליים העכשוויים המודרניים יוצר הומו הומוסקסואל קווירי הומוסקסואליות באמנות הישראלית מגדר אומנות ומגדר אמנות ישראלית עכשווית מודרנית האמנות הישראלית העכשווית המודרנית

 

erotic gay art painting artist raphael perez pintura homossexual da arte de gomoseksual badiiy rasm гомосексуальний художній живопис pittura di arte omosessuale lukisan seni homoseksual listmálun samkynhneigðra péintéireacht ealaíne homaighnéasach pikturë arti homoseksual homoseksuaalne kunstimaal хомосексуална художествена живопис homoseksualno likovno slikarstvo жывапіс гомасэксуальнага мастацтва সমকামী আর্ট পেইন্টিং homoseksuel kunstmaleri homoszexuális művészeti festmény рассоми санъати гомосексуалӣ gomoseksual sungat suratkeşligi homoseksuālas mākslas glezniecība homoseksualaus meno tapyba homoseksuell kunstmaleri homoseksualno likovno slikarstvo

 

queer artworks paintings homoerotic painter lgbt artwork glbt artworks homo erotica man nude male naked men image images picture pictures homosexual homosexualiy artists painters artist body realism realistic famous

 

مثلي الجنس الفن الغريبة الأعمال الفنية معرض معرض رجل عارية لوحة رجال عراة صورة الجسم الإسرائيلي فنان رسام مثلى الفنانين الرسامين لوحات واقعية مثلي الجنس الشهير صورة كبيرة

 

arte homosexual queer obras de arte galería exposición hombre desnudo pintura hombres desnudos retrato cuerpo artista israelí pintor artistas gay pintores pinturas realistas homoerótico famoso imagen grande

 

гомосексуальное искусство квир произведения искусства галерея выставка мужчина ню живопись голые мужчины портрет тело израильский художник художник геи художники художники реалистичные картины гомоэротика знаменитый большое изображение

 

ομοφυλοφιλική τέχνη queer artworks γκαλερί έκθεση άντρας γυμνή ζωγραφική γυμνοί άντρες πορτραίτο ισραήλ καλλιτέχνης ζωγράφος γκέι καλλιτέχνες ζωγράφοι ρεαλιστικοί πίνακες ομοιορωτική διάσημη μεγάλη εικόνα

 

homosexuelle kunst queer kunstwerke galerie ausstellung mann nackt malerei nackte männer porträtkörper israelischer künstler maler schwule künstler maler realistische gemälde homoerotisch berühmtes großes bild

 

homoseksuele kunst queer kunstwerken galerie tentoonstelling man naakt schilderij naakte mannen portret lichaam Israëlische kunstenaar schilder homo kunstenaars schilders realistische schilderijen homo-erotisch beroemd groot beeld

 

art homosexuel queer oeuvres d'art galerie exposition homme peinture nue hommes nus portrait corps artiste israélien peintre artistes gais peintres peintures réalistes homoérotique célèbre grande image

 

homoseksualna sztuka queer dzieła galeria wystawa mężczyzna nago malarstwo nagi mężczyzna portret ciało izraelski artysta malarz homoseksualiści malarze realistyczni obrazy homoerotyk sławny duży obraz

 

Eşcinsel sanat queer sanat eseri galeri sergi adam çıplak boyama çıplak erkekler portre vücut İsrail sanatçı ressam eşcinsel sanatçılar ressamlar gerçekçi resim sergisi homoerotik ünlü büyük resim

 

समलैंगिक कला क्वीर कलाकृतियों गैलरी प्रदर्शनी आदमी नग्न पेंटिंग नग्न पुरुषों चित्र शरीर इजरायल कलाकार चित्रकार समलैंगिक कलाकारों चित्रकारों यथार्थवादी चित्रों समलैंगिक प्रसिद्ध बड़ी छवि

 

homoseksuell konst queer konstverk galleri utställning man nakenmålning nakna män porträtt kropp israelisk konstnär målare gay konstnärer målare realistiska målningar homoerotisk berömd stor bild

iphone 3GS

ift.tt/1NYozTM

In or out? The great existential cat question.

Lost in America

Did you know 4 pound dogs were capable of experiencing crises? Well. This one is. Poor little Orville Peck - it’s a giant world when you’re a little bubba.

Dropped into clouds just short of the horizon

ift.tt/1Y18d3j

Holistic design is a design approach which sees a design as an interconnected whole that is part of the larger world. It goes beyond problem solving to incorporate all aspects of the ecosystem in which a product is used. The focus of holistic design is context dependent; even so, among other things, it considers aesthetics, sustainability, and spirituality.

 

While it is most commonly employed in architecture, with a little thought, holistic design can be adapted to any form of product or service design. Designer Yves Behar offers seven key principles for designers to incorporate holistic design in their work:

 

Begin with questions rather than answers. Instead of acting on a brief which already dictates the answers, asking questions which put the problem in its holistic context is far more important.

Deliver more, not less. Don’t reduce functionality to meet holistic goals – improve the functionality and meet holistic goals.

Create your own theories. Borrow shamelessly from disciplines other than design, and adapt theories from those disciplines so as to deliver greater designs.

Use 360-degree design. Look at the whole customer lifecycle of a product and design from marketing to disposal.

Consider alternative business models. Behar’s business recognizes how hard it can be for clients to trust the iterative holistic design process and often trades royalties or equities rather than charging traditional fees.

Do better. Look at projects which seem impossible, and then aim to deliver them anyway.

Find what you want that everyone else wants. Create change, and meet unmet needs.

Holistic design may appear avant-garde and ambitious, but what it demands of a designer’s imagination is the same creativity that can pay dividends far into the future. Designing for sustainability is key to future-proofing a product; adopting a holistic approach addresses that sustainability.

 

www.interaction-design.org/literature/topics/holistic-design

 

Introduction

I am a lecturer at the Bezalel Academy of Art & Design Architectural Department, Jerusalem and a practicing architect working in Israel for the last 20 years.

My work has focused both on practice & theory.

My on going search for what is behind the order of human environment, had been developed gradually by me since my studies at the Architectural Association (AA) school of Architecture in London (Dip 1973), through research work with Prof. Christopher Alexander at the "Center for Environmental Structure" Berkeley California, my post graduate studies in Architecture & Buddhist studies at U.C. Berkeley (1979-81), and along my teachings and practice in Israel in the last 25 years.

When religion and nationalism are cynically used by fundamentalists and by extremist right and left groups to cause cultural conflicts, and when architects are prompted by aggressive political motives, there is a real existential threat to the physical and human environment we live in.

There is no doubt, that the great art (and architecture) creations throughout history evolved in societies that drew their strength from their cultural and spiritual traditions and from the places they belonged to. These sources, which one might take as the factor that separates cultures and peoples, are exactly the ones that link them together in harmony.

The same tree that symbolizes life in the Cabala appears in Tantra Asana art; the same red thread the people of Tibet wear on their wrist for good luck are put on baby's pram in the Jewish tradition. In present state of affairs there is a need for a new worldview that by its very nature crosses cultures, replacing current conceptions and approaches.

The first part of the essay will present the holistic worldview, a school of thought that has been at the forefront of science for many years in which my architectural work belong, and the way this approach got interpretated by me both in theory and in the design process, a process fundamentally different from customary ones.

 

The second part will be a presentation of two selected projects built by me in Israel forming a clear implementation and interpretation of the concepts described before, in relation to their cultural and physical (urban and rural) reality.

The first project is the Music Centre and Library at the historic heart of Tel-Aviv forming a unique dialogue between a new building and the historical environment, an environment being a unique interface between the orient and the west (completed 1997).

The second project is a Residential Neighborhood in the Kibbutz forming a new concept of housing related to the recent structural changes in the kibbutz life, giving a new definition to the conception of equality.

ARCHITECTURE IS MADE FOR PEOPLE

A phenomenological approach to architecture

The purpose of architecture, as I see it, is first and foremost to create a humanenvironment for human beings. Buildings affect our lives and the fate of the physical environment in which we live over the course of many years, and therefore their real test is the test of time. The fine, old buildings and places we always want to return to ‚ those with timeless relevance‚are the ones that touch our heart, and have the power to create a deep and direct emotional experience.

Contemporary architecture as well as conceptual art sought to dissociate themselves from the world of emotions and connect the design process to the world of ideas, thus creating a rational relation between building and man, devoid of any emotion.

There are different ways to describe buildings that have this timeless quality, buildings that convey an inherent spiritual experience. Frank Lloyd Wright called them "the ones which take you beyond words". Quoted by Stephen Grabow, (Grabow, 1983) Christopher Alexander says: "The buildings that have spiritual value are a diagram of the inner universe, or the picture of the inner soul." And in The Timeless Way of Building (Alexander, 1979), Alexander writes, "There is one timeless way of building. It is thousands of years old, and the same today as it has always been. The great traditional buildings of the past, the villages and tents and temples in which man feels at home, have always been made by people who were very close to the center of this way. And as you will see, this way will lead anyone who looks for it to buildings which are themselves as ancient in their form as the trees and hills, and as our faces are."

His Holiness the Dalai Lama calls this quality: "the great self, the such ness or the nature of reality... The state of mind which brings us close to that quality is a state of knowledge and awareness detached from extraneous factors as the mere clarity of the mind".

 

Although this timeless quality exists in buildings rooted in different cultures and traditions, the experience they generate is common to all people, no matter where or from what culture they come from. Thus Alexander's basic assumption was that behind this quality, which he calls "The quality without a name", lies auniversal and eternal element common to us as human beings.

It seems to me that the real challenge of current architectural practice is to make the best use of the potential inherent in the modern technological age we live in while fulfilling the timeless needs common to us all as human beings - needs that modern architecture in general has knowingly denied for the past 60 years, in order to create a friendly and human environment.

The basic argument presented here is that in order to change the feeling of the environment and create places and buildings that we really feel part of and want to live in, the issue here is not a change of style, but a transformation of theworldview underlying current thought and approaches.

 

THE HOLISTIC APPROACH TO ARCHITECTURE

THE RELATIONS BETWEEN THE PARTS AND THE WHOLE

 

The dissociation created in our time between man and his environment is a clear expression of the change that occurred in the concept that man is part of nature and not superior to it. Comparing planning processes which resulted in dissociating man from his environment to planning processes that make him feel part of the physical world he lives in, emphasizes the difference between the mechanistic-fragmentary worldview and the holistic-organic one, which guides the holistic school of thought to which my own work belongs.

These are two different sets of orders.

 

The mechanistic worldview underlying contemporary architecture separates elements and creates an environment of autonomous fragments. The result is cities like Brasilia in Brazil,

 

Chandigarth in India, the satellite towns in England and the new neighborhoods around Jerusalem, where the structured disconnection between the house and the street, the street and the neighborhood, the neighborhood and the city arouses a feeling of detachment and alienation.

The holistic-organic approach that has been for many years at the forefront of science in general and as implemented in my architecture work in particular regards the socio-physical environment as a system or a dynamic whole, the existence of which depends on the proper, ever-changing interrelations among the parts. Moreover, the creation and existence of each part depend on the interrelations between that part and the system.

In his book The Joy of Living and Dying in Peace (Dalai Lama, 1997) His Holiness the Dalai Lama refers to this concept of cause and effect by saying: "Nowadays in the field of science there are many disciplines like cosmology, neurobiology, psychology, and particle physics, disciplines that are the result of generations of scientific investigations. Their findings are closely related to Buddhist teachings. The foundation of all Buddhist teaching and practice is the principle of dependent arising. Since things arise in dependence of other causes and conditions, they are naturally free from independent and autonomous existence. Everything that is composed from parts, or conditioned by causes and conditions, is impermanent and fleeting. These things do not stay forever. They continually disintegrate. This kind of subtle impermanence is confirmed by scientific findings".

In any organic system, each element has its own uniqueness and power, but always acts as part of a larger entity to which it belongs and which it complements. vHaving adopted this concept, I do not regard urban design, architecture, interior design and landscape design as independent disciplines removed from each other, but asone continuous and dynamic system. Thus the building is not perceived as a collection of designed fragments, but asone hierarchical language, in which every design detail, on any level of scale, is derived from the larger whole to which it belongs, which it seeks to enhance, and for whose existence it is responsible. The overall feeling of inner wholeness-unity in a building thus stems from the proper interrelations among its parts.

The same idea is found in the Mandala, a model that represents processes occurring in nature, where there is always a center of energy feeding the parts around it. However, the very existence of this center of energy is dependent on the existence of the parts around it.

 

This concept of interdependence and continuity was presented in a public talk given by His Holiness the Dalai Lama, in which he noted: "The construction of the whole is caused continually by the disintegration of its parts. For example, the butter lamp as a whole is a source of light due to the melting of the butter. The melting of the butter is caused due to the heat produced by the lamp".

THE PLANNING PROCESS ITSELF

1.Choosing A Pattern Language for The Project

Based on the assumption that beauty and harmony are objective properties related to the geometrical properties inherent in the structure itself, and that feelings have to do with facts, Alexander states in his book The Timeless Way of Building (Alexander, 1979) that all places of organic order that seem unplanned and orderless are a clear expression of order on a deep and complex level. This order is based on absolute rules that have always determined the quality and beauty of a place, and is the source of the good feeling in it. In other words, there is a direct connection between the patterns of events that occur in a place and the physical patterns - patterns of space in his terminology ‚ that constitute it.

The fact that places that share a common pattern of events (for example, Piazza San Marco in Venice and Piazza Mayor in Madrid), although different in form, all create the same emotional pleasant experience, gave rise to the hypothesis, that beyond what appears different, there is something else, common to them all.

 

Let's take for example the pattern called Arcade – an archetype of a structure that relates to the transition area between a building and the open space around it. Although the arcade in the Hadera synagogue is different from the one in the Assisi cloister or the one in the Tel-Aviv Senior Citizens Day Center, there is one superstructurecommon to them all, a superstructure that defines therelationship between the building and its surroundings.

Since the environment consists of patterns that produce a common experience, the relevant question was, what lies behind the specific patterns that produce the samecomfortable feeling we all share in that environment. The explanation was, that as in the various spoken languages there is, according to Chomsky, a common structural element he calls the

 

language of languages or the underlying patterns, an element that is innate in human beings and therefore common to us all (which explains why children can so easily learn a foreign language), so in the physical space there are patterns that reflect an innate pattern structured in our brain.

The first step in the planning process is to determine the patterns of space that are relevant to the project. Some of them will stem from the specific context of the project and the cultural reality of the place, patterns that vary from place to place, and some from the more basic needs common to us all as human beings wherever we are, as presented in A Pattern Language (Alexander, Ishikawa, Silverstein, 1977).

Once the list of patterns relevant to a specific project has been decided, a set of interrelations between them is automatically created between them, organically defining the scheme of the project. This scheme is than translated into a plan.

2. Planning on the Site Itself

A transformational Planning Process

The plan of the building that is finally created is actually a structure of balance between the abstract pattern language chosen for the project and the living reality of the actual site, a reality that differs from site to site.

The planning process proposed here is fundamentally different from the common planning processes, a process introduced to by Alexander while I was working with him on the site plan of Shorashim Community Village in Israel, and adopted in all my work since than.

 

Once the list of patterns for the project is set, all planning decisions concerning the physical structure of the project are taken literally only on the site itself. Unlike the common planning process, where planning takes place in the office and then transferred to the site, here the drawings are merely the recordingof planning decisions that have been taken currently on the site itself.

The process of creation has to be inspired by what is already there, and our task as artists or architects is to discover, identify and revive those visible and hidden forces.

 

The creative process which feeds on what is apparently already there, is definitely not a passive one. Unlike common planning process, where everything is predetermined, this is a process whereby the plan of the building develops gradually from the interaction of the abstract planning patterns and the unpredictabledeveloping situation on the site.

In his book Zen in the Art of Archery (Herrigel, 1964) Eugene Herrigel describes the state of mind in which the process of creation must take place, noting, 'Drawing the bow and loosing the shot happens independently of the Archer. The hands must open like the skin of a ripe fruit. The Archer must let himself go, to the point that the only thing that is left of him is a purposeless tension. At this state of mind, being released from all attachments, art should be practiced'.

The order according to which the planning decisions are taken on the site is determined by the hierarchical order in which the planning patterns appear on my list governed by the rules of the pattern language itself. Decisions are first made on issues that affect the larger scale we have to confront at any given moment along the development of the plan, moving to other decisions generating from them.

Moreover, the planning process is not conceived as an additive, but rather as adifferentiating one, where each new element of the plan is differentiatedgradually from previous ones.

Each decision taken on the site and marked on the ground actually changes the configuration of the site as a whole. That new whole (configuration) that has been created and can be fully visualized on the site forms the basis for the next decision. Since each stage is based on the previous one, a wrong decision creates a faulty system that cannot serve as a basis for the next decision.

The final 'layout' that emerges on the site is measured and recorded by a surveyor. That moment when all the markers suddenly become a whole, a visible plan, is a moment of surprise and excitement.

 

Experience has taught me that decisions that sometimes appear irregular and strange on paper often make sense in reality (where it comes from), and vice versa, a plan that appears perfect on paper (where it was created) does not make sense on the site. So, if when looking at the 'stakes plan' doubts arise concerning one or more of the decisions taken on the site, the correction is not made on paper in the office, but checked again on the site itself. The final "stakes plan" forms the basis for the final plan.

      

CHOOSING THE COLORS FOR THE BUILDING

Choosing the colors for the building is one of the more difficult decisions in the design process. The choice of colors has an overwhelming effect on the feeling of the building. Colors have the power to give life and enhance the qualities inherent originally in a building or to suppress them. The choice of color is made intuitively on the site when the building is completed, when I can fully sense its mass as part of the overall environment. I try to envision the colors (hues) that practically reveal themselves naturally from the building. Only then do I experiment with applications of those colors in order to arrive at the final tones.

As in the planning of the building, so at this stage of choosing the colors, the process is a gradual one. First I determine the color of the walls ‚ the big mass, and then deriving from that, follows the decision about the colors of the window frames, the rails, the gates and all the other details, to the smallest one, so as to complement, enhance and enlighten previously chosen colors.

 

A DIALOGUE BETWEEN THE QUALITIES OF

TRADITION AND MODERN TECHNOLOGY

Modern technology available today should not be conceived as an aim or a value in itself, but as a tool to create a human and friendly environment that will satisfy the basic needs that are common to all of us as human beings. Despite the unlimited possibilities it opens to us, that should be used in a controlled, value-oriented and moral way.

 

One of the immediate questions I am asked in reaction to the buildings I design is whether it is a new design that tries to reconstruct an architectural language of the past. My answer to that is that I do not attempt or aim to reconstruct the past or to nostalgically trace this or that style. The similarity and the association created between the buildings I design and those we know from the past, and the similar experience and feeling they create, originate in my use of the same fundamentalpatterns and planning codes that guided in the past and will be guide in the future in any culture and tradition, those who aspire to give a building a spirit and soul, codes that have been brutally ignored (in general) by contemporary architecture, and which I try to revive and implement in the buildings I design, in relation to the physical and social context of the place I am working in.

MUSIC CENTER AND LIBRARY

A UNIQUE DIALOGUE BETWEEN A NEW BUILDING AND THE HISTORICAL ENVIRONMENT

Tel-Aviv, Israel

 

Completion Date 1997

Preserving the spirit of a historical environment does not necessarily mean a fanatic repetition of its language. The Bialik district at the heart of Tel-Aviv, with Bialik Square at its center, is a micro-document of the architectural history of Tel-Aviv from the 19201⁄4s, the "Eclectic period", when European architecture was brought to Israel and integrated with the local oriental architecture, to the 19301⁄4s and the new 'International Style' somewhat later.

The new Music Center and Library built at Bialik Square (1997) is located on the site of a three-story residential house built in 1931 and demolished in 1994. My commission was to design a new building integrating a reconstructed part of the façade of the old one.

My conception was that once you demolish a building and reconstruct just one isolated architectural element of it, it would become a meaningless fragment, for it would no longer be an organic part of the whole, and thus would not serve the initial purpose of preserving the old. Thus, what I tried to do was to treat the reconstructed part as an environmental element that has to be naturally integrated with the newly designed building, to form one coherent functional-visual entity.

The intention was to design the new center as an integral part of the square.

The key question I asked myself was, what is the right thing to do in order to preserve and enhance the spirit of what still exists around there, which is so human and right.

Standing in the square I adopted none of the classical approaches. I aimed neither to reconstruct the past nor to dissociate myself from it by enforcing a completely new order. I was looking for a language that at that point in time in Bialik Square would create a meaningful dialogue between a new, contemporary building and the historical environment.

  

The Interrelation Between The Building And The Square

 

The powerful presence of the building in the square emanates from its being an integral part of it, and not from the efforts to distinguish it from its environment.

This intimate and organic integration was created by several basic means:

The dimensions of the building were in harmony with the human scale of the square.

The façade of the building defines the boundaries of the square, and therefore determines the feeling it inspires. The orange paint of the building1⁄4s faÁade, apparently expected to disturb the tranquility of the square, was the element that complemented the blue color of the sky and the green color of the trees to create a harmony that inspired peace and serenity in the square.

The cornices that jut out at the faÁade belong morphologically both to the building and to the space next to it, uniting them together.

The dialogue between the building and the square continues through the high windows behind which all the indoor 'public' areas are located, as well as from the roof terrace overlooking the square.

The crown on top of the building provides a graduated link to the sky. Its shape was derived from the same language that determined the pattern of the cement tiles of the porch and the reliefs on the railing wall.

At the front, where the building touches the square, an entrance porch was designed for the orchestra to play to the audience sitting in the square, thus creating a physical and human connection between the building and the square.

 

The interior of the building

 

Past the main lobby, at the entrance to the building, is the auditorium, separated from it by a glass wall, through which the back garden at the far end can be seen.

 

At the side of the lobby there is a wide-open staircase, which is an identified beautiful space by itself. It leads to the upper floors, providing a view to all the floors open to it.

The first floor houses the lending library with the catalogues and librarian counter at the entrance. The rear areas are reserved for the notes, scores and books, with access to staff only.

The second floor accommodates the museum of musical instruments and contemporary exhibitions related to music. Further along, past glass partitions are a study and periodicals room and an archive. These three spaces make one visual continuum while preserving the identity and uniqueness of each space.

  

The top floor houses the audiovisual library that lends discs, videotapes, and records. Further along, beyond the glass partition, is an audiovisual room with a view of the sea.

  

Extending from this floor, overlooking the square, is a roof terrace that has also a view of the sea.

The secret enfolded in the beauty of a building (or of any artifact) as a whole lies in its spatial order and in the nature of its details. The details like the furniture, lighting accessories, materials and colors, are regarded as an inherent part of the building and therefore are inseparable part of my planning process.

The similarity in form between the details stems from the common whole to which they belong.

In modern society, beauty has become a term of abuse, often associated with inefficiency, impracticality, lack of functionalism and high costs. That notion of beauty is true when it relates to details as decorative elements and ornamentationfor its own sake.

The Shakers, a religious sect that created an abundance of useful furniture and utensils in the mideighteenth century, noted that the wholeness and beauty of form are products of pure functionalism, and that there is no room for beautiful forms that do not flow from a functional need. Take, for example the gold leaves capital of the iron column, which connects it to the beam. This part is functionally separate from the other parts of the column and was therefore given a different form and color.

At the same time, however, the Shakers did not interpret the term 'pure functionalism' in the narrow sense of the word, as did the modernists, for whom the expression 'form follows function' was semantically connected only to thephysical body of the building, but in the broad sense that connects it both to the physical and spiritual experience in a building. This is the experience I want to create for the users of the buildings I design.

This concept is manifested, for example, in the following design details:

The wall between the lobby and the auditorium, which normally would be solid, is a glass wall that allows a view to the depth of the building immediately upon entrance.

The six steel columns that rise to the top of the building are structural, but at the same time their placement helps to define and distinguish the public areas of each floor.

The capital of the column, a functional entity that both separates it from the beam and connects it to it, is distinguished from other parts of the column by its leave-like shape and its gold color.

The textured gold color of the walls in the public areas is different from the color of other spaces.

The seams between the stone tiles and the carpets are made of cherry wood, a third material that both joins and separates the two.

The soft reflection of the light when it touches the gold, silver and redish colors in the space creates a unique feeling that envelops all parts of the building.

All parts of the audiovisual library are visually connected, all have a view to the roof terrace and the sea at the far distance.

     

RESIDENTIAL NEIGHBORHOOD IN THE KIBBUTZ

Kibbutz Maagan Michael, Israel

Completion Date

Stage 1 2001

Stage 2 2004

STRUCTURAL CHANGES IN KIBBUTZ LIFE REQUIRE A NEW CONCEPT OF HOUSING

From Quantitive Uniformity to Qualitative Equality

 

The social, economic and physical structure of the collective known as a 'kibbutz' was founded in Israel in the early 20th century.

Its uppermost value since its very beginning was equality, translated in most realms of community life not as equality of opportunities, in its qualitative sense, but rather in itsquantitative sense, as formal uniformity. This dogmatic equality obliterated the self-identity and uniqueness of the individual and saw him only as part of the collective.

In recent years, however, this old conception of equality has been redefined in many respects. The social structure reverted back to the nuclear family, with children raised at home, and no longer in a communal house where they were regarded as the possession of the community as

a whole. Wages, previously based on the notion that every member contributed according to his or her own ability, but was supported according to his or her needs, have now become differential, based on one's contribution. Housing in the kibbutz is perhaps the last fortress of the old and simplistic conception of equality, a conception that now more than ever can change.

According to this conception, houses are regarded as static models ofpredetermined uniform shape, arbitrarily positioned on the building site. All houses with no regard to any environmental factors such as the direction of light or the angle open to the view on any specific plot, resulted in having all identical plan and elevations. Thus a tenant whose window happens to face the orchard has the advantage on the one whose window faces the cow shed.

 

This approach created a qualitative inequality between the houses and inequality of opportunities among the tenants.

Moreover, the outcome of this dogmatic approach was that houses built in the desert environment of the Negev or the hilly Galilean environment were exactly the same.

The new model I implemented in the design of the new houses in Kibbutz Maagan Michael was fundamentally different. The planning process adopted was based on patterns that were common to all the houses, patterns that grew out both of the social structure of the kibbutz and the geographic location facing the sea. When these common patterns were used in different site conditions, a variety of houses emerged, sharing one architectural language.

 

Planning the neighborhood on the site

Kibbutz Ma'agan is situated on a hill, with the new neighborhood on the western side that faces the sea. Each planning decision, from the positioning of the house on the site, through the determination of the direction of its entrance in relation to the path, and unto the location of each window, was taken on the site of each plot.

 

First the position of each house in relation to the others was determined, so as to ensure that each one has an open view to the water and can enjoy the breeze coming from the sea.

To determine the level of each house so that one could see the sea while sitting on the terrace, I used a crane that lifted me up to where I could see the sea. This height was measured and the level of the house was determined accordingly.

   

At the center of the neighborhood, a path was planned connecting the promenade that runs along the water and the path that runs from the

communal dining hall at the heart of the kibbutz to the neighborhood.

What dictated the course of the path was the wish to see the water from every spot along the path.

The houses were arranged in small clusters, sharing a communal open space. Unlike the traditional pattern in the kibbutz, where all open spaces, called 'the lawn', are communal and the buildings are dispersed arbitrarily in between, here the secondary paths running between the houses defined in a non-formal way, with no fences, the 'private' zone of each family.

This sense of 'private territory' unexpectedly created a new reality in which each family started to grow its own garden. This new pattern of behavior could not have developed in the traditional model, where the common open spaces were planned as the property of everyone, and therefore of no one.

 

At this stage the site plan was completed. The position of each house in the neighborhood in relation to the paths and its position in relation to the sea produced different types of house plans. On plots where the entrance from the path was in the same direction as the sea view, type A plans emerged. Here the entrance was through the main garden to the living-dining area that faced the view.

On plots where the entrance was from the opposite direction of the sea view, type B plans developed, and the entrance was through the opposite side of the garden and living areas.

In front of each house there is a bicycle rack (the only means of transport allowed within the boundaries of the kibbutz). Next to the entrance door a place for muddy boots was allocated, a prominent symbol of the kibbutz.

The walls are all whitewashed light blue, complemented by regionally quarried sandstone characterizing the construction details.

The implementation of a conceptually new model in a very rigid social framework became possible now, as a result of an overall change in the reality of the kibbutz communities, a change that was inevitable in the twenty-first century.

 

Nili Portugali

© 2005

Nili Portugali is an architect based in Tel-Aviv, Israel and has just published a new book, "The Act of Creation and the Spirit of a Place: A Holistic-Phenomenological Approach to Architecture", Edition Axel Menges, Stuttgart & London 2006. See www.niliportugali.com for more details.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

His Holiness the Dalai Lama, The Joy of Living and Dying in Peace, Harper Collins, India, 1997

Christopher Alexander, S. Ishikawa, M. Silverstein, A Pattern Language, Oxford University Press, 1977

 

Christopher Alexander, The Timeless Way of Building, Oxford University Press, 1979

Stephen Grabow, Christopher Alexander, The Search for a New Paradigm in Architecture, Oriel Press, 1983

Eugene Herrigel, Zen and the Art of Archery, McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1964

Views expressed on this page are those of the writer and are not necessarily shared by those involved in INTBAU.

  

intbau.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/AHolisticApproachto...

Pride and Prejudice: on Raphael Perez's Artwork

   

Raphael Perez, born in 1965, studied art at the College of Visual Arts in Beer Sheva, and from 1995 has been living and working in his studio in Tel Aviv. Today Perez plays an important role in actively promoting the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transsexual) art and culture in Tel Aviv, and the internet portal he set up helps artists from the community reach large audiences in Israel and abroad. Hundreds of his artworks are part of private collections in Israel and abroad, and his artworks were shown in several group exhibitions: in Tel Aviv Museum of Art, "Zman Le'Omanut" art gallery, Camera Obscura, The Open House in Jerusalem, Ophir Gallery, The Haifa Forum and other private businesses and galleries.

 

In 2003-4 his paintings and studio appeared in a full-length movie, three student films and two graduation films.

   

Raphael Perez is the first Israeli artist to express his lifestyle as a Gay. His life and the life of the LGBT community are connected and unfold over hundreds of artwork pieces. His art creation is rare and extraordinary by every Israeli and international artistic standard. His sources of inspiration are first and foremost life events intertwined in Jewish and Israeli locality as well as influences and quotes from art history (David Hockney, Matisse). This uniqueness has crossed international borders and has succeeded in moving the LGBT and art communities around the world.

   

This is the first time we meet an Israeli artist who expresses all of his emotions in a previously unknown strength. The subjects of the paintings are the everyday life of couples in everyday places and situations, along with the aspiration to a homosexual relationship and family, equality and public recognition. Perez's works bring forward to the cultural space and to the public discourse the truth about living as LGBT and about relationships, with all of their aspects – casual relationships and sex, the yearning for love, the everyday life and the mundane activities that exist in every romantic relationship – whether by describing two men in an intimate scene in the bathroom, the bedroom or the toilet, a male couple raising a baby or the homosexual version of the Garden of Eden, family dinners, relationship ups and downs, the complexity in sharing a life as well as mundane, everyday life competing with the aspiration to self realization – through Perez's life.

     

Perez's first artworks are personal diaries, which he creates at 14 years of age. He makes sure to hide these diaries, as in them he keeps a personal journal describing his life events in the most genuine way. In these journals he draws thousands of drawings and sketches, next to which he alternately writes and erases his so-called "problematic texts", texts describing his struggle with his sexual orientation. His diaries are filled with obsessive cataloging of details, daily actions, friends and work, as well as repeating themes, such as thoughts, exhibits he has seen, movies, television, books and review of his work.

   

When he is done writing, Perez draws on his diaries. Each layer is done from beginning to end all along the journal. In fact, the work on the diaries never ends.

 

This struggle never ends, and when the emotion is passed on to paper, and it ends its role and becomes meaningless in a way, the visual-graphic side becomes dominant, due to the need to hide the written text, according to Perez. In books and diaries this stands out even more – when he chooses to draw in a style influenced by children's drawings, the characters are cheerful, happy, naïve and do not portray any sexuality, and when he tries drawing as an adult the sketches became more depressed and somber. During these years Perez works with preschool children, teaching them drawing and movement games. Perez says that during this period he completely abandoned the search for a relationship, either with a woman or a man, and working with children has given him existential meaning. This creation continues over 10 years, and Perez creates about 60 books-personal journals in various sizes (notepads, old notebooks, atlases and even old art books).

   

In his early paintings (1998-1999) the transition from relationships with women to relationships with men can be seen, from restraint to emotional outburst in color, lines and composition. Some characters display strong emotional expression. The women are usually drawn in restraint and passiveness, while a happy and loving emotional outburst is expressed in the colors and style of the male paintings.

   

"I fantasized that in a relationship with a woman I could fly in the sky, love, fly. However, I felt I was hiding something; I was choked up, hidden behind a mask, as if there was an internal scream wanting to come out. I was frustrated, I felt threatened…"

   

His first romance with a man in 1999 has drawn out a series of naïve paintings dealing with love and the excitement of performing everyday actions together in the intimate domestic environment.

   

"The excitement from each everyday experience of doing things together and the togetherness was great, so I painted every possible thing I liked doing with him."

   

From the moment the self-oppression and repression stopped, Perez started the process of healing, which was expressed in a burst of artworks, enormous in their size, amount, content and vivid colors – red, pink and white.

   

In 2000 Perez starts painting the huge artworks describing the hangouts of the LGBT community (The Lake, The Pool) and the Tel Avivian balcony paintings describing the masculine world, which, according to him, becomes existent thanks to the painting. Perez has dedicated this year to many series of drawings and paintings of the experience of love, in which he describes his first love for his new partner, and during these months he paints from morning to night. These paintings are the fruit of a long dialogue with David Hockney, and the similarity can be seen both in subjects and in different gestures.

   

In 2001 Perez creates a series of artworks, "Portraits from The Community". Perez describes in large, photorealistic paintings over 20 portraits of active and well-known members of the LGBT community. The emphasis is on the achievements that reflect the community's strong standing in Tel Aviv.

 

As a Tel-Avivian painter, in the past two years Perez has been painting urban landscapes of central locations in his city. Perez wanders around the city and chooses familiar architectural and geographical landmarks, commerce and recreation, and historical sites, and paints them from a homosexual point of view, decorated with the rainbow flag, which provide a sense of belonging to the place. His artworks are characterized by a cheerful joie de vivre and colors, and they also describe encounters and meetings. The touristic nature of his paintings makes them a declaration of Tel Aviv's image as a place where cultural freedom prevails.

 

Perez's Tel Aviv is a city where young families and couples live and fill the streets, the parks, the beach, the houses and the balconies – all the city's spaces. The characters in his paintings are similar, which helps reinforcing the belonging to the LGBT community in Tel Aviv. The collective theme in Perez's artwork interacts with the work of the Israeli artist Yohanan Simon, who dealt with the social aspects of the Kibbutz. Simon, who lived and worked in a Kibbutz, expressed the human model of the Kibbutznik (member of a Kibbutz) and the uniqueness of the Kibbutz members as part of a group where all are equal. Simon's works, and now Perez's, have contributed to the Israeli society what is has been looking for endlessly, which is a sense of identity and belonging.

 

Perez maps his territory and marks his boundaries, and does not forget the historical sites. Unlike other Tel Avivian artists, Perez wishes to present the lives of the residents of the city and the great love in their hearts. By choosing the historical sites in Tel Aviv, he also pays tribute to the artist Nachum Gutman, who loved the city and lived in it his whole life. In his childhood Gutman experienced historical moments (lighting the first oil lamp, first concert, first pavement), and as an adult he recreated the uniqueness of those events while keeping the city's magic.

 

Like Gutman, Perez has also turned the city into an object of love, and it has started adorning itself in rich colors and supplying the energy of a city that wishes to be "the city that never sleeps", combining old and new. Perez meticulously describes the uniqueness and style of the Bauhaus houses and balconies along the modern glass and steel buildings, all from unusual angles in a rectangular format that wishes to imitate the panorama of a diverse city in its centennial celebrations.

   

Daniel Cahana-Levensohn, curator.

       

Interview with the painter Raphael Perez about his family artist book

 

An interview with the painter Raphael Perez about an artist's book he created about his family, the Peretz family from 6 Nissan St. Kiryat Yuval Jerusalem

     

Question: Raphael Perez, tell me about the family artist book you created

 

Answer: I created close to 40 artist books, notebooks, diaries, sketch books and huge books. I dedicated one of the books to my dear family, a book in which I took a childhood photograph of my family, my parents and brothers and sisters.. I pasted the photographs inside a book (the photograph is 10 percent of the total painting) and I drew with acrylic paints, markers and ink on the book and the photograph, so that the image of the photograph was an inspiration to me Build the story that includes page by page..

     

Question: Tell me when you were born, where, and a little about your family

 

Answer: I was born on March 4, 1965 in the Kiryat Yuval neighborhood in Jerusalem

 

I have a twin brother named Miki Peretz and we are seven brothers and sisters, five boys and two girls

   

Question: Tell us a little about your parents

 

Answer: My parents were new immigrants from Morocco, both immigrated young.

 

My mother's name before the wedding was Alice - Aliza ben Yair and my father's name was Shimon Peretz,

 

My mother was born in the Atlas Mountains and was orphaned at a young age and was later adopted by my father's family at the age of 10, so that my mother and father spent childhood and adolescence together....

 

They had a beautiful and happy relationship but sometimes when they argued my mother would say "even when she was a child she was like that..." This means that their acquaintance and relationship dates back to childhood..

     

Question: What did your parents Shimon and Aliza Peretz work for?

 

Answer: My father, Shimon Perez, born in 1928 - worked in a building in his youth and then for thirty years worked as a receptionist at Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital in Jerusalem... My father's great love was actually art, he loved to draw as a hobby, write, read, solve crossword puzzles and research Regarding the issue of medicinal plants, as a breadwinner he could not fulfill his dream of becoming an artist, in order to support and feed seven children. But we are the next generation, his children are engaged in the world of creativity and education, a field in which both of my parents were engaged during their lives. My father died at the age of 69

   

My mother, Alice Aliza Perez, born in 1934, worked as an assistant to a kindergarten teacher, and later took care of a baby at home. She is a woman of wholehearted giving and caring for children and people, a warm, generous and humble woman.. and took care of us in our childhood for every emotional and physical deficiency.. My mother is right For the year 2023, the 89-year-old is partly happy and happy despite the difficulties of age.. May you have a long life..

   

My mother really loved gardening and nature and both of them together created a magnificent garden, my parents have a relatively large garden so they could grow many types of special and rare medicinal plants and my father even wrote a catalog (unpublished) of medicinal plants and we even had botany students come to us who were interested in the field... today they They also grow ornamental plants, and fruit trees...

   

Question: A book about the brothers and sisters

 

Answer: My elder brother David Perez repented in his mid-twenties.. He was a very sharp, opinionated, curious and very charismatic guy who brought many people back to repentance, and also helped people with problems through the yeshiva and the synagogue to return to the normal path of life, he died young at the age of 56

   

Hana Peretz: My lovely sister, raised eight children, worked in the field of education, a kindergarten teacher, and child care.

 

She has a very large extended family of grandchildren, great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren...

   

My brother Avi (Abraham) Peretz studied in Israel at the University of Philosophy and Judaism, he married a wonderful woman named Mira Drumi, a nurse by profession, and together they had three wonderful children, when they moved to the United States in their mid-twenties, where my brother Avi Peretz completed his master's degree in education, worked in the field Education and for the last twenty years is A conservative rabbi

   

The fourth brother is Asher Peretz - a great man of the world, very fond of traveling and has been to magical places all over the world, engaged in the creation of jewelry with two children.

   

I am Rafi Peretz english raphael perez the fifth and after fifteen minutes my twin brother was born

 

My mother still gets confused and can't remember who was born first :-)

   

My twin brother Miki micky - Michael Peretz, a beloved brother (everyone is beloved), a talented industrial designer, he has three children, his wife Revital Peretz Ben, who is a well-known art curator, active and responsible for the art field in Tel Aviv, they are a dynamic and talented couple, full of talents and action

   

The lovely little sister Shlomit Peretz - has been involved in the Bezeq telephone company for almost three decades, and is there in management positions, raising her lovely and beloved child.

     

The art book I dedicated to my family is colorful, rich in details, shows a very intense childhood, happy, cheerful, colorful, ... We were taught to be diligent and to be happy in our part and to see the glass half full in life, to have emotional intelligence and to put the relationship and love at the center with self-fulfillment in work that will interest you us and you will give us satisfaction.

   

Each of us is different in our life decisions and my family is actually a mosaic of the State of Israel that includes both religious and secular people from the entire political spectrum who understand that the secret to unity is mutual respect for each other... when my mother these days is also the family glue in everyone's gatherings on Shabbat and holidays..

   

The personification of the flower couple paintings by the Israeli painter Raphael Perez

 

Raphael Perez, also known as Rafi Peretz, is an Israeli painter who

 

explores his personal and sexual identity through his flower paintings. He created a series of flower paintings from 1995 to 1998, when he was in his early thirties and still in relationships with women, despite feeling gay. His flower paintings reflect his emotional turmoil and his struggle with his sexual orientation. He painted two flowers, one blooming and one wilting, to represent the contrast and conflict between his heterosexual relationships and his true self. He also painted single flowers or two flowers in their prime, to express his longing for a harmonious relationship that matches his nature. He chose sunflowers, white lilies, and red lilies as symbols of expression, purity, and joy, respectively. He painted from real flowers, using different styles and light to create drama and mood. Perez’s paintings of the flower couples are minimalist and focused on the theme of the complex relationship. He omitted any background or context, leaving only the canvas and the drawing of the flower couples. In some of the paintings, he added a very airy abstract surface with thin oil paints that give an atmosphere of watercolors. He also made drawings of flowers in ink, markers and gouache on paper. Later on, he created large acrylic paintings of flowers and still life. Perez’s flower paintings are not mere illustrations or decorations. They are autobiographical and psychological expressions of his inner state and his struggle with his sexuality. He wanted to reveal his loneliness, distress and concealment through these paintings, and to connect with people who are in a similar situation. He deliberately chose only two flowers and no more to intensify the engagement in the charged and complex relationship. Perez also painted and drew couples of men and women with charged psychological states, as well as states of desire for connection and realization of a heterosexual relationship that did not succeed. He used hyperrealism and expressive styles to convey his frozen and calculated state, as well as his mental stress. He used harsh lighting to create contrast and drama, with one side very bright and the other side darker. Perez was influenced by some of the famous artists who painted flowers, such as Van Gogh, who also used sunflowers as a symbol of expression. He also used white lilies and red lilies to convey freshness, cleanliness, purity, color, joy, movement, eruption, and splendor. Perez also painted some single flowers or two flowers in their prime, to show his aspiration for a future where he will have a harmonious relationship. Today, he is 58 years old and in a happy relationship for 10 years with his partner Assaf Henigsberg. He is surrounded by female friends and soulmates and not conflicted with heterosexual relationships as he used to be. He occasionally paints flowers in pots to symbolize home, stability, and peace. Sometimes I paint flowers in pots, which represent home, stability, and solid ground for me. I don’t paint just a couple of flowers, but pots full of flowers that overflow with life. This means that we also have a supportive network of family, friends, and peers around us. We live in a rich, supportive, and protective world. These paintings are a personification of my psychological state, when I had no words to express my feelings to myself. The painting began In 35 years of my creation (starting in 1998), you can read more about how my art and style evolved over time. Perez’s flower paintings are a unique and extraordinary artistic creation that reveals his personal journey and his sexual identity. His work is honest, expressive, and emotional, as well as beautiful and vibrant.

   

The characteristics of the naive painting of the painter Raphael Perez

 

A full interview with the Israeli painter Raphael Perez (Hebrew name: Rafi Peretz) about the ideas behind the naive painting, resume, personal biography and curriculum vitae Question: Raphael Perez Tell us about your work process as a naive painter? Answer: I choose the most iconic and famous buildings in every city and town that are architecturally interesting and have a special shape and place the iconic buildings on boulevards full of trees, bushes, vegetation, flowers. Question: How do you give depth in your naive paintings? Answer: To give depth to the painting, I build the painting with layers of vegetation, after those low famous buildings, followed by a tall avenue of trees, and behind them towers and skyscrapers, in the sky I sometimes put innocent signs of balloons, kites. A recurring motif in some of my paintings is the figure of the painter who is in the center of the boulevard and paints the entire scene unfolding in front of him, also there are two kindergarten teachers who are walking with the kindergarten children with the state flags that I paint, and loving couples hugging and kissing and family paintings of mother, father and child walking in harmony on the boulevard. Question: Raphael Perez, what characterizes your naive painting? Answer: Most naive paintings have the same characteristics (Definition as it appears in Wikipedia) • Tells a simple story to absorb from everyday life, usually with humans. • The representation of the painter's idealization to reality - the mapping of reality. • Failure to maintain perspective - especially details even in distant details. • Extensive use of repeating patterns - many details. • Warm and bright colors. • Sometimes the emphasis is on outlines. • Most of the characters are flat, lack volume • No interest in texture, expression, correct proportions • No interest in anatomy. • There is not much use of light and shade, the colors create a three-dimensional effect. I find these definitions to be valid for all my naive paintings Question: Raphael Perez, why do you choose the city of Tel Aviv? Answer: I was born in Jerusalem, the capital city which I love very much and also paint, I love the special Bauhaus buildings in Tel Aviv, the ornamental buildings that were built a century ago in the 1920s and 1930s, the beautiful boulevards, towers and modern skyscrapers give you the feeling of the hustle and bustle of a large metropolis and there are quite a few low and tall buildings that are architecturally fascinating in their form the special one Also, the move to Tel Aviv, which is the capital of culture, freedom, and secularism, allowed me to live my life as I chose, to live in a relationship with a man, Jerusalem, which is a traditional city, it is more complicated to live a homosexual life, also, the art world takes place mainly in the city of Tel Aviv, and it is possible that from a professional point of view, this allows I can support myself better in Tel Aviv than in any other city in Israel. Question: Raphael Perez, are the paintings of the city of Tel Aviv different from the paintings of the city of Jerusalem? Answer: Most of the paintings of Jerusalem have an emphasis on the color yellow, gold, the color of the old city walls, the subjects I painted in Jerusalem are mainly a type of idealization of a peaceful life between Jews and Arabs and paintings that deal with the Jewish religious world, a number of paintings depict all shades of the currents of Judaism today In contrast, the Tel Aviv paintings are more colorful, with skyscrapers, the sea, balloons and more secular motifs Question: Raphael Perez, tell me about which buildings and their architects you usually choose in your drawings of cities Answer: My favorite buildings are those that have a special shape that anyone can recognize and are the symbols of the city and you will give several examples: In the city of Tel Aviv, my favorite buildings are: the opera building with its unusual geometric shape, the Yisrotel tower with its special head, the Hail Bo Shalom tower that for years was the symbol of the tallest building in Tel Aviv, the Levin house that looks like a Japanese pagoda, the burgundy-colored Nordeau hotel with the special dome at the end of the building, A pair of Alon towers with the special structure of the sea, Bauhaus buildings typical of Tel Aviv with the special balconies and the special staircase, the Yaakov Agam fountain in Dizengoff square appears in a large part of the paintings, many towers that are in the stock exchange complex, the Aviv towers and other tall buildings on Ayalon, in some of the paintings I took plans An outline of future buildings that need to be built in the city and I drew them even before they were built in reality, In the paintings of Jerusalem, I mainly chose the area of the Old City and East Jerusalem, a painting of the walls of the Old City, the Western Wall, the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, the El Akchea Mosque, the Tower of David, most of the famous churches in the city, the right hand of Moses, in most of the paintings the Jew is wearing a blue shirt with a red male cord I was in the youth movement and the Arab with a galabia, and in the paintings of the religious public then, Jews with black suits and white shirts, tallitas, kippahs, special hats, synagogues and more I also created three paintings of the city of Haifa and one painting of Safed In the Haifa paintings I drew the university, the Technion, the famous Egged Tower, the Sail Tower, well-known hotels, of course the Baha'i Gardens and the Baha'i Temple, Haifa Port and the boats and other famous buildings in the city Question: Raphael Perez, have you created series of other cities from around the world? Answer: I created series of New York City with all the iconic and famous buildings such as: the Guggenheim Museum, the famous skyscrapers - the Chrysler Building, the Empire State Building, Lincoln Center, the famous synagogue in the city, the Statue of Liberty, the flags of the United States and other famous buildings Two paintings of London and all its famous sites, Big Ben, famous monuments, the Ferris wheel, Queen Elizabeth and her family, the double bus, the famous public telephone, palaces, famous churches, well-known monuments I created 4 naive paintings of cities in China, a painting of Shanghai, two paintings of the city of Suzhou and a painting of the World Park in the city of Beijing... I chose the famous skyline of Shanghai with all the famous towers, the famous promenade, temples and old buildings, two Paintings of the city of Suzhou with the famous canals, bridges, special gardens, towers and skyscrapers of the city Question: Raphael Perez What is the general idea that accompanies your paintings Answer: To create a good, beautiful, naive, innocent world in which we will see the innovation of the modern city through the skyscrapers in front of small and low buildings that bring the history and past of each country, all with an abundance of vegetation, boulevards, trees Resume, biography, CV of the painter Rafi Peretz and his family Question: When was Raphael Perez born in hebrew his name rafi peretz? Answer: Raphael Perez in Hebrew his name Rafi Peretz was born on March 4, 1965 Question: Where was Raphael Perez born? Answer: Raphael Perez was born in Jerusalem, Israel Question: What is the full name of Raphael Perez? Answer: His full name is Raphael Perez Question: Which art institution did Raphael Perez graduate from? Answer: Raphael Perez graduated from the Visual Arts Center in Be'er Sheva Question: When did Raphael Perez start painting? Answer: Raphael Perez started painting in 1989 Question: When did you start making a living selling art? Answer: Raphael Perez started making a living selling art in 1999 Question: Where does Raphael Perez live and work? Answer: Since 1995, Raphael Perez has been living and working from his studio in Tel Aviv Question: In which military framework did Raphael Perez serve in the IDF? Answer: Raphael Perez served in the artillery corps Question: Raphael Perez, what jobs did he work after his military service? Answer: Raphael Perez worked for 15 years in education in therapeutic settings for children and taught arts and movement Question: How many brothers and sisters does Raphael Perez, the Israeli painter, have? Answer: There are seven children in total, with the painter 5 sons and two daughters, that means the painter Raphael Perez has 4 more brothers and two sisters Question: What do the brothers and sisters of the painter Raphael Perez do? Answer: The elder brother David Peretz Perez was involved in the field of religious studies, the sister Hana Peretz Perez is involved in the field of education, a kindergarten teacher and child care, the brother Avi Peretz Perez who is in the United States today is a conservative rabbi but in the past was involved in education and therapy, the brother Asher Peretz Perez is involved in the fields of creativity and jewelry The twin brother Mickey Peretz Perez is a well-known industrial designer and seller. The younger sister Shlomit Peretz Perez works in a managerial position at Bezeq. Question: Tell me about the parents of the painter Raphael PerezAnswer: The painter Raphael Perez's parents are Shimon Perez Peretz and Eliza Alice Ben Yair, they were married in 1950 in Jerusalem, both were born in Morocco and immigrated to Israel in 1949, Shimon Peretz worked in a building in his youth and later as a receptionist at the Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital, Eliza Alice Peretz dealt in child care Kindergarten, working in kindergartens and of course taking care of and raising her seven children

 

--------------------------

רפי פרץ צייר אמן ישראלי עכשווי מודרני אמנים ישראלים אומנים ישראליים עכשוויים מודרניים האמנים הישראלים העכשוויים המודרניים האומנים הישראליים העכשוויים המודרניים יוצר הומו הומוסקסואל קווירי הומוסקסואליות באמנות הישראלית מגדר אומנות ומגדר אמנות ישראלית עכשווית מודרנית האמנות הישראלית העכשווית המודרנית

 

erotic gay art painting artist raphael perez pintura homossexual da arte de gomoseksual badiiy rasm гомосексуальний художній живопис pittura di arte omosessuale lukisan seni homoseksual listmálun samkynhneigðra péintéireacht ealaíne homaighnéasach pikturë arti homoseksual homoseksuaalne kunstimaal хомосексуална художествена живопис homoseksualno likovno slikarstvo жывапіс гомасэксуальнага мастацтва সমকামী আর্ট পেইন্টিং homoseksuel kunstmaleri homoszexuális művészeti festmény рассоми санъати гомосексуалӣ gomoseksual sungat suratkeşligi homoseksuālas mākslas glezniecība homoseksualaus meno tapyba homoseksuell kunstmaleri homoseksualno likovno slikarstvo

 

queer artworks paintings homoerotic painter lgbt artwork glbt artworks homo erotica man nude male naked men image images picture pictures homosexual homosexualiy artists painters artist body realism realistic famous

 

مثلي الجنس الفن الغريبة الأعمال الفنية معرض معرض رجل عارية لوحة رجال عراة صورة الجسم الإسرائيلي فنان رسام مثلى الفنانين الرسامين لوحات واقعية مثلي الجنس الشهير صورة كبيرة

 

arte homosexual queer obras de arte galería exposición hombre desnudo pintura hombres desnudos retrato cuerpo artista israelí pintor artistas gay pintores pinturas realistas homoerótico famoso imagen grande

 

гомосексуальное искусство квир произведения искусства галерея выставка мужчина ню живопись голые мужчины портрет тело израильский художник художник геи художники художники реалистичные картины гомоэротика знаменитый большое изображение

 

ομοφυλοφιλική τέχνη queer artworks γκαλερί έκθεση άντρας γυμνή ζωγραφική γυμνοί άντρες πορτραίτο ισραήλ καλλιτέχνης ζωγράφος γκέι καλλιτέχνες ζωγράφοι ρεαλιστικοί πίνακες ομοιορωτική διάσημη μεγάλη εικόνα

 

homosexuelle kunst queer kunstwerke galerie ausstellung mann nackt malerei nackte männer porträtkörper israelischer künstler maler schwule künstler maler realistische gemälde homoerotisch berühmtes großes bild

 

homoseksuele kunst queer kunstwerken galerie tentoonstelling man naakt schilderij naakte mannen portret lichaam Israëlische kunstenaar schilder homo kunstenaars schilders realistische schilderijen homo-erotisch beroemd groot beeld

 

art homosexuel queer oeuvres d'art galerie exposition homme peinture nue hommes nus portrait corps artiste israélien peintre artistes gais peintres peintures réalistes homoérotique célèbre grande image

 

homoseksualna sztuka queer dzieła galeria wystawa mężczyzna nago malarstwo nagi mężczyzna portret ciało izraelski artysta malarz homoseksualiści malarze realistyczni obrazy homoerotyk sławny duży obraz

 

Eşcinsel sanat queer sanat eseri galeri sergi adam çıplak boyama çıplak erkekler portre vücut İsrail sanatçı ressam eşcinsel sanatçılar ressamlar gerçekçi resim sergisi homoerotik ünlü büyük resim

 

समलैंगिक कला क्वीर कलाकृतियों गैलरी प्रदर्शनी आदमी नग्न पेंटिंग नग्न पुरुषों चित्र शरीर इजरायल कलाकार चित्रकार समलैंगिक कलाकारों चित्रकारों यथार्थवादी चित्रों समलैंगिक प्रसिद्ध बड़ी छवि

 

homoseksuell konst queer konstverk galleri utställning man nakenmålning nakna män porträtt kropp israelisk konstnär målare gay konstnärer målare realistiska målningar homoerotisk berömd stor bild

all existential inquiry eventually leads to the same place. to the great cosmic joke. this is it.

...the lack of all existential problems.

The dynamic scale that only the next moment can give you...

 

My wife in a hotel room in Prague, Czech Republic, 2005

 

Copyright © Ioannis Lelakis.

All rights reserved.

There is no society that doesn’t run on greed {Milton Friedman}

 

My opinion:

 

Greed within reason, in moderation, not too little, not too much, just to meet your existential needs, is good when it benefits the whole team, group, nation and works for the benefit of all participants contribution to the greatest good for the greatest number

 

We should be greedy for right knowledge, right understanding, right wisdom and justice, in other words, we should be greedy enough to get us out of bed in the early hours of morning to go to work and earn a living to pay bills without to rob the state or others

 

We should not be greedy for bloodshed, senseless massacres, raping and molesting kids etc like Putin and partners in crimes

 

We should never be as greedy as Putin & mates to meet evil desires at the expenses of others’ lives, killing anyone to grab their land, properties, belongings, livelihoods and aspirations; this type of greed is unacceptable in a civilised world and must be eliminated

 

World institutions aren’t equipped to deal with corrupt evil criminals like Putin, they can’t be removed from power no matter how sick they become medically, mentally or spiritually; Xi Jinping's medical and mental condition will decline and disintegrate with age yet because of his tenure to permanent power he will be in a position to call the shots no matter how crippled he becomes by age related diseases; the fact that this is happening is really a grave cause for concern

 

Whatever a despot like Putin does on his own territory may well be his business but once he invades and kill people of neighbouring friendly countries to rob their land, it becomes everybody’s business including Biden’s, he should be arrested, detained, treated, rehabilitated and exiled like Napoleon Bonaparte was, but should never be allowed to govern ever again; loose cannons are threats to world peace and security and should be removed from office by an international body made up of top incorruptible, impartial high court judges from around the globe

See cloudtogroundimages.com/2013/12/26/northern-territory-exi...

Nine first day covers beautifully hand signed with her signature sketches of birds!! Tippi Hedren starred in Hitchcock's The Birds (1963) and Marnie (1964). She has drawn three birds around her signature.

 

Tippi Hedren - Nathalie Kay "Tippi" Hedren (born January 19, 1930) is a retired American actress. Initially a fashion model, appearing on the front covers of Life and Glamour magazines (among others), she became an actress after being discovered by director Alfred Hitchcock while appearing on a television commercial in 1961. Hedren achieved great praise for her work in two of his films, including the suspense-thriller The Birds (1963), for which she won a Golden Globe Award for New Star of the Year, and the psychological drama Marnie (1964). She performed in over 80 films and television shows, including Charlie Chaplin's final film A Countess from Hong Kong (1967), the political satire Citizen Ruth (1996), and the existential comedy I Heart Huckabees (2004). Among other honors, her contributions to world cinema have been recognized with the Jules Verne Award and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

 

Hedren's strong commitment to animal rescue began in 1969 while she was shooting two films in Africa and was introduced to the plight of African lions. In an attempt to raise awareness for wildlife, she spent over a decade bringing Roar (1981) to the screen. She started her own nonprofit organization, the Roar Foundation, in 1983; it supports the Shambala Preserve, an 80-acre wildlife habitat in Acton, California that enables her to continue her work in the care and preservation of lions and tigers. Hedren has also set up relief programs worldwide following earthquakes, hurricanes, famine and war. She was also instrumental in the development of Vietnamese-American nail salons.

 

The Birds (1963) was Hedren's screen debut. Hitchcock became her drama coach, and gave her an education in film-making, as she attended many of the production meetings such as script, music, or photography conferences. Hedren said, "I probably learned in three years what it would have taken me 15 years to learn otherwise." She learned how to break down a script, to become another character, and to study the relationship of different characters. Hedren portrayed her role of Melanie Daniels as Hitchcock requested. She said, "He gives his actors very little leeway. He'll listen, but he has a very definite plan in mind as to how he wants his characters to act. With me, it was understandable, because I was not an actress of stature. I welcomed his guidance."

 

During the six months of principal photography, Hedren's schedule was tight, as she was only given one afternoon off a week. At first, she found the shooting "wonderful". Hitchcock told a reporter, after a few weeks of filming, that she was remarkable, and said, "She's already reaching the lows and highs of terror." Nonetheless, Hedren recalled the week she did the final bird attack scene in a second-floor bedroom as the worst of her life. Before filming it, she asked Hitchcock about her character's motivations to go upstairs, and his response was, "Because I tell you to." She was then assured that the crew would use mechanical birds. Instead, Hedren endured five solid days of prop men, protected by thick leather gloves, flinging dozens of live gulls, ravens, and crows at her (their beaks clamped shut with elastic bands). In a state of exhaustion, when one of the birds gouged her cheek and narrowly missed her eye, Hedren sat down on the set and began crying. A physician ordered a week's rest. Hitchcock protested, according to Hedren, saying she was the only one left to film. The doctor's reply was, "Are you trying to kill her?" She said the week also appeared to be an ordeal for the director.

 

Universal's executives, who did not back Hitchcock's decision to hire Hedren in the first place, were impressed with her performance and Wasserman described it as "remarkable". While promoting The Birds, Hitchcock was full of praise for his new protégée, and compared her to Grace Kelly. "Tippi has a faster tempo, city glibness, more humor [than Grace Kelly]. She displayed jaunty assuredness, pertness, an attractive throw of the head, and she memorized and read lines extraordinarily well and is sharper in expression." The film was screened out of competition in May at a prestigious invitational showing at the 1963 Cannes Film Festival. Hedren's performance was praised in Variety's review: "Aside from the birds, the film belongs to Hedren, who makes an auspicious screen bow. She virtually has to carry the picture alone for the first 45-minute stretch, prior to the advent of the first wave of organized attackers from the sky. Miss Hedren has a star quality and Hitchcock has provided her with a potent vehicle to launch her career." Hedren received the Golden Globe Award for New Star of the Year, tied with Elke Sommer and Ursula Andress. Her role as Melanie Daniels was named by Premiere as one of the greatest film characters of all time.

 

LINK to video - The Birds (1963) [Trailer] - www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fJh2gIBOto

 

LINK to video - Tippi Hedren In Conversation on Alfred Hitchcock - www.youtube.com/watch?v=DhOxr7keNKk

The more I learn about myself, the more I fear myself. I’m told I should remain neutral. A Switzerland of the mind.

ift.tt/288LB7D

Pride and Prejudice: on Raphael Perez's Artwork

 

Raphael Perez, born in 1965, studied art at the College of Visual Arts in Beer Sheva, and from 1995 has been living and working in his studio in Tel Aviv. Today Perez plays an important role in actively promoting the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transsexual) art and culture in Tel Aviv, and the internet portal he set up helps artists from the community reach large audiences in Israel and abroad. Hundreds of his artworks are part of private collections in Israel and abroad, and his artworks were shown in several group exhibitions: in Tel Aviv Museum of Art, "Zman Le'Omanut" art gallery, Camera Obscura, The Open House in Jerusalem, Ophir Gallery, The Haifa Forum and other private businesses and galleries.

In 2003-4 his paintings and studio appeared in a full-length movie, three student films and two graduation films.

 

Raphael Perez is the first Israeli artist to express his lifestyle as a Gay. His life and the life of the LGBT community are connected and unfold over hundreds of artwork pieces. His art creation is rare and extraordinary by every Israeli and international artistic standard. His sources of inspiration are first and foremost life events intertwined in Jewish and Israeli locality as well as influences and quotes from art history (David Hockney, Matisse). This uniqueness has crossed international borders and has succeeded in moving the LGBT and art communities around the world.

 

This is the first time we meet an Israeli artist who expresses all of his emotions in a previously unknown strength. The subjects of the paintings are the everyday life of couples in everyday places and situations, along with the aspiration to a homosexual relationship and family, equality and public recognition. Perez's works bring forward to the cultural space and to the public discourse the truth about living as LGBT and about relationships, with all of their aspects – casual relationships and sex, the yearning for love, the everyday life and the mundane activities that exist in every romantic relationship – whether by describing two men in an intimate scene in the bathroom, the bedroom or the toilet, a male couple raising a baby or the homosexual version of the Garden of Eden, family dinners, relationship ups and downs, the complexity in sharing a life as well as mundane, everyday life competing with the aspiration to self realization – through Perez's life.

  

Perez's first artworks are personal diaries, which he creates at 14 years of age. He makes sure to hide these diaries, as in them he keeps a personal journal describing his life events in the most genuine way. In these journals he draws thousands of drawings and sketches, next to which he alternately writes and erases his so-called "problematic texts", texts describing his struggle with his sexual orientation. His diaries are filled with obsessive cataloging of details, daily actions, friends and work, as well as repeating themes, such as thoughts, exhibits he has seen, movies, television, books and review of his work.

 

When he is done writing, Perez draws on his diaries. Each layer is done from beginning to end all along the journal. In fact, the work on the diaries never ends.

This struggle never ends, and when the emotion is passed on to paper, and it ends its role and becomes meaningless in a way, the visual-graphic side becomes dominant, due to the need to hide the written text, according to Perez. In books and diaries this stands out even more – when he chooses to draw in a style influenced by children's drawings, the characters are cheerful, happy, naïve and do not portray any sexuality, and when he tries drawing as an adult the sketches became more depressed and somber. During these years Perez works with preschool children, teaching them drawing and movement games. Perez says that during this period he completely abandoned the search for a relationship, either with a woman or a man, and working with children has given him existential meaning. This creation continues over 10 years, and Perez creates about 60 books-personal journals in various sizes (notepads, old notebooks, atlases and even old art books).

 

In his early paintings (1998-1999) the transition from relationships with women to relationships with men can be seen, from restraint to emotional outburst in color, lines and composition. Some characters display strong emotional expression. The women are usually drawn in restraint and passiveness, while a happy and loving emotional outburst is expressed in the colors and style of the male paintings.

 

"I fantasized that in a relationship with a woman I could fly in the sky, love, fly. However, I felt I was hiding something; I was choked up, hidden behind a mask, as if there was an internal scream wanting to come out. I was frustrated, I felt threatened…"

 

His first romance with a man in 1999 has drawn out a series of naïve paintings dealing with love and the excitement of performing everyday actions together in the intimate domestic environment.

 

"The excitement from each everyday experience of doing things together and the togetherness was great, so I painted every possible thing I liked doing with him."

 

From the moment the self-oppression and repression stopped, Perez started the process of healing, which was expressed in a burst of artworks, enormous in their size, amount, content and vivid colors – red, pink and white.

 

In 2000 Perez starts painting the huge artworks describing the hangouts of the LGBT community (The Lake, The Pool) and the Tel Avivian balcony paintings describing the masculine world, which, according to him, becomes existent thanks to the painting. Perez has dedicated this year to many series of drawings and paintings of the experience of love, in which he describes his first love for his new partner, and during these months he paints from morning to night. These paintings are the fruit of a long dialogue with David Hockney, and the similarity can be seen both in subjects and in different gestures.

 

In 2001 Perez creates a series of artworks, "Portraits from The Community". Perez describes in large, photorealistic paintings over 20 portraits of active and well-known members of the LGBT community. The emphasis is on the achievements that reflect the community's strong standing in Tel Aviv.

As a Tel-Avivian painter, in the past two years Perez has been painting urban landscapes of central locations in his city. Perez wanders around the city and chooses familiar architectural and geographical landmarks, commerce and recreation, and historical sites, and paints them from a homosexual point of view, decorated with the rainbow flag, which provide a sense of belonging to the place. His artworks are characterized by a cheerful joie de vivre and colors, and they also describe encounters and meetings. The touristic nature of his paintings makes them a declaration of Tel Aviv's image as a place where cultural freedom prevails.

Perez's Tel Aviv is a city where young families and couples live and fill the streets, the parks, the beach, the houses and the balconies – all the city's spaces. The characters in his paintings are similar, which helps reinforcing the belonging to the LGBT community in Tel Aviv. The collective theme in Perez's artwork interacts with the work of the Israeli artist Yohanan Simon, who dealt with the social aspects of the Kibbutz. Simon, who lived and worked in a Kibbutz, expressed the human model of the Kibbutznik (member of a Kibbutz) and the uniqueness of the Kibbutz members as part of a group where all are equal. Simon's works, and now Perez's, have contributed to the Israeli society what is has been looking for endlessly, which is a sense of identity and belonging.

Perez maps his territory and marks his boundaries, and does not forget the historical sites. Unlike other Tel Avivian artists, Perez wishes to present the lives of the residents of the city and the great love in their hearts. By choosing the historical sites in Tel Aviv, he also pays tribute to the artist Nachum Gutman, who loved the city and lived in it his whole life. In his childhood Gutman experienced historical moments (lighting the first oil lamp, first concert, first pavement), and as an adult he recreated the uniqueness of those events while keeping the city's magic.

Like Gutman, Perez has also turned the city into an object of love, and it has started adorning itself in rich colors and supplying the energy of a city that wishes to be "the city that never sleeps", combining old and new. Perez meticulously describes the uniqueness and style of the Bauhaus houses and balconies along the modern glass and steel buildings, all from unusual angles in a rectangular format that wishes to imitate the panorama of a diverse city in its centennial celebrations.

 

Daniel Cahana-Levensohn, curator.

   

Interview with the painter Raphael Perez about his family artist book

An interview with the painter Raphael Perez about an artist's book he created about his family, the Peretz family from 6 Nissan St. Kiryat Yuval Jerusalem

  

Question: Raphael Perez, tell me about the family artist book you created

Answer: I created close to 40 artist books, notebooks, diaries, sketch books and huge books. I dedicated one of the books to my dear family, a book in which I took a childhood photograph of my family, my parents and brothers and sisters.. I pasted the photographs inside a book (the photograph is 10 percent of the total painting) and I drew with acrylic paints, markers and ink on the book and the photograph, so that the image of the photograph was an inspiration to me Build the story that includes page by page..

  

Question: Tell me when you were born, where, and a little about your family

Answer: I was born on March 4, 1965 in the Kiryat Yuval neighborhood in Jerusalem

I have a twin brother named Miki Peretz and we are seven brothers and sisters, five boys and two girls

 

Question: Tell us a little about your parents

Answer: My parents were new immigrants from Morocco, both immigrated young.

My mother's name before the wedding was Alice - Aliza ben Yair and my father's name was Shimon Peretz,

My mother was born in the Atlas Mountains and was orphaned at a young age and was later adopted by my father's family at the age of 10, so that my mother and father spent childhood and adolescence together....

They had a beautiful and happy relationship but sometimes when they argued my mother would say "even when she was a child she was like that..." This means that their acquaintance and relationship dates back to childhood..

  

Question: What did your parents Shimon and Aliza Peretz work for?

Answer: My father, Shimon Perez, born in 1928 - worked in a building in his youth and then for thirty years worked as a receptionist at Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital in Jerusalem... My father's great love was actually art, he loved to draw as a hobby, write, read, solve crossword puzzles and research Regarding the issue of medicinal plants, as a breadwinner he could not fulfill his dream of becoming an artist, in order to support and feed seven children. But we are the next generation, his children are engaged in the world of creativity and education, a field in which both of my parents were engaged during their lives. My father died at the age of 69

 

My mother, Alice Aliza Perez, born in 1934, worked as an assistant to a kindergarten teacher, and later took care of a baby at home. She is a woman of wholehearted giving and caring for children and people, a warm, generous and humble woman.. and took care of us in our childhood for every emotional and physical deficiency.. My mother is right For the year 2023, the 89-year-old is partly happy and happy despite the difficulties of age.. May you have a long life..

 

My mother really loved gardening and nature and both of them together created a magnificent garden, my parents have a relatively large garden so they could grow many types of special and rare medicinal plants and my father even wrote a catalog (unpublished) of medicinal plants and we even had botany students come to us who were interested in the field... today they They also grow ornamental plants, and fruit trees...

 

Question: A book about the brothers and sisters

Answer: My elder brother David Perez repented in his mid-twenties.. He was a very sharp, opinionated, curious and very charismatic guy who brought many people back to repentance, and also helped people with problems through the yeshiva and the synagogue to return to the normal path of life, he died young at the age of 56

 

Hana Peretz: My lovely sister, raised eight children, worked in the field of education, a kindergarten teacher, and child care.

She has a very large extended family of grandchildren, great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren...

 

My brother Avi (Abraham) Peretz studied in Israel at the University of Philosophy and Judaism, he married a wonderful woman named Mira Drumi, a nurse by profession, and together they had three wonderful children, when they moved to the United States in their mid-twenties, where my brother Avi Peretz completed his master's degree in education, worked in the field Education and for the last twenty years is A conservative rabbi

 

The fourth brother is Asher Peretz - a great man of the world, very fond of traveling and has been to magical places all over the world, engaged in the creation of jewelry with two children.

 

I am Rafi Peretz english raphael perez the fifth and after fifteen minutes my twin brother was born

My mother still gets confused and can't remember who was born first :-)

 

My twin brother Miki micky - Michael Peretz, a beloved brother (everyone is beloved), a talented industrial designer, he has three children, his wife Revital Peretz Ben, who is a well-known art curator, active and responsible for the art field in Tel Aviv, they are a dynamic and talented couple, full of talents and action

 

The lovely little sister Shlomit Peretz - has been involved in the Bezeq telephone company for almost three decades, and is there in management positions, raising her lovely and beloved child.

  

The art book I dedicated to my family is colorful, rich in details, shows a very intense childhood, happy, cheerful, colorful, ... We were taught to be diligent and to be happy in our part and to see the glass half full in life, to have emotional intelligence and to put the relationship and love at the center with self-fulfillment in work that will interest you us and you will give us satisfaction.

 

Each of us is different in our life decisions and my family is actually a mosaic of the State of Israel that includes both religious and secular people from the entire political spectrum who understand that the secret to unity is mutual respect for each other... when my mother these days is also the family glue in everyone's gatherings on Shabbat and holidays..

 

The personification of the flower couple paintings by the Israeli painter Raphael Perez

Raphael Perez, also known as Rafi Peretz, is an Israeli painter who

explores his personal and sexual identity through his flower paintings. He created a series of flower paintings from 1995 to 1998, when he was in his early thirties and still in relationships with women, despite feeling gay. His flower paintings reflect his emotional turmoil and his struggle with his sexual orientation. He painted two flowers, one blooming and one wilting, to represent the contrast and conflict between his heterosexual relationships and his true self. He also painted single flowers or two flowers in their prime, to express his longing for a harmonious relationship that matches his nature. He chose sunflowers, white lilies, and red lilies as symbols of expression, purity, and joy, respectively. He painted from real flowers, using different styles and light to create drama and mood. Perez’s paintings of the flower couples are minimalist and focused on the theme of the complex relationship. He omitted any background or context, leaving only the canvas and the drawing of the flower couples. In some of the paintings, he added a very airy abstract surface with thin oil paints that give an atmosphere of watercolors. He also made drawings of flowers in ink, markers and gouache on paper. Later on, he created large acrylic paintings of flowers and still life. Perez’s flower paintings are not mere illustrations or decorations. They are autobiographical and psychological expressions of his inner state and his struggle with his sexuality. He wanted to reveal his loneliness, distress and concealment through these paintings, and to connect with people who are in a similar situation. He deliberately chose only two flowers and no more to intensify the engagement in the charged and complex relationship. Perez also painted and drew couples of men and women with charged psychological states, as well as states of desire for connection and realization of a heterosexual relationship that did not succeed. He used hyperrealism and expressive styles to convey his frozen and calculated state, as well as his mental stress. He used harsh lighting to create contrast and drama, with one side very bright and the other side darker. Perez was influenced by some of the famous artists who painted flowers, such as Van Gogh, who also used sunflowers as a symbol of expression. He also used white lilies and red lilies to convey freshness, cleanliness, purity, color, joy, movement, eruption, and splendor. Perez also painted some single flowers or two flowers in their prime, to show his aspiration for a future where he will have a harmonious relationship. Today, he is 58 years old and in a happy relationship for 10 years with his partner Assaf Henigsberg. He is surrounded by female friends and soulmates and not conflicted with heterosexual relationships as he used to be. He occasionally paints flowers in pots to symbolize home, stability, and peace. Sometimes I paint flowers in pots, which represent home, stability, and solid ground for me. I don’t paint just a couple of flowers, but pots full of flowers that overflow with life. This means that we also have a supportive network of family, friends, and peers around us. We live in a rich, supportive, and protective world. These paintings are a personification of my psychological state, when I had no words to express my feelings to myself. The painting began In 35 years of my creation (starting in 1998), you can read more about how my art and style evolved over time. Perez’s flower paintings are a unique and extraordinary artistic creation that reveals his personal journey and his sexual identity. His work is honest, expressive, and emotional, as well as beautiful and vibrant.

 

The characteristics of the naive painting of the painter Raphael Perez

A full interview with the Israeli painter Raphael Perez (Hebrew name: Rafi Peretz) about the ideas behind the naive painting, resume, personal biography and curriculum vitae Question: Raphael Perez Tell us about your work process as a naive painter? Answer: I choose the most iconic and famous buildings in every city and town that are architecturally interesting and have a special shape and place the iconic buildings on boulevards full of trees, bushes, vegetation, flowers. Question: How do you give depth in your naive paintings? Answer: To give depth to the painting, I build the painting with layers of vegetation, after those low famous buildings, followed by a tall avenue of trees, and behind them towers and skyscrapers, in the sky I sometimes put innocent signs of balloons, kites. A recurring motif in some of my paintings is the figure of the painter who is in the center of the boulevard and paints the entire scene unfolding in front of him, also there are two kindergarten teachers who are walking with the kindergarten children with the state flags that I paint, and loving couples hugging and kissing and family paintings of mother, father and child walking in harmony on the boulevard. Question: Raphael Perez, what characterizes your naive painting? Answer: Most naive paintings have the same characteristics (Definition as it appears in Wikipedia) • Tells a simple story to absorb from everyday life, usually with humans. • The representation of the painter's idealization to reality - the mapping of reality. • Failure to maintain perspective - especially details even in distant details. • Extensive use of repeating patterns - many details. • Warm and bright colors. • Sometimes the emphasis is on outlines. • Most of the characters are flat, lack volume • No interest in texture, expression, correct proportions • No interest in anatomy. • There is not much use of light and shade, the colors create a three-dimensional effect. I find these definitions to be valid for all my naive paintings Question: Raphael Perez, why do you choose the city of Tel Aviv? Answer: I was born in Jerusalem, the capital city which I love very much and also paint, I love the special Bauhaus buildings in Tel Aviv, the ornamental buildings that were built a century ago in the 1920s and 1930s, the beautiful boulevards, towers and modern skyscrapers give you the feeling of the hustle and bustle of a large metropolis and there are quite a few low and tall buildings that are architecturally fascinating in their form the special one Also, the move to Tel Aviv, which is the capital of culture, freedom, and secularism, allowed me to live my life as I chose, to live in a relationship with a man, Jerusalem, which is a traditional city, it is more complicated to live a homosexual life, also, the art world takes place mainly in the city of Tel Aviv, and it is possible that from a professional point of view, this allows I can support myself better in Tel Aviv than in any other city in Israel. Question: Raphael Perez, are the paintings of the city of Tel Aviv different from the paintings of the city of Jerusalem? Answer: Most of the paintings of Jerusalem have an emphasis on the color yellow, gold, the color of the old city walls, the subjects I painted in Jerusalem are mainly a type of idealization of a peaceful life between Jews and Arabs and paintings that deal with the Jewish religious world, a number of paintings depict all shades of the currents of Judaism today In contrast, the Tel Aviv paintings are more colorful, with skyscrapers, the sea, balloons and more secular motifs Question: Raphael Perez, tell me about which buildings and their architects you usually choose in your drawings of cities Answer: My favorite buildings are those that have a special shape that anyone can recognize and are the symbols of the city and you will give several examples: In the city of Tel Aviv, my favorite buildings are: the opera building with its unusual geometric shape, the Yisrotel tower with its special head, the Hail Bo Shalom tower that for years was the symbol of the tallest building in Tel Aviv, the Levin house that looks like a Japanese pagoda, the burgundy-colored Nordeau hotel with the special dome at the end of the building, A pair of Alon towers with the special structure of the sea, Bauhaus buildings typical of Tel Aviv with the special balconies and the special staircase, the Yaakov Agam fountain in Dizengoff square appears in a large part of the paintings, many towers that are in the stock exchange complex, the Aviv towers and other tall buildings on Ayalon, in some of the paintings I took plans An outline of future buildings that need to be built in the city and I drew them even before they were built in reality, In the paintings of Jerusalem, I mainly chose the area of the Old City and East Jerusalem, a painting of the walls of the Old City, the Western Wall, the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, the El Akchea Mosque, the Tower of David, most of the famous churches in the city, the right hand of Moses, in most of the paintings the Jew is wearing a blue shirt with a red male cord I was in the youth movement and the Arab with a galabia, and in the paintings of the religious public then, Jews with black suits and white shirts, tallitas, kippahs, special hats, synagogues and more I also created three paintings of the city of Haifa and one painting of Safed In the Haifa paintings I drew the university, the Technion, the famous Egged Tower, the Sail Tower, well-known hotels, of course the Baha'i Gardens and the Baha'i Temple, Haifa Port and the boats and other famous buildings in the city Question: Raphael Perez, have you created series of other cities from around the world? Answer: I created series of New York City with all the iconic and famous buildings such as: the Guggenheim Museum, the famous skyscrapers - the Chrysler Building, the Empire State Building, Lincoln Center, the famous synagogue in the city, the Statue of Liberty, the flags of the United States and other famous buildings Two paintings of London and all its famous sites, Big Ben, famous monuments, the Ferris wheel, Queen Elizabeth and her family, the double bus, the famous public telephone, palaces, famous churches, well-known monuments I created 4 naive paintings of cities in China, a painting of Shanghai, two paintings of the city of Suzhou and a painting of the World Park in the city of Beijing... I chose the famous skyline of Shanghai with all the famous towers, the famous promenade, temples and old buildings, two Paintings of the city of Suzhou with the famous canals, bridges, special gardens, towers and skyscrapers of the city Question: Raphael Perez What is the general idea that accompanies your paintings Answer: To create a good, beautiful, naive, innocent world in which we will see the innovation of the modern city through the skyscrapers in front of small and low buildings that bring the history and past of each country, all with an abundance of vegetation, boulevards, trees Resume, biography, CV of the painter Rafi Peretz and his family Question: When was Raphael Perez born in hebrew his name rafi peretz? Answer: Raphael Perez in Hebrew his name Rafi Peretz was born on March 4, 1965 Question: Where was Raphael Perez born? Answer: Raphael Perez was born in Jerusalem, Israel Question: What is the full name of Raphael Perez? Answer: His full name is Raphael Perez Question: Which art institution did Raphael Perez graduate from? Answer: Raphael Perez graduated from the Visual Arts Center in Be'er Sheva Question: When did Raphael Perez start painting? Answer: Raphael Perez started painting in 1989 Question: When did you start making a living selling art? Answer: Raphael Perez started making a living selling art in 1999 Question: Where does Raphael Perez live and work? Answer: Since 1995, Raphael Perez has been living and working from his studio in Tel Aviv Question: In which military framework did Raphael Perez serve in the IDF? Answer: Raphael Perez served in the artillery corps Question: Raphael Perez, what jobs did he work after his military service? Answer: Raphael Perez worked for 15 years in education in therapeutic settings for children and taught arts and movement Question: How many brothers and sisters does Raphael Perez, the Israeli painter, have? Answer: There are seven children in total, with the painter 5 sons and two daughters, that means the painter Raphael Perez has 4 more brothers and two sisters Question: What do the brothers and sisters of the painter Raphael Perez do? Answer: The elder brother David Peretz Perez was involved in the field of religious studies, the sister Hana Peretz Perez is involved in the field of education, a kindergarten teacher and child care, the brother Avi Peretz Perez who is in the United States today is a conservative rabbi but in the past was involved in education and therapy, the brother Asher Peretz Perez is involved in the fields of creativity and jewelry The twin brother Mickey Peretz Perez is a well-known industrial designer and seller. The younger sister Shlomit Peretz Perez works in a managerial position at Bezeq. Question: Tell me about the parents of the painter Raphael PerezAnswer: The painter Raphael Perez's parents are Shimon Perez Peretz and Eliza Alice Ben Yair, they were married in 1950 in Jerusalem, both were born in Morocco and immigrated to Israel in 1949, Shimon Peretz worked in a building in his youth and later as a receptionist at the Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital, Eliza Alice Peretz dealt in child care Kindergarten, working in kindergartens and of course taking care of and raising her seven children

 

----------------------------

 

רפי פרץ צייר אמן ישראלי עכשווי מודרני אמנים ישראלים אומנים

ישראליים עכשוויים מודרניים האמנים הישראלים העכשוויים המודרניים האומנים הישראליים העכשוויים המודרניים יוצר הומו הומוסקסואל קווירי הומוסקסואליות באמנות הישראלית מגדר אומנות ומגדר אמנות ישראלית עכשווית מודרנית האמנות הישראלית העכשווית המודרנית

 

erotic gay art painting artist raphael perez pintura homossexual da arte de gomoseksual badiiy rasm гомосексуальний художній живопис pittura di arte omosessuale lukisan seni homoseksual listmálun samkynhneigðra péintéireacht ealaíne homaighnéasach pikturë arti homoseksual homoseksuaalne kunstimaal хомосексуална художествена живопис homoseksualno likovno slikarstvo жывапіс гомасэксуальнага мастацтва সমকামী আর্ট পেইন্টিং homoseksuel kunstmaleri homoszexuális művészeti festmény рассоми санъати гомосексуалӣ gomoseksual sungat suratkeşligi homoseksuālas mākslas glezniecība homoseksualaus meno tapyba homoseksuell kunstmaleri homoseksualno likovno slikarstvo

 

queer artworks paintings homoerotic painter lgbt artwork glbt artworks homo erotica man nude male naked men image images picture pictures homosexual homosexualiy artists painters artist body realism realistic famous

 

مثلي الجنس الفن الغريبة الأعمال الفنية معرض معرض رجل عارية لوحة رجال عراة صورة الجسم الإسرائيلي فنان رسام مثلى الفنانين الرسامين لوحات واقعية مثلي الجنس الشهير صورة كبيرة

 

arte homosexual queer obras de arte galería exposición hombre desnudo pintura hombres desnudos retrato cuerpo artista israelí pintor artistas gay pintores pinturas realistas homoerótico famoso imagen grande

 

гомосексуальное искусство квир произведения искусства галерея выставка мужчина ню живопись голые мужчины портрет тело израильский художник художник геи художники художники реалистичные картины гомоэротика знаменитый большое изображение

 

ομοφυλοφιλική τέχνη queer artworks γκαλερί έκθεση άντρας γυμνή ζωγραφική γυμνοί άντρες πορτραίτο ισραήλ καλλιτέχνης ζωγράφος γκέι καλλιτέχνες ζωγράφοι ρεαλιστικοί πίνακες ομοιορωτική διάσημη μεγάλη εικόνα

 

homosexuelle kunst queer kunstwerke galerie ausstellung mann nackt malerei nackte männer porträtkörper israelischer künstler maler schwule künstler maler realistische gemälde homoerotisch berühmtes großes bild

 

homoseksuele kunst queer kunstwerken galerie tentoonstelling man naakt schilderij naakte mannen portret lichaam Israëlische kunstenaar schilder homo kunstenaars schilders realistische schilderijen homo-erotisch beroemd groot beeld

 

art homosexuel queer oeuvres d'art galerie exposition homme peinture nue hommes nus portrait corps artiste israélien peintre artistes gais peintres peintures réalistes homoérotique célèbre grande image

 

homoseksualna sztuka queer dzieła galeria wystawa mężczyzna nago malarstwo nagi mężczyzna portret ciało izraelski artysta malarz homoseksualiści malarze realistyczni obrazy homoerotyk sławny duży obraz

 

Eşcinsel sanat queer sanat eseri galeri sergi adam çıplak boyama çıplak erkekler portre vücut İsrail sanatçı ressam eşcinsel sanatçılar ressamlar gerçekçi resim sergisi homoerotik ünlü büyük resim

 

समलैंगिक कला क्वीर कलाकृतियों गैलरी प्रदर्शनी आदमी नग्न पेंटिंग नग्न पुरुषों चित्र शरीर इजरायल कलाकार चित्रकार समलैंगिक कलाकारों चित्रकारों यथार्थवादी चित्रों समलैंगिक प्रसिद्ध बड़ी छवि

 

homoseksuell konst queer konstverk galleri utställning man nakenmålning nakna män porträtt kropp israelisk konstnär målare gay konstnärer målare realistiska målningar homoerotisk berömd stor bild

ift.tt/28XwnwZ

View On Black

   

I may not have gone where I intended to go,

 

but I think I have ended up

 

where I intended to be.

  

~Douglas Adams

   

Location: Seaside, CA

Caught my eye on the way to work this morning.

'The thing to do is to keep the head alert but empty. Things come to pass, arising and disappearing' - John Cage, '45' for a Speaker'

Two structuress, both at seemingly opposite ends of an existential spectrum.

 

Does one envy the other, perhaps? And if so, in which direction does the envy go?

 

December 2014.

or A Nice Day for Rain

Slice of life with existential introspection

Omni & Oly, also known as Robertson Buses has an existential crisis.

 

Omnicity 12 – which I see is missing the o/s fleet number and (realistically) showing old paint below the number plate – and Leyland Olympian 7 are showing some rather nondescript destinations that were included in the sheet of new ones I’ve recently made. They capture the look of LED blinds more than any previous ones I’ve done, so hopefully I can ditch the rubbish old dot-matrix styled ones I started off with.

 

Throughout my focus on the routes of Robertson Buses, I’ve referenced services that exist in real life and how they do/don’t impact what RB does; the general rule being any IRL changes/upgrades to a route duplicating/mirroring a pre-existing RB route are void in the ‘universe’ in which Robertson Buses is set. However, when it comes to other model/fictitious fleets there is a bit more of a grey area, because I know at least a few people (likely reading this if you’ve come to look at models) have their own Nottingham-based fleets, which I know exist but don’t really know about network-wise. So because of that I’ve based the RB network on the idea of just what’s there IRL, with the only other model fleet I’m sure would exist in the same universe as Robertson Buses being Crossways, since I usually partake in the Cheltenham races event, and possibly DM Transport because I like it (despite not knowing routes etc).

 

I like to keep RB ‘going’ as if it’s an active fleet, hence the periodic updates. It’s not the most sensible or realistic operation ever (a network that probably wouldn’t work; way too many buses to actually fit in the garage; E200 MMC engines in 25 year old Darts because newer models are too expensive) but should you want to take it into account/include it with what exists IRL for whatever reason then hopefully this more detailed outline of each route I’ve made will be useful. Of other model fleets out there, my favourites have always been the ones where progress is clearly ongoing (there are a surprising number of fleets abandoned like 5-10 years ago) and where info on routes or operational area is available, which if you’ve guessed is exactly what I try and go for with Robertson Buses. Also, for the time being ignore the website because I haven’t updated it in something like a year and half the stuff on it is wrong. I’ll fix it when the 201/211 gets their service changes.

 

For me at least, I think physical models will only ever be practical for doing a small-scale fleet, which is pretty much what Robertson Buses would be… with the ad-hoc vehicle acquisitions and a basic-as-hell fleet number system I’ve been growing to dislike for quite some time. Of course when it comes to OMSI or even just bus drawings it is easier to go on a grander scale – for maybe a TrentBarton-sized fleet or select parts of a bigger operation. As I mentioned in the RB: Rail Replacement picture, I’ve got the idea for the RB-cross-RoadCar thing if anyone wants to see it, but I’ve previously also made up a smaller bus/coach operator and a fictitious Stagecoach subsidiary for a location that doesn’t exist (no, it’s not Stagecoach in Hogwarts) so if anyone’s interested I could branch out into those… no? Well I don’t suppose many people are that bothered about Robertson Buses in the first place, but recently I’ve been kind of in the mood for doing model/fictitious bus stuff that isn’t painting, so do say if you’d like to see XYZ…

The Existential Threat of Ultra-Billionaires. prospect.org/power/2025-03-25-existential-threat-ultra-bi...

Tell me, enigmatic man, whom do you love best?

Your father, your mother, your sister or your brother?

I have no father, no mother, no sister, no brother.

Your friends?

You are using a word whose meaning is still unknown to me to this very day.

Your homeland?

I don't know under what latitude it's located.

What about Beauty?

I would love her gladly, goddess and immortal.

And Gold?

I hate it as much as you hate God.

Well, What do you love then, extraordinary stranger?

I love the clouds ... the passing clouds... over there ... over there ...

the marvelous clouds!

 

_______________Charles Beaudelaire

 

Qui aimes-tu le mieux, homme énigmatique, dis?

Ton père, ta mère, ta sœur ou ton frère? -

Je n'ai ni père, ni mère, ni sœur, ni frère.

Tes amis?

Vous vous servez là d'une parole dont le sens m'est resté jusqu'à ce jour inconnu.

Ta patrie?

J'ignore sous quelle latitude elle est située.

La beauté?

Je l'aimerais volontiers, déesse et immortelle.

L'or?

Je le hais comme vous haïssez Dieu.

Eh! qu'aimes-tu donc, extraordinaire étranger?

J'aime les nuages... les nuages qui passent... là-bas... là-bas...

les merveilleux nuages!

Villajoyosa, España, verano 2006.

Brennan Savage - Existential ft. Killstation"”

Let’s go back to 1861 or 1862, a time after the initial burst of patriotism—perhaps fueled by an enthusiastic town rally and a stirring speech that prompted one to enlist, then the donning of a new uniform and receipt of weapons and equipment, studying military manuals, and endless hours of drill and instruction. The quintessential citizen-soldier in an infantry regiment was left to ponder existential questions that haunt almost every soldier who makes it onto a battlefield for the first time: How will I perform in combat? Will I find the courage to stand and fire my musket at the human beings opposite me? Will I flee? What will I do in the moment?

 

Willie Rexford, pictured here, answered these questions during the Peninsula Campaign, during which senior officers of his regiment, the 44th New York Infantry, mentioned him in two official reports—also known to students of the Civil War as after-action reports.

 

On June 27, 1862, at Gaines’ Mill, Willie and the 44th held the extreme left of the Union line. Led by Colonel James C. Rice, the 44th helped destroy bridges to delay Confederate artillery, built earthworks and abatis, and deployed skirmishers who reported enemy movements and inflicted steady losses. For hours, the 44th repulsed attacks, even as neighboring regiments gave way. When Confederates finally broke through the Union right and rear, the 44th fought fiercely from both sides of their works before being ordered to retreat. Their withdrawal under devastating fire was costly: five killed, twenty-two wounded, and twenty-nine missing. Willie numbered among those who were “specially and favorably noticed for gallant and meritorious conduct.”

 

Willie received the second mention for outstanding conduct just days later at Malvern Hill. The 44th held reserve positions early in the engagement before filing into a critical gap on the Union left as Confederate attacks intensified. Under heavy shelling, the regiment maintained formation and later advanced, pushing past multiple Union lines. The 44th charged to within 100 yards of the enemy, helping to break Confederate lines and capturing a battle flag marked “Seven Pines.” They held off a fresh enemy brigade until reinforcements arrived. Of the 225 men and officers engaged, the regiment lost 11 killed, 84 wounded, and four missing.

 

Born William Mangum Rexford in Norwich, N.Y., Willie numbered among the vast majority of American boys with no formal military education prior to his enlistment. He did, however, earn a college degree, graduating with the Class of 1860 from Union College in Schenectady, N.Y., where he also became a Theta Delta Chi fraternity brother. He then returned home and studied law in the office of his father, attorney Benjamin Franklin Rexford.

 

Then war came. Willie marked his 20th birthday on the same day pro-secession mobs pelted Union soldiers from the 6th Massachusetts Infantry with bricks and rocks as they marched through Baltimore. The riot turned deadly before the troops completed their trek through the city and on to Washington. Willie remained in his father’s office through the spring and early summer, watching as the nascent Confederate states established control over their territory and federal forces moved to stop the movement.

 

Willie could remain at home no longer after President Abraham Lincoln called for volunteers to put an end to the Southern rebellion. In early August, he enlisted as a sergeant in the “People’s Ellsworth Regiment,” organized after the death and martyrdom of Col. Elmer E. Ellsworth in May 1861, when Ellsworth hauled down a Confederate flag from the rooftop of a hotel in Alexandria, Va.

 

Willie is pictured here soon after his enlistment in his Zouave uniform, itself a tribute to Ellsworth, who had popularized the style before the war when he commanded the U.S. Zouave Cadets and led them on a popular drill tour through major U.S. cities. Willie appears ready for active campaigning with a cap box and Model 1840 noncommissioned officer’s sword attached to his waist belt, fastened with a Pattern 1851 eagle plate; a Model 1855 rifled-musket with bayonet; knapsack; and rolled blanket. His forage cap is marked with his company letter, D, and regimental number, 44.

 

This is how Willie looked when he distinguished himself in the battles of Gaines’ Mill and Malvern Hill. The praise he received in after-action reports marked him as a rising star in the regiment. In fact, his star did rise—but with other regiments.

 

In August 1862, about a month after Malvern Hill, Willie left the 44th to accept a captaincy in the new 114th New York Infantry, which had been raised in his hometown of Norwich and the surrounding Chenango and Madison counties. Before the end of the year, the regiment arrived in New Orleans, assigned to the Gulf Department commanded by Maj. Gen. Nathaniel P. Banks.

 

Willie experienced a brief tenure with the 114th. On the last day of 1862, he received a commission as major of the 131st New York Infantry, a regiment raised under the auspices of the New York City police and sent to Louisiana about the same time as the 114th. Now a senior commander, he spent the rest of the war in operations in Louisiana that included the Battle of Irish Bend and the Port Hudson Campaign, and in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley for the battles of Opequon Creek, Fisher’s Hill, and Cedar Creek.

 

At the September 19, 1864, engagement at Opequon Creek, also known as the Third Battle of Winchester, federal forces led by Maj. Gen. Philip Sheridan defeated Lt. Gen. Jubal Early’s Confederates—the largest combat fought in the Shenandoah Valley during the war and the first in a series of defeats for Early’s army. The 131st, with Willie now lieutenant colonel, fought hard. Willie earned a brevet rank of colonel for his gallantry.

 

The 131st finished the waning months of the war in North Carolina and Georgia, where Willie served a stint as provost judge of the district of northern Georgia. The regiment mustered out of service at Savannah in July 1865.

 

A New York–based railroad contractor after the end of his service in 1865, Willie became involved in numerous organizations, including the American Geographical Society, the University Club, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Union College Alumni, the Phi Beta Kappa Society, the Engineers’ Club, and the Loyal Legion.

 

In 1897, more than three decades after the close of the war, veterans of the 131st held their first reunion at the Union League Club in New York City. Three of the regiment’s field officers attended—colonel and brevet brigadier general Nicholas W. Day, Maj. Augustus C. Tate, and Willie—as well as its brigade commander, colonel and brevet major general Edward L. Molineux. A newspaper report described the event: “In pleasant, informal addresses Gen. Molineux, Gen. Day, Col. Rexford and Major Tate recalled scenes of the ‘Louisiana lowlands, low,’ of Port Hudson, Bisland, of Winchester and Cedar Creek, and memories were stirred by the battle and camp pictures. It was late when the old veterans separated, determined that hereafter they must meet more frequently.”

 

Five years later, on a July morning in 1902, Willie collapsed after returning to his residence from a long walk and never regained consciousness. He was 61 years old and unmarried.

 

One admirer left behind an observation that might serve as Willie’s finest tribute: “Colonel Rexford is a true type of an American soldier; brave, cool, and determined. His promotions were fairly earned, and his service reflects great credit on himself and friends.”

Our daughter’s cat brought in this edible dormouse this morning. She retrieved it and released it back in the churchyard opposite.