View allAll Photos Tagged individualization
Americus, GA (Sumter County) Copyright 2003 D. Nelson
The Windsor opened on June 16, 1892, to attract Northerners in search of warmer climates. It featured 100 rooms and as well as elevators and individualized silverware. However, as a result of the economic depression of 1893, the tourist trade took a dive and a few years later the hotel went bankrupt. In1899, James Fricker, the jeweler who had supplied the silverware, bought the hotel for $ 40,000 - a steal, considering the fact that it had cost $ 150,000 to build. In 1910, the building was equipped with new elevators, electric lights and steam heat. The hotel changed hands again in 1930s but was finally closed in 1974; by then in a sad state, it was donated to the even sadder dying city of Americus in 1978 and the plan was to demolish it (imagine that!) which thankfully did not happen. It was restored with the use of $ 400,000 worth of inmate labor (the total price tag for its revival was $ 5.8 million) and reopened on September 20, 1991.
Closeup of the image that I previously posted.
This dazzling bust of a young man with a luxuriant head of curls and an expanse of chest that evokes Classical bronze sculpture of the fifth century BCE was created in Athens during the mid-second century CE to memorialize a beautiful youth by identifying his image with those of ancient Greek mythological heroes. In the Antonine period, elaborate coiffures such as this one were fashionable among the jeunesse dorée. The two portraits of the emperor Lucius Verus, on view near this figure at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, demonstrate the deeply drilled carving style that was developed in Rome to convey the light and dark effects within such curls. Greek sculptors sought a more plastic rendering; each lock on this head varies and ends with an individualized snail-like curl. Not only fashionable, the full head of hair, the sharp turn of the head, nude chest, casually draped cloak, and ribbon-like sword belt all evoked associations with images of the Homeric heroes and the glorious past of Classical Greece. The mid-second century CE was a period in which the Greeks attempted to bring new life to their ancient cultural traditions. The fusion of contemporary and heroic in this portrait bust has created an unforgettable masterpiece.
OK, so that's all the info that the Met provides on this loaned bust - problematically, it was loaned as a 'promised gift' by Leon Levy and Shelby White, ultra-wealthy donors who have had much of their collection confiscated by the NYC DA as looted artifacts. What's quite obvious from the reddish tinge of the marble is that this was almost certainly looted from the ancient city of Cyrene in Libya, the only place where *all* of the marble gets stained by in this way. A veiled head of a woman was recently confiscated from the Met by the New York DA and returned to Libya, and it was in the same style and had the same staining as this portrait bust.
Roman, Antonine period
ca. 161-180 CE
Met Museum (on loan: L.2007.8.12)
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In Italy, in the first three decades of the nineteenth century, cholera began to penetrate into Europe, the states involved in commercial traffic (such as the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies) established tight maritime health checks, placing great importance on the days of quarantine for all those boats that came from the infected areas (in this case the measures taken were those already tested at the time of the black plague), but it was not always so ... in fact other States like Genoa, Livorno and Venice, to avoid repercussions on the trade ... they avoided to adopt these measures giving weight to the "anti-contagion theories" (they accused the unhealthy air, the dirt, the bad diet, rather than giving importance to the contact): only in 1882 the vibrio of the cholera will be individualized by Robert Koch, the science up to at that time it was divided between "those who gave credit to the contagion" and "those who gave credit to environmental conditions", and also the Church gave its indications, invoking "hygiene of the soul", supporting the need to avoid debauchery, including food and sexual excesses. The Kingdom of the Two Sicilies in 1837 was affected by popular revolts carried out against the Bourbons, accused of having commissioned the "infectors" to kill the people. We are in 1854, in the city of Messina a devastating cholera epidemic breaks out, in just two months cholera leads to the death of about 30,000 people, the town of Castroreale not far away, seems to be immune from this disaster, until two of its fellow citizens, husband and wife, return to Castroreale from Messina, the lady shows the cholera symptoms very seriously ... the country is terrified fearing the spread of the contagion to the whole community: which Saint to vote themself then? To Saint Rosalia who had freed Palermo from the plague? To Saint Sebastiano protector from epidemics? In Castroreale it was thought to immediately ask for help to the Holy Crucifix (in the odor of being miraculous) whose life-size Christ, papier-mâché made by anonymous, was thus fixed on top of a 12-meter long pole, thus obtaining two advantages when carried in procession, the sick kept in quarantine on the highest floors of the houses, could have enjoyed the direct vision of Christ through the windows, but at the same time the religious could stay at a safe distance (!). The story goes that the lady suddenly recovered, Castroreale had no case of cholera: since then, on August 25th, the day of the miracle, the Holy Crucifix is celebrated (also called the feast of the Christ Long, in the dialect, feast of Cristu Longu or Signuri Longu). The pole on which the Christ is hoisted, presents at regular distances pins driven into the wood, to avoid the sliding of the long "perches with hairpins", with which the "hairpin masters" support the very high Crucifix during the procession that proceeds along the streets of the town, and to allow its lowering and raising through the entrance of the two churches (the Mother Church and the church of Saint Agatha) in which it is carried.
Small note in closing: in the Mother Church is the Chapel of the Assumption where the statuary complex of the Virgin Mary Assumed (1848) is located, whose author is Matteo Mancuso from Messina, to whom a son died while working on the statue, so he personified his son in the little angel with his eyes closed at the feet of the Virgin Mary; at the foot of the statue there is the statuette of the seventeenth century of baby Virgin Mary, which is carried in procession on 8th September by children receiving first communion.
Ezio Famà
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In Italia, nelle prime tre decadi dell’ottocento, il colera iniziò a penetrare in Europa, gli Stati interessati dai traffici commerciali (come il Regno delle Due Sicilie) istituirono dei serrati controlli sanitari marittimi, ponendo grande importanza ai giorni di quarantena per tutte quelle imbarcazioni che provenivano dalle zone infette, ed in questo caso i provvedimenti presi erano quelli già sperimentati ai tempi della peste nera), ma non sempre fu così…infatti altri Stati come Genova, Livorno e Venezia, per evitare ripercussioni sui commerci…evitarono di adottare tali provvedimenti dando peso alle “teorie anticontagioniste” (esse accusavano l’aria malsana, la sporcizia, la cattiva alimentazione, piuttosto che dare importanza al contatto): solo nel 1882 il vibrione colerico verrà individuato da Robert Koch, la scienza fino ad allora era divisa tra “contagionisti” ed “epidemiologi”, ed anche la Chiesa ci metteva del suo, invocando “l’igiene dell’anima”, sostenendo la necessità di evitare gli stravizi, inclusi gli eccessi alimentari e sessuali. Il Regno delle Due Sicilie nel 1837 fu interessato da rivolte popolari attuate contro i Borboni, accusati di aver incaricato gli “untori” per uccidere il popolo. Siamo nel 1854, nella città di Messina scoppia una devastante epidemia di colera, in soli due mesi il colera porta a morte circa 30.000 persone, la cittadina di Castroreale non molto distante, sembra essere immune da tale iattura, fino a quando due suoi concittadini, marito e moglie ritornano al paese provenienti da Messina, la signora mostra in forma gravissima i sintomi colerici…il paese è terrorizzato temendo il propagarsi del contagio a tutta la comunità: a quale Santo votarsi dunque? A Santa Rosalia che aveva liberato Palermo dalla Peste? A San Sebastiano protettore dalle epidemie? A Castroreale si pensò di chiedere subito aiuto al Santissimo Crocifisso (in odore di essere miracoloso) il cui Cristo, in grandezza naturale, realizzato da anonimo in cartapesta, venne così fissato in cima ad un palo lungo 12 metri, ottenendo così due vantaggi quando portato in processione, i malati tenuti in quarantena nei piani più alti delle abitazioni, avrebbero potuto godere della visione diretta del Cristo attraverso le finestre, ma al contempo i religiosi potevano mantenersi a debita distanza (!). La storia racconta che la signora improvvisamente guarì, Castroreale non ebbe nessun caso di colera: da allora, il 25 di Agosto, il giorno del miracolo, si festeggia il Santissimo Crocifisso (detta anche festa del Cristo Lungo, in dialetto, del Cristu Longu o Signuri Longu). Il palo sul quale viene issato il Cristo, presenta a distanze regolari dei perni infissi nel legno, per evitare lo scivolamento delle lunghe “pertiche con forcine” , con le quali i “maestri di forcina” sostengono l’altissimo Crocifisso durante la processione che procede lungo le strade della cittadina, ma anche per consentirne l’abbassamento e l’innalzamento attraverso l’ingresso delle due chiese nelle quali viene portato.
Piccola nota in chiusura: nella Chiesa Madre si trova la Cappella dell’Assunzione ove è sito il complesso statuario della Madonna Assunta (1848), il cui autore è il messinese Matteo Mancuso, al quale, durante la lavorazione della statua, morì un figlio che egli impersonò nell’angioletto con gli occhi chiusi ai piedi della Madonna; in basso sotto la statua si trova la statuetta del seicento di Maria Bambina, che viene portata in processione l’otto settembre dai bambini che ricevono la prima comunione.
Ezio Famà
We arrived in Bordeaux late the night before and all was dark. Today we were away very early to have a quick looks around Bordeaux by coach with a short stop at the fountain. Then we made our way to Bilbao in Spain, with w stop at Biarritz for lunch. Day 13 of our Cosmos tour, October 12, 2012 France.
While the column itself is beautiful, it is the fountains on the sides which often get the most attention. The fountains are based around massive bronze sculptures. On the south side of the column stands “Le triomphe de la République” – “the triumph of the Republic”, and on the other side, “Le triomphe de la Concorde”- “the triumph of Agreements”.
The sea-horse drawn chariots symbolize peace and happiness while the men getting overthrown in front of the chariots symbolize lies and ignorance. The combination of the flowing water and sculptures full of life, gives an impression that the sea-horses are leaping out of the water towards you in a spectacular fashion. The two incredible fountains form a worthy addition to Bordeaux’s incredible cityscape.
The bronze statues were dismantled by German troops in search of metal during the Second World War. These statues were however found in 1944 in the French city of Angers. They were then brought back to Bordeaux and later reinstalled.
La Fontaine Bartholdi is a fountain sculpted by Frédéric-Auguste Bartholdi and realised in 1889 by Gaget & Gautier. It was erected at the Place des Terreaux, in the 1st arrondissement of Lyon, in September 1892.
On 20 April 1857, the Bordeaux city council decided to hold a competition to create a fountain for Place Quinconces. Frédéric Bartholdi, then aged 23, won the contest. However, the city hall of Bordeaux decided not to carry out his project. After Bartholdi had made the Statue of Liberty in New York in 1886, the mayor of Bordeaux contacted him, but his new project was canceled after much hesitation. It was finally achieved in 1888, but it was deemed as too expensive and therefore was sold to Lyon. The fountain was eventually put at the Place des Terreaux and is currently still there.
The fountain depicts France as a female seated on a chariot controlling the four great rivers of France, represented by wildly rearing and plunging horses, highly individualized but symmetrically arranged, with bridles and reins of water weeds. weighs 21 tons and is made of lead supported by a frame of iron and was presented as the Exposition Universelle of 1889. It has been classified as monument historique since 29 September 1995.
In 2013, the fountain will be removed temporarily for restoration.
Taken from and for more info: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fontaine_Bartholdi
Constructed in 1940 and remaining essentially unaltered, the Goetsch-Winckler House is significant as the second of Frank Lloyd Wright's Usonian house designs to have been built. The house is the quintessential example of Wright's early design philosophy for the construction of moderate income housing and the end product of his first opportunity to design a community based on his Broadacre City principles. The house exemplifies Wright's vision of promoting democracy through individualized designs within rural communities and his attempt to deal with the housing needs of the Depression era.
The Goetsch-Winkler House is a modest, one-story Usonian house. It embodies Frank Lloyd Wright's trademark design elements such as, organic relationship to the site, horizontal planes, cantilever roofs, and innovative construction techniques. The house's long axis extends from east-southeast to west-northwest. The building is situated to allow for maximum privacy, as well as a free flowing interplay of nature and building. The Goetsch-Winkler house is horizontally oriented with only a brick fireplace stack providing any sense of verticality. The house appears low to the ground, and the use of a flat roof and broad cantilevers and eaves further emphasizes the horizontality. There are two roof planes with the cantilevered carport roof being the most dominant. From the driveway the carport is the first visible part of the house with the mass of the structure located behind it. The horizontal roof planes seem to hover above the house, which is perched on the edge of an incline. Structural support is provided by brick walls, while wood sided walls serve as partitioning only. The interior and exterior walls are constructed of layers of plywood sandwiched together with tarpaper. The wood siding is a horizontal board and batten pattern. The interior is primarily a central open living core with a bedroom wing extending away from the living core to the northwest and the kitchen and fireplace alcove tucked into the southeast edge of the open core.
For more information on the Goetsch-Winckler House, and Michigan's other modernist buildings, visit www.michiganmodern.org.
The Flickr Lounge-My Home Town
This is Broome DDSO. Its residential services include family care homes in Tompkins and Tioga Counties and Individualized Residential Alternatives (IRA) in Tompkins County. It is basically for adults with developmental disabilities.
I stumbled across this beautiful, one of a kind craftsman home perched atop a river bank in the Midwest. It is a stunning representation of style, personalization and commitment to crafting a unique home. Front to back, top to bottom, this home has style and flair that is rarely seen today. Someone took a lot of time to think through and construct each room individually. From ornate mouldings, escutcheons, corbels, and trim work to mosaic tiles in multiple colors and designs, from patterns like herringbone to geometric shapes. There isn’t six square inches of this home that wasn’t individualized in some manner. Even secret staircases to odd attic spaces were thoughtful. Even what most builders would have simply walled over and considered a void was put to use somehow in this home from small shelves to inset cabinets to cubbies – all trimmed out. Even the windowsills were tiled. With 2 kitchens, multiple living areas spanning 3 floors, including an interior garage, this home is also a feat of engineering sitting on this slope to the river below. Due to decades of deterioration, some of the homes bones are showing – steel beams and concrete. I suppose that is why this home is not sitting at the bottom of the river by now. It may be forlorn, and surely has seen better days, but it is holding fast to it’s mooring. A beautiful find while out exploring the urban landscapes.
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click to activate the icon of slideshow: the small triangle inscribed in the small rectangle, at the top right, in the photostream;
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Qi Bo's photos on Flickr Hive Mind
www.worldphoto.org/sony-world-photography-awards/winners-...
www.fotografidigitali.it/gallery/2726/opere-italiane-segn...
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In Italy, in the first three decades of the nineteenth century, cholera began to penetrate into Europe, the states involved in commercial traffic (such as the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies) established tight maritime health checks, placing great importance on the days of quarantine for all those boats that came from the infected areas (in this case the measures taken were those already tested at the time of the black plague), but it was not always so ... in fact other States like Genoa, Livorno and Venice, to avoid repercussions on the trade ... they avoided to adopt these measures giving weight to the "anti-contagion theories" (they accused the unhealthy air, the dirt, the bad diet, rather than giving importance to the contact): only in 1882 the vibrio of the cholera will be individualized by Robert Koch, the science up to at that time it was divided between "those who gave credit to the contagion" and "those who gave credit to environmental conditions", and also the Church gave its indications, invoking "hygiene of the soul", supporting the need to avoid debauchery, including food and sexual excesses. The Kingdom of the Two Sicilies in 1837 was affected by popular revolts carried out against the Bourbons, accused of having commissioned the "infectors" to kill the people. We are in 1854, in the city of Messina a devastating cholera epidemic breaks out, in just two months cholera leads to the death of about 30,000 people, the town of Castroreale not far away, seems to be immune from this disaster, until two of its fellow citizens, husband and wife, return to Castroreale from Messina, the lady shows the cholera symptoms very seriously ... the country is terrified fearing the spread of the contagion to the whole community: which Saint to vote themself then? To Saint Rosalia who had freed Palermo from the plague? To Saint Sebastiano protector from epidemics? In Castroreale it was thought to immediately ask for help to the Holy Crucifix (in the odor of being miraculous) whose life-size Christ, papier-mâché made by anonymous, was thus fixed on top of a 12-meter long pole, thus obtaining two advantages when carried in procession, the sick kept in quarantine on the highest floors of the houses, could have enjoyed the direct vision of Christ through the windows, but at the same time the religious could stay at a safe distance (!). The story goes that the lady suddenly recovered, Castroreale had no case of cholera: since then, on August 25th, the day of the miracle, the Holy Crucifix is celebrated (also called the feast of the Christ Long, in the dialect, feast of Cristu Longu or Signuri Longu). The pole on which the Christ is hoisted, presents at regular distances pins driven into the wood, to avoid the sliding of the long "perches with hairpins", with which the "hairpin masters" support the very high Crucifix during the procession that proceeds along the streets of the town, and to allow its lowering and raising through the entrance of the two churches (the Mother Church and the church of Saint Agatha) in which it is carried.
Small note in closing: in the Mother Church is the Chapel of the Assumption where the statuary complex of the Virgin Mary Assumed (1848) is located, whose author is Matteo Mancuso from Messina, to whom a son died while working on the statue, so he personified his son in the little angel with his eyes closed at the feet of the Virgin Mary; at the foot of the statue there is the statuette of the seventeenth century of baby Virgin Mary, which is carried in procession on 8th September by children receiving first communion.
Ezio Famà
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In Italia, nelle prime tre decadi dell’ottocento, il colera iniziò a penetrare in Europa, gli Stati interessati dai traffici commerciali (come il Regno delle Due Sicilie) istituirono dei serrati controlli sanitari marittimi, ponendo grande importanza ai giorni di quarantena per tutte quelle imbarcazioni che provenivano dalle zone infette, ed in questo caso i provvedimenti presi erano quelli già sperimentati ai tempi della peste nera), ma non sempre fu così…infatti altri Stati come Genova, Livorno e Venezia, per evitare ripercussioni sui commerci…evitarono di adottare tali provvedimenti dando peso alle “teorie anticontagioniste” (esse accusavano l’aria malsana, la sporcizia, la cattiva alimentazione, piuttosto che dare importanza al contatto): solo nel 1882 il vibrione colerico verrà individuato da Robert Koch, la scienza fino ad allora era divisa tra “contagionisti” ed “epidemiologi”, ed anche la Chiesa ci metteva del suo, invocando “l’igiene dell’anima”, sostenendo la necessità di evitare gli stravizi, inclusi gli eccessi alimentari e sessuali. Il Regno delle Due Sicilie nel 1837 fu interessato da rivolte popolari attuate contro i Borboni, accusati di aver incaricato gli “untori” per uccidere il popolo. Siamo nel 1854, nella città di Messina scoppia una devastante epidemia di colera, in soli due mesi il colera porta a morte circa 30.000 persone, la cittadina di Castroreale non molto distante, sembra essere immune da tale iattura, fino a quando due suoi concittadini, marito e moglie ritornano al paese provenienti da Messina, la signora mostra in forma gravissima i sintomi colerici…il paese è terrorizzato temendo il propagarsi del contagio a tutta la comunità: a quale Santo votarsi dunque? A Santa Rosalia che aveva liberato Palermo dalla Peste? A San Sebastiano protettore dalle epidemie? A Castroreale si pensò di chiedere subito aiuto al Santissimo Crocifisso (in odore di essere miracoloso) il cui Cristo, in grandezza naturale, realizzato da anonimo in cartapesta, venne così fissato in cima ad un palo lungo 12 metri, ottenendo così due vantaggi quando portato in processione, i malati tenuti in quarantena nei piani più alti delle abitazioni, avrebbero potuto godere della visione diretta del Cristo attraverso le finestre, ma al contempo i religiosi potevano mantenersi a debita distanza (!). La storia racconta che la signora improvvisamente guarì, Castroreale non ebbe nessun caso di colera: da allora, il 25 di Agosto, il giorno del miracolo, si festeggia il Santissimo Crocifisso (detta anche festa del Cristo Lungo, in dialetto, del Cristu Longu o Signuri Longu). Il palo sul quale viene issato il Cristo, presenta a distanze regolari dei perni infissi nel legno, per evitare lo scivolamento delle lunghe “pertiche con forcine” , con le quali i “maestri di forcina” sostengono l’altissimo Crocifisso durante la processione che procede lungo le strade della cittadina, ma anche per consentirne l’abbassamento e l’innalzamento attraverso l’ingresso delle due chiese nelle quali viene portato.
Piccola nota in chiusura: nella Chiesa Madre si trova la Cappella dell’Assunzione ove è sito il complesso statuario della Madonna Assunta (1848), il cui autore è il messinese Matteo Mancuso, al quale, durante la lavorazione della statua, morì un figlio che egli impersonò nell’angioletto con gli occhi chiusi ai piedi della Madonna; in basso sotto la statua si trova la statuetta del seicento di Maria Bambina, che viene portata in processione l’otto settembre dai bambini che ricevono la prima comunione.
Ezio Famà
These photos are from my Black and White technique. In this class, for the first time in my life I have shot in film and been in the darkroom! It was a very interesting experience!!! I experimented some new things such that I tried to put two of me in 1 photo, doing everything in the dark room. NO PHOTOSHOP INVOLVED for this process. Poor me! hahaha
The night encounter
Carl Jung has suggested that each human being has originally a feeling of wholeness, a powerful and complete sense of Self. And from the Self—the totality of the psyche—the individualized ego-consciousness emerges as the individual grows up. However, this separation can never become final without severe injury to the original sense of wholeness. And the ego must continually return to the Original Self in order to maintain a condition of psychic health. From this premise, I started this project, The Night Encounter, to explore deeper the relations between the ego consciousness and the original self by personifying them as two (facially) identical human figures: one is in black modern clothes and the other fully nude. The modern man symbolizes the ego consciousness, the individuality he has that separates him from the rest of nature while the nude figure is the reflection of the primitive man, of the total wholeness that man once believed—he was a part of nature. In a smaller scale, the black clothed figure is the internal shadow of the self and the nude figure is the primitive, animalistic side of man that has been suppressed in the civilized society. Through six photographs, I explore different aspects/ situations when these two forces encounter one another. I used different objects in different locations to evoke various emotions/ thoughts from the viewers. I do not want to have a very strong, obvious narrative flow through the images because I want to keep the meaning and intentions open to the viewers’ interpretations.
Auguste Rodin (1840-1917) bronze cast made by Alexis Rudier in 1926 from the model of 1889 at the Rodin Museum garden in Paris. Written near the sculpture: In 1884, the city of Calais commissioned a monument commemorating an episode from the Hundred Years' War (1337-1453): six dignitaries sacrificed themselves for their fellow citizens by surrendering to the Kind of England. The figures shown in individualized poses wearing tunics of condemned prisoners and nooses around their necks. Placed at ground level, their monumentality and expressiveness confront the viewer with "the image of misery and sacrifice."
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click to activate the icon of slideshow: the small triangle inscribed in the small rectangle, at the top right, in the photostream;
clicca sulla piccola icona per attivare lo slideshow: sulla facciata principale del photostream, in alto a destra c'è un piccolo rettangolo (rappresenta il monitor) con dentro un piccolo triangolo nero;
Qi Bo's photos on Flickr Hive Mind
www.worldphoto.org/sony-world-photography-awards/winners-...
www.fotografidigitali.it/gallery/2726/opere-italiane-segn...
-------------------------------------------------------------------
In Italy, in the first three decades of the nineteenth century, cholera began to penetrate into Europe, the states involved in commercial traffic (such as the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies) established tight maritime health checks, placing great importance on the days of quarantine for all those boats that came from the infected areas (in this case the measures taken were those already tested at the time of the black plague), but it was not always so ... in fact other States like Genoa, Livorno and Venice, to avoid repercussions on the trade ... they avoided to adopt these measures giving weight to the "anti-contagion theories" (they accused the unhealthy air, the dirt, the bad diet, rather than giving importance to the contact): only in 1882 the vibrio of the cholera will be individualized by Robert Koch, the science up to at that time it was divided between "those who gave credit to the contagion" and "those who gave credit to environmental conditions", and also the Church gave its indications, invoking "hygiene of the soul", supporting the need to avoid debauchery, including food and sexual excesses. The Kingdom of the Two Sicilies in 1837 was affected by popular revolts carried out against the Bourbons, accused of having commissioned the "infectors" to kill the people. We are in 1854, in the city of Messina a devastating cholera epidemic breaks out, in just two months cholera leads to the death of about 30,000 people, the town of Castroreale not far away, seems to be immune from this disaster, until two of its fellow citizens, husband and wife, return to Castroreale from Messina, the lady shows the cholera symptoms very seriously ... the country is terrified fearing the spread of the contagion to the whole community: which Saint to vote themself then? To Saint Rosalia who had freed Palermo from the plague? To Saint Sebastiano protector from epidemics? In Castroreale it was thought to immediately ask for help to the Holy Crucifix (in the odor of being miraculous) whose life-size Christ, papier-mâché made by anonymous, was thus fixed on top of a 12-meter long pole, thus obtaining two advantages when carried in procession, the sick kept in quarantine on the highest floors of the houses, could have enjoyed the direct vision of Christ through the windows, but at the same time the religious could stay at a safe distance (!). The story goes that the lady suddenly recovered, Castroreale had no case of cholera: since then, on August 25th, the day of the miracle, the Holy Crucifix is celebrated (also called the feast of the Christ Long, in the dialect, feast of Cristu Longu or Signuri Longu). The pole on which the Christ is hoisted, presents at regular distances pins driven into the wood, to avoid the sliding of the long "perches with hairpins", with which the "hairpin masters" support the very high Crucifix during the procession that proceeds along the streets of the town, and to allow its lowering and raising through the entrance of the two churches (the Mother Church and the church of Saint Agatha) in which it is carried.
Small note in closing: in the Mother Church is the Chapel of the Assumption where the statuary complex of the Virgin Mary Assumed (1848) is located, whose author is Matteo Mancuso from Messina, to whom a son died while working on the statue, so he personified his son in the little angel with his eyes closed at the feet of the Virgin Mary; at the foot of the statue there is the statuette of the seventeenth century of baby Virgin Mary, which is carried in procession on 8th September by children receiving first communion.
Ezio Famà
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In Italia, nelle prime tre decadi dell’ottocento, il colera iniziò a penetrare in Europa, gli Stati interessati dai traffici commerciali (come il Regno delle Due Sicilie) istituirono dei serrati controlli sanitari marittimi, ponendo grande importanza ai giorni di quarantena per tutte quelle imbarcazioni che provenivano dalle zone infette (in questo caso i provvedimenti presi erano quelli già sperimentati ai tempi della peste nera), ma non sempre fu così…infatti altri Stati come Genova, Livorno e Venezia, per evitare ripercussioni sui commerci…evitarono di adottare tali provvedimenti dando peso alle “teorie anticontagioniste” (esse accusavano l’aria malsana, la sporcizia, la cattiva alimentazione, piuttosto che dare importanza al contatto): solo nel 1882 il vibrione colerico verrà individuato da Robert Koch, la scienza fino ad allora era divisa tra “contagionisti” ed “epidemiologi”, ed anche la Chiesa ci metteva del suo, invocando “l’igiene dell’anima”, sostenendo la necessità di evitare gli stravizi, inclusi gli eccessi alimentari e sessuali. Il Regno delle Due Sicilie nel 1837 fu interessato da rivolte popolari attuate contro i Borboni, accusati di aver incaricato gli “untori” di uccidere il popolo. Siamo nel 1854, nella città di Messina scoppia una devastante epidemia di colera, in soli due mesi il colera porta a morte circa 30.000 persone, la cittadina di Castroreale non molto distante, sembra essere immune da tale iattura, fino a quando due suoi concittadini, marito e moglie ritornano al paese provenienti da Messina, la signora mostra in forma gravissima i sintomi colerici…il paese è terrorizzato temendo il propagarsi del contagio a tutta la comunità: a quale Santo votarsi dunque? A Santa Rosalia che aveva liberato Palermo dalla Peste? A San Sebastiano protettore dalle epidemie? A Castroreale si pensò di chiedere subito aiuto al Santissimo Crocifisso (in odore di essere miracoloso) il cui Cristo, in grandezza naturale, realizzato da anonimo in cartapesta, venne così fissato in cima ad un palo lungo 12 metri, ottenendo così due vantaggi quando portato in processione, i malati tenuti in quarantena nei piani più alti delle abitazioni, avrebbero potuto godere della visione diretta del Cristo attraverso le finestre, ma al contempo i religiosi potevano mantenersi a debita distanza (!). La storia racconta che la signora improvvisamente guarì, Castroreale non ebbe nessun caso di colera: da allora, il 25 di Agosto, il giorno del miracolo, si festeggia il Santissimo Crocifisso (detta anche festa del Cristo Lungo, in dialetto, del Cristu Longu o Signuri Longu). Il palo sul quale viene issato il Cristo, presenta a distanze regolari dei perni infissi nel legno, per evitare lo scivolamento delle lunghe “pertiche con forcine” , con le quali i “maestri di forcina” sostengono l’altissimo Crocifisso durante la processione che procede lungo le strade della cittadina, ma anche per consentirne l’abbassamento e l’innalzamento attraverso l’ingresso delle due chiese nelle quali viene portato (la Chiesa Madre e la chiesa di Sant’Agata).
Piccola nota in chiusura: nella Chiesa Madre si trova la Cappella dell’Assunzione ove è sito il complesso statuario della Madonna Assunta (1848), il cui autore è il messinese Matteo Mancuso, al quale, durante la lavorazione della statua, morì un figlio che egli impersonò nell’angioletto con gli occhi chiusi ai piedi della Madonna; in basso sotto la statua si trova la statuetta del seicento di Maria Bambina, che viene portata in processione l’otto settembre dai bambini che ricevono la prima comunione.
Ezio Famà
Germany, Hamburg, Elb-Philharmonic Concert Hall, located at the Hamburg harbour on the way in to the harbours historic warehouse complex & new build harbour city.
Planed from 2001 till 2006 & since 2007 under construction above a warehouse from 1963, the 110 mtr., 26 floors high new Elb-Philharmonic, includes a large concert hall with a capacity for 2150 guest, a small concert hall with a capacity for 550 guest & a third hall with 170 seats, also a 250 rooms hotel, luxury apartments & restaurants.
The Façade is covered with 1089 individual fabricated glass elements; each one features an individualized raster print & some with each divergently shaped, serving as a sunscreen & décor. A 82 mtr. long, crescent shaped moving staircase will connect the building entrance from the basement to the 37 mtr high plaza above the original warehouse, where the buildings foyer & a visitors platform with view over Hamburg’s harbour is located.
Initial cost estimated in 2005 185 million €, by completion estimated in 2014/15, cost will have increased to approximately over 700 million € !!
However, if one day the construction will be concluded & in full operation, it will be an additional fascinating landmark for Hamburg.
...Danke, Xièxie 谢谢, Thanks, Gracias, Merci, Grazie, Obrigado, Arigatô, Dhanyavad, Chokrane to you & over 1.800.000 clicks in my photostream with countless motivating comments
Designed by James Cooper and built in 1831 at no. 323 Simcoe Street.
"Niagara-On-The-Lake National Historic Site of Canada is an early-19th century Loyalist town located on the southern shore of Lake Ontario, near the United States border. The historic district covers 25 city blocks and includes more than 90 residential, commercial, ecclesiastical and institutional buildings constructed between 1815 and 1859. The majority of the buildings are constructed in the British Classical Tradition, producing similarities in design, materials and scale. The wide, tree-lined streets within the district follow a late-18th century grid plan. The district also includes a city park and two early-19th-century cemeteries. The landscape is gently rolling in places, with a creek running through part of the district. The official recognition refers to the approximately 41 hectares of related buildings and landscapes within the district boundaries.
Niagara-on-the-Lake was established in 1779 as a supply depot for British Loyalist forces. By the end of the 18th century it had developed into a major military and cultural centre and served briefly as the capital of Upper Canada. The town’s grid plan, laid out in 1794, was based on the Imperial model plan for new colonial towns. Niagara-on-the-Lake was destroyed by fire in 1813, and then rebuilt by Loyalist settlers. The streets retain their original arrangement, proportions and edge treatments. Between 1831 and 1859, the town prospered as a major shipping and shipbuilding port, and residents built or enlarged their houses and commercial buildings.
The district is dominated by the classically-designed buildings erected during the period from1815 to 1859. Most buildings retain their original siting close to the road and are of similar design, materials and scale, and the majority of buildings have been restored to resemble their original appearance. The commercial section of Queen Street, largely built between 1813 and 1840, illustrates the informal features of commercial streets characteristic of that period. The historic district is distinguished from later 19th-century streetscapes by the individualized façades and the clear differentiation between buildings.
The residents of Niagara-on-the-Lake were among the earliest citizen’s groups in Canada to make a strong commitment to the restoration of their built heritage. The Niagara Historical Society, established by residents in 1896, collected artifacts and documents relating to local history and published local histories. Beginning in the mid-1950s, individuals began to restore private properties to their 19th-century appearance and to promote conservation. In 1962 they formed the Niagara Foundation, a local advocacy and fundraising group dedicated to preserving the town’s landmarks. The Niagara Foundation was instrumental in restoring several major buildings in the town. Niagara-on-the-Lake was one of the first Ontario municipalities to appoint a Local Architectural Conservation Advisory Committee to advise on local heritage. The town was designated as a provincial Heritage Conservation District in 1986." - info from Historic Places.
"Niagara-on-the-Lake is a town in Ontario, Canada. It is located on the Niagara Peninsula at the point where the Niagara River meets Lake Ontario, across the river from New York, United States. Niagara-on-the-Lake is in the Niagara Region of Ontario and is the only town in Canada that has a lord mayor. It had a population of 19,088 as of the 2021 Canadian census.
Niagara-on-the-Lake is important in the history of Canada: it served as the first capital of the province of Upper Canada, the predecessor of Ontario. It was called Newark from 1792 to 1797. During the War of 1812, the town, the two former villages of St. David's and Queenston, and Fort George were the sites of numerous battles following the American invasion of Upper Canada, and the town was razed. Niagara-on-the-Lake is home to the oldest Catholic church, the second-oldest Anglican church in Ontario, and the oldest surviving golf course in North America.
Today, Niagara-on-the-Lake draws tourists with its colonial-style buildings, the Shaw Festival, Fort George, wineries, an outlet mall on the highway, and its proximity to Niagara Falls. The Niagara Region has the second-highest percentage of seniors in Ontario." - info from Wikipedia.
Late June to early July, 2024 I did my 4th major cycling tour. I cycled from Ottawa to London, Ontario on a convoluted route that passed by Niagara Falls. During this journey I cycled 1,876.26 km and took 21,413 photos. As with my other tours a major focus was old architecture.
Find me on Instagram.
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click to activate the icon of slideshow: the small triangle inscribed in the small rectangle, at the top right, in the photostream;
clicca sulla piccola icona per attivare lo slideshow: sulla facciata principale del photostream, in alto a destra c'è un piccolo rettangolo (rappresenta il monitor) con dentro un piccolo triangolo nero;
Qi Bo's photos on Flickr Hive Mind
www.worldphoto.org/sony-world-photography-awards/winners-...
www.fotografidigitali.it/gallery/2726/opere-italiane-segn...
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In Italy, in the first three decades of the nineteenth century, cholera began to penetrate into Europe, the states involved in commercial traffic (such as the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies) established tight maritime health checks, placing great importance on the days of quarantine for all those boats that came from the infected areas (in this case the measures taken were those already tested at the time of the black plague), but it was not always so ... in fact other States like Genoa, Livorno and Venice, to avoid repercussions on the trade ... they avoided to adopt these measures giving weight to the "anti-contagion theories" (they accused the unhealthy air, the dirt, the bad diet, rather than giving importance to the contact): only in 1882 the vibrio of the cholera will be individualized by Robert Koch, the science up to at that time it was divided between "those who gave credit to the contagion" and "those who gave credit to environmental conditions", and also the Church gave its indications, invoking "hygiene of the soul", supporting the need to avoid debauchery, including food and sexual excesses. The Kingdom of the Two Sicilies in 1837 was affected by popular revolts carried out against the Bourbons, accused of having commissioned the "infectors" to kill the people. We are in 1854, in the city of Messina a devastating cholera epidemic breaks out, in just two months cholera leads to the death of about 30,000 people, the town of Castroreale not far away, seems to be immune from this disaster, until two of its fellow citizens, husband and wife, return to Castroreale from Messina, the lady shows the cholera symptoms very seriously ... the country is terrified fearing the spread of the contagion to the whole community: which Saint to vote themself then? To Saint Rosalia who had freed Palermo from the plague? To Saint Sebastiano protector from epidemics? In Castroreale it was thought to immediately ask for help to the Holy Crucifix (in the odor of being miraculous) whose life-size Christ, papier-mâché made by anonymous, was thus fixed on top of a 12-meter long pole, thus obtaining two advantages when carried in procession, the sick kept in quarantine on the highest floors of the houses, could have enjoyed the direct vision of Christ through the windows, but at the same time the religious could stay at a safe distance (!). The story goes that the lady suddenly recovered, Castroreale had no case of cholera: since then, on August 25th, the day of the miracle, the Holy Crucifix is celebrated (also called the feast of the Christ Long, in the dialect, feast of Cristu Longu or Signuri Longu). The pole on which the Christ is hoisted, presents at regular distances pins driven into the wood, to avoid the sliding of the long "perches with hairpins", with which the "hairpin masters" support the very high Crucifix during the procession that proceeds along the streets of the town, and to allow its lowering and raising through the entrance of the two churches (the Mother Church and the church of Saint Agatha) in which it is carried.
Small note in closing: in the Mother Church is the Chapel of the Assumption where the statuary complex of the Virgin Mary Assumed (1848) is located, whose author is Matteo Mancuso from Messina, to whom a son died while working on the statue, so he personified his son in the little angel with his eyes closed at the feet of the Virgin Mary; at the foot of the statue there is the statuette of the seventeenth century of baby Virgin Mary, which is carried in procession on 8th September by children receiving first communion.
Ezio Famà
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In Italia, nelle prime tre decadi dell’ottocento, il colera iniziò a penetrare in Europa, gli Stati interessati dai traffici commerciali (come il Regno delle Due Sicilie) istituirono dei serrati controlli sanitari marittimi, ponendo grande importanza ai giorni di quarantena per tutte quelle imbarcazioni che provenivano dalle zone infette (in questo caso i provvedimenti presi erano quelli già sperimentati ai tempi della peste nera), ma non sempre fu così…infatti altri Stati come Genova, Livorno e Venezia, per evitare ripercussioni sui commerci…evitarono di adottare tali provvedimenti dando peso alle “teorie anticontagioniste” (esse accusavano l’aria malsana, la sporcizia, la cattiva alimentazione, piuttosto che dare importanza al contatto): solo nel 1882 il vibrione colerico verrà individuato da Robert Koch, la scienza fino ad allora era divisa tra “contagionisti” ed “epidemiologi”, ed anche la Chiesa ci metteva del suo, invocando “l’igiene dell’anima”, sostenendo la necessità di evitare gli stravizi, inclusi gli eccessi alimentari e sessuali. Il Regno delle Due Sicilie nel 1837 fu interessato da rivolte popolari attuate contro i Borboni, accusati di aver incaricato gli “untori” di uccidere il popolo. Siamo nel 1854, nella città di Messina scoppia una devastante epidemia di colera, in soli due mesi il colera porta a morte circa 30.000 persone, la cittadina di Castroreale non molto distante, sembra essere immune da tale iattura, fino a quando due suoi concittadini, marito e moglie ritornano al paese provenienti da Messina, la signora mostra in forma gravissima i sintomi colerici…il paese è terrorizzato temendo il propagarsi del contagio a tutta la comunità: a quale Santo votarsi dunque? A Santa Rosalia che aveva liberato Palermo dalla Peste? A San Sebastiano protettore dalle epidemie? A Castroreale si pensò di chiedere subito aiuto al Santissimo Crocifisso (in odore di essere miracoloso) il cui Cristo, in grandezza naturale, realizzato da anonimo in cartapesta, venne così fissato in cima ad un palo lungo 12 metri, ottenendo così due vantaggi quando portato in processione, i malati tenuti in quarantena nei piani più alti delle abitazioni, avrebbero potuto godere della visione diretta del Cristo attraverso le finestre, ma al contempo i religiosi potevano mantenersi a debita distanza (!). La storia racconta che la signora improvvisamente guarì, Castroreale non ebbe nessun caso di colera: da allora, il 25 di Agosto, il giorno del miracolo, si festeggia il Santissimo Crocifisso (detta anche festa del Cristo Lungo, in dialetto, del Cristu Longu o Signuri Longu). Il palo sul quale viene issato il Cristo, presenta a distanze regolari dei perni infissi nel legno, per evitare lo scivolamento delle lunghe “pertiche con forcine” , con le quali i “maestri di forcina” sostengono l’altissimo Crocifisso durante la processione che procede lungo le strade della cittadina, ma anche per consentirne l’abbassamento e l’innalzamento attraverso l’ingresso delle due chiese nelle quali viene portato (la Chiesa Madre e la chiesa di Sant’Agata).
Piccola nota in chiusura: nella Chiesa Madre si trova la Cappella dell’Assunzione ove è sito il complesso statuario della Madonna Assunta (1848), il cui autore è il messinese Matteo Mancuso, al quale, durante la lavorazione della statua, morì un figlio che egli impersonò nell’angioletto con gli occhi chiusi ai piedi della Madonna; in basso sotto la statua si trova la statuetta del seicento di Maria Bambina, che viene portata in processione l’otto settembre dai bambini che ricevono la prima comunione.
Ezio Famà
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click to activate the icon of slideshow: the small triangle inscribed in the small rectangle, at the top right, in the photostream;
clicca sulla piccola icona per attivare lo slideshow: sulla facciata principale del photostream, in alto a destra c'è un piccolo rettangolo (rappresenta il monitor) con dentro un piccolo triangolo nero;
Qi Bo's photos on Flickr Hive Mind
www.worldphoto.org/sony-world-photography-awards/winners-...
www.fotografidigitali.it/gallery/2726/opere-italiane-segn...
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In Italy, in the first three decades of the nineteenth century, cholera began to penetrate into Europe, the states involved in commercial traffic (such as the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies) established tight maritime health checks, placing great importance on the days of quarantine for all those boats that came from the infected areas (in this case the measures taken were those already tested at the time of the black plague), but it was not always so ... in fact other States like Genoa, Livorno and Venice, to avoid repercussions on the trade ... they avoided to adopt these measures giving weight to the "anti-contagion theories" (they accused the unhealthy air, the dirt, the bad diet, rather than giving importance to the contact): only in 1882 the vibrio of the cholera will be individualized by Robert Koch, the science up to at that time it was divided between "those who gave credit to the contagion" and "those who gave credit to environmental conditions", and also the Church gave its indications, invoking "hygiene of the soul", supporting the need to avoid debauchery, including food and sexual excesses. The Kingdom of the Two Sicilies in 1837 was affected by popular revolts carried out against the Bourbons, accused of having commissioned the "infectors" to kill the people. We are in 1854, in the city of Messina a devastating cholera epidemic breaks out, in just two months cholera leads to the death of about 30,000 people, the town of Castroreale not far away, seems to be immune from this disaster, until two of its fellow citizens, husband and wife, return to Castroreale from Messina, the lady shows the cholera symptoms very seriously ... the country is terrified fearing the spread of the contagion to the whole community: which Saint to vote themself then? To Saint Rosalia who had freed Palermo from the plague? To Saint Sebastiano protector from epidemics? In Castroreale it was thought to immediately ask for help to the Holy Crucifix (in the odor of being miraculous) whose life-size Christ, papier-mâché made by anonymous, was thus fixed on top of a 12-meter long pole, thus obtaining two advantages when carried in procession, the sick kept in quarantine on the highest floors of the houses, could have enjoyed the direct vision of Christ through the windows, but at the same time the religious could stay at a safe distance (!). The story goes that the lady suddenly recovered, Castroreale had no case of cholera: since then, on August 25th, the day of the miracle, the Holy Crucifix is celebrated (also called the feast of the Christ Long, in the dialect, feast of Cristu Longu or Signuri Longu). The pole on which the Christ is hoisted, presents at regular distances pins driven into the wood, to avoid the sliding of the long "perches with hairpins", with which the "hairpin masters" support the very high Crucifix during the procession that proceeds along the streets of the town, and to allow its lowering and raising through the entrance of the two churches (the Mother Church and the church of Saint Agatha) in which it is carried.
Small note in closing: in the Mother Church is the Chapel of the Assumption where the statuary complex of the Virgin Mary Assumed (1848) is located, whose author is Matteo Mancuso from Messina, to whom a son died while working on the statue, so he personified his son in the little angel with his eyes closed at the feet of the Virgin Mary; at the foot of the statue there is the statuette of the seventeenth century of baby Virgin Mary, which is carried in procession on 8th September by children receiving first communion.
Ezio Famà
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In Italia, nelle prime tre decadi dell’ottocento, il colera iniziò a penetrare in Europa, gli Stati interessati dai traffici commerciali (come il Regno delle Due Sicilie) istituirono dei serrati controlli sanitari marittimi, ponendo grande importanza ai giorni di quarantena per tutte quelle imbarcazioni che provenivano dalle zone infette (in questo caso i provvedimenti presi erano quelli già sperimentati ai tempi della peste nera), ma non sempre fu così…infatti altri Stati come Genova, Livorno e Venezia, per evitare ripercussioni sui commerci…evitarono di adottare tali provvedimenti dando peso alle “teorie anticontagioniste” (esse accusavano l’aria malsana, la sporcizia, la cattiva alimentazione, piuttosto che dare importanza al contatto): solo nel 1882 il vibrione colerico verrà individuato da Robert Koch, la scienza fino ad allora era divisa tra “contagionisti” ed “epidemiologi”, ed anche la Chiesa ci metteva del suo, invocando “l’igiene dell’anima”, sostenendo la necessità di evitare gli stravizi, inclusi gli eccessi alimentari e sessuali. Il Regno delle Due Sicilie nel 1837 fu interessato da rivolte popolari attuate contro i Borboni, accusati di aver incaricato gli “untori” di uccidere il popolo. Siamo nel 1854, nella città di Messina scoppia una devastante epidemia di colera, in soli due mesi il colera porta a morte circa 30.000 persone, la cittadina di Castroreale non molto distante, sembra essere immune da tale iattura, fino a quando due suoi concittadini, marito e moglie ritornano al paese provenienti da Messina, la signora mostra in forma gravissima i sintomi colerici…il paese è terrorizzato temendo il propagarsi del contagio a tutta la comunità: a quale Santo votarsi dunque? A Santa Rosalia che aveva liberato Palermo dalla Peste? A San Sebastiano protettore dalle epidemie? A Castroreale si pensò di chiedere subito aiuto al Santissimo Crocifisso (in odore di essere miracoloso) il cui Cristo, in grandezza naturale, realizzato da anonimo in cartapesta, venne così fissato in cima ad un palo lungo 12 metri, ottenendo così due vantaggi quando portato in processione, i malati tenuti in quarantena nei piani più alti delle abitazioni, avrebbero potuto godere della visione diretta del Cristo attraverso le finestre, ma al contempo i religiosi potevano mantenersi a debita distanza (!). La storia racconta che la signora improvvisamente guarì, Castroreale non ebbe nessun caso di colera: da allora, il 25 di Agosto, il giorno del miracolo, si festeggia il Santissimo Crocifisso (detta anche festa del Cristo Lungo, in dialetto, del Cristu Longu o Signuri Longu). Il palo sul quale viene issato il Cristo, presenta a distanze regolari dei perni infissi nel legno, per evitare lo scivolamento delle lunghe “pertiche con forcine” , con le quali i “maestri di forcina” sostengono l’altissimo Crocifisso durante la processione che procede lungo le strade della cittadina, ma anche per consentirne l’abbassamento e l’innalzamento attraverso l’ingresso delle due chiese nelle quali viene portato (la Chiesa Madre e la chiesa di Sant’Agata).
Piccola nota in chiusura: nella Chiesa Madre si trova la Cappella dell’Assunzione ove è sito il complesso statuario della Madonna Assunta (1848), il cui autore è il messinese Matteo Mancuso, al quale, durante la lavorazione della statua, morì un figlio che egli impersonò nell’angioletto con gli occhi chiusi ai piedi della Madonna; in basso sotto la statua si trova la statuetta del seicento di Maria Bambina, che viene portata in processione l’otto settembre dai bambini che ricevono la prima comunione.
Ezio Famà
Masters, Adepts and Initiates
and thus contact them in full waking consciousness,registering those contacts with his physical brain apparatus.Hence the
necessity of becoming aware of one's own light, of trimming one'slamp
and of using the light that is in one, to the full. By use and care, the power of the spiritual lightgrows and waxes and develops a dual function….here are two inferences here which have nothing to correspond to them in modern thought. One is,that there is a
light in the head
; and the other, that
there are divine beings who maybe seen by those who thus concentrate upon the 'light in the head.
' It is heldthat a certain nerve, or psychic current, called Brahmarandhra-nadi, passes out through the brain near the top of the head.
In this there collects more of the luminous principle innature than elsewhere in the body
and it is
called jyotis—the light in the head
.And, as every result is to be brought about by the use of appropriate means, the seeing of divine beingscan be accomplished by concentration upon that part of the body more nearly connected with them.This point—the end of Brahmarandhra-nadi—is [Page 315] also the place where the connection ismade between man and the solar forces."It is
this light which causes the "face to shine
" and is responsible for the halo depictedaround the head of all saints and Masters and which is seen by those with clairvoyant vision aroundthe head of all advanced aspirants and disciples.Dvivedi also gives the same teaching in the following words:"The light in the head is explained to be that
collective flow of the light of sattva
which isseen at the Brahmarandhra which is variously supposed to be somewhere near the coronal artery, the pineal gland, or over the medulla oblongata. Just as the light of a lamp burning within the four wallsof a house presents a luminous appearance at the keyhole,
so even does the light of sattvashow itself at the crown of the head.
This light is very familiar to all acquainted evenslightly with Yoga practices and
is seen even by concentration on the space betweenthe eyebrows
. By Samyama (meditation) on this light the class of beings called siddhas— popularly known in theosophic circles as Mahatmas or high adepts—able to walk through spaceunseen, are immediately brought to view, notwithstanding obstacles of space and time."33. All things can be known in the vivid light of the intuition.There are
three aspects of knowledge associated with the light in the head.First, there is that knowledge which the ordinary [Page 316] man canpossess, which perhaps is best expressed in the word theoretical. It makes a
man aware of certain hypotheses, possibilities and explanations. It gives to him an understanding of ways, means and methods, and enables him to take the first step towards correct ascertainment andachievement. This is true of that knowledge which Patanjali deals with. By acting upon thisknowledge and by conforming to the requirements of the intended investigation or development, theaspirant
becomes aware of the light in the head.Secondly, discriminative knowledge is the next type utilized by the aspirant
.The light having been contacted, is used, and the result is that the pairs of opposites become apparent,duality is known, and the question of choice comes in. The light of God is cast upon either side of the
razor edged path the aspirant is endeavouring to tread, and at first this "noble middle" path is not soapparent as that which lies on either side. By the addition of dispassion or non-attachment todiscriminative knowledge, hindrances are worn away, the veil which hides the light becomesincreasingly thin until eventually the
third or highest light is touched
.
Thirdly, the "light of the intuition
" is one of the terms which can be applied to this type of illuminative knowledge. It results from the treading of the path and the overcoming of the pairs of opposites, and is the forerunner of complete illumination and the full light of day. Ganganatha Jha inhis brief commentary touches on all these three. He says:"Intelligence is the emancipator—the forerunner of discriminative knowledge, as the dawn is of sunrise. On the production of intuitional insight, the yogi comes to know everything."….Through
concentration, therefore, on the light in the head
, knowledge of thespiritual worlds and of those pure spirits who work and walk in them is achieved, for Atma or spiritshines there. Similarly through concentrated meditation upon the heart, knowledge of the secondaspect, of the conscious intelligent principle which makes a man a son of God, is gained.(SAIM 143) Another effect claimed for this relationship between the two head centres and their corresponding glands is that the
interplay between the two produces the shiningforth of a light
. There is much corroborative evidence in this connection in the Scriptures of theworld, including Christ's injunction to His followers to "let their light shine." There is cumulativeevidence also in the lives of [Page 143] the mystics, who again and again in their writings bear testimony to a light that has been seen. I sent out a letter to a group of students (who have beenstudying meditation for several years) asking if they were aware of any phenomena of interest as theresult of their work. The letter was not sent to neurotics and visionary types, but to men and women of good standing in the business, artistic and literary fields, and with accomplishment to their credit.
Seventy-five per cent testified to seeing a light in the head
. Were they hallucinated?Were they the victims of their imaginations? What was it they saw? and constantly see?An interesting field for investigation lies here also, and the results may have a basis in the fact, nowrecognised by science, that light is matter, and matter is light. When the soul is functioning and theman has achieved conscious union with that soul, he may then, through the extra stimulation involved, become aware of the light of the etheric body at its main point of junction with the physical body atthe most important centre in the body, the head centre. Professor Bazzoni says:"We have seen that all forms of matter on the earth are made up of 92 different kinds of atoms groupedinto molecules which, taken together in countless millions, form all of the bodies which we see aboutus and indeed for that matter, our own bodies. Now, any one of these 92 kinds of atoms when
stimulated in certain ways well known to science can be made to give off light
—generally coloured light—and the nature of [Page 144] this light is peculiar and characteristicfor each of the 92 atoms."(EP1 131) The achievement of full awareness is of course the goal of the evolutionary process.Again symbolically speaking, the unevolved man emits or manifests no light. The
light in thehead is invisible, though the clairvoyant investigators would see the dimglow of the light
within the elements which constitute the body, and the light hidden in the atomswhich constitute the form nature.
As evolution proceeds, these dim points of "dark light" intensify their glow; the
light within thehead flickers at intervals
during the life of the average man, and becomes a shining light as heenters upon the path of discipleship. When he becomes
an initiate, the light of the atomsis so bright, and the light in the head so intense
(with a paralleling stimulation of thecentres of force in the body), that the light body appears. Eventually this body of light becomesexternalised and of greater prominence than the dense tangible physical body. This is the body of lightin which the true son of God consciously dwells.
After the third initiation, the dual lightbecomes accentuated and takes on a still greater brilliancy
through the
blending with it of the energy of spirit.
This is not really the admission or the re-combining of a third light, but the
fanning of the light of matter and the light of thesoul into a greater glory
through the Breath of the spirit. Something anent this light has beenearlier indicated in A Treatise on Cosmic Fire.(EP1 231) The mineral kingdom is governed astrologically by Taurus, and there is a symbolic relation between the "
eye" in the head of the Bull, the third eye, the light in the head,and the diamond
. The consciousness of the Buddha has been called the "diamond-eye."(EPII 594) 2. The rhythm of psychic life. This is, in reality, the revelation of where the man stands inrelation to consciousness and its contacts. The adept, when seeking information upon this point, looksfirst of all at the solar plexus centre and then at the heart and head, for in
these three centresand in their relative "light and radiant brightness", the whole story of theindividual stands revealed
. [Page 594] The head centre, looked at for the average or belowaverage man, is the centre between the eyebrows. In the case of the aspirant, mystic and disciple, it isthe highest head centre.(WM 433) there are energies which emanate from...the
Heart of the Sun
; these sweep throughone or other of the
planets in seven great streams
...and produce the
seven types of souls or rays.
(EPII 610) The registering of this inner light often causes serious concern and difficulty to theinexperienced person and the intensity of their concern and fear leads them to think so much of the problem that they become what we occultly call "
obsessed with the light and so fail tosee the Lord of Light
and that which the Light reveals". I would point out here that
allaspirants and occult students do not see this light.
Seeing it is dependent upon
several factors—temperament, the quality of the physical cells of the brain,the nature of the work
which has been done or of the particular task, and the extent of themagnetic field. There never need be any difficulty if the [Page 610] aspirant will use the light which isin him for the helping of his fellowmen. It is the
self-centred mystic who gets intodifficulty
, as does the occultist who uses the light which he discovers within himself for selfish purposes, and personal ends.An incidental difficulty is sometimes found when the "
doorway out into the other worlds"is discovered
and becomes, not a door for rightful and proper use, but a way of escape from thedifficulties of life and a short cut out of conscious physical experience. The connection then betweenthe mystic and his physical vehicle becomes less and less firmly established and the link gets looser and looser until the man spends most of his time out of his body in a condition of semi-trance or adeep sleep condition
(EPII 610) Students should make
no effort to see the light in the head
, but when it issensed and seen—then there should be a careful regulation and registration of it.
Second raytypes will respond to this phenomenon more easily
and more frequently than first or third ray types.
First ray people will register the inflow of force and power
withfacility and will discover that their problem lies in the control and the right direction of such energies.Much of the present impasse to be found in the personalities of the aspirants of the world is due to thefact that the
light that is in them remains undirected and the power that isflowing through them remains unused or misapplied.
Much of the
physicalblindness and the poor sight
to be found in the world today (unless the result of accident) is
due to the presence of the light of the head—unrecognised and unused
—andthus producing or exciting a definite effect upon the eyes and upon the optic nerve. Technicallyspeaking, the light of the soul—localised in the region of the pineal gland—works through and would be directed through the right eye which is (as you have been told) the organ of the buddhi, [Page 611]whilst the light of the personality—localised in the region of the pituitary body—functions through theleft eye. The time has not yet come when this statement means much except to very advancedstudents, but it should be on record for the future use of disciples and aspirants.I would also like to point out that one of the difficulties today is that the
light of thepersonality is more active within the head than is the light of the soul
and thatit has far more of the quality of burning than has soul light. The
effect of the soul light isstimulating and occultly cool.
It brings the brain cells into functioning activity, evokingresponse from cells at present quiescent and unawakened. It is as these cells are brought into activity by the inflow of the
light of the soul that genius appears
, accompanied often by some lack of balance or control in certain directions.(RI 274) The two types of triangles now being created by a mere handful of people are related to that basic triangle. A
third type of triangle will at some much later date
be constructed but only when these two earlier types are well established in the consciousness of humanity. Then theactivity of all the three Buddhas will be involved and present, and a major planetary integration willtake place. This is symbolised in man when the
three centres in the head (the ajnacentre, the brahmarandra centre, and the alta major centre)
are [Page 274] allfunctioning and unshakably related, thereby
constituting a triangle of light within thehead.
(RI 671) What is oft omitted from normal consideration is the fact that the increasing activity of these
two "points of light within the head
" is basically related to what is occurring in the sacraland throat centres, as the transmutative process proceeds and the energies of the sacral centre aregathered up into the throat centre—without, however, withdrawing all the energy from the lower centre; thus its normal activity is properly preserved. The two centres in the head then becomecorrespondingly active; the negative and the positive elements affect each other, and the
light inthe head shines forth; a line of light,
permitting free interplay, is established
betweenthe ajna centre and the head centre, and therefore between the pituitarybody and the pineal gland
. When this line of light is present and there is an
unobstructed relation between the two centres and the two glands, then thefirst initiation becomes possible
. When this takes place, it must not be inferred that the task of transmutation going on between the lower and the higher centres and the relationship between
two head centres is fully and finally completed and established. The line of light is still tenuous andunstable, but it is in existence. It is the energy let loose at the first initiation and distributed into thesacral and the throat centres (via the slowly awakening head centre) which brings the transmutation process to a successful conclusion and stabilises the relationship within the head. This process maytake several lives of steadily intensifying effort on the part of the initiate-disciple.…Just as the antahkarana has to be constructed and established as a bridge of
light between theSpiritual Triad and the soul-infused personality,
so a similar bridge or correspondence is established between the soul and the personality, and, in connection with themechanism of the disciple, between the two head centres and the two glands within the head.(WM 41) The personality hides within itself, as a casket hides [Page 41] the
jewel, that point of soul light which we call the light in the head.
This is found within the brain, and isonly discovered and later used when the highest aspect of the personality, the mind, is developed andfunctioning. Then the union with the soul is made and the soul functions through the lower personalnature.(WM 96) When, however, the sutratmic sushumna, the central nerve channel and its energy isemployed, the soul, as a magnetic intelligent creator, transmits its energies. The plans can then matureaccording to divine purpose and proceed with their building activities "in the light". The
point of egoic and lunar contact emits ever the point of light,
as we have seen from our Rulesfor Magic, and that has its
focus at the point in the sutratma
which has its correspondencein the light in the head of the aspirant.(WM 98) The Solar Orb shines forth in radiant splendor. The
illuminated mind reflects thesolar glory.
The lunar orb rises from the centre to the summit, and is transformed into a radiantsun of light. When these three suns are one, Brahma breaks forth. A lighted world is born.This literally means that when the
soul (symbolized as the Solar Orb) the mind, andthe light in the head form one unit,
the creative power of the solar Angel can express itself in the three worlds, and can construct a form through which its energy can actively express itself. The
lunar orb is a symbolic way of expressing the solar plexus
which eventually mustdo two things:1. Blend and fuse the energies of the
lower two centres of force
, and2. Raise these fused energies and so, blending with the energies of the other and higher centres, reachthe head.(WM 98) I would like also to point out the nature of the service humanity as a whole is rendering inthe general plan of evolution. The rule under our consideration applies not only to the individual man but to the predestined activity of the fourth Kingdom in Nature. Through his meditation, disciplineand service, man
fans into radiant light, illuminating the three worlds, thatpoint of light
which flickered into being at the time of his individualization in past ages. This
finds its reflection in the light in the head
. Thus a rapport is set up, which permits notonly of vibratory synchronization but of a radiation and display of magnetic force, permitting of itsrecognition in the three worlds of a man's immediate environment.(WM 105) Let us now consider the words at the end of the previous rule: "The lower light is thrownupward and the
greater light illuminates the three
; the
work of the fourproceedeth
."
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In Italy, in the first three decades of the nineteenth century, cholera began to penetrate into Europe, the states involved in commercial traffic (such as the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies) established tight maritime health checks, placing great importance on the days of quarantine for all those boats that came from the infected areas (in this case the measures taken were those already tested at the time of the black plague), but it was not always so ... in fact other States like Genoa, Livorno and Venice, to avoid repercussions on the trade ... they avoided to adopt these measures giving weight to the "anti-contagion theories" (they accused the unhealthy air, the dirt, the bad diet, rather than giving importance to the contact): only in 1882 the vibrio of the cholera will be individualized by Robert Koch, the science up to at that time it was divided between "those who gave credit to the contagion" and "those who gave credit to environmental conditions", and also the Church gave its indications, invoking "hygiene of the soul", supporting the need to avoid debauchery, including food and sexual excesses. The Kingdom of the Two Sicilies in 1837 was affected by popular revolts carried out against the Bourbons, accused of having commissioned the "infectors" to kill the people. We are in 1854, in the city of Messina a devastating cholera epidemic breaks out, in just two months cholera leads to the death of about 30,000 people, the town of Castroreale not far away, seems to be immune from this disaster, until two of its fellow citizens, husband and wife, return to Castroreale from Messina, the lady shows the cholera symptoms very seriously ... the country is terrified fearing the spread of the contagion to the whole community: which Saint to vote themself then? To Saint Rosalia who had freed Palermo from the plague? To Saint Sebastiano protector from epidemics? In Castroreale it was thought to immediately ask for help to the Holy Crucifix (in the odor of being miraculous) whose life-size Christ, papier-mâché made by anonymous, was thus fixed on top of a 12-meter long pole, thus obtaining two advantages when carried in procession, the sick kept in quarantine on the highest floors of the houses, could have enjoyed the direct vision of Christ through the windows, but at the same time the religious could stay at a safe distance (!). The story goes that the lady suddenly recovered, Castroreale had no case of cholera: since then, on August 25th, the day of the miracle, the Holy Crucifix is celebrated (also called the feast of the Christ Long, in the dialect, feast of Cristu Longu or Signuri Longu). The pole on which the Christ is hoisted, presents at regular distances pins driven into the wood, to avoid the sliding of the long "perches with hairpins", with which the "hairpin masters" support the very high Crucifix during the procession that proceeds along the streets of the town, and to allow its lowering and raising through the entrance of the two churches (the Mother Church and the church of Saint Agatha) in which it is carried.
Small note in closing: in the Mother Church is the Chapel of the Assumption where the statuary complex of the Virgin Mary Assumed (1848) is located, whose author is Matteo Mancuso from Messina, to whom a son died while working on the statue, so he personified his son in the little angel with his eyes closed at the feet of the Virgin Mary; at the foot of the statue there is the statuette of the seventeenth century of baby Virgin Mary, which is carried in procession on 8th September by children receiving first communion.
Ezio Famà
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In Italia, nelle prime tre decadi dell’ottocento, il colera iniziò a penetrare in Europa, gli Stati interessati dai traffici commerciali (come il Regno delle Due Sicilie) istituirono dei serrati controlli sanitari marittimi, ponendo grande importanza ai giorni di quarantena per tutte quelle imbarcazioni che provenivano dalle zone infette (in questo caso i provvedimenti presi erano quelli già sperimentati ai tempi della peste nera), ma non sempre fu così…infatti altri Stati come Genova, Livorno e Venezia, per evitare ripercussioni sui commerci…evitarono di adottare tali provvedimenti dando peso alle “teorie anticontagioniste” (esse accusavano l’aria malsana, la sporcizia, la cattiva alimentazione, piuttosto che dare importanza al contatto): solo nel 1882 il vibrione colerico verrà individuato da Robert Koch, la scienza fino ad allora era divisa tra “contagionisti” ed “epidemiologi”, ed anche la Chiesa ci metteva del suo, invocando “l’igiene dell’anima”, sostenendo la necessità di evitare gli stravizi, inclusi gli eccessi alimentari e sessuali. Il Regno delle Due Sicilie nel 1837 fu interessato da rivolte popolari attuate contro i Borboni, accusati di aver incaricato gli “untori” di uccidere il popolo. Siamo nel 1854, nella città di Messina scoppia una devastante epidemia di colera, in soli due mesi il colera porta a morte circa 30.000 persone, la cittadina di Castroreale non molto distante, sembra essere immune da tale iattura, fino a quando due suoi concittadini, marito e moglie ritornano al paese provenienti da Messina, la signora mostra in forma gravissima i sintomi colerici…il paese è terrorizzato temendo il propagarsi del contagio a tutta la comunità: a quale Santo votarsi dunque? A Santa Rosalia che aveva liberato Palermo dalla Peste? A San Sebastiano protettore dalle epidemie? A Castroreale si pensò di chiedere subito aiuto al Santissimo Crocifisso (in odore di essere miracoloso) il cui Cristo, in grandezza naturale, realizzato da anonimo in cartapesta, venne così fissato in cima ad un palo lungo 12 metri, ottenendo così due vantaggi quando portato in processione, i malati tenuti in quarantena nei piani più alti delle abitazioni, avrebbero potuto godere della visione diretta del Cristo attraverso le finestre, ma al contempo i religiosi potevano mantenersi a debita distanza (!). La storia racconta che la signora improvvisamente guarì, Castroreale non ebbe nessun caso di colera: da allora, il 25 di Agosto, il giorno del miracolo, si festeggia il Santissimo Crocifisso (detta anche festa del Cristo Lungo, in dialetto, del Cristu Longu o Signuri Longu). Il palo sul quale viene issato il Cristo, presenta a distanze regolari dei perni infissi nel legno, per evitare lo scivolamento delle lunghe “pertiche con forcine” , con le quali i “maestri di forcina” sostengono l’altissimo Crocifisso durante la processione che procede lungo le strade della cittadina, ma anche per consentirne l’abbassamento e l’innalzamento attraverso l’ingresso delle due chiese nelle quali viene portato (la Chiesa Madre e la chiesa di Sant’Agata).
Piccola nota in chiusura: nella Chiesa Madre si trova la Cappella dell’Assunzione ove è sito il complesso statuario della Madonna Assunta (1848), il cui autore è il messinese Matteo Mancuso, al quale, durante la lavorazione della statua, morì un figlio che egli impersonò nell’angioletto con gli occhi chiusi ai piedi della Madonna; in basso sotto la statua si trova la statuetta del seicento di Maria Bambina, che viene portata in processione l’otto settembre dai bambini che ricevono la prima comunione.
Ezio Famà
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click to activate the icon of slideshow: the small triangle inscribed in the small rectangle, at the top right, in the photostream;
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www.worldphoto.org/sony-world-photography-awards/winners-...
www.fotografidigitali.it/gallery/2726/opere-italiane-segn...
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In Italy, in the first three decades of the nineteenth century, cholera began to penetrate into Europe, the states involved in commercial traffic (such as the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies) established tight maritime health checks, placing great importance on the days of quarantine for all those boats that came from the infected areas (in this case the measures taken were those already tested at the time of the black plague), but it was not always so ... in fact other States like Genoa, Livorno and Venice, to avoid repercussions on the trade ... they avoided to adopt these measures giving weight to the "anti-contagion theories" (they accused the unhealthy air, the dirt, the bad diet, rather than giving importance to the contact): only in 1882 the vibrio of the cholera will be individualized by Robert Koch, the science up to at that time it was divided between "those who gave credit to the contagion" and "those who gave credit to environmental conditions", and also the Church gave its indications, invoking "hygiene of the soul", supporting the need to avoid debauchery, including food and sexual excesses. The Kingdom of the Two Sicilies in 1837 was affected by popular revolts carried out against the Bourbons, accused of having commissioned the "infectors" to kill the people. We are in 1854, in the city of Messina a devastating cholera epidemic breaks out, in just two months cholera leads to the death of about 30,000 people, the town of Castroreale not far away, seems to be immune from this disaster, until two of its fellow citizens, husband and wife, return to Castroreale from Messina, the lady shows the cholera symptoms very seriously ... the country is terrified fearing the spread of the contagion to the whole community: which Saint to vote themself then? To Saint Rosalia who had freed Palermo from the plague? To Saint Sebastiano protector from epidemics? In Castroreale it was thought to immediately ask for help to the Holy Crucifix (in the odor of being miraculous) whose life-size Christ, papier-mâché made by anonymous, was thus fixed on top of a 12-meter long pole, thus obtaining two advantages when carried in procession, the sick kept in quarantine on the highest floors of the houses, could have enjoyed the direct vision of Christ through the windows, but at the same time the religious could stay at a safe distance (!). The story goes that the lady suddenly recovered, Castroreale had no case of cholera: since then, on August 25th, the day of the miracle, the Holy Crucifix is celebrated (also called the feast of the Christ Long, in the dialect, feast of Cristu Longu or Signuri Longu). The pole on which the Christ is hoisted, presents at regular distances pins driven into the wood, to avoid the sliding of the long "perches with hairpins", with which the "hairpin masters" support the very high Crucifix during the procession that proceeds along the streets of the town, and to allow its lowering and raising through the entrance of the two churches (the Mother Church and the church of Saint Agatha) in which it is carried.
Small note in closing: in the Mother Church is the Chapel of the Assumption where the statuary complex of the Virgin Mary Assumed (1848) is located, whose author is Matteo Mancuso from Messina, to whom a son died while working on the statue, so he personified his son in the little angel with his eyes closed at the feet of the Virgin Mary; at the foot of the statue there is the statuette of the seventeenth century of baby Virgin Mary, which is carried in procession on 8th September by children receiving first communion.
Ezio Famà
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In Italia, nelle prime tre decadi dell’ottocento, il colera iniziò a penetrare in Europa, gli Stati interessati dai traffici commerciali (come il Regno delle Due Sicilie) istituirono dei serrati controlli sanitari marittimi, ponendo grande importanza ai giorni di quarantena per tutte quelle imbarcazioni che provenivano dalle zone infette, ed in questo caso i provvedimenti presi erano quelli già sperimentati ai tempi della peste nera), ma non sempre fu così…infatti altri Stati come Genova, Livorno e Venezia, per evitare ripercussioni sui commerci…evitarono di adottare tali provvedimenti dando peso alle “teorie anticontagioniste” (esse accusavano l’aria malsana, la sporcizia, la cattiva alimentazione, piuttosto che dare importanza al contatto): solo nel 1882 il vibrione colerico verrà individuato da Robert Koch, la scienza fino ad allora era divisa tra “contagionisti” ed “epidemiologi”, ed anche la Chiesa ci metteva del suo, invocando “l’igiene dell’anima”, sostenendo la necessità di evitare gli stravizi, inclusi gli eccessi alimentari e sessuali. Il Regno delle Due Sicilie nel 1837 fu interessato da rivolte popolari attuate contro i Borboni, accusati di aver incaricato gli “untori” per uccidere il popolo. Siamo nel 1854, nella città di Messina scoppia una devastante epidemia di colera, in soli due mesi il colera porta a morte circa 30.000 persone, la cittadina di Castroreale non molto distante, sembra essere immune da tale iattura, fino a quando due suoi concittadini, marito e moglie ritornano al paese provenienti da Messina, la signora mostra in forma gravissima i sintomi colerici…il paese è terrorizzato temendo il propagarsi del contagio a tutta la comunità: a quale Santo votarsi dunque? A Santa Rosalia che aveva liberato Palermo dalla Peste? A San Sebastiano protettore dalle epidemie? A Castroreale si pensò di chiedere subito aiuto al Santissimo Crocifisso (in odore di essere miracoloso) il cui Cristo, in grandezza naturale, realizzato da anonimo in cartapesta, venne così fissato in cima ad un palo lungo 12 metri, ottenendo così due vantaggi quando portato in processione, i malati tenuti in quarantena nei piani più alti delle abitazioni, avrebbero potuto godere della visione diretta del Cristo attraverso le finestre, ma al contempo i religiosi potevano mantenersi a debita distanza (!). La storia racconta che la signora improvvisamente guarì, Castroreale non ebbe nessun caso di colera: da allora, il 25 di Agosto, il giorno del miracolo, si festeggia il Santissimo Crocifisso (detta anche festa del Cristo Lungo, in dialetto, del Cristu Longu o Signuri Longu). Il palo sul quale viene issato il Cristo, presenta a distanze regolari dei perni infissi nel legno, per evitare lo scivolamento delle lunghe “pertiche con forcine” , con le quali i “maestri di forcina” sostengono l’altissimo Crocifisso durante la processione che procede lungo le strade della cittadina, ma anche per consentirne l’abbassamento e l’innalzamento attraverso l’ingresso delle due chiese nelle quali viene portato.
Piccola nota in chiusura: nella Chiesa Madre si trova la Cappella dell’Assunzione ove è sito il complesso statuario della Madonna Assunta (1848), il cui autore è il messinese Matteo Mancuso, al quale, durante la lavorazione della statua, morì un figlio che egli impersonò nell’angioletto con gli occhi chiusi ai piedi della Madonna; in basso sotto la statua si trova la statuetta del seicento di Maria Bambina, che viene portata in processione l’otto settembre dai bambini che ricevono la prima comunione.
Ezio Famà
These photos are from my Black and White technique. In this class, for the first time in my life I have shot in film and been in the darkroom! It was a very interesting experience!!! I experimented some new things such that I tried to put two of me in 1 photo, doing everything in the dark room. NO PHOTOSHOP INVOLVED for this process. Poor me! hahaha
The night encounter
Carl Jung has suggested that each human being has originally a feeling of wholeness, a powerful and complete sense of Self. And from the Self—the totality of the psyche—the individualized ego-consciousness emerges as the individual grows up. However, this separation can never become final without severe injury to the original sense of wholeness. And the ego must continually return to the Original Self in order to maintain a condition of psychic health. From this premise, I started this project, The Night Encounter, to explore deeper the relations between the ego consciousness and the original self by personifying them as two (facially) identical human figures: one is in black modern clothes and the other fully nude. The modern man symbolizes the ego consciousness, the individuality he has that separates him from the rest of nature while the nude figure is the reflection of the primitive man, of the total wholeness that man once believed—he was a part of nature. In a smaller scale, the black clothed figure is the internal shadow of the self and the nude figure is the primitive, animalistic side of man that has been suppressed in the civilized society. Through six photographs, I explore different aspects/ situations when these two forces encounter one another. I used different objects in different locations to evoke various emotions/ thoughts from the viewers. I do not want to have a very strong, obvious narrative flow through the images because I want to keep the meaning and intentions open to the viewers’ interpretations.
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www.fotografidigitali.it/gallery/2726/opere-italiane-segn...
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In Italy, in the first three decades of the nineteenth century, cholera began to penetrate into Europe, the states involved in commercial traffic (such as the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies) established tight maritime health checks, placing great importance on the days of quarantine for all those boats that came from the infected areas (in this case the measures taken were those already tested at the time of the black plague), but it was not always so ... in fact other States like Genoa, Livorno and Venice, to avoid repercussions on the trade ... they avoided to adopt these measures giving weight to the "anti-contagion theories" (they accused the unhealthy air, the dirt, the bad diet, rather than giving importance to the contact): only in 1882 the vibrio of the cholera will be individualized by Robert Koch, the science up to at that time it was divided between "those who gave credit to the contagion" and "those who gave credit to environmental conditions", and also the Church gave its indications, invoking "hygiene of the soul", supporting the need to avoid debauchery, including food and sexual excesses. The Kingdom of the Two Sicilies in 1837 was affected by popular revolts carried out against the Bourbons, accused of having commissioned the "infectors" to kill the people. We are in 1854, in the city of Messina a devastating cholera epidemic breaks out, in just two months cholera leads to the death of about 30,000 people, the town of Castroreale not far away, seems to be immune from this disaster, until two of its fellow citizens, husband and wife, return to Castroreale from Messina, the lady shows the cholera symptoms very seriously ... the country is terrified fearing the spread of the contagion to the whole community: which Saint to vote themself then? To Saint Rosalia who had freed Palermo from the plague? To Saint Sebastiano protector from epidemics? In Castroreale it was thought to immediately ask for help to the Holy Crucifix (in the odor of being miraculous) whose life-size Christ, papier-mâché made by anonymous, was thus fixed on top of a 12-meter long pole, thus obtaining two advantages when carried in procession, the sick kept in quarantine on the highest floors of the houses, could have enjoyed the direct vision of Christ through the windows, but at the same time the religious could stay at a safe distance (!). The story goes that the lady suddenly recovered, Castroreale had no case of cholera: since then, on August 25th, the day of the miracle, the Holy Crucifix is celebrated (also called the feast of the Christ Long, in the dialect, feast of Cristu Longu or Signuri Longu). The pole on which the Christ is hoisted, presents at regular distances pins driven into the wood, to avoid the sliding of the long "perches with hairpins", with which the "hairpin masters" support the very high Crucifix during the procession that proceeds along the streets of the town, and to allow its lowering and raising through the entrance of the two churches (the Mother Church and the church of Saint Agatha) in which it is carried.
Small note in closing: in the Mother Church is the Chapel of the Assumption where the statuary complex of the Virgin Mary Assumed (1848) is located, whose author is Matteo Mancuso from Messina, to whom a son died while working on the statue, so he personified his son in the little angel with his eyes closed at the feet of the Virgin Mary; at the foot of the statue there is the statuette of the seventeenth century of baby Virgin Mary, which is carried in procession on 8th September by children receiving first communion.
Ezio Famà
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In Italia, nelle prime tre decadi dell’ottocento, il colera iniziò a penetrare in Europa, gli Stati interessati dai traffici commerciali (come il Regno delle Due Sicilie) istituirono dei serrati controlli sanitari marittimi, ponendo grande importanza ai giorni di quarantena per tutte quelle imbarcazioni che provenivano dalle zone infette, ed in questo caso i provvedimenti presi erano quelli già sperimentati ai tempi della peste nera), ma non sempre fu così…infatti altri Stati come Genova, Livorno e Venezia, per evitare ripercussioni sui commerci…evitarono di adottare tali provvedimenti dando peso alle “teorie anticontagioniste” (esse accusavano l’aria malsana, la sporcizia, la cattiva alimentazione, piuttosto che dare importanza al contatto): solo nel 1882 il vibrione colerico verrà individuato da Robert Koch, la scienza fino ad allora era divisa tra “contagionisti” ed “epidemiologi”, ed anche la Chiesa ci metteva del suo, invocando “l’igiene dell’anima”, sostenendo la necessità di evitare gli stravizi, inclusi gli eccessi alimentari e sessuali. Il Regno delle Due Sicilie nel 1837 fu interessato da rivolte popolari attuate contro i Borboni, accusati di aver incaricato gli “untori” per uccidere il popolo. Siamo nel 1854, nella città di Messina scoppia una devastante epidemia di colera, in soli due mesi il colera porta a morte circa 30.000 persone, la cittadina di Castroreale non molto distante, sembra essere immune da tale iattura, fino a quando due suoi concittadini, marito e moglie ritornano al paese provenienti da Messina, la signora mostra in forma gravissima i sintomi colerici…il paese è terrorizzato temendo il propagarsi del contagio a tutta la comunità: a quale Santo votarsi dunque? A Santa Rosalia che aveva liberato Palermo dalla Peste? A San Sebastiano protettore dalle epidemie? A Castroreale si pensò di chiedere subito aiuto al Santissimo Crocifisso (in odore di essere miracoloso) il cui Cristo, in grandezza naturale, realizzato da anonimo in cartapesta, venne così fissato in cima ad un palo lungo 12 metri, ottenendo così due vantaggi quando portato in processione, i malati tenuti in quarantena nei piani più alti delle abitazioni, avrebbero potuto godere della visione diretta del Cristo attraverso le finestre, ma al contempo i religiosi potevano mantenersi a debita distanza (!). La storia racconta che la signora improvvisamente guarì, Castroreale non ebbe nessun caso di colera: da allora, il 25 di Agosto, il giorno del miracolo, si festeggia il Santissimo Crocifisso (detta anche festa del Cristo Lungo, in dialetto, del Cristu Longu o Signuri Longu). Il palo sul quale viene issato il Cristo, presenta a distanze regolari dei perni infissi nel legno, per evitare lo scivolamento delle lunghe “pertiche con forcine” , con le quali i “maestri di forcina” sostengono l’altissimo Crocifisso durante la processione che procede lungo le strade della cittadina, ma anche per consentirne l’abbassamento e l’innalzamento attraverso l’ingresso delle due chiese nelle quali viene portato.
Piccola nota in chiusura: nella Chiesa Madre si trova la Cappella dell’Assunzione ove è sito il complesso statuario della Madonna Assunta (1848), il cui autore è il messinese Matteo Mancuso, al quale, durante la lavorazione della statua, morì un figlio che egli impersonò nell’angioletto con gli occhi chiusi ai piedi della Madonna; in basso sotto la statua si trova la statuetta del seicento di Maria Bambina, che viene portata in processione l’otto settembre dai bambini che ricevono la prima comunione.
Ezio Famà
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click to activate the icon of slideshow: the small triangle inscribed in the small rectangle, at the top right, in the photostream;
clicca sulla piccola icona per attivare lo slideshow: sulla facciata principale del photostream, in alto a destra c'è un piccolo rettangolo (rappresenta il monitor) con dentro un piccolo triangolo nero;
Qi Bo's photos on Flickr Hive Mind
www.worldphoto.org/sony-world-photography-awards/winners-...
www.fotografidigitali.it/gallery/2726/opere-italiane-segn...
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In Italy, in the first three decades of the nineteenth century, cholera began to penetrate into Europe, the states involved in commercial traffic (such as the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies) established tight maritime health checks, placing great importance on the days of quarantine for all those boats that came from the infected areas (in this case the measures taken were those already tested at the time of the black plague), but it was not always so ... in fact other States like Genoa, Livorno and Venice, to avoid repercussions on the trade ... they avoided to adopt these measures giving weight to the "anti-contagion theories" (they accused the unhealthy air, the dirt, the bad diet, rather than giving importance to the contact): only in 1882 the vibrio of the cholera will be individualized by Robert Koch, the science up to at that time it was divided between "those who gave credit to the contagion" and "those who gave credit to environmental conditions", and also the Church gave its indications, invoking "hygiene of the soul", supporting the need to avoid debauchery, including food and sexual excesses. The Kingdom of the Two Sicilies in 1837 was affected by popular revolts carried out against the Bourbons, accused of having commissioned the "infectors" to kill the people. We are in 1854, in the city of Messina a devastating cholera epidemic breaks out, in just two months cholera leads to the death of about 30,000 people, the town of Castroreale not far away, seems to be immune from this disaster, until two of its fellow citizens, husband and wife, return to Castroreale from Messina, the lady shows the cholera symptoms very seriously ... the country is terrified fearing the spread of the contagion to the whole community: which Saint to vote themself then? To Saint Rosalia who had freed Palermo from the plague? To Saint Sebastiano protector from epidemics? In Castroreale it was thought to immediately ask for help to the Holy Crucifix (in the odor of being miraculous) whose life-size Christ, papier-mâché made by anonymous, was thus fixed on top of a 12-meter long pole, thus obtaining two advantages when carried in procession, the sick kept in quarantine on the highest floors of the houses, could have enjoyed the direct vision of Christ through the windows, but at the same time the religious could stay at a safe distance (!). The story goes that the lady suddenly recovered, Castroreale had no case of cholera: since then, on August 25th, the day of the miracle, the Holy Crucifix is celebrated (also called the feast of the Christ Long, in the dialect, feast of Cristu Longu or Signuri Longu). The pole on which the Christ is hoisted, presents at regular distances pins driven into the wood, to avoid the sliding of the long "perches with hairpins", with which the "hairpin masters" support the very high Crucifix during the procession that proceeds along the streets of the town, and to allow its lowering and raising through the entrance of the two churches (the Mother Church and the church of Saint Agatha) in which it is carried.
Small note in closing: in the Mother Church is the Chapel of the Assumption where the statuary complex of the Virgin Mary Assumed (1848) is located, whose author is Matteo Mancuso from Messina, to whom a son died while working on the statue, so he personified his son in the little angel with his eyes closed at the feet of the Virgin Mary; at the foot of the statue there is the statuette of the seventeenth century of baby Virgin Mary, which is carried in procession on 8th September by children receiving first communion.
Ezio Famà
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In Italia, nelle prime tre decadi dell’ottocento, il colera iniziò a penetrare in Europa, gli Stati interessati dai traffici commerciali (come il Regno delle Due Sicilie) istituirono dei serrati controlli sanitari marittimi, ponendo grande importanza ai giorni di quarantena per tutte quelle imbarcazioni che provenivano dalle zone infette, ed in questo caso i provvedimenti presi erano quelli già sperimentati ai tempi della peste nera), ma non sempre fu così…infatti altri Stati come Genova, Livorno e Venezia, per evitare ripercussioni sui commerci…evitarono di adottare tali provvedimenti dando peso alle “teorie anticontagioniste” (esse accusavano l’aria malsana, la sporcizia, la cattiva alimentazione, piuttosto che dare importanza al contatto): solo nel 1882 il vibrione colerico verrà individuato da Robert Koch, la scienza fino ad allora era divisa tra “contagionisti” ed “epidemiologi”, ed anche la Chiesa ci metteva del suo, invocando “l’igiene dell’anima”, sostenendo la necessità di evitare gli stravizi, inclusi gli eccessi alimentari e sessuali. Il Regno delle Due Sicilie nel 1837 fu interessato da rivolte popolari attuate contro i Borboni, accusati di aver incaricato gli “untori” per uccidere il popolo. Siamo nel 1854, nella città di Messina scoppia una devastante epidemia di colera, in soli due mesi il colera porta a morte circa 30.000 persone, la cittadina di Castroreale non molto distante, sembra essere immune da tale iattura, fino a quando due suoi concittadini, marito e moglie ritornano al paese provenienti da Messina, la signora mostra in forma gravissima i sintomi colerici…il paese è terrorizzato temendo il propagarsi del contagio a tutta la comunità: a quale Santo votarsi dunque? A Santa Rosalia che aveva liberato Palermo dalla Peste? A San Sebastiano protettore dalle epidemie? A Castroreale si pensò di chiedere subito aiuto al Santissimo Crocifisso (in odore di essere miracoloso) il cui Cristo, in grandezza naturale, realizzato da anonimo in cartapesta, venne così fissato in cima ad un palo lungo 12 metri, ottenendo così due vantaggi quando portato in processione, i malati tenuti in quarantena nei piani più alti delle abitazioni, avrebbero potuto godere della visione diretta del Cristo attraverso le finestre, ma al contempo i religiosi potevano mantenersi a debita distanza (!). La storia racconta che la signora improvvisamente guarì, Castroreale non ebbe nessun caso di colera: da allora, il 25 di Agosto, il giorno del miracolo, si festeggia il Santissimo Crocifisso (detta anche festa del Cristo Lungo, in dialetto, del Cristu Longu o Signuri Longu). Il palo sul quale viene issato il Cristo, presenta a distanze regolari dei perni infissi nel legno, per evitare lo scivolamento delle lunghe “pertiche con forcine” , con le quali i “maestri di forcina” sostengono l’altissimo Crocifisso durante la processione che procede lungo le strade della cittadina, ma anche per consentirne l’abbassamento e l’innalzamento attraverso l’ingresso delle due chiese nelle quali viene portato.
Piccola nota in chiusura: nella Chiesa Madre si trova la Cappella dell’Assunzione ove è sito il complesso statuario della Madonna Assunta (1848), il cui autore è il messinese Matteo Mancuso, al quale, durante la lavorazione della statua, morì un figlio che egli impersonò nell’angioletto con gli occhi chiusi ai piedi della Madonna; in basso sotto la statua si trova la statuetta del seicento di Maria Bambina, che viene portata in processione l’otto settembre dai bambini che ricevono la prima comunione.
Ezio Famà
Meditation is a powerful tool to incorporate into your daily life, bringing you clarity, a peaceful mind, better concentration, a sense of well being, and increased energy. Meditation is synonymous with yoga and, in reality, is an integral part of any yoga practice. The forefather of yoga, Patanjali, in his systemic approach to yoga categorizes yoga as having eight limbs. Of the eight limbs, meditation is the water that awakens and nourishes the quiet spirit within. A famous western yogi often said that meditation was like “watering the root to enjoy the fruit."1 A regular meditation practice enhances and accelerates the progress firefighters will reap from their yoga practice.
It is important to understand that meditation incorporates a wide range of disciplines, all with healthy results. Each type of meditation is beneficial to practice. Jeanne Ball, a writer for the David Lynch Foundation, outlines three major types of meditation and gives a brief explanation of the benefits.
Controlled focus: Classic examples of concentration or controlled focus are found in the revered traditions of Zen, Tibetan Buddhism, Qiqong, Yoga, Christianity, and Vedanta, though many methods involve attempts to control or direct the mind. Attention is focused on an object of meditation--such as one's breath, an idea or image, or an emotion. Brain waves recorded during these practices are typically in the gamma frequency (20-50 Hz), seen whenever you concentrate or during "active" cognitive processing.2
Open monitoring: These mindfulness type practices, common in Vipassana and Zazen, involve watching or actively paying attention to experiences--without judging, reacting, or holding on. Open monitoring gives rise to frontal theta (4-8 Hz), an EEG pattern commonly seen during memory tasks or reflection on mental concepts.3
Automatic self-transcending: This category describes practices designed to go beyond their own mental activity--enabling the mind to spontaneously transcend the process of meditation itself. Whereas concentration and open monitoring require degrees of effort or directed focus to sustain the activity of meditation, this approach is effortless because there is no attempt to direct attention--no controlled cognitive processing. The EEG pattern of this category is frontal alpha coherence, associated with a distinct state of relaxed inner wakefulness.4,5
Immediately one would ask, Which meditation is right for me? We would encourage that you find a meditation practice and teacher that you are comfortable with. Our recommendation is that you do an Automatic Self Transcending meditation, which is a form of mantra meditation. The meditation should be done twice a day.
There are several mantra meditations that produce the desired results. Most of the research on the physiological benefits of mantra meditation has been done in conjunction with or under the sponsorship of the TM (Transcendental Meditation) organization. These techniques are taught through individualized instruction and are intended to give maximum results to the practitioner. A brief summary of the benefits include increased alertness, increased IQ and mental clarity, reduced stress, reduced cholesterol, reduced incidence of coronary heart disease, increased creativity, increased workplace performance, and significant sociological benefits of reduction in crime and increased peace.6
Practitioners of mantra meditation techniques describe the above measured benefits as easy to achieve, because the techniques are effortless in their practice. Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras states in the second sutra, “Yoga is the complete settling of the activity of the mind.” A mantra meditation technique takes the mind effortlessly to that state of “complete settling of the mind.”
Sleeping, Dreaming, and Waking are the three states of consciousness that our bodies cycle through daily. Beginning a mantra meditation practice introduces us to a new state of consciousness. This state has a physiological correlation now known as “Restful Alertness,” a fourth major state of consciousness.7
If you are unable to learn a mantra meditation from a qualified teacher, then the So Hum meditation described below will settle the mind and take it to the state of “pure awareness.”
So Hum Meditation:
1. Sit comfortably where you will not be disturbed, and softly close your eyes.
2. For a few minutes, simply observe the inflow and outflow of your breath.
3. Now, take a slow deep breath through the nose while thinking the word So.
4. Exhale slowly through the nose while thinking the word HUM.
5. Allow your breathing to flow easily, silently repeating, So… Hum… with each inflow and outflow of breath.
6. Whenever your attention drifts to thoughts in your mind, sounds in your environment, or sensations in your body, gently return to your breath, silently repeating, So… Hum.
7. Continue this process for 15 or 30 minutes, with an attitude of effortlessness and simplicity.
8. When the time is up, sit with your eyes closed for a couple of minutes before resuming your daily activity.8
Experiences during meditation will fall into four categories: (1) Repeating the mantra, (2) having thoughts, (3) falling asleep, or (4) experiencing pure awareness. Keep these guidelines in mind.
A. Repeat the mantra easily and effortlessly. It may change, become vague, or follow a certain rhythm. Just let it go and experience any changes innocently.
B. If you notice that your attention has drifted away from the mantra to thoughts, sensations in the body, or noise in the environment, gently bring your awareness back to the mantra.
C. If you fall asleep, it is OK. The body will naturally take the rest it needs. When you notice that you have been asleep, just return to the mantra. If your meditation time is up, spend a few minutes repeating the mantra before stopping and coming out of meditation.
D. If you notice that there has been some time without thoughts or the mantra, yet you were aware, that is called “slipping into the gap,” or pure awareness. The experience of the mind settling down to a state of no activity yet has awareness is a transcendent experience of the peace within. As the experience grows, you will notice that this quiet witness begins to become part of your everyday awareness.
Meditation is not for tuning out; it is for tuning in. It is not for getting away from it all; it is for getting in touch with it all. You will find that the value of meditation is not found specifically in meditation but in a more enjoyable and fulfilling life. We encourage you to begin a regular meditation practice and begin the process of experiencing your true self, which is kind, compassionate, lighthearted, understanding, creative, brilliant, calm, and focused.
Enjoy!
For DVD's and more info on Meditation Visit: www.AmericanYogaAcademy.com and www.ClaireDiab.com
REFERENCES
1. Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.
2. Lutz, Greischar, Rawlings, Ricard, Davidson, 2004. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 101,16369-73.
3. Cahn, Delorme, & Polich, 2010. Cognitive Processing 2010 11(1):39-56.
4. Travis et al, 2010. Cognitive Processing 11(1), 21-30.
5. www.huffingtonpost.com/jeanne-ball/how-meditation-techniq...
6. www.tm.org/benefits-of-meditation
7. www.cbeprograms.org/brain_development/research/index.html
8. Dr. Deepak Chopra & Dr. David Simon “The Seven Spiritual Laws of Yoga” pgs. 90-92.
We arrived in Bordeaux late the night before and all was dark. Today we were away very early to have a quick looks around Bordeaux by coach with a short stop at the fountain. Then we made our way to Bilbao in Spain, with w stop at Biarritz for lunch. Day 13 of our Cosmos tour, October 12, 2012 France.
While the column itself is beautiful, it is the fountains on the sides which often get the most attention. The fountains are based around massive bronze sculptures. On the south side of the column stands “Le triomphe de la République” – “the triumph of the Republic”, and on the other side, “Le triomphe de la Concorde”- “the triumph of Agreements”.
The sea-horse drawn chariots symbolize peace and happiness while the men getting overthrown in front of the chariots symbolize lies and ignorance. The combination of the flowing water and sculptures full of life, gives an impression that the sea-horses are leaping out of the water towards you in a spectacular fashion. The two incredible fountains form a worthy addition to Bordeaux’s incredible cityscape.
The bronze statues were dismantled by German troops in search of metal during the Second World War. These statues were however found in 1944 in the French city of Angers. They were then brought back to Bordeaux and later reinstalled.
La Fontaine Bartholdi is a fountain sculpted by Frédéric-Auguste Bartholdi and realised in 1889 by Gaget & Gautier. It was erected at the Place des Terreaux, in the 1st arrondissement of Lyon, in September 1892.
On 20 April 1857, the Bordeaux city council decided to hold a competition to create a fountain for Place Quinconces. Frédéric Bartholdi, then aged 23, won the contest. However, the city hall of Bordeaux decided not to carry out his project. After Bartholdi had made the Statue of Liberty in New York in 1886, the mayor of Bordeaux contacted him, but his new project was canceled after much hesitation. It was finally achieved in 1888, but it was deemed as too expensive and therefore was sold to Lyon. The fountain was eventually put at the Place des Terreaux and is currently still there.
The fountain depicts France as a female seated on a chariot controlling the four great rivers of France, represented by wildly rearing and plunging horses, highly individualized but symmetrically arranged, with bridles and reins of water weeds. weighs 21 tons and is made of lead supported by a frame of iron and was presented as the Exposition Universelle of 1889. It has been classified as monument historique since 29 September 1995.
In 2013, the fountain will be removed temporarily for restoration.
Taken from and for more info: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fontaine_Bartholdi
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click to activate the icon of slideshow: the small triangle inscribed in the small rectangle, at the top right, in the photostream;
clicca sulla piccola icona per attivare lo slideshow: sulla facciata principale del photostream, in alto a destra c'è un piccolo rettangolo (rappresenta il monitor) con dentro un piccolo triangolo nero;
Qi Bo's photos on Flickr Hive Mind
www.worldphoto.org/sony-world-photography-awards/winners-...
www.fotografidigitali.it/gallery/2726/opere-italiane-segn...
-------------------------------------------------------------------
In Italy, in the first three decades of the nineteenth century, cholera began to penetrate into Europe, the states involved in commercial traffic (such as the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies) established tight maritime health checks, placing great importance on the days of quarantine for all those boats that came from the infected areas (in this case the measures taken were those already tested at the time of the black plague), but it was not always so ... in fact other States like Genoa, Livorno and Venice, to avoid repercussions on the trade ... they avoided to adopt these measures giving weight to the "anti-contagion theories" (they accused the unhealthy air, the dirt, the bad diet, rather than giving importance to the contact): only in 1882 the vibrio of the cholera will be individualized by Robert Koch, the science up to at that time it was divided between "those who gave credit to the contagion" and "those who gave credit to environmental conditions", and also the Church gave its indications, invoking "hygiene of the soul", supporting the need to avoid debauchery, including food and sexual excesses. The Kingdom of the Two Sicilies in 1837 was affected by popular revolts carried out against the Bourbons, accused of having commissioned the "infectors" to kill the people. We are in 1854, in the city of Messina a devastating cholera epidemic breaks out, in just two months cholera leads to the death of about 30,000 people, the town of Castroreale not far away, seems to be immune from this disaster, until two of its fellow citizens, husband and wife, return to Castroreale from Messina, the lady shows the cholera symptoms very seriously ... the country is terrified fearing the spread of the contagion to the whole community: which Saint to vote themself then? To Saint Rosalia who had freed Palermo from the plague? To Saint Sebastiano protector from epidemics? In Castroreale it was thought to immediately ask for help to the Holy Crucifix (in the odor of being miraculous) whose life-size Christ, papier-mâché made by anonymous, was thus fixed on top of a 12-meter long pole, thus obtaining two advantages when carried in procession, the sick kept in quarantine on the highest floors of the houses, could have enjoyed the direct vision of Christ through the windows, but at the same time the religious could stay at a safe distance (!). The story goes that the lady suddenly recovered, Castroreale had no case of cholera: since then, on August 25th, the day of the miracle, the Holy Crucifix is celebrated (also called the feast of the Christ Long, in the dialect, feast of Cristu Longu or Signuri Longu). The pole on which the Christ is hoisted, presents at regular distances pins driven into the wood, to avoid the sliding of the long "perches with hairpins", with which the "hairpin masters" support the very high Crucifix during the procession that proceeds along the streets of the town, and to allow its lowering and raising through the entrance of the two churches (the Mother Church and the church of Saint Agatha) in which it is carried.
Small note in closing: in the Mother Church is the Chapel of the Assumption where the statuary complex of the Virgin Mary Assumed (1848) is located, whose author is Matteo Mancuso from Messina, to whom a son died while working on the statue, so he personified his son in the little angel with his eyes closed at the feet of the Virgin Mary; at the foot of the statue there is the statuette of the seventeenth century of baby Virgin Mary, which is carried in procession on 8th September by children receiving first communion.
Ezio Famà
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In Italia, nelle prime tre decadi dell’ottocento, il colera iniziò a penetrare in Europa, gli Stati interessati dai traffici commerciali (come il Regno delle Due Sicilie) istituirono dei serrati controlli sanitari marittimi, ponendo grande importanza ai giorni di quarantena per tutte quelle imbarcazioni che provenivano dalle zone infette, ed in questo caso i provvedimenti presi erano quelli già sperimentati ai tempi della peste nera), ma non sempre fu così…infatti altri Stati come Genova, Livorno e Venezia, per evitare ripercussioni sui commerci…evitarono di adottare tali provvedimenti dando peso alle “teorie anticontagioniste” (esse accusavano l’aria malsana, la sporcizia, la cattiva alimentazione, piuttosto che dare importanza al contatto): solo nel 1882 il vibrione colerico verrà individuato da Robert Koch, la scienza fino ad allora era divisa tra “contagionisti” ed “epidemiologi”, ed anche la Chiesa ci metteva del suo, invocando “l’igiene dell’anima”, sostenendo la necessità di evitare gli stravizi, inclusi gli eccessi alimentari e sessuali. Il Regno delle Due Sicilie nel 1837 fu interessato da rivolte popolari attuate contro i Borboni, accusati di aver incaricato gli “untori” per uccidere il popolo. Siamo nel 1854, nella città di Messina scoppia una devastante epidemia di colera, in soli due mesi il colera porta a morte circa 30.000 persone, la cittadina di Castroreale non molto distante, sembra essere immune da tale iattura, fino a quando due suoi concittadini, marito e moglie ritornano al paese provenienti da Messina, la signora mostra in forma gravissima i sintomi colerici…il paese è terrorizzato temendo il propagarsi del contagio a tutta la comunità: a quale Santo votarsi dunque? A Santa Rosalia che aveva liberato Palermo dalla Peste? A San Sebastiano protettore dalle epidemie? A Castroreale si pensò di chiedere subito aiuto al Santissimo Crocifisso (in odore di essere miracoloso) il cui Cristo, in grandezza naturale, realizzato da anonimo in cartapesta, venne così fissato in cima ad un palo lungo 12 metri, ottenendo così due vantaggi quando portato in processione, i malati tenuti in quarantena nei piani più alti delle abitazioni, avrebbero potuto godere della visione diretta del Cristo attraverso le finestre, ma al contempo i religiosi potevano mantenersi a debita distanza (!). La storia racconta che la signora improvvisamente guarì, Castroreale non ebbe nessun caso di colera: da allora, il 25 di Agosto, il giorno del miracolo, si festeggia il Santissimo Crocifisso (detta anche festa del Cristo Lungo, in dialetto, del Cristu Longu o Signuri Longu). Il palo sul quale viene issato il Cristo, presenta a distanze regolari dei perni infissi nel legno, per evitare lo scivolamento delle lunghe “pertiche con forcine” , con le quali i “maestri di forcina” sostengono l’altissimo Crocifisso durante la processione che procede lungo le strade della cittadina, ma anche per consentirne l’abbassamento e l’innalzamento attraverso l’ingresso delle due chiese nelle quali viene portato.
Piccola nota in chiusura: nella Chiesa Madre si trova la Cappella dell’Assunzione ove è sito il complesso statuario della Madonna Assunta (1848), il cui autore è il messinese Matteo Mancuso, al quale, durante la lavorazione della statua, morì un figlio che egli impersonò nell’angioletto con gli occhi chiusi ai piedi della Madonna; in basso sotto la statua si trova la statuetta del seicento di Maria Bambina, che viene portata in processione l’otto settembre dai bambini che ricevono la prima comunione.
Ezio Famà
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click to activate the icon of slideshow: the small triangle inscribed in the small rectangle, at the top right, in the photostream;
clicca sulla piccola icona per attivare lo slideshow: sulla facciata principale del photostream, in alto a destra c'è un piccolo rettangolo (rappresenta il monitor) con dentro un piccolo triangolo nero;
Qi Bo's photos on Flickr Hive Mind
www.worldphoto.org/sony-world-photography-awards/winners-...
www.fotografidigitali.it/gallery/2726/opere-italiane-segn...
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In Italy, in the first three decades of the nineteenth century, cholera began to penetrate into Europe, the states involved in commercial traffic (such as the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies) established tight maritime health checks, placing great importance on the days of quarantine for all those boats that came from the infected areas (in this case the measures taken were those already tested at the time of the black plague), but it was not always so ... in fact other States like Genoa, Livorno and Venice, to avoid repercussions on the trade ... they avoided to adopt these measures giving weight to the "anti-contagion theories" (they accused the unhealthy air, the dirt, the bad diet, rather than giving importance to the contact): only in 1882 the vibrio of the cholera will be individualized by Robert Koch, the science up to at that time it was divided between "those who gave credit to the contagion" and "those who gave credit to environmental conditions", and also the Church gave its indications, invoking "hygiene of the soul", supporting the need to avoid debauchery, including food and sexual excesses. The Kingdom of the Two Sicilies in 1837 was affected by popular revolts carried out against the Bourbons, accused of having commissioned the "infectors" to kill the people. We are in 1854, in the city of Messina a devastating cholera epidemic breaks out, in just two months cholera leads to the death of about 30,000 people, the town of Castroreale not far away, seems to be immune from this disaster, until two of its fellow citizens, husband and wife, return to Castroreale from Messina, the lady shows the cholera symptoms very seriously ... the country is terrified fearing the spread of the contagion to the whole community: which Saint to vote themself then? To Saint Rosalia who had freed Palermo from the plague? To Saint Sebastiano protector from epidemics? In Castroreale it was thought to immediately ask for help to the Holy Crucifix (in the odor of being miraculous) whose life-size Christ, papier-mâché made by anonymous, was thus fixed on top of a 12-meter long pole, thus obtaining two advantages when carried in procession, the sick kept in quarantine on the highest floors of the houses, could have enjoyed the direct vision of Christ through the windows, but at the same time the religious could stay at a safe distance (!). The story goes that the lady suddenly recovered, Castroreale had no case of cholera: since then, on August 25th, the day of the miracle, the Holy Crucifix is celebrated (also called the feast of the Christ Long, in the dialect, feast of Cristu Longu or Signuri Longu). The pole on which the Christ is hoisted, presents at regular distances pins driven into the wood, to avoid the sliding of the long "perches with hairpins", with which the "hairpin masters" support the very high Crucifix during the procession that proceeds along the streets of the town, and to allow its lowering and raising through the entrance of the two churches (the Mother Church and the church of Saint Agatha) in which it is carried.
Small note in closing: in the Mother Church is the Chapel of the Assumption where the statuary complex of the Virgin Mary Assumed (1848) is located, whose author is Matteo Mancuso from Messina, to whom a son died while working on the statue, so he personified his son in the little angel with his eyes closed at the feet of the Virgin Mary; at the foot of the statue there is the statuette of the seventeenth century of baby Virgin Mary, which is carried in procession on 8th September by children receiving first communion.
Ezio Famà
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In Italia, nelle prime tre decadi dell’ottocento, il colera iniziò a penetrare in Europa, gli Stati interessati dai traffici commerciali (come il Regno delle Due Sicilie) istituirono dei serrati controlli sanitari marittimi, ponendo grande importanza ai giorni di quarantena per tutte quelle imbarcazioni che provenivano dalle zone infette (in questo caso i provvedimenti presi erano quelli già sperimentati ai tempi della peste nera), ma non sempre fu così…infatti altri Stati come Genova, Livorno e Venezia, per evitare ripercussioni sui commerci…evitarono di adottare tali provvedimenti dando peso alle “teorie anticontagioniste” (esse accusavano l’aria malsana, la sporcizia, la cattiva alimentazione, piuttosto che dare importanza al contatto): solo nel 1882 il vibrione colerico verrà individuato da Robert Koch, la scienza fino ad allora era divisa tra “contagionisti” ed “epidemiologi”, ed anche la Chiesa ci metteva del suo, invocando “l’igiene dell’anima”, sostenendo la necessità di evitare gli stravizi, inclusi gli eccessi alimentari e sessuali. Il Regno delle Due Sicilie nel 1837 fu interessato da rivolte popolari attuate contro i Borboni, accusati di aver incaricato gli “untori” di uccidere il popolo. Siamo nel 1854, nella città di Messina scoppia una devastante epidemia di colera, in soli due mesi il colera porta a morte circa 30.000 persone, la cittadina di Castroreale non molto distante, sembra essere immune da tale iattura, fino a quando due suoi concittadini, marito e moglie ritornano al paese provenienti da Messina, la signora mostra in forma gravissima i sintomi colerici…il paese è terrorizzato temendo il propagarsi del contagio a tutta la comunità: a quale Santo votarsi dunque? A Santa Rosalia che aveva liberato Palermo dalla Peste? A San Sebastiano protettore dalle epidemie? A Castroreale si pensò di chiedere subito aiuto al Santissimo Crocifisso (in odore di essere miracoloso) il cui Cristo, in grandezza naturale, realizzato da anonimo in cartapesta, venne così fissato in cima ad un palo lungo 12 metri, ottenendo così due vantaggi quando portato in processione, i malati tenuti in quarantena nei piani più alti delle abitazioni, avrebbero potuto godere della visione diretta del Cristo attraverso le finestre, ma al contempo i religiosi potevano mantenersi a debita distanza (!). La storia racconta che la signora improvvisamente guarì, Castroreale non ebbe nessun caso di colera: da allora, il 25 di Agosto, il giorno del miracolo, si festeggia il Santissimo Crocifisso (detta anche festa del Cristo Lungo, in dialetto, del Cristu Longu o Signuri Longu). Il palo sul quale viene issato il Cristo, presenta a distanze regolari dei perni infissi nel legno, per evitare lo scivolamento delle lunghe “pertiche con forcine” , con le quali i “maestri di forcina” sostengono l’altissimo Crocifisso durante la processione che procede lungo le strade della cittadina, ma anche per consentirne l’abbassamento e l’innalzamento attraverso l’ingresso delle due chiese nelle quali viene portato (la Chiesa Madre e la chiesa di Sant’Agata).
Piccola nota in chiusura: nella Chiesa Madre si trova la Cappella dell’Assunzione ove è sito il complesso statuario della Madonna Assunta (1848), il cui autore è il messinese Matteo Mancuso, al quale, durante la lavorazione della statua, morì un figlio che egli impersonò nell’angioletto con gli occhi chiusi ai piedi della Madonna; in basso sotto la statua si trova la statuetta del seicento di Maria Bambina, che viene portata in processione l’otto settembre dai bambini che ricevono la prima comunione.
Ezio Famà
Velázquez (Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez), Sevilla 1599 – Madrid 1660
Phillip IV. im Gebet - Philip IV in Prayer (ca. 1655)
Museo del Prado, Madrid
The pair of portraits combines several aspects of Spanish portraiture of the Baroque period. In principle, the figures of Philip IV and his second wife, Mariana of Austria, are a continuation of the donor-tradition that goes back to medieval religious painting. The client would be incorporated, kneeling or prostrate in a reverential position, into the religious scene that he or she had commissioned; the portrait of the client manifested his or her devotion, but also his or her privileged financial and social situation. In these portraits of the monarchs, however, the supernatural element has been omitted. The two figures are individualized, life-sized, and in a luxurious setting of drapery, just as in any other court-portrait. The object of their adoration does not figure in the pictorial space, but is, rather, presumably located somewhere between the two portraits, given the figures’ symmetrical pose. That is, the portraits were part of a constructed scene that simulated the king and queen’s constant prayer before an image.
This peculiar mixture of court-portrait and votive offering may be explained by the devotional customs of the House of Austria and, more especially, the place for which the portraits were painted: the Monastery of San Lorenzo el Real at El Escorial. The monastery is the principal religious edifice of the House of Austria in Spain, constructed, among other purposes, to house the family burial vaults. At each side of the basilica’s high altar were groups of sculptures portraying the Emperor Charles V, Philip II, and Philip II’s family and most direct line of descendants. The statues, done in bronze by the father-and-son Leonis (Pompeo and Leone), depict the figures in prayer and turned toward the great tabernacle under the altarpiece. Thus, they symbolize the Habsburgs’ perpetual worship and adoration of God and the Church. These groups are the clearest antecedent for the portraits of Philip IV and Mariana at prayer.
It was, in fact, Philip IV who completed the construction of the Royal Pantheon, inaugurated in 1654. His association with El Escorial was, thus, very close, and even extended to the paintings and other art used in the building’s main spaces. The king sent some of the most important paintings in the royal collection to the sacristy and chapter rooms, where Velázquez supervised their hanging. In this setting, it is entirely logical that an artist, or royal client, might conceive images that testified to the constancy of Philip IV’s religious constancy and fervor.
Source: Museo del Prado
I scanned in pictures taken by my grandparents when they visited my parents in Los Angeles. I find them fascinating....
Black and white and cute all over. While the African penguin may not be found in freezing temperatures, they are covered in an array of black, white, and gray dense, waterproof feathers that keep them dry and warm in the cold waters off the African coast. They also have a number of dot-like markings flecked across their white chests. These flecks help to individualize each penguin, as each penguin's feather pattern is as individual as a human's fingerprints. The animal has a distinct, sharply pointed beak and black feet. The African penguin is one of the smallest species. Males are generally slightly larger than their female counterparts.
Constructed in 1940 and remaining essentially unaltered, the Goetsch-Winckler House is significant as the second of Frank Lloyd Wright's Usonian house designs to have been built. The house is the quintessential example of Wright's early design philosophy for the construction of moderate income housing and the end product of his first opportunity to design a community based on his Broadacre City principles. The house exemplifies Wright's vision of promoting democracy through individualized designs within rural communities and his attempt to deal with the housing needs of the Depression era.
The Goetsch-Winkler House is a modest, one-story Usonian house. It embodies Frank Lloyd Wright's trademark design elements such as, organic relationship to the site, horizontal planes, cantilever roofs, and innovative construction techniques. The house's long axis extends from east-southeast to west-northwest. The building is situated to allow for maximum privacy, as well as a free flowing interplay of nature and building. The Goetsch-Winkler house is horizontally oriented with only a brick fireplace stack providing any sense of verticality. The house appears low to the ground, and the use of a flat roof and broad cantilevers and eaves further emphasizes the horizontality. There are two roof planes with the cantilevered carport roof being the most dominant. From the driveway the carport is the first visible part of the house with the mass of the structure located behind it. The horizontal roof planes seem to hover above the house, which is perched on the edge of an incline. Structural support is provided by brick walls, while wood sided walls serve as partitioning only. The interior and exterior walls are constructed of layers of plywood sandwiched together with tarpaper. The wood siding is a horizontal board and batten pattern. The interior is primarily a central open living core with a bedroom wing extending away from the living core to the northwest and the kitchen and fireplace alcove tucked into the southeast edge of the open core.
For more information on the Goetsch-Winckler House, and Michigan's other modernist buildings, visit www.michiganmodern.org.
Always up to tricks. Loves smoke and mirrors, but one that needs individualized attention whenever close to Corpeeque.
Block from the sanctuary in the Temple of Mentuhotep II at Deir el-Bahri.
King Nebhepetre Mentuhotep (Mentuhotep II) was revered by the Egyptians as the ruler who reunited Egypt after the era of disunity (the First Intermediate Period) that followed the end of the Old Kingdom. Descended from a family of Theban rulers the king built his tomb and mortuary temple at Deir el-Bahri in western Thebes. This relief was originally part of the decoration of the temple's main sanctuary that was added to the building at the end of the king's reign. The fine balance between figures and inscriptions on this block as well as the clear outline and regular proportions of the king's image with its individualized facial features exemplify the peak of a relief art that had developed over the decades while the vast temple complex was built and decorated. The figure of the goddess Hathor on the right of the block was chiselled away during the Amarna period, when King Akhenaten propagated the sole worship of the god Aten. Hathor was repaired in plaster in early Dynasty 19 and some of the paint on the whole block may also have been renewed at the time.
11th dynasty, from Deir el Bahri.
07.230.2
MMA
Guy Pène du Bois
Opera Box 1926
Oil on linen
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
The opera remains a favorite subject for Pène du Bois throughout his career. A scene of urban sophistication and "high culture," the opera gave Pène du Bois a chance to have his hand at a subject matter that so enticed the French Impressionist artists of the previous century. Further, like the Impressionists before him, when one looks at any of Pène du Bois' opera-centered paintings, the subject matter is less the opera or the performers than it is the pretenses put on by the opera attendees themselves. Painted during his second "expatriate" sojourn in France, this time as an older artist decamping to Garnes (about 30 miles from Paris) with his family during Prohibition, Opera Box is a fantastic representation of Pène du Bois' mature and most recognizable style - and of his talent for depicting female figures.
Men may sit beside women in an opera box or dine with them at a café, but, in the world of Pène du Bois, women are the figures that give his paintings their character. It is also Pène du Bois' women - like the figure here, dressed all in white and peering out from her loge seat - who help shape the Pène du Bois style for which he becomes known. While in his portrait work Pène du Bois showcases his strong eye for rendering individualized faces and figures with thought-filled minds, in his thematic works of the 1920s the "sophisticated" women (and men) in his paintings like Opera Box typically have inscrutable, impenetrable doll-like faces. Putting on airs and masking their true characters, they appear more unreal than real, less like animated, living beings than like mannequins or puppets whose artifice now permeates their beings. Indeed, in 1938, on the occasion of a 30-year retrospective of Pène du Bois' work, the New York Times refers directly to the by-then-recognizable "Parisian mask" put on by the artist's figures in the 1920s.
St. Peter and St. Paul's Church is a Roman Catholic church located in the Antakalnis neighbourhood of Vilnius, Lithuania.
Construction was begun in 1688 and the decorative works were completed in 1704.
It is the centerpiece of a former monastery complex of the Canons Regular of the Lateran.
Its interior has masterful compositions of some 2,000 stucco figures by Giovanni Pietro Perti and ornamentation by Giovanni Maria Galli and is unique in Europe.
The church is considered a masterpiece of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth Baroque.
The interior of the church changed relatively little since that time.
The major change was the loss of the main altar. The wooden altar was moved to the Catholic church in Daugai in 1766.[4]
The altar is now dominated by the Farewell of St. Peter and St. Paul, a large painting by Franciszek Smuglewicz, installed there in 1805.
The interior was restored by Giovanni Beretti and Nicolae Piano from Milan in 1801–04.[11]
At the same time, a new pulpit imitating the ship of Saint Peter was installed.
In 1864, as reprisal for the failed January Uprising, Mikhail Muravyov-Vilensky closed the monastery and converted its buildings into military barracks.[11]
There were plans to turn the church into an Eastern Orthodox church, but they never materialized.[11] In 1901–05, the interior was restored again. The church acquired the boat-shaped chandelier and the new pipe organ with two manuals and 23 organ stops.[12]
The dome was damaged during World War II bombings, but was rebuilt true to its original design.[12]
When in 1956 Vilnius Cathedral was converted into an art museum by Soviet authorities, the silver sarcophagus with sacred relics of Saint Casimir was moved to the St. Peter and St. Paul's Church.[13] The sarcophagus was returned to its place in 1989.
Despite religious persecutions in the Soviet Union, extensive interior restoration was carried out in 1976–87.[11]
About the Decorative Scheme
St. Peter and St. Paul's is one of the most studied churches in Lithuania.[19]
Its interior has over 2,000 different decor elements that creates a stunning atmosphere.[20]
The main author of the decor plan is not known. It could be the founder Pac, monks of the Lateran, or Italian artists.
No documents survive to explain the ideas behind the decorations, therefore various art historians attempted to find one central theme: Pac's life and Polish–Lithuanian relations, teachings of Saint Augustine, Baroque theater, etc.[19]
Art historian Birutė Rūta Vitkauskienė identified several main themes of the decor: structure of the Church as proclaimed at the Council of Trent with Saint Peter as the founding rock, early Christian martyrs representing Pac's interest in knighthood and ladyship, themes relevant to the Canons Regular of the Lateran, and themes inherited from previous churches (painting of Blessed Virgin Mary of Mercy and altar of Five Wounds of Christ).[21]
The decor combines a great variety of symbols, from local (patron of Vilnius Saint Christopher) to Italian saints (Fidelis of Como),[22] from specific saints to allegories of virtues.
There are many decorative elements – floral (acanthus, sunflowers, rues, fruits), various objects (military weapons, household tools, liturgical implements, shells, ribbons), figures (puttos, angels, soldiers), fantastical creatures (demons, dragons, centaurs), Pac's coat of arms, masks making various expressions – but they are individualized, rarely repeating.[23]
The architects and sculptors borrowed ideas from other churches in Poland (Saints Peter and Paul Church, Kraków, Sigismund's Chapel of Wawel Cathedral) and Italy (St. Peter's Basilica, Church of the Gesù).[22]
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_St._Peter_and_St._Paul,_V...
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From the Church's Brochure
The church was erected after the Russian invasion that devastated Vilnius in the mid-17th century.
Barely a dozen years passed, and the capital of Lithuania began to recover.
In 1668 Mykolas Kazimieras Pacas, Hetman of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and wojewode of Vilnius, embarked upon the Antakalnis.
The church is decorated by the stucco mouldings of two excellent Italian sculptors, Giovanni Pietro Petri and Giovanni Maria Galli.
The interior of the church consists of the main nave, six chapels on both sides, and the transept.
While the column itself is beautiful, it is the fountains on the sides which often get the most attention. The fountains are based around massive bronze sculptures. On the south side of the column stands “Le triomphe de la République” – “the triumph of the Republic”, and on the other side, “Le triomphe de la Concorde”- “the triumph of Agreements”.
The sea-horse drawn chariots symbolize peace and happiness while the men getting overthrown in front of the chariots symbolize lies and ignorance. The combination of the flowing water and sculptures full of life, gives an impression that the sea-horses are leaping out of the water towards you in a spectacular fashion. The two incredible fountains form a worthy addition to Bordeaux’s incredible cityscape.
The bronze statues were dismantled by German troops in search of metal during the Second World War. These statues were however found in 1944 in the French city of Angers. They were then brought back to Bordeaux and later reinstalled.
Taken from: www.worldsiteguides.com/europe/france/bordeaux/place-des-...
We arrived in Bordeaux late the night before and all was dark. Today we were away very early to have a quick looks around Bordeaux by coach with a short stop at the fountain. Then we made our way to Bilbao in Spain, with w stop at Biarritz for lunch. Day 13 of our Cosmos tour, October 12, 2012 France.
La Fontaine Bartholdi is a fountain sculpted by Frédéric-Auguste Bartholdi and realised in 1889 by Gaget & Gautier. It was erected at the Place des Terreaux, in the 1st arrondissement of Lyon, in September 1892.
On 20 April 1857, the Bordeaux city council decided to hold a competition to create a fountain for Place Quinconces. Frédéric Bartholdi, then aged 23, won the contest. However, the city hall of Bordeaux decided not to carry out his project. After Bartholdi had made the Statue of Liberty in New York in 1886, the mayor of Bordeaux contacted him, but his new project was canceled after much hesitation. It was finally achieved in 1888, but it was deemed as too expensive and therefore was sold to Lyon. The fountain was eventually put at the Place des Terreaux and is currently still there.
The fountain depicts France as a female seated on a chariot controlling the four great rivers of France, represented by wildly rearing and plunging horses, highly individualized but symmetrically arranged, with bridles and reins of water weeds. weighs 21 tons and is made of lead supported by a frame of iron and was presented as the Exposition Universelle of 1889. It has been classified as monument historique since 29 September 1995.
In 2013, the fountain will be removed temporarily for restoration.
Taken from and for more info: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fontaine_Bartholdi
Atrium of Holy Angels
by Harmer Architecture
The new GMCT mausoleum celebrates a centuries old tradition of arranging places for burial into a circle. The mausoleum is designed to be open and accessible from eight different points of the compass and these axes provide dramatic framed landscape views from within the new central courtyard and from around the outside perimeter of the building.
The mausoleum features an integrated colour palette using natural materials that give a comforting and welcoming atmosphere.
Memorial crypts are individualized using bands of contrasting coloured polished granite. Further choice of burial place is enhanced by crypts that either face the internal courtyard or look out to the surrounding cemetery landscape.
Architectural elements that integrate the building include the perforated stainless steel “curtains” that shelter the inner and outer galleries and also a solid timber lined ceiling and feature walls to the main entry area.
The mausoleum design is strongly related to the Harmer Architecture designed Holy Angels Mausoleum nearby, and most particularly the rear section of the Chapel of St. Gabriel which also features a circular layout and internal courtyard.
The new mausoleum is therefore a link to the ongoing transformation of Fawkner Memorial Park.
The new Atrium of Holy Angels Mausoleum at Fawkner Memorial Park was formally opened by the Catholic Archbishop of Melbourne, his Grace, The Most Reverend Denis Hart on Friday April the 7th.
Hamburg, Harbour, Elb-Philharmonic Concert Hall as part of the “Blue Port” event, located at the Hamburg harbour on the way in to the harbours historic warehouse complex & new build harbour city.
Planed from 2001 till 2006 & since 2007 under construction above a warehouse from 1963, the 110 mtr., 26 floors high new Elb-Philharmonic, includes a large concert hall with a capacity for 2150 guest, a small concert hall with a capacity for 550 guest & a third hall with 170 seats, also a 250 rooms hotel, luxury apartments & restaurants.
The Façade is covered with 1089 individual fabricated glass elements; each one features an individualized raster print & some with each divergently shaped, serving as a sunscreen & décor. A 82 mtr. long, crescent shaped moving staircase will connect the building entrance from the basement to the 37 mtr high plaza above the original warehouse, where the buildings foyer & a visitors platform with view over Hamburg’s harbour is located.
Initial cost estimated in 2005 185 million €, by completion estimated in 2014/15, cost will have increased to approximately far over 700 million € .
However, if one day the construction will be concluded & in full operation, it will be an additional fascinating landmark not only for Hamburg.
👉 One World one Dream,
...Danke, Xièxie 谢谢, Thanks, Gracias, Merci, Grazie, Obrigado, Arigatô, Dhanyavad, Chokrane to you & over
6 million visits in my photostream with countless motivating comments
This image is excerpted from a U.S. GAO report:
www.gao.gov/products/GAO-16-446
FEDERAL AUTISM ACTIVITIES: Agencies Are Encouraging Early Identification and Providing Services, and Recent Actions Could Improve Coordination
Note: Percentages do not add to 100 percent due to rounding.
It was a major accomplishment to discover the title of this work. I wasn't able to identify the artist, nor could I find a discussion of the piece.
======================
St. Peter and St. Paul's Church is a Roman Catholic church located in the Antakalnis neighbourhood of Vilnius, Lithuania.
Construction was begun in 1688 and the decorative works were completed in 1704.
It is the centerpiece of a former monastery complex of the Canons Regular of the Lateran.
Its interior has masterful compositions of some 2,000 stucco figures by Giovanni Pietro Perti and ornamentation by Giovanni Maria Galli and is unique in Europe.
The church is considered a masterpiece of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth Baroque.
The interior of the church changed relatively little since that time.
The major change was the loss of the main altar. The wooden altar was moved to the Catholic church in Daugai in 1766.[4]
The altar is now dominated by the Farewell of St. Peter and St. Paul, a large painting by Franciszek Smuglewicz, installed there in 1805.
The interior was restored by Giovanni Beretti and Nicolae Piano from Milan in 1801–04.[11]
At the same time, a new pulpit imitating the ship of Saint Peter was installed.
In 1864, as reprisal for the failed January Uprising, Mikhail Muravyov-Vilensky closed the monastery and converted its buildings into military barracks.[11]
There were plans to turn the church into an Eastern Orthodox church, but they never materialized.[11] In 1901–05, the interior was restored again. The church acquired the boat-shaped chandelier and the new pipe organ with two manuals and 23 organ stops.[12]
The dome was damaged during World War II bombings, but was rebuilt true to its original design.[12]
When in 1956 Vilnius Cathedral was converted into an art museum by Soviet authorities, the silver sarcophagus with sacred relics of Saint Casimir was moved to the St. Peter and St. Paul's Church.[13] The sarcophagus was returned to its place in 1989.
Despite religious persecutions in the Soviet Union, extensive interior restoration was carried out in 1976–87.[11]
About the Decorative Scheme
St. Peter and St. Paul's is one of the most studied churches in Lithuania.[19]
Its interior has over 2,000 different decor elements that creates a stunning atmosphere.[20]
The main author of the decor plan is not known. It could be the founder Pac, monks of the Lateran, or Italian artists.
No documents survive to explain the ideas behind the decorations, therefore various art historians attempted to find one central theme: Pac's life and Polish–Lithuanian relations, teachings of Saint Augustine, Baroque theater, etc.[19]
Art historian Birutė Rūta Vitkauskienė identified several main themes of the decor: structure of the Church as proclaimed at the Council of Trent with Saint Peter as the founding rock, early Christian martyrs representing Pac's interest in knighthood and ladyship, themes relevant to the Canons Regular of the Lateran, and themes inherited from previous churches (painting of Blessed Virgin Mary of Mercy and altar of Five Wounds of Christ).[21]
The decor combines a great variety of symbols, from local (patron of Vilnius Saint Christopher) to Italian saints (Fidelis of Como),[22] from specific saints to allegories of virtues.
There are many decorative elements – floral (acanthus, sunflowers, rues, fruits), various objects (military weapons, household tools, liturgical implements, shells, ribbons), figures (puttos, angels, soldiers), fantastical creatures (demons, dragons, centaurs), Pac's coat of arms, masks making various expressions – but they are individualized, rarely repeating.[23]
The architects and sculptors borrowed ideas from other churches in Poland (Saints Peter and Paul Church, Kraków, Sigismund's Chapel of Wawel Cathedral) and Italy (St. Peter's Basilica, Church of the Gesù).[22]
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_St._Peter_and_St._Paul,_V...
========================================================
From the Church's Brochure
The church was erected after the Russian invasion that devastated Vilnius in the mid-17th century.
Barely a dozen years passed, and the capital of Lithuania began to recover.
In 1668 Mykolas Kazimieras Pacas, Hetman of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and wojewode of Vilnius, embarked upon the Antakalnis.
The church is decorated by the stucco mouldings of two excellent Italian sculptors, Giovanni Pietro Petri and Giovanni Maria Galli.
The interior of the church consists of the main nave, six chapels on both sides, and the transept.
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clicca sulla piccola icona per attivare lo slideshow: sulla facciata principale del photostream, in alto a destra c'è un piccolo rettangolo (rappresenta il monitor) con dentro un piccolo triangolo nero;
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www.worldphoto.org/sony-world-photography-awards/winners-...
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In Italy, in the first three decades of the nineteenth century, cholera began to penetrate into Europe, the states involved in commercial traffic (such as the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies) established tight maritime health checks, placing great importance on the days of quarantine for all those boats that came from the infected areas (in this case the measures taken were those already tested at the time of the black plague), but it was not always so ... in fact other States like Genoa, Livorno and Venice, to avoid repercussions on the trade ... they avoided to adopt these measures giving weight to the "anti-contagion theories" (they accused the unhealthy air, the dirt, the bad diet, rather than giving importance to the contact): only in 1882 the vibrio of the cholera will be individualized by Robert Koch, the science up to at that time it was divided between "those who gave credit to the contagion" and "those who gave credit to environmental conditions", and also the Church gave its indications, invoking "hygiene of the soul", supporting the need to avoid debauchery, including food and sexual excesses. The Kingdom of the Two Sicilies in 1837 was affected by popular revolts carried out against the Bourbons, accused of having commissioned the "infectors" to kill the people. We are in 1854, in the city of Messina a devastating cholera epidemic breaks out, in just two months cholera leads to the death of about 30,000 people, the town of Castroreale not far away, seems to be immune from this disaster, until two of its fellow citizens, husband and wife, return to Castroreale from Messina, the lady shows the cholera symptoms very seriously ... the country is terrified fearing the spread of the contagion to the whole community: which Saint to vote themself then? To Saint Rosalia who had freed Palermo from the plague? To Saint Sebastiano protector from epidemics? In Castroreale it was thought to immediately ask for help to the Holy Crucifix (in the odor of being miraculous) whose life-size Christ, papier-mâché made by anonymous, was thus fixed on top of a 12-meter long pole, thus obtaining two advantages when carried in procession, the sick kept in quarantine on the highest floors of the houses, could have enjoyed the direct vision of Christ through the windows, but at the same time the religious could stay at a safe distance (!). The story goes that the lady suddenly recovered, Castroreale had no case of cholera: since then, on August 25th, the day of the miracle, the Holy Crucifix is celebrated (also called the feast of the Christ Long, in the dialect, feast of Cristu Longu or Signuri Longu). The pole on which the Christ is hoisted, presents at regular distances pins driven into the wood, to avoid the sliding of the long "perches with hairpins", with which the "hairpin masters" support the very high Crucifix during the procession that proceeds along the streets of the town, and to allow its lowering and raising through the entrance of the two churches (the Mother Church and the church of Saint Agatha) in which it is carried.
Small note in closing: in the Mother Church is the Chapel of the Assumption where the statuary complex of the Virgin Mary Assumed (1848) is located, whose author is Matteo Mancuso from Messina, to whom a son died while working on the statue, so he personified his son in the little angel with his eyes closed at the feet of the Virgin Mary; at the foot of the statue there is the statuette of the seventeenth century of baby Virgin Mary, which is carried in procession on 8th September by children receiving first communion.
Ezio Famà
---------------------------------------------------------------
In Italia, nelle prime tre decadi dell’ottocento, il colera iniziò a penetrare in Europa, gli Stati interessati dai traffici commerciali (come il Regno delle Due Sicilie) istituirono dei serrati controlli sanitari marittimi, ponendo grande importanza ai giorni di quarantena per tutte quelle imbarcazioni che provenivano dalle zone infette, ed in questo caso i provvedimenti presi erano quelli già sperimentati ai tempi della peste nera), ma non sempre fu così…infatti altri Stati come Genova, Livorno e Venezia, per evitare ripercussioni sui commerci…evitarono di adottare tali provvedimenti dando peso alle “teorie anticontagioniste” (esse accusavano l’aria malsana, la sporcizia, la cattiva alimentazione, piuttosto che dare importanza al contatto): solo nel 1882 il vibrione colerico verrà individuato da Robert Koch, la scienza fino ad allora era divisa tra “contagionisti” ed “epidemiologi”, ed anche la Chiesa ci metteva del suo, invocando “l’igiene dell’anima”, sostenendo la necessità di evitare gli stravizi, inclusi gli eccessi alimentari e sessuali. Il Regno delle Due Sicilie nel 1837 fu interessato da rivolte popolari attuate contro i Borboni, accusati di aver incaricato gli “untori” per uccidere il popolo. Siamo nel 1854, nella città di Messina scoppia una devastante epidemia di colera, in soli due mesi il colera porta a morte circa 30.000 persone, la cittadina di Castroreale non molto distante, sembra essere immune da tale iattura, fino a quando due suoi concittadini, marito e moglie ritornano al paese provenienti da Messina, la signora mostra in forma gravissima i sintomi colerici…il paese è terrorizzato temendo il propagarsi del contagio a tutta la comunità: a quale Santo votarsi dunque? A Santa Rosalia che aveva liberato Palermo dalla Peste? A San Sebastiano protettore dalle epidemie? A Castroreale si pensò di chiedere subito aiuto al Santissimo Crocifisso (in odore di essere miracoloso) il cui Cristo, in grandezza naturale, realizzato da anonimo in cartapesta, venne così fissato in cima ad un palo lungo 12 metri, ottenendo così due vantaggi quando portato in processione, i malati tenuti in quarantena nei piani più alti delle abitazioni, avrebbero potuto godere della visione diretta del Cristo attraverso le finestre, ma al contempo i religiosi potevano mantenersi a debita distanza (!). La storia racconta che la signora improvvisamente guarì, Castroreale non ebbe nessun caso di colera: da allora, il 25 di Agosto, il giorno del miracolo, si festeggia il Santissimo Crocifisso (detta anche festa del Cristo Lungo, in dialetto, del Cristu Longu o Signuri Longu). Il palo sul quale viene issato il Cristo, presenta a distanze regolari dei perni infissi nel legno, per evitare lo scivolamento delle lunghe “pertiche con forcine” , con le quali i “maestri di forcina” sostengono l’altissimo Crocifisso durante la processione che procede lungo le strade della cittadina, ma anche per consentirne l’abbassamento e l’innalzamento attraverso l’ingresso delle due chiese nelle quali viene portato.
Piccola nota in chiusura: nella Chiesa Madre si trova la Cappella dell’Assunzione ove è sito il complesso statuario della Madonna Assunta (1848), il cui autore è il messinese Matteo Mancuso, al quale, durante la lavorazione della statua, morì un figlio che egli impersonò nell’angioletto con gli occhi chiusi ai piedi della Madonna; in basso sotto la statua si trova la statuetta del seicento di Maria Bambina, che viene portata in processione l’otto settembre dai bambini che ricevono la prima comunione.
Ezio Famà
+++ DISCLAIMER +++
Nothing you see here is real, even though the conversion or the presented background story might be based historical facts. BEWARE!
Some background:
The Brazilian Air Force (Portuguese:) is the air branch of the Brazilian Armed Forces and one of the three national uniformed services. The FAB was formed when the Army and Navy air branch were in 1941 merged into a single military force initially called "National Air Forces". Both air branches transferred their equipment, installations and personnel to the new force. In World War II, the Brazilian Air force made important contributions to the Allied war efforts, especially as part of the Brazilian Expeditionary Force (FEB) on the Italian front, and operated a number of American types like P-38, P-40 and P-47 fighters as well as A-20 and A-31 bombers, which were partly kept in service after the war had ended.
The Lockheed P-38 Lightning was originally designed in response to a February 1937 specification from the United States Army Air Corps. Circular Proposal X-608 was a set of aircraft performance goals for a twin-engine, high-altitude "interceptor" having "the tactical mission of interception and attack of hostile aircraft at high altitude." The P-38 had distinctive twin booms and a central nacelle containing the cockpit and armament.
During its successful career, the P-38 was not only used for interception, but also for dive bombing, level bombing, ground attack, night fighting, photo reconnaissance, radar and visual pathfinding for bombers and evacuation missions, and extensively as a long-range escort fighter when equipped with drop tanks under its wings. The P-38 was unusually quiet for a fighter, since the exhaust was muffled by the turbo-superchargers. It was extremely forgiving and could be mishandled in many ways, but the rate of roll in the early versions was too low for it to excel as a serious dogfighter.
The P-38 was operated by the USAAF throughout the country’s engagement in WWII and in all major conflict zones. Beyond the USAAF, the type was also tested or operated by allies, e. g. France, Great Britain (only an export version was tested and rejected) and Brazil. The Brazilian Air Force received its first P-38Js relatively late in WWII. In December 1944, a total of 109 aircraft were delivered to FEB forces in Italy, where the machines were primarily used as fighter bombers (armed with bombs and unguided missiles) and sometimes as long range escort fighter for American bomber raids. After the war, most of these machines were abandoned and scrapped on site, but the P-38 had a very good service record and had been popular among the crews. In order to modernize its home defense, Brazil procured in 1946 another 55 P-38L from US stock and surplus production. These were distributed among three interceptor squadrons and the type’s long range proved to be very effective over the country’s vast ranges along the borders, and also over the Atlantic Ocean.
Most of the aircraft’s career remained peaceful, but towards the end of the FAB P-38’s career, while the Lightning was already about to be gradually phased out, the machines became in 1961-63 involved in hot military action during the so-called “Lobster War”, a dispute over spiny lobsters with France. The Brazilian government refused to allow French fishing vessels to catch spiny lobsters 100 miles off the Brazilian northeast coast, arguing that lobsters "crawl along the continental shelf", while the French maintained that "lobsters swim" and that therefore they might be caught by any fishing vessel from any country. During this conflict, the P-38s carried out long range patrols over the Southern Atlantic and flew escort missions for Brazilian long-range reconnaissance aircraft, which shadowed (and threatened) French civil and military vessels. More than once the FAB aircraft flew low-level phantom attacks and fired their guns into the open sea as threatening gestures. There were no casualties, though, and the dispute was resolved unilaterally by Brazil, which extended its territorial waters to a 200-mile zone, taking in the disputed lobsters' bed.
The last FAB P-38 was eventually retired in 1965 and the type was replaced by the F-80C and TF-33A, which themselves were later replaced by the MB-326, Mirage III and Northrop F-5 jets.
General characteristics.
Crew: One
Length: 37 ft 10 in (11.53 m)
Wingspan: 52 ft 0 in (15.85 m)
Height: 12 ft 10 in (3.91 m)
Wing area: 327.5 ft² (30.43 m²)
Airfoil: NACA 23016 / NACA 4412
Empty weight: 12,800 lb (5,800 kg)
Loaded weight: 17,500 lb (7,940 kg)
Max. take-off weight: 21,600 lb (9,798 kg)
Zero-lift drag coefficient: 0.0268
Drag area: 8.78 ft² (0.82 m²)
Aspect ratio: 8.26
Powerplant:
2× Allison V-1710-111/113 V-12 piston engine,
each delivering 1,600 hp (1,193 kW) WEP at 60 inHg, 3,000 rpm
Performance:
Maximum speed: 414 mph (666 km/h)
Cruise speed: 275 mph (443 km/h)
Stall speed: 105 mph (169 km/h)
Range: 1,300 mi (2,100 km) with internal fuel
1,770 mi (3,640 km) with drop tanks
Service ceiling: 44,000 ft (13,400 m)
Rate of climb: 4,750 ft/min (24.1 m/s)
Wing loading: 53.4 lb/ft² (260.9 kg/m²)
Power/mass: 0.16 hp/lb (0.27 kW/kg)
Lift-to-drag ratio: 13.5
Armament:
1× Hispano M2 20 mm cannon with 150 rounds
4× M2 Browning 0.50 in (12.7 mm) machine guns with 500 rpg
Inner underwing hardpoints for up to 2,000 lb (907 kg) bombs or drop tanks each;
Outer hardpoints for up to 2× 500 lb (227 kg) bombs or 10× 5 in (127 mm) HVARs (High Velocity
Aircraft Rockets)
The kit and its assembly:
This lightning is another hardware rendition of a fictional profile drawing, once more created by Czech fellow user PantherG at whatifmodelers.com, originally posted in late Feb. 2019. Brazil never operated the P-38, but I found, due to the type’s long range, the idea quite plausible. And the paint scheme depicted in the profile was interesting, too. So I dug out a Matchbox P-38 from the pile (primarily in order to reduce its volume; if I had bought a dedicated P-38 kit for this build, I’d probably have used the Hobby Boss model) and started work.
The Matchbox P-38 is certainly not the best kit of this iconic aircraft. Its biggest selling point is that it goes together relatively well and yields a solid, even though simple model. It has many weak points, though:
- It features a wild mix of raised and engraved details on the surface.
- The cockpit only consists of a simple floor panel and a pilot seat, which rather looks like an armchair from a Seventies living room.
- The landing gear is very simple, too, and the landing gear wells show no interior detail at all
- The turbocharger fairings are (relatively) nicely detailed, but their fit is abysmal and their complex shape makes blending them with the surroundings a tiresome (if not futile) affair.
Since all wing and fuselage elements come in separate sections, aligning everything is not easy - expect some serious PSR work! At least, the real life P-38 had handed propellers, and this detail is actually reflected by the Matchbox kit.
Since this build was rather about fiction and the livery than details, I only made minor improvements. I left the cockpit closed, with the OOB pilot inside, but replaced the wacky seat and added a board with a radio to cover the empty space behind it. Any available space in the central pod and in the tail booms’ front ends was filled with lead, in hope to get the model on its three wheels. It actually worked!
The propellers received new and longer axes as well as matching adapter tubes inside of the engines, so that they could be attached after the model was otherwise finished. The primitive landing gear was taken OOB, I just pimped the struts with hydraulic hoses, made from thin wire.
The flaps under the inner wing sections were lowered and I used the OOB drop tanks. The “tree” HVAR launchers were omitted and their attachment points under the wings hidden under styrene profiles. On the nose, I added machine gun barrels to the otherwise empty openings, and, as a final cosmetic move, I added wire antennae between the tail booms and the canopy.
Painting and markings:
The more creative part. I tried to stay true to PantherG’s inspiring profile, even though I made some minor changes which appeared more plausible to me and added some more color. The three-tone camouflage pattern (inspired by Guatemaltecan P-51s?) reflects typical Brazilian jungle landscape well and was made of USAAF WWII colors (Dark Olive Drab 41 (ANA 613), Medium Green 42 (ANA 612), Sand 49 (ANA 616) and Neutral Grey 43.
Painting was done with Tamiya XF-62, Humbrol 195 and 237 on the upper surfaces, and underneath I used FS 36314 from Modelmaster, since I find “true” Neutral Grey (FS 36173) to look very murky on/under a 1:72 model. Painting was done with brushes, as per usual.
The cockpit interior was painted in zinc chromate green, while the landing gear wells’ interior became chrome yellow. Landing gear struts, wheel discs and drop tanks became Humbrol 156, similar to the aircraft’s undersides.
Concerning the FAB markings I deviated from PantherG’s profile drawing: I gave the Lightning post-WWII FAB roundels which consist only of the stylized star and lack the blue USAAF disc background or the “bars”. AFAIK, these markings were only used during WWII, when American aircraft were quickly “Brazilianized” through simply overpainting the original US insignia’s white star from the factories. Furthermore, I individualized the aircraft with post WWII FAB squadron markings in the form of medium blue bands around the tail booms with the Southern Cross star constellation from the Brazilian flag.
Another FAB post WWII era detail is the use of a color code for the different groups within a squadron, which were carried on propeller spinners and thin fuselage bands. In this case, the aircraft belonged to the “Blue Group”, adding some more color to the camouflaged aircraft.
The Brazilian roundels come from an FCM Decals T-33/F-80 sheet. The same source also provided the small stars that appear on the light blue fuselage band (created with generic decal sheet). The Brazilian fin flashes were created with yellow paint and green decal sheet material. The tactical codes in USAF 45° font come from a Hasegawa Japanese F-4E decal sheet, and for a better contrast I placed them on a silver background (again generic decal sheet material), as if they had been spared when the aircraft received its camouflage.
Some light panel shading as well as weathering/dry-brushing on the leading edges and around the cockpit was done, and finally the model was sealed with matt acrylic varnish (Italeri).
An interesting result – the Brazilian P-38 does not look spectacular, but quite plausible. The three-tone camouflage creates an interesting look on the P-38, which normally only comes in olive drab/grey, NMF or all-black liveries. In the beauty pics over a rainforest landscape, it even proves to be quite effective at medium and low altitude! And while the Matchbox kit is certainly not the best P-38 model around, it “does the job” and is a pleasant, quick build.
+++ DISCLAIMER +++
Nothing you see here is real, even though the conversion or the presented background story might be based historical facts. BEWARE!
Some background:
The Brazilian Air Force (Portuguese:) is the air branch of the Brazilian Armed Forces and one of the three national uniformed services. The FAB was formed when the Army and Navy air branch were in 1941 merged into a single military force initially called "National Air Forces". Both air branches transferred their equipment, installations and personnel to the new force. In World War II, the Brazilian Air force made important contributions to the Allied war efforts, especially as part of the Brazilian Expeditionary Force (FEB) on the Italian front, and operated a number of American types like P-38, P-40 and P-47 fighters as well as A-20 and A-31 bombers, which were partly kept in service after the war had ended.
The Lockheed P-38 Lightning was originally designed in response to a February 1937 specification from the United States Army Air Corps. Circular Proposal X-608 was a set of aircraft performance goals for a twin-engine, high-altitude "interceptor" having "the tactical mission of interception and attack of hostile aircraft at high altitude." The P-38 had distinctive twin booms and a central nacelle containing the cockpit and armament.
During its successful career, the P-38 was not only used for interception, but also for dive bombing, level bombing, ground attack, night fighting, photo reconnaissance, radar and visual pathfinding for bombers and evacuation missions, and extensively as a long-range escort fighter when equipped with drop tanks under its wings. The P-38 was unusually quiet for a fighter, since the exhaust was muffled by the turbo-superchargers. It was extremely forgiving and could be mishandled in many ways, but the rate of roll in the early versions was too low for it to excel as a serious dogfighter.
The P-38 was operated by the USAAF throughout the country’s engagement in WWII and in all major conflict zones. Beyond the USAAF, the type was also tested or operated by allies, e. g. France, Great Britain (only an export version was tested and rejected) and Brazil. The Brazilian Air Force received its first P-38Js relatively late in WWII. In December 1944, a total of 109 aircraft were delivered to FEB forces in Italy, where the machines were primarily used as fighter bombers (armed with bombs and unguided missiles) and sometimes as long range escort fighter for American bomber raids. After the war, most of these machines were abandoned and scrapped on site, but the P-38 had a very good service record and had been popular among the crews. In order to modernize its home defense, Brazil procured in 1946 another 55 P-38L from US stock and surplus production. These were distributed among three interceptor squadrons and the type’s long range proved to be very effective over the country’s vast ranges along the borders, and also over the Atlantic Ocean.
Most of the aircraft’s career remained peaceful, but towards the end of the FAB P-38’s career, while the Lightning was already about to be gradually phased out, the machines became in 1961-63 involved in hot military action during the so-called “Lobster War”, a dispute over spiny lobsters with France. The Brazilian government refused to allow French fishing vessels to catch spiny lobsters 100 miles off the Brazilian northeast coast, arguing that lobsters "crawl along the continental shelf", while the French maintained that "lobsters swim" and that therefore they might be caught by any fishing vessel from any country. During this conflict, the P-38s carried out long range patrols over the Southern Atlantic and flew escort missions for Brazilian long-range reconnaissance aircraft, which shadowed (and threatened) French civil and military vessels. More than once the FAB aircraft flew low-level phantom attacks and fired their guns into the open sea as threatening gestures. There were no casualties, though, and the dispute was resolved unilaterally by Brazil, which extended its territorial waters to a 200-mile zone, taking in the disputed lobsters' bed.
The last FAB P-38 was eventually retired in 1965 and the type was replaced by the F-80C and TF-33A, which themselves were later replaced by the MB-326, Mirage III and Northrop F-5 jets.
General characteristics.
Crew: One
Length: 37 ft 10 in (11.53 m)
Wingspan: 52 ft 0 in (15.85 m)
Height: 12 ft 10 in (3.91 m)
Wing area: 327.5 ft² (30.43 m²)
Airfoil: NACA 23016 / NACA 4412
Empty weight: 12,800 lb (5,800 kg)
Loaded weight: 17,500 lb (7,940 kg)
Max. take-off weight: 21,600 lb (9,798 kg)
Zero-lift drag coefficient: 0.0268
Drag area: 8.78 ft² (0.82 m²)
Aspect ratio: 8.26
Powerplant:
2× Allison V-1710-111/113 V-12 piston engine,
each delivering 1,600 hp (1,193 kW) WEP at 60 inHg, 3,000 rpm
Performance:
Maximum speed: 414 mph (666 km/h)
Cruise speed: 275 mph (443 km/h)
Stall speed: 105 mph (169 km/h)
Range: 1,300 mi (2,100 km) with internal fuel
1,770 mi (3,640 km) with drop tanks
Service ceiling: 44,000 ft (13,400 m)
Rate of climb: 4,750 ft/min (24.1 m/s)
Wing loading: 53.4 lb/ft² (260.9 kg/m²)
Power/mass: 0.16 hp/lb (0.27 kW/kg)
Lift-to-drag ratio: 13.5
Armament:
1× Hispano M2 20 mm cannon with 150 rounds
4× M2 Browning 0.50 in (12.7 mm) machine guns with 500 rpg
Inner underwing hardpoints for up to 2,000 lb (907 kg) bombs or drop tanks each;
Outer hardpoints for up to 2× 500 lb (227 kg) bombs or 10× 5 in (127 mm) HVARs (High Velocity
Aircraft Rockets)
The kit and its assembly:
This lightning is another hardware rendition of a fictional profile drawing, once more created by Czech fellow user PantherG at whatifmodelers.com, originally posted in late Feb. 2019. Brazil never operated the P-38, but I found, due to the type’s long range, the idea quite plausible. And the paint scheme depicted in the profile was interesting, too. So I dug out a Matchbox P-38 from the pile (primarily in order to reduce its volume; if I had bought a dedicated P-38 kit for this build, I’d probably have used the Hobby Boss model) and started work.
The Matchbox P-38 is certainly not the best kit of this iconic aircraft. Its biggest selling point is that it goes together relatively well and yields a solid, even though simple model. It has many weak points, though:
- It features a wild mix of raised and engraved details on the surface.
- The cockpit only consists of a simple floor panel and a pilot seat, which rather looks like an armchair from a Seventies living room.
- The landing gear is very simple, too, and the landing gear wells show no interior detail at all
- The turbocharger fairings are (relatively) nicely detailed, but their fit is abysmal and their complex shape makes blending them with the surroundings a tiresome (if not futile) affair.
Since all wing and fuselage elements come in separate sections, aligning everything is not easy - expect some serious PSR work! At least, the real life P-38 had handed propellers, and this detail is actually reflected by the Matchbox kit.
Since this build was rather about fiction and the livery than details, I only made minor improvements. I left the cockpit closed, with the OOB pilot inside, but replaced the wacky seat and added a board with a radio to cover the empty space behind it. Any available space in the central pod and in the tail booms’ front ends was filled with lead, in hope to get the model on its three wheels. It actually worked!
The propellers received new and longer axes as well as matching adapter tubes inside of the engines, so that they could be attached after the model was otherwise finished. The primitive landing gear was taken OOB, I just pimped the struts with hydraulic hoses, made from thin wire.
The flaps under the inner wing sections were lowered and I used the OOB drop tanks. The “tree” HVAR launchers were omitted and their attachment points under the wings hidden under styrene profiles. On the nose, I added machine gun barrels to the otherwise empty openings, and, as a final cosmetic move, I added wire antennae between the tail booms and the canopy.
Painting and markings:
The more creative part. I tried to stay true to PantherG’s inspiring profile, even though I made some minor changes which appeared more plausible to me and added some more color. The three-tone camouflage pattern (inspired by Guatemaltecan P-51s?) reflects typical Brazilian jungle landscape well and was made of USAAF WWII colors (Dark Olive Drab 41 (ANA 613), Medium Green 42 (ANA 612), Sand 49 (ANA 616) and Neutral Grey 43.
Painting was done with Tamiya XF-62, Humbrol 195 and 237 on the upper surfaces, and underneath I used FS 36314 from Modelmaster, since I find “true” Neutral Grey (FS 36173) to look very murky on/under a 1:72 model. Painting was done with brushes, as per usual.
The cockpit interior was painted in zinc chromate green, while the landing gear wells’ interior became chrome yellow. Landing gear struts, wheel discs and drop tanks became Humbrol 156, similar to the aircraft’s undersides.
Concerning the FAB markings I deviated from PantherG’s profile drawing: I gave the Lightning post-WWII FAB roundels which consist only of the stylized star and lack the blue USAAF disc background or the “bars”. AFAIK, these markings were only used during WWII, when American aircraft were quickly “Brazilianized” through simply overpainting the original US insignia’s white star from the factories. Furthermore, I individualized the aircraft with post WWII FAB squadron markings in the form of medium blue bands around the tail booms with the Southern Cross star constellation from the Brazilian flag.
Another FAB post WWII era detail is the use of a color code for the different groups within a squadron, which were carried on propeller spinners and thin fuselage bands. In this case, the aircraft belonged to the “Blue Group”, adding some more color to the camouflaged aircraft.
The Brazilian roundels come from an FCM Decals T-33/F-80 sheet. The same source also provided the small stars that appear on the light blue fuselage band (created with generic decal sheet). The Brazilian fin flashes were created with yellow paint and green decal sheet material. The tactical codes in USAF 45° font come from a Hasegawa Japanese F-4E decal sheet, and for a better contrast I placed them on a silver background (again generic decal sheet material), as if they had been spared when the aircraft received its camouflage.
Some light panel shading as well as weathering/dry-brushing on the leading edges and around the cockpit was done, and finally the model was sealed with matt acrylic varnish (Italeri).
An interesting result – the Brazilian P-38 does not look spectacular, but quite plausible. The three-tone camouflage creates an interesting look on the P-38, which normally only comes in olive drab/grey, NMF or all-black liveries. In the beauty pics over a rainforest landscape, it even proves to be quite effective at medium and low altitude! And while the Matchbox kit is certainly not the best P-38 model around, it “does the job” and is a pleasant, quick build.
Location: Berlin - 774km from home.
This black Sprinter is my first spot of a Hungarian individual license plate. Apparently, these fully individualizable plates are not all that common, at least I don't get any in Germany, but there's also an option to wish for a plate within the standard format. I was lucky enough that someone would use a "Stegobus" to travel to Berlin. Stego is a company specialized in a luxurious transfer, based in Budapest.
Abraxas is a Gnostic god who existed long before Christ.
Jung-Hesse: A Record of Two Friendships
Abraxas
Although Life is an Affair of light and shadows, we never accept it as such.
We are always reaching towards the light and the high peaks.
From childhood, through early religious and academic training, we are given values which correspond only to an ideal world.
The shadowy side of real life is ignored, and Western Christianity provides us with nothing which can be used to interpret it.
Thus the young men of the West are unable to deal with the mixture of light and shadow of which life really consists; they have no way of linking the facts of existence to their preconceived notions of absolutes.
The links connecting life with universal symbols are therefore broken, and disintegration sets in.
In the Orient, and especially in India, the situation is very different.
There, an ancient civilization based on nature accepts a cosmos of multi-faceted gods; and thus the Easterner can realize the simultaneous existence of light and shadow and of good and evil.
Absolutes do not exist, and if God is thus disarmed, so is the devil. But the price of such an understanding a direct tribute to nature itself. Consequently the Hindu finds himself less individualized than the Westerner; he is little more than a part of nature, one element in the collective soul.
The question which the Western Christian now has to face in whether, without losing his individuality, he can accept the coexistence of light and shadow and of God and the devil.
To do so, he will have to discover the God who was Christian before the personalized Christ and who can continue in a viable form after him.
Such a deity would be the Christ of Atlantis, who once existed publicly, and who still continues to exist–even though submerged under the deep waters of our present civilization. Such a god would also be Abraxas, who is God and the devil at the same time.
The first time I heard of Abraxas by name was in Demian, but I had really known about him from my childhood days.
I had sensed his existence in the heart of the Cordillera of the Andes and in the unfathomable depths of the Pacific Ocean which beats against our coasts. This ignis fatuus, the flames of heaven and hell which exist in him, flickered even in the foam of these waves.
Abraxas is a Gnostic god who existed long before Christ.
He may be equated too with the Christ of Atlantis, and is known by other names by the aborigines of the Americas, amongst them the Indians who inhabited my country.
Hermann Hesse speaks of him in this way:
Contemplate the fire, contemplate the clouds, and when omens appear and voices begin to sound in your soul, abandon yourself to them without wondering beforehand whether it seems convenient or good to do so.
If you hesitate, you will spoil your own being, you will become little more than the bourgeois facade which encloses you, and you will become a fossil.
Our god is named Abraxas, and he is both god and the devil at the same time.
You will find in him both the world of light and of shadows.
Abraxas is not opposed to any of your thoughts or to any of your dreams, but he will abandon you if you become normal and unapproachable.
He will abandon you and look for another pot in which to cook his thoughts.
The modern Christian and the Western world as a whole has now reached a point of crisis, and the choices open seem less than attractive.
We neither want one of those apocalyptic catastrophes which have so disfigured our past history, nor do we want the de-humanizing path of the Orient which would result in an irremediable lowering of our standards.
Perhaps then the· only possibility that remains is Abraxas, that is to say, ·’ projection of our souls both outwards and inwards, both to the light and to the deep shadows of our biographical roots, in hopes of finding in the combination of the two the pure archetype.
This pure archetype would be the authentic image of the god which is within ourselves and which has been sunk for so long, like Atlantis, under the waters of our consciousness.
Thus Abraxas would also come to mean Total Man. ~Miguel Serrano, Jung and Hesse A Record of Two Friendships, Page 5-7Jungian psychology books
Carl Jung Depth Psychology
Carl Jung on Instagram
24e28 abraxas2bstone
carljungdepthpsychologysite.blog/2021/05/17/abraxas-2/
abraxas, sequence of Greek letters considered as a word and formerly inscribed on charms, amulets, and gems in the belief that it possessed magical qualities. In the 2nd century ad, some Gnostic and other dualistic sects, which viewed matter as evil and the spirit as good and held that salvation came through esoteric knowledge, or gnosis, personified Abraxas and initiated a cult sometimes related to worship of the sun god. Basilides of Egypt, an early 2nd-century Gnostic teacher, viewed Abraxas as the supreme deity and the source of divine emanations, the ruler of all the 365 heavens, or circles of creation—one for each day of the year. The number 365 corresponds to the numerical value of the seven Greek letters that form the word abraxas.
www.britannica.com/topic/abraxas-sequence-of-Greek-letters
Abraxas, the God described by ancient Gnostics as the ‘God above all Gods’, remains elusive and mysterious despite the ever-presence of its name in mystic traditions, occultism and even popular culture.
Abraxas captured the imagination and interest of many of the twentieth century's great thinkers, musicians and artists from Carl Jung to Hermann Hesse and even figures like Carlos Santana. His name became synonymous with the desire to pursue individuation. The Jungian method of integrating all conscious and unconscious aspects of the Self.
The name Abraxas is woven into our mythic cultural imagination and yet clear information about its nature is hard to come by. Described as a demon by some, and the highest of Gods by others, it is partly their enigmatic and esoteric nature that makes the mystery of their origin and symbolism so enticing.
Much of the uncertainty is due, at least in part, to the censorship and eradication of many Gnostic texts by early Christians who saw them as heretical. However, even for the most curious reader with a grasp of how Abraxas has been understood, it has to be said that there is something inherently ineffable and abstruse about them.
I will draw heavily on Carl Jung’s study of Gnosticism and Abraxas specifically, as his access to direct texts and his years of study have provided me with the clearest picture of this somewhat ineffable deity.
The Seven Sermons to the Dead
Here is an excerpt from Jung’s Seven Sermons to the Dead from the Red Book which perhaps gives the clearest picture of the nature of Abraxas.
Abraxas is the sun, and at the same time the eternally sucking gorge of the void, the belittling and dismembering devil.
The power of Abraxas is twofold; but ye see it not, because for your eyes the warring opposites of this power are extinguished.
What the god-sun speaketh is life.
What the devil speaketh is death.
But Abraxas speaketh that hallowed and accursed word which is life and death at the same time.
Abraxas begetteth truth and lying, good and evil…
medium.com/indian-thoughts/who-is-abraxas-2a94ce549262
This description sounds radically different from the modern Christian conception of an omnibenevolent God. Abraxas instead incorporates all. He/she is total unity between everything that we differentiate. They are both the highest good and the most frightful evil, masculine and feminine, truth and lie, light and dark. The word Abraxas (or Abrasax or Abracax) was engraved on certain antique stones, called Abraxas stones, which were used as amulets or charms by Gnostic sects. Amulets and seals bearing the figure of Abraxas were popular in the 2nd century, and were used also in the 13th century in some of the seals of the Knights Templar. By medieval times, Abraxas was relegated to the ranks of demons. The image most associated with Abraxas is that of a composite creature with the head of a rooster, the body of a man, and legs made of serpents or scorpions. He carries a whip and shield, called wisdom and power. Occasionally Abraxas is depicted driving a chariot drawn by four horses, probably representing the elements.
templars.fandom.com/wiki/Abraxas
Abraxas was a grotesque creature with a twin tail – similar to the twin tailed mermaids known as “melusines” in the Middle Ages. So why did this bizarre beast appear on Knight Templar seals?
In a charter in France dating from the year 1214, the Templar grand master used a seal with an image of the demon Abraxas. Normally, the Templars used seals with the Lamb of God or the characteristic Templar cross – so why use such a strange and un-Christian visual?
READ MORE: Find out about Oak Island and the Knights Templar
Abraxas – a gnostic creation known to the Templars
The hideous Abraxas appears on Templar seals and was presumably a cult picked up in the east as Templar knights went to fight in outremer. The origins of Abraxas seems to lie in gnostic beliefs in an overarching deity more powerful than all other gods.
Abraxas seems to have played a central role in the gnostic cult of Basilides in the second century AD. This Alexandrian mystic was teaching at a time of huge religious ferment when Christianity hadn’t completely defined itself in the way that we know it today.
So Basilides did believe in a kind of disembodied Jesus – gnostics didn’t like the idea of an incarnated God – and that the only way to know Jesus was through a process of intense meditation, for want of a better word, called ‘gnosis’.
How Abraxis fitted in to this is probably as some kind of master-god above other divine and semi-divine entities. The head of Abraxis sometimes resembles that of a Basilisk – the cockerel crested serpent head of that legendary beast. The trunk is normally that of a man and then legs of snakes and feet which seem to resemble scorpions.
To find out more about the mysteries of the Knights Templar, get yourself a copy of this book: The Knights Templar – History & Mystery – by Tony McMahon – published by Pen & Sword – available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, WHSmith, and Waterstones.
thetemplarknight.com/2010/11/10/templar-abraxas/
This is my opinion only, based on my own experiences mixed with some reading of Jung and mentions in the texts.
Abraxas is Life. Its job is to keep life going, and it doesn’t care whether that life is “good” or “evil”. It doesn’t care if we suffer through or enjoy our lives, so long as there are lives to Live.
Abraxas is neither “good” or “evil”. If you are not beneficial to Life overall he will discard you, if you contribute towards Life, he (using “he” for simplicity) will reward you.
The masses worship the different faces of Abraxas, but I see it as more like a cosmic, super-intelligent beast. I don’t think he is malicious, and we are all forced to negotiate with him on some level in order to survive in this world. He does not care if you worship him or not, he cares about wether or not you can contribute to the continuance of Life. Only you can really answer that for yourself, but for me the answer to “how do you contribute to life?” is I use my skills for articulation to share Truth as I understand it, otherwise I do various things like cultivating mushrooms (literally creating the circumstances for a life form to survive) or spending time working on local farms, making sure the animals are living in appropriate conditions, etc.
So what does it mean? It just means that Life itself is this thing that is bigger than any one individual, and the existence of Life is what allows all of us to exist, so if you appreciate existence, you should contribute towards the betterment, growth, and survival of Life.
It’s really unfortunate that “work” is something we all do just because we’re told you have to if you want to make money and survive, as opposed to doing something because you believe you can make the world a better place by doing it. ...
The simplest way to put it is: if the Monad is the transcendental concept of united opposites, complementary dualism, everything and nothingness, which are concepts the psyche relates to the unconscious, then Abraxas is basically the consciousness of the universe but a higher consciousness operating on a philosophy so foreign to most that it seems like madness.
Is it greater or lesser than the monad? If it’s so alien then it should be greater right? What I mean is if the monad is what is and isn’t and abraxas is something beyond understanding would the monad be superior because the alien philosophy is still within everything? Or is this alien philosophy superior to the monad as it’s outside everything and nothing?
www.reddit.com/r/Gnostic/comments/tidwmz/who_or_what_is_a...
Dans la pénombre entre le bien et le mal, un nom ancien résonne : Abraxas. Enfouie dans les pages cryptiques de textes gnostiques interdits, cette entité énigmatique hante les confins du savoir humain depuis des siècles. Abraxas est un paradoxe cosmique : représenté avec une tête de coq, un corps d’homme et des jambes de serpent, il incarne une force où la lumière et les ténèbres se rencontrent. Certains murmurent que cet être mystérieux détient la clé des 365 cieux, commandant les royaumes angéliques et démoniaques comme une seule puissance unifiée.
Rejoignez-nous pour un voyage cinématographique au-delà du voile de la compréhension ordinaire, dévoilant la tradition cryptique d’Abraxas et le savoir interdit qu’elle recèle. Dans cette exploration immersive, nous décortiquons les couches du symbolisme ancien et abordons les profondes questions qu’Abraxas soulève sur la nature de la réalité, l’équilibre du bien et du mal, et l’essence du divin. Que vous soyez un chercheur occasionnel ou un étudiant assidu de l'occulte, cette histoire remettra en question vos perceptions et stimulera votre imagination. N'hésitez pas à aimer, partager et vous abonner pour découvrir d'autres voyages vers la connaissance interdite.
#Abraxas #Gnosticisme #Ésotérique #Occulte #Mysticisme #Connaissance interdite #Sagesse ancienne #Mythologie #Mystères anciens #Spiritualité
+++ DISCLAIMER +++
Nothing you see here is real, even though the conversion or the presented background story might be based historical facts. BEWARE!
Some background:
The Brazilian Air Force (Portuguese:) is the air branch of the Brazilian Armed Forces and one of the three national uniformed services. The FAB was formed when the Army and Navy air branch were in 1941 merged into a single military force initially called "National Air Forces". Both air branches transferred their equipment, installations and personnel to the new force. In World War II, the Brazilian Air force made important contributions to the Allied war efforts, especially as part of the Brazilian Expeditionary Force (FEB) on the Italian front, and operated a number of American types like P-38, P-40 and P-47 fighters as well as A-20 and A-31 bombers, which were partly kept in service after the war had ended.
The Lockheed P-38 Lightning was originally designed in response to a February 1937 specification from the United States Army Air Corps. Circular Proposal X-608 was a set of aircraft performance goals for a twin-engine, high-altitude "interceptor" having "the tactical mission of interception and attack of hostile aircraft at high altitude." The P-38 had distinctive twin booms and a central nacelle containing the cockpit and armament.
During its successful career, the P-38 was not only used for interception, but also for dive bombing, level bombing, ground attack, night fighting, photo reconnaissance, radar and visual pathfinding for bombers and evacuation missions, and extensively as a long-range escort fighter when equipped with drop tanks under its wings. The P-38 was unusually quiet for a fighter, since the exhaust was muffled by the turbo-superchargers. It was extremely forgiving and could be mishandled in many ways, but the rate of roll in the early versions was too low for it to excel as a serious dogfighter.
The P-38 was operated by the USAAF throughout the country’s engagement in WWII and in all major conflict zones. Beyond the USAAF, the type was also tested or operated by allies, e. g. France, Great Britain (only an export version was tested and rejected) and Brazil. The Brazilian Air Force received its first P-38Js relatively late in WWII. In December 1944, a total of 109 aircraft were delivered to FEB forces in Italy, where the machines were primarily used as fighter bombers (armed with bombs and unguided missiles) and sometimes as long range escort fighter for American bomber raids. After the war, most of these machines were abandoned and scrapped on site, but the P-38 had a very good service record and had been popular among the crews. In order to modernize its home defense, Brazil procured in 1946 another 55 P-38L from US stock and surplus production. These were distributed among three interceptor squadrons and the type’s long range proved to be very effective over the country’s vast ranges along the borders, and also over the Atlantic Ocean.
Most of the aircraft’s career remained peaceful, but towards the end of the FAB P-38’s career, while the Lightning was already about to be gradually phased out, the machines became in 1961-63 involved in hot military action during the so-called “Lobster War”, a dispute over spiny lobsters with France. The Brazilian government refused to allow French fishing vessels to catch spiny lobsters 100 miles off the Brazilian northeast coast, arguing that lobsters "crawl along the continental shelf", while the French maintained that "lobsters swim" and that therefore they might be caught by any fishing vessel from any country. During this conflict, the P-38s carried out long range patrols over the Southern Atlantic and flew escort missions for Brazilian long-range reconnaissance aircraft, which shadowed (and threatened) French civil and military vessels. More than once the FAB aircraft flew low-level phantom attacks and fired their guns into the open sea as threatening gestures. There were no casualties, though, and the dispute was resolved unilaterally by Brazil, which extended its territorial waters to a 200-mile zone, taking in the disputed lobsters' bed.
The last FAB P-38 was eventually retired in 1965 and the type was replaced by the F-80C and TF-33A, which themselves were later replaced by the MB-326, Mirage III and Northrop F-5 jets.
General characteristics.
Crew: One
Length: 37 ft 10 in (11.53 m)
Wingspan: 52 ft 0 in (15.85 m)
Height: 12 ft 10 in (3.91 m)
Wing area: 327.5 ft² (30.43 m²)
Airfoil: NACA 23016 / NACA 4412
Empty weight: 12,800 lb (5,800 kg)
Loaded weight: 17,500 lb (7,940 kg)
Max. take-off weight: 21,600 lb (9,798 kg)
Zero-lift drag coefficient: 0.0268
Drag area: 8.78 ft² (0.82 m²)
Aspect ratio: 8.26
Powerplant:
2× Allison V-1710-111/113 V-12 piston engine,
each delivering 1,600 hp (1,193 kW) WEP at 60 inHg, 3,000 rpm
Performance:
Maximum speed: 414 mph (666 km/h)
Cruise speed: 275 mph (443 km/h)
Stall speed: 105 mph (169 km/h)
Range: 1,300 mi (2,100 km) with internal fuel
1,770 mi (3,640 km) with drop tanks
Service ceiling: 44,000 ft (13,400 m)
Rate of climb: 4,750 ft/min (24.1 m/s)
Wing loading: 53.4 lb/ft² (260.9 kg/m²)
Power/mass: 0.16 hp/lb (0.27 kW/kg)
Lift-to-drag ratio: 13.5
Armament:
1× Hispano M2 20 mm cannon with 150 rounds
4× M2 Browning 0.50 in (12.7 mm) machine guns with 500 rpg
Inner underwing hardpoints for up to 2,000 lb (907 kg) bombs or drop tanks each;
Outer hardpoints for up to 2× 500 lb (227 kg) bombs or 10× 5 in (127 mm) HVARs (High Velocity
Aircraft Rockets)
The kit and its assembly:
This lightning is another hardware rendition of a fictional profile drawing, once more created by Czech fellow user PantherG at whatifmodelers.com, originally posted in late Feb. 2019. Brazil never operated the P-38, but I found, due to the type’s long range, the idea quite plausible. And the paint scheme depicted in the profile was interesting, too. So I dug out a Matchbox P-38 from the pile (primarily in order to reduce its volume; if I had bought a dedicated P-38 kit for this build, I’d probably have used the Hobby Boss model) and started work.
The Matchbox P-38 is certainly not the best kit of this iconic aircraft. Its biggest selling point is that it goes together relatively well and yields a solid, even though simple model. It has many weak points, though:
- It features a wild mix of raised and engraved details on the surface.
- The cockpit only consists of a simple floor panel and a pilot seat, which rather looks like an armchair from a Seventies living room.
- The landing gear is very simple, too, and the landing gear wells show no interior detail at all
- The turbocharger fairings are (relatively) nicely detailed, but their fit is abysmal and their complex shape makes blending them with the surroundings a tiresome (if not futile) affair.
Since all wing and fuselage elements come in separate sections, aligning everything is not easy - expect some serious PSR work! At least, the real life P-38 had handed propellers, and this detail is actually reflected by the Matchbox kit.
Since this build was rather about fiction and the livery than details, I only made minor improvements. I left the cockpit closed, with the OOB pilot inside, but replaced the wacky seat and added a board with a radio to cover the empty space behind it. Any available space in the central pod and in the tail booms’ front ends was filled with lead, in hope to get the model on its three wheels. It actually worked!
The propellers received new and longer axes as well as matching adapter tubes inside of the engines, so that they could be attached after the model was otherwise finished. The primitive landing gear was taken OOB, I just pimped the struts with hydraulic hoses, made from thin wire.
The flaps under the inner wing sections were lowered and I used the OOB drop tanks. The “tree” HVAR launchers were omitted and their attachment points under the wings hidden under styrene profiles. On the nose, I added machine gun barrels to the otherwise empty openings, and, as a final cosmetic move, I added wire antennae between the tail booms and the canopy.
Painting and markings:
The more creative part. I tried to stay true to PantherG’s inspiring profile, even though I made some minor changes which appeared more plausible to me and added some more color. The three-tone camouflage pattern (inspired by Guatemaltecan P-51s?) reflects typical Brazilian jungle landscape well and was made of USAAF WWII colors (Dark Olive Drab 41 (ANA 613), Medium Green 42 (ANA 612), Sand 49 (ANA 616) and Neutral Grey 43.
Painting was done with Tamiya XF-62, Humbrol 195 and 237 on the upper surfaces, and underneath I used FS 36314 from Modelmaster, since I find “true” Neutral Grey (FS 36173) to look very murky on/under a 1:72 model. Painting was done with brushes, as per usual.
The cockpit interior was painted in zinc chromate green, while the landing gear wells’ interior became chrome yellow. Landing gear struts, wheel discs and drop tanks became Humbrol 156, similar to the aircraft’s undersides.
Concerning the FAB markings I deviated from PantherG’s profile drawing: I gave the Lightning post-WWII FAB roundels which consist only of the stylized star and lack the blue USAAF disc background or the “bars”. AFAIK, these markings were only used during WWII, when American aircraft were quickly “Brazilianized” through simply overpainting the original US insignia’s white star from the factories. Furthermore, I individualized the aircraft with post WWII FAB squadron markings in the form of medium blue bands around the tail booms with the Southern Cross star constellation from the Brazilian flag.
Another FAB post WWII era detail is the use of a color code for the different groups within a squadron, which were carried on propeller spinners and thin fuselage bands. In this case, the aircraft belonged to the “Blue Group”, adding some more color to the camouflaged aircraft.
The Brazilian roundels come from an FCM Decals T-33/F-80 sheet. The same source also provided the small stars that appear on the light blue fuselage band (created with generic decal sheet). The Brazilian fin flashes were created with yellow paint and green decal sheet material. The tactical codes in USAF 45° font come from a Hasegawa Japanese F-4E decal sheet, and for a better contrast I placed them on a silver background (again generic decal sheet material), as if they had been spared when the aircraft received its camouflage.
Some light panel shading as well as weathering/dry-brushing on the leading edges and around the cockpit was done, and finally the model was sealed with matt acrylic varnish (Italeri).
An interesting result – the Brazilian P-38 does not look spectacular, but quite plausible. The three-tone camouflage creates an interesting look on the P-38, which normally only comes in olive drab/grey, NMF or all-black liveries. In the beauty pics over a rainforest landscape, it even proves to be quite effective at medium and low altitude! And while the Matchbox kit is certainly not the best P-38 model around, it “does the job” and is a pleasant, quick build.
Ca. 2600-2400 B.C.E., H. 10 cm.
This head, preserved down to the neck, belonged to a figure whose size was certainly above average (the complete figure was probably 60 cm high). The surface of the stone, delicately crafted, is smooth and in remarkable condition.
The face was polychromatic: the eyes (in shell, while the iris was probably inlaid with lapis lazuli) and the eyebrows (in lapis lazuli or bitumen) were made from other materials and inlaid, as proven by the visible traces of bitumen in the left eye (this material was regularly used as an adhesive and/or an insulator).
The head has a smooth, elongated shape and rests on a short, powerful neck; the bald skull is rounded and even; on the back of the head, between the ears, two modeled grooves probably indicate wrinkles of skin. The sculptor represented a smooth youthful face without any individualized features or wrinkles: it is a grown man, but of indefinite age. His expression, almost “smiling”, is a typical feature of Mesopotamian figures: in reality, it probably was not a smile, but rather a demonstration of inner spirit and joy. In spite of this idealization, one should mention the great formal diversity that characterizes Mesopotamian “worshipper” statues: each figure is unique and can be differentiated without becoming a real physical portrait.
The forms consist of large uniform surfaces, finely modeled, without any incisions or engravings: the bone structure and the muscles are rendered by large, smooth, finely nuanced planes; the skin is firm and without wrinkles. The deep-set eyes are almond-shaped, the eyebrows are thick and even, the mouth is horizontal and curvy, the corners of the lips are turned slightly upwards. From a stylistic point of view, the statues found at Mari are this alabaster piece’s best parallels.
This head certainly completed a male statue of a well-known Mesopotamian iconographic type: the “worshipper” (orant/e in French, Beter in German), one of the oldest archetypes of Near Eastern sculpture. These figures, men or women, are represented standing or, more rarely, seated; they are dressed in the kaunakes - traditional Mesopotamian garment of sheep’s skin or wool. The position of the arms and the hands is very characteristic: the arms are folded and positioned in front of the chest, the hands are clasped (often the right over the left) and the thumbs are crossed. Their eyes are often wide open and of a disproportionate size, which is probably an iconographic convention to express the close relationship between the faithful and the divine.
According to religious Mesopotamian texts, the faithful must fulfill duties to guarantee the favor of the gods and to prove their submission: offerings of various kinds and dedications of statues in sanctuaries are among the fundamental aspects of these practices. The representations of the faithful, which vary depending on the fortune and social position of the “dedicator” (terracotta figurines play the same role as stone statues) , they were meant to assure the presence of the faithful beside the divinity at the sacred sites and to continue his prayers in his absence.
Bibliography
BRAUN-HOLZINGER E.A., Frühdynastische Beterstatuetten, Berlin, 1977, p. 50, n. 41 (same as OIP 44, pl. 55) ; p. 51,
n. 280 (same as OIP 60, pl. 40, n. 280).
SPYCKET A., La statuaire du Proche-Orient ancien, Leiden-Cologne, 1981, pp. 101-102, fig. 36.
On sculpture from Mari, see :
FORTIN M., Syrie, Terre de civilisations, Montreal, 1999, pp. 280-281.
PARROT A. (ed), Au pays de Baal et d’Astarté, 10000 ans d’art en Syrie, Paris, 1983, pp. 75-83.
PARROT A., Mari, Neuchâtel-Paris, 1953.
+++ DISCLAIMER +++
Nothing you see here is real, even though the conversion or the presented background story might be based historical facts. BEWARE!
Some background:
The Brazilian Air Force (Portuguese:) is the air branch of the Brazilian Armed Forces and one of the three national uniformed services. The FAB was formed when the Army and Navy air branch were in 1941 merged into a single military force initially called "National Air Forces". Both air branches transferred their equipment, installations and personnel to the new force. In World War II, the Brazilian Air force made important contributions to the Allied war efforts, especially as part of the Brazilian Expeditionary Force (FEB) on the Italian front, and operated a number of American types like P-38, P-40 and P-47 fighters as well as A-20 and A-31 bombers, which were partly kept in service after the war had ended.
The Lockheed P-38 Lightning was originally designed in response to a February 1937 specification from the United States Army Air Corps. Circular Proposal X-608 was a set of aircraft performance goals for a twin-engine, high-altitude "interceptor" having "the tactical mission of interception and attack of hostile aircraft at high altitude." The P-38 had distinctive twin booms and a central nacelle containing the cockpit and armament.
During its successful career, the P-38 was not only used for interception, but also for dive bombing, level bombing, ground attack, night fighting, photo reconnaissance, radar and visual pathfinding for bombers and evacuation missions, and extensively as a long-range escort fighter when equipped with drop tanks under its wings. The P-38 was unusually quiet for a fighter, since the exhaust was muffled by the turbo-superchargers. It was extremely forgiving and could be mishandled in many ways, but the rate of roll in the early versions was too low for it to excel as a serious dogfighter.
The P-38 was operated by the USAAF throughout the country’s engagement in WWII and in all major conflict zones. Beyond the USAAF, the type was also tested or operated by allies, e. g. France, Great Britain (only an export version was tested and rejected) and Brazil. The Brazilian Air Force received its first P-38Js relatively late in WWII. In December 1944, a total of 109 aircraft were delivered to FEB forces in Italy, where the machines were primarily used as fighter bombers (armed with bombs and unguided missiles) and sometimes as long range escort fighter for American bomber raids. After the war, most of these machines were abandoned and scrapped on site, but the P-38 had a very good service record and had been popular among the crews. In order to modernize its home defense, Brazil procured in 1946 another 55 P-38L from US stock and surplus production. These were distributed among three interceptor squadrons and the type’s long range proved to be very effective over the country’s vast ranges along the borders, and also over the Atlantic Ocean.
Most of the aircraft’s career remained peaceful, but towards the end of the FAB P-38’s career, while the Lightning was already about to be gradually phased out, the machines became in 1961-63 involved in hot military action during the so-called “Lobster War”, a dispute over spiny lobsters with France. The Brazilian government refused to allow French fishing vessels to catch spiny lobsters 100 miles off the Brazilian northeast coast, arguing that lobsters "crawl along the continental shelf", while the French maintained that "lobsters swim" and that therefore they might be caught by any fishing vessel from any country. During this conflict, the P-38s carried out long range patrols over the Southern Atlantic and flew escort missions for Brazilian long-range reconnaissance aircraft, which shadowed (and threatened) French civil and military vessels. More than once the FAB aircraft flew low-level phantom attacks and fired their guns into the open sea as threatening gestures. There were no casualties, though, and the dispute was resolved unilaterally by Brazil, which extended its territorial waters to a 200-mile zone, taking in the disputed lobsters' bed.
The last FAB P-38 was eventually retired in 1965 and the type was replaced by the F-80C and TF-33A, which themselves were later replaced by the MB-326, Mirage III and Northrop F-5 jets.
General characteristics.
Crew: One
Length: 37 ft 10 in (11.53 m)
Wingspan: 52 ft 0 in (15.85 m)
Height: 12 ft 10 in (3.91 m)
Wing area: 327.5 ft² (30.43 m²)
Airfoil: NACA 23016 / NACA 4412
Empty weight: 12,800 lb (5,800 kg)
Loaded weight: 17,500 lb (7,940 kg)
Max. take-off weight: 21,600 lb (9,798 kg)
Zero-lift drag coefficient: 0.0268
Drag area: 8.78 ft² (0.82 m²)
Aspect ratio: 8.26
Powerplant:
2× Allison V-1710-111/113 V-12 piston engine,
each delivering 1,600 hp (1,193 kW) WEP at 60 inHg, 3,000 rpm
Performance:
Maximum speed: 414 mph (666 km/h)
Cruise speed: 275 mph (443 km/h)
Stall speed: 105 mph (169 km/h)
Range: 1,300 mi (2,100 km) with internal fuel
1,770 mi (3,640 km) with drop tanks
Service ceiling: 44,000 ft (13,400 m)
Rate of climb: 4,750 ft/min (24.1 m/s)
Wing loading: 53.4 lb/ft² (260.9 kg/m²)
Power/mass: 0.16 hp/lb (0.27 kW/kg)
Lift-to-drag ratio: 13.5
Armament:
1× Hispano M2 20 mm cannon with 150 rounds
4× M2 Browning 0.50 in (12.7 mm) machine guns with 500 rpg
Inner underwing hardpoints for up to 2,000 lb (907 kg) bombs or drop tanks each;
Outer hardpoints for up to 2× 500 lb (227 kg) bombs or 10× 5 in (127 mm) HVARs (High Velocity
Aircraft Rockets)
The kit and its assembly:
This lightning is another hardware rendition of a fictional profile drawing, once more created by Czech fellow user PantherG at whatifmodelers.com, originally posted in late Feb. 2019. Brazil never operated the P-38, but I found, due to the type’s long range, the idea quite plausible. And the paint scheme depicted in the profile was interesting, too. So I dug out a Matchbox P-38 from the pile (primarily in order to reduce its volume; if I had bought a dedicated P-38 kit for this build, I’d probably have used the Hobby Boss model) and started work.
The Matchbox P-38 is certainly not the best kit of this iconic aircraft. Its biggest selling point is that it goes together relatively well and yields a solid, even though simple model. It has many weak points, though:
- It features a wild mix of raised and engraved details on the surface.
- The cockpit only consists of a simple floor panel and a pilot seat, which rather looks like an armchair from a Seventies living room.
- The landing gear is very simple, too, and the landing gear wells show no interior detail at all
- The turbocharger fairings are (relatively) nicely detailed, but their fit is abysmal and their complex shape makes blending them with the surroundings a tiresome (if not futile) affair.
Since all wing and fuselage elements come in separate sections, aligning everything is not easy - expect some serious PSR work! At least, the real life P-38 had handed propellers, and this detail is actually reflected by the Matchbox kit.
Since this build was rather about fiction and the livery than details, I only made minor improvements. I left the cockpit closed, with the OOB pilot inside, but replaced the wacky seat and added a board with a radio to cover the empty space behind it. Any available space in the central pod and in the tail booms’ front ends was filled with lead, in hope to get the model on its three wheels. It actually worked!
The propellers received new and longer axes as well as matching adapter tubes inside of the engines, so that they could be attached after the model was otherwise finished. The primitive landing gear was taken OOB, I just pimped the struts with hydraulic hoses, made from thin wire.
The flaps under the inner wing sections were lowered and I used the OOB drop tanks. The “tree” HVAR launchers were omitted and their attachment points under the wings hidden under styrene profiles. On the nose, I added machine gun barrels to the otherwise empty openings, and, as a final cosmetic move, I added wire antennae between the tail booms and the canopy.
Painting and markings:
The more creative part. I tried to stay true to PantherG’s inspiring profile, even though I made some minor changes which appeared more plausible to me and added some more color. The three-tone camouflage pattern (inspired by Guatemaltecan P-51s?) reflects typical Brazilian jungle landscape well and was made of USAAF WWII colors (Dark Olive Drab 41 (ANA 613), Medium Green 42 (ANA 612), Sand 49 (ANA 616) and Neutral Grey 43.
Painting was done with Tamiya XF-62, Humbrol 195 and 237 on the upper surfaces, and underneath I used FS 36314 from Modelmaster, since I find “true” Neutral Grey (FS 36173) to look very murky on/under a 1:72 model. Painting was done with brushes, as per usual.
The cockpit interior was painted in zinc chromate green, while the landing gear wells’ interior became chrome yellow. Landing gear struts, wheel discs and drop tanks became Humbrol 156, similar to the aircraft’s undersides.
Concerning the FAB markings I deviated from PantherG’s profile drawing: I gave the Lightning post-WWII FAB roundels which consist only of the stylized star and lack the blue USAAF disc background or the “bars”. AFAIK, these markings were only used during WWII, when American aircraft were quickly “Brazilianized” through simply overpainting the original US insignia’s white star from the factories. Furthermore, I individualized the aircraft with post WWII FAB squadron markings in the form of medium blue bands around the tail booms with the Southern Cross star constellation from the Brazilian flag.
Another FAB post WWII era detail is the use of a color code for the different groups within a squadron, which were carried on propeller spinners and thin fuselage bands. In this case, the aircraft belonged to the “Blue Group”, adding some more color to the camouflaged aircraft.
The Brazilian roundels come from an FCM Decals T-33/F-80 sheet. The same source also provided the small stars that appear on the light blue fuselage band (created with generic decal sheet). The Brazilian fin flashes were created with yellow paint and green decal sheet material. The tactical codes in USAF 45° font come from a Hasegawa Japanese F-4E decal sheet, and for a better contrast I placed them on a silver background (again generic decal sheet material), as if they had been spared when the aircraft received its camouflage.
Some light panel shading as well as weathering/dry-brushing on the leading edges and around the cockpit was done, and finally the model was sealed with matt acrylic varnish (Italeri).
An interesting result – the Brazilian P-38 does not look spectacular, but quite plausible. The three-tone camouflage creates an interesting look on the P-38, which normally only comes in olive drab/grey, NMF or all-black liveries. In the beauty pics over a rainforest landscape, it even proves to be quite effective at medium and low altitude! And while the Matchbox kit is certainly not the best P-38 model around, it “does the job” and is a pleasant, quick build.