We had a complete change this Christmas – we cancelled it! - we went walking in The Lakes, or Wasdale more precisely. We were staying at Irton Hall B & B, they had over 70 in for Christmas dinner but we ate jam bread on the slopes of Sca Fell Pike. Fantastic. We had a front wheel puncture on a run flat tyre on the new car with a 100 mile still to drive on the afternoon of Christmas eve on our way there. I drove straight to the nearest ATS – where I have an account – they shook their heads and directed me to Westhoughton Tyres, the lads there were fantastic and got us on our way in good time. BMW dealer advice was run on the flat tyre and then throw it away - £250! Where I would have got a tyre on the western side of the Lakes over Christmas I don’t know, ATS didn’t have one to sell me.

 

The weather was forecast good for Christmas day but after a fine start it was raining before we even left the car park in Wasdale. We headed up Lingmell and ran into snow on the summit. The path onto Sca Fell Pike was very icy, snow covered and visibility was low, the snow kept falling. We didn’t linger long, it was too cold to have dinner up there so we dropped down onto the Corridor Route, where we had our dinner. We went that way to stretch the walk out, having originally intended to cross to Great End. The tops were so icy, glazed, with not enough snow to get a grip on that we decide to leave it for another day. From Styhead we headed back to Wasdale and a dull but fine finish to the day. A drink in the bar at Irton Hall was on the radar.

 

Every morning we headed into Wasdale early, it got colder, icier and sunnier as the days went by. We went up Yewbarrow, it was an icy scramble up and I decided it was too dangerous to go down Stirrup Crag to Dore Head so went back the same way. It turned out to be the right decision as we lingered on the top, going to view points that we wouldn’t have and getting some decent photos. One morning we walked over the Screes tops, Illgill Head and Whin Rigg, dropping down the steep slope to The southern end of Wast Water. Having said that I would never walk the Screes path alongside Wast Water again the memory of how awful it is in the rain had faded. There is only really a quarter of a mile out of three miles that is really bad, every rock was like glass with the potential to break a leg every step. It seemed a long way and I was getting killer looks from Herself.

 

We made our way onto Sca Fell on a beautiful morning, clear blue sky. The snow line had got lower most nights but we never had the low level snow that caused problems in the rest of the country. I chose a, sometimes, pathless way to the summit, partly because I’d never been that way but also to stay in the sun, to keep the view and to avoid the ways that would be a touch dangerous, it was -4 and seared with ice for the last 600 feet. After 15 minutes on the summit wispy thin cloud came racing in, crossing the Lake District in minutes, the photos show it heading towards us and I was glad to have got the clear photos first. Looking out to sea a great mattress of cloud was heading straight for us. It was calm and sunny one minute and the next we were engulfed in thick cloud with 30 yards visibility at the most. I have never had a clear sky turn to cloud so fast – ever! We were going down to Slightside next which was OK, about a mile following the ridge down, the problem was getting back to Wasdale from there. We needed to get to Great Howe which meant a pathless trek a mile SW across Quagrigg Moss – a bog full of tarnlets, it would be a nightmare in low visibility. After getting some accurate compass bearings and heading down off Slightside we suddenly dropped out of the cloud and could see our target, brilliant, we legged it across the semi frozen bog and finally felt able to rest and grab a sandwich and cup of tea. We had to find our way down Raven Crags, which was interesting – and steep! We needed to get to the footbridge to get onto the Burnmoor Tarn path back to Wasdale. As we got closer to Burnmoor Tarn the light that I had been cursing gave us a gorgeous sunset. I had one eye on a gap in the cloud low down in the sky out at sea and I was hoping the sun would break through, it did. Burnmoor Tarn was like a mirror, reflecting the surrounding mountains, including Yewbarrow and parts of the Mosedale Horseshoe in the far distance. There was just the two of us, we had barely seen a soul all day, it was a fantastic end to a tough day. As we dropped into Wasdale I caught the deep pink and orange of the last of the sun, I was shooting into it but I had nothing to lose. There would have been quite a few tripods at the opposite end of the lake but I think I was in the better place – for a change.

 

On our final walking day we decided to head up Great Gable. It was clear of cloud for a change but ominously the surrounding tops, including the Sca Fells were cloud covered. Another beautiful but very cold morning, it was going to be very icy up there so we elected to go via Styhead and the tourist track. We would choose a way off once we were up there. Long before we got to the top, although we couldn’t see it, we knew the cloud was swirling in and out on the summit so it was going to be hit and miss for the photos. The cloud was down for the last 500 feet but once on the frozen top it kept clearing briefly – very briefly. There were more people up there than we had seen the entire trip previously. People were getting out after Christmas, many had parked at the top of Honister for the fairly easy walk in across Green Gable, some were not dressed for winter walking it has to be said. We left for an icy scramble down to Aaron Slack, up onto Green Gable them we galloped down Aaron Slack to Styhead and back to Wasdale.

 

We had a complete change this Christmas – we cancelled it! - we went walking in The Lakes, or Wasdale more precisely. We were staying at Irton Hall B & B, they had over 70 in for Christmas dinner but we ate jam bread on the slopes of Sca Fell Pike. Fantastic. We had a front wheel puncture on a run flat tyre on the new car with a 100 mile still to drive on the afternoon of Christmas eve on our way there. I drove straight to the nearest ATS – where I have an account – they shook their heads and directed me to Westhoughton Tyres, the lads there were fantastic and got us on our way in good time. BMW dealer advice was run on the flat tyre and then throw it away - £250! Where I would have got a tyre on the western side of the Lakes over Christmas I don’t know, ATS didn’t have one to sell me.

 

The weather was forecast good for Christmas day but after a fine start it was raining before we even left the car park in Wasdale. We headed up Lingmell and ran into snow on the summit. The path onto Sca Fell Pike was very icy, snow covered and visibility was low, the snow kept falling. We didn’t linger long, it was too cold to have dinner up there so we dropped down onto the Corridor Route, where we had our dinner. We went that way to stretch the walk out, having originally intended to cross to Great End. The tops were so icy, glazed, with not enough snow to get a grip on that we decide to leave it for another day. From Styhead we headed back to Wasdale and a dull but fine finish to the day. A drink in the bar at Irton Hall was on the radar.

 

Every morning we headed into Wasdale early, it got colder, icier and sunnier as the days went by. We went up Yewbarrow, it was an icy scramble up and I decided it was too dangerous to go down Stirrup Crag to Dore Head so went back the same way. It turned out to be the right decision as we lingered on the top, going to view points that we wouldn’t have and getting some decent photos. One morning we walked over the Screes tops, Illgill Head and Whin Rigg, dropping down the steep slope to The southern end of Wast Water. Having said that I would never walk the Screes path alongside Wast Water again the memory of how awful it is in the rain had faded. There is only really a quarter of a mile out of three miles that is really bad, every rock was like glass with the potential to break a leg every step. It seemed a long way and I was getting killer looks from Herself.

 

We made our way onto Sca Fell on a beautiful morning, clear blue sky. The snow line had got lower most nights but we never had the low level snow that caused problems in the rest of the country. I chose a, sometimes, pathless way to the summit, partly because I’d never been that way but also to stay in the sun, to keep the view and to avoid the ways that would be a touch dangerous, it was -4 and seared with ice for the last 600 feet. After 15 minutes on the summit wispy thin cloud came racing in, crossing the Lake District in minutes, the photos show it heading towards us and I was glad to have got the clear photos first. Looking out to sea a great mattress of cloud was heading straight for us. It was calm and sunny one minute and the next we were engulfed in thick cloud with 30 yards visibility at the most. I have never had a clear sky turn to cloud so fast – ever! We were going down to Slightside next which was OK, about a mile following the ridge down, the problem was getting back to Wasdale from there. We needed to get to Great Howe which meant a pathless trek a mile SW across Quagrigg Moss – a bog full of tarnlets, it would be a nightmare in low visibility. After getting some accurate compass bearings and heading down off Slightside we suddenly dropped out of the cloud and could see our target, brilliant, we legged it across the semi frozen bog and finally felt able to rest and grab a sandwich and cup of tea. We had to find our way down Raven Crags, which was interesting – and steep! We needed to get to the footbridge to get onto the Burnmoor Tarn path back to Wasdale. As we got closer to Burnmoor Tarn the light that I had been cursing gave us a gorgeous sunset. I had one eye on a gap in the cloud low down in the sky out at sea and I was hoping the sun would break through, it did. Burnmoor Tarn was like a mirror, reflecting the surrounding mountains, including Yewbarrow and parts of the Mosedale Horseshoe in the far distance. There was just the two of us, we had barely seen a soul all day, it was a fantastic end to a tough day. As we dropped into Wasdale I caught the deep pink and orange of the last of the sun, I was shooting into it but I had nothing to lose. There would have been quite a few tripods at the opposite end of the lake but I think I was in the better place – for a change.

 

On our final walking day we decided to head up Great Gable. It was clear of cloud for a change but ominously the surrounding tops, including the Sca Fells were cloud covered. Another beautiful but very cold morning, it was going to be very icy up there so we elected to go via Styhead and the tourist track. We would choose a way off once we were up there. Long before we got to the top, although we couldn’t see it, we knew the cloud was swirling in and out on the summit so it was going to be hit and miss for the photos. The cloud was down for the last 500 feet but once on the frozen top it kept clearing briefly – very briefly. There were more people up there than we had seen the entire trip previously. People were getting out after Christmas, many had parked at the top of Honister for the fairly easy walk in across Green Gable, some were not dressed for winter walking it has to be said. We left for an icy scramble down to Arron Slack, up onto Green Gable them we galloped down Arron Slack to Styhead and back to Wasdale.

 

Ahh, now THIS one, I know precisely what I was thinking about, Chris ('Captain America') Evans joking about James Spader playing a VERY scary rogue A.I robot in the Avengers movie Age Of Ultron.

 

I didn't plan it, but good old human face recognition wetware wired into our brains means that you can detect an ominous profile in this sketch.....

 

"There are NO strings on me...."

 

"we have nothing ours

but the time, enjoyed precisely by those who have no whereabouts"

 

Escadinhas de St. André - Lisboa, Portugal

 

Photograph taken prior to the magic of The Golden Hour around Sunrise (Sunrise was at precisely 07:46am), at an altitude of Seven metres, at 06:59am on Monday December 8th 2014 off Botany Road and Marine Drive, on the sandy shoreline of Botany Bay in Broadstairs, Kent, England.

  

A very chilly morning on the beach, around One degree, and a bracing wind that pounded flesh and bones, but well worth the one and a half hour journey there to enjoy a lovely sunrise. The seven bays in Broadstairs consist of: (From south to north) Dumpton Gap, Louisa Bay, Viking Bay, Stone Bay, Joss Bay, Kingsgate Bay and Botany Bay.

  

.

.

  

Nikon D800 32mm 1/1.3s f/2.8 iso125 RAW (14Bit) Manualfocus. Manual exposure. Matrix metering. Auto white balance.

  

Nikkor AF-S 24-70mm f/2.8G ED IF. Jessops 77mm UV filter. Nikon MB-D12 battery grip. Two Nikon EN-EL batteries. Nikon DK-17M Magnifying Eyepiece. Nikon DK-19 soft rubber eyecup. Manfrotto MT057C3 057 Carbon Fiber Tripod 3 Sections (Payload 18kgs). Manfrotto MH057M0-RC4 057 Magnesium Ball Head with RC4 Quick Release (Payload 15kgs). Manfrotto quick release plate 410PL-14.Jessops Tripod bag. Optech Tripod Strap.Digi-Chip 64GB Class 10 UHS-1 SDXC. Lowepro Transporter camera strap. Lowepro Vertex 200 AW camera bag. Nikon MC-DC2 remote shutter release. Nikon GP-1 GPS unit.

  

.

.

  

LATITUDE: N 51d 23m 17.00s

LONGITUDE: E 1d 26m 26.21s

ALTITUDE: 7.0m

  

RAW (TIFF) FILE SIZE: 103.00MB

PROCESSED (JPeg) SIZE: 11.19MB

  

.

.

 

Processing power:

HP Pavillion P6-2388EA Desktop with AMD A10-5700 APU processor. AMD Radeon HD 7570 graphics. 2TB with 8GB RAM. 64-bit Windows 8.1. Verbatim USB 2.0 1TB desktop hard drive. Nikon VIEWNX2 Version 2.10.3 64bit. Adobe photoshop Elements 8 Version 8.0 64bit

   

Australia has precisely one KB Toys! They have a sign up at Taren Point, declaring their location proudly. We pass it quite often when we're on our way to pick up cat food or office supplies, or to visit friends, actually, and we've always been curious about what it's like. So I checked their website and we made plans to visit yesterday with a Lego-loving friend of ours! He drove up from Wollongong for the day, and we were going to have lunch and do some serious toy hunting.

 

Unfortunately, as of earlier this month, they started closing on Tuesdays. Alas. The site had only said closed on Mondays.

 

So our pilgrimage will be postponed to another day! As a result, we went to our usual toy-related haunts in the Shire (Kmart, BIG W, Target and Toys"R"Us, The Reject Shop), along with lunch at Din Tai Fung.

 

Because we meandered around so much, I found these two dolls for nice discounts! The Frightfully Tall Ghouls and Gooliope had pretty steep retail prices. The Gooliope, I found at Target for $19.99. The Draculaura, I found at Toys R Us for $20.01. Given those prices, I think it was kind of meant to be, no?

 

It was really sad hunting for dolls yesterday, though. I found very few, and those that I did find were the same dolls I've been seeing for months. I have to wonder if Monster High is dead as a brand in Australia. Electrified was the last line I saw, and it hit the Reject Shop's shelves pretty fast. The only store in my area still carrying it is Big W.

 

Heck, KMart doesn't have any MH at all. Nor Ever After High or DC Super Hero Girls. It's kind of shocking, really. I guess I'll have to stick to buying online from now on.

St Margaret, Reydon, Suffolk

 

Reydon is a suburb of Southwold. In terms of population, they are about the same size. But which one of the two have you heard of? Precisely. Reydon is agri-industrial, and when you cross over the river from one parish to the other, the houses double in price. Not so long ago, a beach hut changed hands in Southwold for £100,000.

 

St Margaret sits away from the houses, on the road towards Wangford, anonymously pretty in an overgrown graveyard. It is an older church than Southwold's late-medieval parvenu, although it underwent a serious tarting-up in the 15th century. In the churchyard wall there is a surviving mounting block, so that the gentry could climb straight onto their horses from the churchyard without descending to the muddy road.

 

On the north side there is a very good late 1980s extension. The architect was Andrew Anderson. The graveyard is wide and spacious, but there are many more modern graves than 19th century ones, a mark of how the town has grown. You can't fail to miss the extraordinary bronze angel to the south of the chancel. To the west of the church are the older memorials. One of them is a cute little child's grave, to Percy Hunt, son of Henry and Harriet, who had died at the age of just ten months in August 1888. Grieve not with helpless sorrow, it reads, Jesus hath felt your pain. He did thy lamb but borrow, he'll bring him back again, the theology of which seems curious, to say the least. The tiny tombstone is covered in a century or more of moss. It was very moving. His parents' larger graves are beside it. His father had died in 1910 at the age of 60, his mother surviving into the 1930s, when she died at 86. There were no other Hunt graves nearby, and I wondered if little Percy had been their only child. Counting backwards, I worked out that she must have had her baby in her mid-forties - was this an unexpected late fruit after barren decades? And were their hopes dashed? It was all very sad.

 

You step into a clean, bright, neatly-kept interior, perhaps a bit smaller than might be expected from the outside. When I'd last visited in 2002, the church still bore all the hallmarks of enthusiastic Victorians re-ritualising it in the 1870s, the organ up in the chancel blocking a view of the east end. But that has now gone, and the church has a feeling of simplicity and space. There is an image niche in the eastern splay of each window, one with a lovely Blessed Virgin and Child statue in it. The best of the glass is a window by A L Moore of Christ meeting the woman at the well. You can tell at a glance that she's probably had six husbands, and she's not married to the one she's with at the minute. Less good is the east window, Ward & Hughes 'trampolining Jesus' Ascension scene rejigged by the King Workshop in the modern era.

Lúa Coderch’s intervention for the "Composiciones" programme brings a mysterious and improbable apparition to life in the home of the Club de Billar Barcelona. Beneath the Teatre Coliseum in Gran Vía there is a rainbow. Coderch guides sunlight and a spectrum of colours down into the underground gaming space with a series of precisely positioned mirrors and prisms, as if evoking the mechanics, geometry and artistry involved in billiards. Accompanying the rainbow is a turntable and a transparent vinyl record that can be used to play an audio recording of a female voice. This voice narrates and interprets what can be seen in front of us, and the process that led to its appearance. The title of her intervention, “The Rainbow Statement” (2016), refers to one of the verbal tricks used by fortune-tellers and clairvoyants in ‘cold reading’ an individual’s life or personality. Suggestively nebulous assertions maximize the chance of apparently specific and meaningful paranormal insights hitting the mark. “The Rainbow Statement” is either an experiment of the imagination or a phenomenon of optical science with which Coderch seems to have invented a form of psychic meteorology, or spectral physics. – Latitudes

 

Lúa Coderch (Iquitos, Perú, 1982) obtained an MA in Artistic Production and Research (2012) and a degree in Fine Arts at the Universidad de Barcelona (2010). Amongst her individual exhibitions are: ‘Night in a Remote Cabin Lit By a Kerosene Lamp’, Galería Àngels Barcelona (2015); ‘Or’, Fundació Suñol, Barcelona (2014–2015); ‘La parte que falta’, Galería Bacelos, Madrid (2014); ‘La muntanya màgica’, Espai 13, Fundació Joan Miró, Barcelona (2013–14). She has participated in the following group shows: ‘¿Por qué no lo llamas entropía?’, Edición 0 Encuentro de Cultura Contemporánea de Guadalajara, México (2015); ‘The World of Interiors’, The Green Parrot, Barcelona (2014), ‘El futuro no espera’, La Capella, BCN Producció (2014).

 

Coderch is represented by galería Bacelos (Madrid/Vigo) and àngels barcelona.

 

––

 

“The Rainbow Statement” (2016) was commissioned for the second edition of the Barcelona Gallery Weekend as part of the “Composiciones” commissions programme.

 

Curated by Latitudes for the second time (see 2015 edition), "Composiciones" project further explores Barcelona as a rich fabric of the historic and the contemporary, the unfamiliar and the conspicuous. Resisting an overall theme, and instead developing from the artists’ responses to the specificity of each context—people as well as places—the five art projects form a temporary thread that links evocative locations and public space, running parallel to the Weekend’s exhibitions in galleries and museums.

 

In its second edition, "Composiciones" presents interventions by Lúa Coderch (Club Billar Barcelona); Regina Giménez (Antigua Fábrica de Can Trinxet, L’Hospitalet de Llobregat); Lola Lasurt (Biblioteca Pública Arús); Robert Llimós (connecting all the participating galleries) and Wilfredo Prieto (Unitat Muntada de la Guàrdia Urbana de Barcelona). Their projects offer moments of intermission, intimacy and bewilderment throughout the weekend, highlighting some lesser-known aspects of the city’s cultural heritage and municipal life.

 

Conceived and curated by Latitudes | www.lttds.org

 

Photo: Roberto Ruiz / Courtesy: Barcelona Gallery Weekend.

 

Info: www.lttds.org/projects/composiciones2016/

 

Social media documentation: storify.com/lttds/composiciones-five-commissions-curated-...

 

Norway's 1,250-mile coast is a mix of dramatic fjords, colorful fishing villages, narrow straits, islands and inlets, and scenery that changes by the hour -- and it's precisely these views that attract traditional cruise passengers to a Nordnorge voyage. Young European backpackers, on the other hand, use the ship as a means of transportation between towns. Still others bring their cars onboard, as well as their kids for family vacations. In addition to passengers and cars, the ship carries all manner of goods -- from crates of fresh produce to home repair supplies.

 

I had to keep reminding myself that Nordnorge (the name is taken from Norway's most northerly region) is not a cruise ship in the usual sense. Classed as one of Hurtigruten's six Contemporary Ships, it's a combination of a UPS delivery service on water, a ferry and a cruise ship. (Note: Prior to September 2007, Hurtigruten was known as Norwegian Coastal Voyage to Americans; it's now marketed as Hurtigruten worldwide.) My first (and lasting) impression of the Nordnorge exceeded all expectations. She looks every bit a cruise ship, with polished wood stairways, brass everywhere, fascinating Norwegian artwork and plenty of panoramic windows. Forget about your typical workhorse ferryboat. The Nordnorge is one classy ship. And yet, there's that ever-present self-service aspect -- toting your own luggage up the gangway, picking up your daily program at the excursion desk, fetching your own after-dinner coffee in the lounge and even making up your own bed at night.

 

Once you wake up to the fact that you're part of remote Norway's everyday lifeline, you appreciate the frequent, brief stops. What other cruise line offers 33 port calls in six days? No matter where we were, there was always someone eagerly waiting for the ship to dock. I loved watching disembarking Norwegian passengers being greeted with hugs and the family dog. And yes, there are shore excursions, but not many. Due to the shortness of time in port, you disembark in one town, hop on a bus tour and meet the ship at the next port. Didn't I say this is a different kind of cruising?

 

Nordnorge spends summers cruising Norway's coast. In winter, the ship heads to Antarctica for reasonably priced expedition-style adventures complete with naturalists and lectures. During Antarctica trips, the number of passengers is limited to 350. Six inflatable landing craft are carried in the car storage area and used for wet landings and wildlife watching. The Nordnorge is rated Ice Class C, ice hardened but not an icebreaker.

 

Nordnorge Fellow Passengers

The passenger mix is one of cruising's most diverse, and it changes from port to port. Backpackers on for the day or night tend to be young Europeans. Families with small children make up part of the drive-on group. Full cruise passengers are primarily 50-plus and European. There were only a handful of Americans on my trip. Announcements are made in Norwegian, English, German and any other language spoken by large tour groups.

 

Nordnorge Dress Code

There is no dress code. Slacks and polo shirts are the norm at dinner. For daytime activities onboard or ashore, bring warm layers, rain gear and walking shoes.

 

Nordnorge Gratuity

The ship has a "non-tipping" policy. The Norwegian crew is well paid and does not rely on tips in lieu of wages. Tips are not expected, but if you feel like rewarding one of the crew for a special service, simply hand your tip to the individual.

We had a complete change this Christmas – we cancelled it! - we went walking in The Lakes, or Wasdale more precisely. We were staying at Irton Hall B & B, they had over 70 in for Christmas dinner but we ate jam bread on the slopes of Sca Fell Pike. Fantastic. We had a front wheel puncture on a run flat tyre on the new car with a 100 mile still to drive on the afternoon of Christmas eve on our way there. I drove straight to the nearest ATS – where I have an account – they shook their heads and directed me to Westhoughton Tyres, the lads there were fantastic and got us on our way in good time. BMW dealer advice was run on the flat tyre and then throw it away - £250! Where I would have got a tyre on the western side of the Lakes over Christmas I don’t know, ATS didn’t have one to sell me.

 

The weather was forecast good for Christmas day but after a fine start it was raining before we even left the car park in Wasdale. We headed up Lingmell and ran into snow on the summit. The path onto Sca Fell Pike was very icy, snow covered and visibility was low, the snow kept falling. We didn’t linger long, it was too cold to have dinner up there so we dropped down onto the Corridor Route, where we had our dinner. We went that way to stretch the walk out, having originally intended to cross to Great End. The tops were so icy, glazed, with not enough snow to get a grip on that we decide to leave it for another day. From Styhead we headed back to Wasdale and a dull but fine finish to the day. A drink in the bar at Irton Hall was on the radar.

 

Every morning we headed into Wasdale early, it got colder, icier and sunnier as the days went by. We went up Yewbarrow, it was an icy scramble up and I decided it was too dangerous to go down Stirrup Crag to Dore Head so went back the same way. It turned out to be the right decision as we lingered on the top, going to view points that we wouldn’t have and getting some decent photos. One morning we walked over the Screes tops, Illgill Head and Whin Rigg, dropping down the steep slope to The southern end of Wast Water. Having said that I would never walk the Screes path alongside Wast Water again the memory of how awful it is in the rain had faded. There is only really a quarter of a mile out of three miles that is really bad, every rock was like glass with the potential to break a leg every step. It seemed a long way and I was getting killer looks from Herself.

 

We made our way onto Sca Fell on a beautiful morning, clear blue sky. The snow line had got lower most nights but we never had the low level snow that caused problems in the rest of the country. I chose a, sometimes, pathless way to the summit, partly because I’d never been that way but also to stay in the sun, to keep the view and to avoid the ways that would be a touch dangerous, it was -4 and seared with ice for the last 600 feet. After 15 minutes on the summit wispy thin cloud came racing in, crossing the Lake District in minutes, the photos show it heading towards us and I was glad to have got the clear photos first. Looking out to sea a great mattress of cloud was heading straight for us. It was calm and sunny one minute and the next we were engulfed in thick cloud with 30 yards visibility at the most. I have never had a clear sky turn to cloud so fast – ever! We were going down to Slightside next which was OK, about a mile following the ridge down, the problem was getting back to Wasdale from there. We needed to get to Great Howe which meant a pathless trek a mile SW across Quagrigg Moss – a bog full of tarnlets, it would be a nightmare in low visibility. After getting some accurate compass bearings and heading down off Slightside we suddenly dropped out of the cloud and could see our target, brilliant, we legged it across the semi frozen bog and finally felt able to rest and grab a sandwich and cup of tea. We had to find our way down Raven Crags, which was interesting – and steep! We needed to get to the footbridge to get onto the Burnmoor Tarn path back to Wasdale. As we got closer to Burnmoor Tarn the light that I had been cursing gave us a gorgeous sunset. I had one eye on a gap in the cloud low down in the sky out at sea and I was hoping the sun would break through, it did. Burnmoor Tarn was like a mirror, reflecting the surrounding mountains, including Yewbarrow and parts of the Mosedale Horseshoe in the far distance. There was just the two of us, we had barely seen a soul all day, it was a fantastic end to a tough day. As we dropped into Wasdale I caught the deep pink and orange of the last of the sun, I was shooting into it but I had nothing to lose. There would have been quite a few tripods at the opposite end of the lake but I think I was in the better place – for a change.

 

On our final walking day we decided to head up Great Gable. It was clear of cloud for a change but ominously the surrounding tops, including the Sca Fells were cloud covered. Another beautiful but very cold morning, it was going to be very icy up there so we elected to go via Styhead and the tourist track. We would choose a way off once we were up there. Long before we got to the top, although we couldn’t see it, we knew the cloud was swirling in and out on the summit so it was going to be hit and miss for the photos. The cloud was down for the last 500 feet but once on the frozen top it kept clearing briefly – very briefly. There were more people up there than we had seen the entire trip previously. People were getting out after Christmas, many had parked at the top of Honister for the fairly easy walk in across Green Gable, some were not dressed for winter walking it has to be said. We left for an icy scramble down to Arron Slack, up onto Green Gable them we galloped down Arron Slack to Styhead and back to Wasdale.

 

We had a complete change this Christmas – we cancelled it! - we went walking in The Lakes, or Wasdale more precisely. We were staying at Irton Hall B & B, they had over 70 in for Christmas dinner but we ate jam bread on the slopes of Sca Fell Pike. Fantastic. We had a front wheel puncture on a run flat tyre on the new car with a 100 mile still to drive on the afternoon of Christmas eve on our way there. I drove straight to the nearest ATS – where I have an account – they shook their heads and directed me to Westhoughton Tyres, the lads there were fantastic and got us on our way in good time. BMW dealer advice was run on the flat tyre and then throw it away - £250! Where I would have got a tyre on the western side of the Lakes over Christmas I don’t know, ATS didn’t have one to sell me.

 

The weather was forecast good for Christmas day but after a fine start it was raining before we even left the car park in Wasdale. We headed up Lingmell and ran into snow on the summit. The path onto Sca Fell Pike was very icy, snow covered and visibility was low, the snow kept falling. We didn’t linger long, it was too cold to have dinner up there so we dropped down onto the Corridor Route, where we had our dinner. We went that way to stretch the walk out, having originally intended to cross to Great End. The tops were so icy, glazed, with not enough snow to get a grip on that we decide to leave it for another day. From Styhead we headed back to Wasdale and a dull but fine finish to the day. A drink in the bar at Irton Hall was on the radar.

 

Every morning we headed into Wasdale early, it got colder, icier and sunnier as the days went by. We went up Yewbarrow, it was an icy scramble up and I decided it was too dangerous to go down Stirrup Crag to Dore Head so went back the same way. It turned out to be the right decision as we lingered on the top, going to view points that we wouldn’t have and getting some decent photos. One morning we walked over the Screes tops, Illgill Head and Whin Rigg, dropping down the steep slope to The southern end of Wast Water. Having said that I would never walk the Screes path alongside Wast Water again the memory of how awful it is in the rain had faded. There is only really a quarter of a mile out of three miles that is really bad, every rock was like glass with the potential to break a leg every step. It seemed a long way and I was getting killer looks from Herself.

 

We made our way onto Sca Fell on a beautiful morning, clear blue sky. The snow line had got lower most nights but we never had the low level snow that caused problems in the rest of the country. I chose a, sometimes, pathless way to the summit, partly because I’d never been that way but also to stay in the sun, to keep the view and to avoid the ways that would be a touch dangerous, it was -4 and seared with ice for the last 600 feet. After 15 minutes on the summit wispy thin cloud came racing in, crossing the Lake District in minutes, the photos show it heading towards us and I was glad to have got the clear photos first. Looking out to sea a great mattress of cloud was heading straight for us. It was calm and sunny one minute and the next we were engulfed in thick cloud with 30 yards visibility at the most. I have never had a clear sky turn to cloud so fast – ever! We were going down to Slightside next which was OK, about a mile following the ridge down, the problem was getting back to Wasdale from there. We needed to get to Great Howe which meant a pathless trek a mile SW across Quagrigg Moss – a bog full of tarnlets, it would be a nightmare in low visibility. After getting some accurate compass bearings and heading down off Slightside we suddenly dropped out of the cloud and could see our target, brilliant, we legged it across the semi frozen bog and finally felt able to rest and grab a sandwich and cup of tea. We had to find our way down Raven Crags, which was interesting – and steep! We needed to get to the footbridge to get onto the Burnmoor Tarn path back to Wasdale. As we got closer to Burnmoor Tarn the light that I had been cursing gave us a gorgeous sunset. I had one eye on a gap in the cloud low down in the sky out at sea and I was hoping the sun would break through, it did. Burnmoor Tarn was like a mirror, reflecting the surrounding mountains, including Yewbarrow and parts of the Mosedale Horseshoe in the far distance. There was just the two of us, we had barely seen a soul all day, it was a fantastic end to a tough day. As we dropped into Wasdale I caught the deep pink and orange of the last of the sun, I was shooting into it but I had nothing to lose. There would have been quite a few tripods at the opposite end of the lake but I think I was in the better place – for a change.

 

On our final walking day we decided to head up Great Gable. It was clear of cloud for a change but ominously the surrounding tops, including the Sca Fells were cloud covered. Another beautiful but very cold morning, it was going to be very icy up there so we elected to go via Styhead and the tourist track. We would choose a way off once we were up there. Long before we got to the top, although we couldn’t see it, we knew the cloud was swirling in and out on the summit so it was going to be hit and miss for the photos. The cloud was down for the last 500 feet but once on the frozen top it kept clearing briefly – very briefly. There were more people up there than we had seen the entire trip previously. People were getting out after Christmas, many had parked at the top of Honister for the fairly easy walk in across Green Gable, some were not dressed for winter walking it has to be said. We left for an icy scramble down to Arron Slack, up onto Green Gable them we galloped down Arron Slack to Styhead and back to Wasdale.

 

I’ve always wondered why society is all crazy about censoring nudity in social media, television, and so on, when we’re surrounded by it in the art world? What’s the difference? Art is different not only due to the esthetic value of the pieces but the intention of the artists when capturing the nude body, and I understand that some nudes we see in mainstream media aren’t precisely art. But what about those that do fit the description? Why do platforms like Instagram censor an artistic photograph of a naked body and not a picture of a random sculpture on the streets? Is there really a difference? My first guess would be that most of these sculptures and statues are protected by the sole fact that they are considered classic art and thus cultural heritages, while a modern photograph is just an artistic expression. This makes me think about why are there so many nude artworks and why we love exhibiting them in public when we clearly can’t overcome those prudish behaviors that censor the body? But more importantly, how nudity in art was conceived and evolved from one historical period to the other and how has it helped set beauty standards that are still ingrained in our collective imagination? If you think about prehistoric art, the first works that come to our mind are the amazing cave paintings that portrayed everyday life at the time. Now, the human figures are portrayed more like shadows, so we can’t really talk about nudity here. However, there are some examples of sculptures, often called Venus figurines, that depict nude female bodies. They’re extremely interesting because, more than highlighting the shape of the female body, they are kind of deformed to emphasize those parts they worshiped as symbols of fertility like the hips, breasts, abdomen, and even the vulva. For people in the prehistoric period, more than praising the female body in terms of erotic pleasure, the idea of beauty was precisely a woman fit to reproduce and bear children. Interestingly, the figurines that have been found are mainly female, which has led historians to believe that they were actually used for ritualistic purposes, as amulets to conceive, or even as sexual accessories. However, almost no male figurines have been found. This clearly evolved as soon as civilizations settled and blossomed. Of course, when we think about nudity in art, the first images that come to our mind are the classic Greek and Roman marble sculptures, right? It was widely believed that the Greeks were more liberal when it came to nudity and that these sculptures were a faithful depiction of their everyday life. There are even texts suggesting that some people would go nude on the streets or with almost no clothes. Now, this hypothesis has been shattered for the past century, and actually historians found that nudity was seen as a way of glorifying the perfection of the human body.As you know, sports played an important role for the Ancient Greeks. They were part of the religious activities to praise and honor the gods. Therefore, athletes were seen as the perfect examples of humans who had been blessed by the gods with their abilities and strength. During competitions, athletes, all male, competed naked so that people and the gods could see those perfect bodies moving and contorting with the physical effort. Moreover, sculptures of athletes were placed near temples and in the stadiums where these competitions took place. These pieces captured athletes practicing the sport they excelled in, but also were used to represent the main gods, since they were the only human link close to them. They represented the best of humanity and were also were embodiments of glory, triumph, and moral excellence. All in all, athletes were some sort of mortal deities people looked up to. As for female nudity, they kept the idea that the female body represented the divine act of procreation. However, unlike our prehistoric ancestors, the Greeks did praise the eroticism of the female shape. Most of the statues of nude women were representations of the goddess Aphrodite, who not only represented love, eroticism, and sexual desire, but also a means to procreation. For that reason, sculptors now paid attention to the shape following mathematical proportions fit to represent the most beautiful female figure of the Olympus. Unlike male nude sculptures that depict men proudly showing their bodies, women were portrayed as if they had been just caught in an intimate moment. It wasn’t well seen for women to deliberately show their body, but at the same time, it gave the viewer a voyeuristic role. Both ideas of nudity, for male and female bodies, were followed by the Romans and other civilizations that came to belong to the empire, but more than showing the human body as diverse as it might be, the works stick to idealized representations of what was considered beautiful and appealing. All this naturally changed during the Middle Ages, a time reigned by Christianism and its more conservative ways of perceiving the world. If you take a look at the art created at the time, there are almost no nude artworks. Medieval art was more focused on religious subjects that reflected not only stories present on the Bible, but images that could encourage people to lead a morally accepted life, or that would work as morality tales to prevent them from sinning. As you can guess, the few nude artworks were from that category, and the protagonists were basically our first sinful ancestors, Adam and Eve. In these images, they’re often portrayed right at the moment when Eve is tempted by the snake or right when they’re about to be thrown away from paradise. Nudity in that age was used to show how an impious life can condemn you for eternity. This last point was specifically for full nudity, since there were plenty images portraying Madonnas breastfeeding baby Jesus. According to art historian Margaret Miles, the main reason why there were so many paintings with this motif that was used until the early Renaissance was more of a propagandistic resource. Rich families used to hire nurses to feed their babies and naturally, most of them were poor and sometimes “sinful” women. According to Miles, the Church believed that it was the obligation of every Christian mother to nurse their children, and so Virgin Mary became the example to follow. The Renaissance wasn’t just an era of innovations in more scientific terms, but it was also a cultural movement where art played an important role. It was a time of awakening and rediscovery, so the classic art from Ancient times that was banned and conceived as sinful during the Middle Ages was seen now as a rich source of inspiration artists extolled. The moral values that the Church established were still prioritized, so there weren’t many nude artworks depicting normal people. Instead, artists made use of the inexhaustible lore of stories and images from Ancient mythology and traditions. So, besides exploring those rich cultures from the past, artists were well aware of the sexual and erotic connotations of nudity. Through these mythological characters and scenes they sought to highlight the sensuality of both the male and female naked body, (although they focused more on the female figure). Unlike the few naked bodies portrayed during the Middle Ages, where artists emphasized Eve’s belly as symbol of motherhood and the long process of carrying a child, Renaissance’s artists, like their Ancient counterparts, were looking for an idealized image of the body: a beautiful and well-shaped body that could awake everyone’s passions. That enthrallment for ancient motifs continued, and perhaps it still fascinates us. However, it was the Baroque current the one that gave us for the first time a more realistic and less idealized perception of the naked body. Both male and female bodies were often represented, but here the idea was to show the most lavished side. While they attempted to show more realistic bodies, conveying the idea that even certain flaws can be beautiful and alluring, that doesn’t mean the art at the time didn’t care for beauty ideals. We can still see some of these patterns being reinforced in the images that were being made. Yes, Rubens’ graces don’t really have the body of Botticelli’s Venus or Ancient sculptures have, but at the same time, they were seen as models of beauty. It was more of a change on beauty standards than being more inclusive and diverse. By the late eighteenth and the nineteenth century, the themes and motifs of nudity in art changed. For the first time, artists dared to portray common women and their nakedness without having to convey any moral message or disguising them through mythical characters. Artists explored new techniques and subjects in a freer way. There were bolder and more controversial paintings, like Gustave Courbet’s L’origine du monde, or Manet’s Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe. They wanted to show that beauty can be seen in everyday life and even challenged the art academia and the public by painting what no one had painted before, or at least nothing that had been displayed publicly, like prostitutes and their daily life. There were more provocative faces looking directly at the spectator, instead of the blushing woman who had been surprised while being naked. The social perception of nudity changed forever. Finally, let’s talk a bit about modern and contemporary art. There were no boundaries for the modern artist to explore it, and thus it is reflected in the many styles, motifs, and currents of the time. Now, even though we have nude paintings like Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon where there’s a completely different approach to the body, we can’t really talk about a disappearance of beauty ideals. Although they evolved to fit different social standards throughout history, they still prevail in our conception of what’s beautiful and attractive and what’s not. This has been a long journey throughout the history of nudity in art, but let’s go back to our initial question. Why do we like seeing nudes in public? The obvious answer for me is that we still have some ingrained ideas of morality and censorship, so when art subverts them and allows us to explore our interest in a more open way, we feel a sort of rebellious pleasure. Still, that doesn’t mean this pleasure doesn’t allow us to understand and enjoy the artistic beauty of these works of art. On the contrary, the esthetic quality makes them even more alluring. Now, another possibility that would require a deeper sociological analysis is our constant need to establish certain beauty standards. We love looking at an idealized image. It doesn’t matter if they’re naked or not, and no matter how free, inclusive, and diverse art has become, we’ll always be enthralled by the ideal beauty of classic art.

culturacolectiva.com/en/art/nudity-in-art-museums-through...

  

It’s a talk my students know is coming from the whispered rumors that circulate the hallways.

 

Of course, I’m talking about nudity in art.

You might think middle school—a time rife with the three “G’s” of gossip, giggles, and goofiness—is a terrible time to try and discuss this mature topic. However, I wholeheartedly disagree.

 

Kids love to be treated like adults. It makes them feel important, capable, and trustworthy. If handled in the right way, this discussion can do just that.

 

In other words, the success or failure of this discussion lies with us, the educators. So, how can we make sure it goes smoothly?

1. Let your students know you trust them.

Preface the delicate discussion with the fact that this is a conversation for mature students only, students that can be serious and sophisticated. Make it dramatic, pause, and change the volume or tone of your voice… it adds gravitas. Immediately, they will sit at attention, eager to hear what you have to share, showing off their very sophisticated manners. It works every time.

 

2. Discuss the difference between “naked” and “nude.”

I have the talk with my students before they dive into their annual artist research project. Of course, during their exploration, they will, in most cases, come across some type of nudity in art. Whether it be the slightly-exposed breast in Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus or the enormity of Michelangelo’s marble David bearing down on them, it’s all nudity. The Venus and David are certainly not NAKED.

 

“Naked” implies a certain element of surprise, an accidental viewing and possibly even embarrassment. You are accidentally caught naked getting out of the shower when your mom tries to enter the bathroom and you weren’t expecting it. (Insert riotous laughter here). You are not posing waiting for her to sculpt you in the nude sans towel.

 

This example highlights the difference nicely. Nudity is intentional. It has a purpose and it is not usually vulgar. While there certainly are examples to disprove this claim, I intentionally do not provide the students with artists that focus on risqué or indecorous content in their work.

 

nude statue

3. Explain why artists study nudes and how different people feel about it.

Another thing that helps is to explain that nude models serve as subjects for artists learning to better paint and sculpt the human form. It’s also nice to discuss the idea of nudity in art from a historical and cultural perspective; what is covered and when changes based on culture, religion, and time period.

 

For example, in 1857, the Grand Duke of Tuscany quite generously gifted Queen Victoria with a cast of David by Michelangelo only to find she was shocked by the nudity. She immediately turned the statue over to a museum and ordered that a “proportionally accurate fig leaf” be created and hung over the offending area to protect the modesty of women visitors. Recently in Rome, statues displaying nudity were covered with large white panels when the President of Iran visited (see image below). Many Italian art lovers took to social media to express their outrage.

 

image courtesy of cnn.com

image courtesy of cnn.com

4. Have students censor their own art to see how it feels.

To hammer home your point, lead students through the quick exercise below.

 

Group students into partners.

Have each partner choose a piece of art they feel proud of. Then, have them switch pieces.

Using small scraps of black construction paper, have students censor parts of each other’s work.

Ask students how they feel. Is their piece whole, or has it been changed by their neighbor’s action? Many students will express feeling outraged.

It becomes clear that censoring even small parts of an artwork changes the piece without the artist’s consent. What the artist chooses to depict is what they want the viewer to see.

 

5. Let students know it’s OK not to feel comfortable with nudity.

Of course, I do not insist students be comfortable with the nudity. I make it very clear that is their prerogative. If a student wishes to avoid it in their presentations, they can. I simply insist they acknowledge the difference between naked and nude. It’s an important distinction.

 

Worried about parent reactions?

While I’ve never once fielded a phone call or had a parent concerned after this discussion, I can imagine some teachers might be apprehensive. Consider this: what middle school student has not watched any number of pop-stars writhe around with little to no clothing on during primetime television, to speak nothing of what children have access to on the web? We are not condoning bad or lewd behavior. We are sharing masterpieces of art that enlighten and enrich our world.

 

This is about art that fills museums, which have no “R” ratings. This is for everyone. Learning how to discern the difference between artistic nudity and crass nakedness is a critical step towards ensuring that aware children become cultured adults.

 

Do you (or would you) address this issue in your classroom? What hints do you have to ensure it goes well?

 

Do you agree or disagree with the idea that omission or censoring is an affront to an artist and their work?

theartofeducation.edu/2016/04/april-naked-vs-nude-discuss...

The allegations against Chuck Close raise new questions about how to work with nudity. Here's a guide for artists and models.

 

Sarah Cascone, January 30, 2018

 

Michael Grimaldi (standing, right) draws Iggy Pop in the Life Class by Jeremy Deller st the Brooklyn Museum, February 21, 2016. Photo courtesy of Elena Olivo and the Brooklyn Museum.

Michael Grimaldi (standing, right) draws Iggy Pop in the "Life Class" by Jeremy Deller at the Brooklyn Museum, 2016. Photo courtesy of Elena Olivo and the Brooklyn Museum.

Last month, several women came forward with complaints that artist Chuck Close sexually harassed them while they were modeling in his studio. The allegations, published in the Huffington Post and Hyperallergic, tended to follow a common pattern: A woman was invited to pose for the artist, asked to undress, and then endured lewd sexual remarks from Close. The women tended to leave feeling exploited and disrespected, they said.

 

From time immemorial, the nude body has played a vital function in art across cultures and eras. But in the 21st century, we have come to expect a certain level of professionalism to safeguard both models and artists in what can be a sensitive interaction.

 

Regardless of one’s opinions about Close, the controversy offers a teaching opportunity: What is and is not acceptable behavior when it comes to working with nude models?

 

artnet News spoke with two nude models and the director of the drawing department at the New York Academy of Art, which relies heavily on figure drawing in its curricula, and provides handbooks outlining protocols to its roster of around 68 models. From these interviews we compiled a list of guidelines for both the artist and model.

 

Michael Grimaldi teaching figure drawing. Courtesy of the New York Academy of Art.

Michael Grimaldi teaching figure drawing. Courtesy of the New York Academy of Art.

 

Do: Communicate up front whether or not the model will pose nude.

Some of the women who complained about Close said that they went to his studio with the belief that he would paint their face for a large-scale portrait. They were not expecting to be asked to take off their clothes, they said.

 

“Most of the time the artist and the subject discuss ideas about what the concept of the final product will look like, including the wardrobe or lack thereof,” said Natalie White, an artist and model, who has posed nude for George Condo, Peter Beard, Marc Quinn, Spencer Tunick, and Close himself.

 

“If the model isn’t well known for taking their clothes off it should definitely be discussed ahead of time. And if the artist feels that the subject should take their clothes off in the middle of the session, they should schedule the unclothed session for a later day to give the model a chance to think about it,” said White, but pointed out that there may be exceptions with models who frequently pose nude. Otherwise, a model may change her mind afterward, meaning “you’ve just wasted time and resources on something you may not be able to use, or left the model feeling bad about what they have just done.”

 

The British actors’ union has laid this issue out in its code of conduct, which states that “any nudity/semi nudity will be personally approved by the model before the shoot takes place.”

  

Photo courtesy of Natalie White.

 

Don’t: Touch the models.

That is the most important rule, said White. “Don’t move their arm to a different angle, don’t touch their face to change the angle in which it’s tilted,” she says. “If you want a nude model to alter their pose it should be described with words, or the photographer or artist can show them by [demonstrating with their own body].”

 

Michael Grimaldi, faculty chair and director of New York Academy of Art’s drawing program, agreed—but offered a few limited exceptions. “The only instances where [touching] may occur is during the marking of a long pose and, in my experience, during lectures focusing on anatomical structures. For instance, using calipers to measure a distance directly on the model or using resistance to activate a muscle action. Whatever the circumstance, any potential physical contact is brought up beforehand, always with consent, boundaries respected, and exclusively work-based and professional.”

 

George Condo, Toy Face with Ponytail (2014). Artist and model Natalie White posed nude for this painting. Courtesy of the artist/Skarstedt Gallery.

George Condo, Toy Face with Ponytail (2014), a painting for which Natalie White posed nude. Courtesy of the artist/Skarstedt Gallery.

 

Do: Put the model’s comfort before the artist’s interests.

Carla Rodriguez, a former intern at New York’s 20×24 Studio, an instant photography studio that worked regularly with Close on his large-format Polaroid portraits, was invited to pose for the artist in 2009. She told Hyperallergic that she was surprised when Close allegedly asked her to undress beneath a spotlight in the darkened studio, rather than in a dressing room. “Having been a figure model, I’m used to being able to undress privately. It’s mostly inappropriate to take your clothes off in the middle of the classroom,” she said.

 

Like the artist, a model is a working professional and should be treated as such. “This includes making sure that the model stand, drapery, and props are clean and in place; that the model’s changing room is secure and clean; that the temperature is comfortable and additional space heaters are in place in consideration that the model will be nude and in a relatively static pose, potentially for an extended period of time,” said Grimaldi.

 

“If a nude subject is uncomfortable in any way, whether it’s the temperature being too cold or they want assistants out of the room, they should say so immediately,” said White. “You need to be direct about how you feel. If you are uncomfortable it will come out in the images, and for that reason the artist should want you to be comfortable because they understand that too.”

 

Kurt McVey modeling for the Artful Bachelorette. Photo courtesy of Kristy May/the Artful Bachelorette.

Kurt McVey modeling for the Artful Bachelorette. Photo courtesy of Kristy May/the Artful Bachelorette.

 

Don’t: Ignore red flags.

“I can’t stress enough, if you are uncomfortable in any way it’s really important for you to say it out loud,” said White. “Good people don’t want you to feel uncomfortable in a work environment, so if they don’t react well to you telling them you feel uncomfortable then they aren’t a good person and you probably are not in a good work environment.”

 

“Red flags for a model might be requests from students, requests to be photographed, inappropriate language, poses that might threaten their physical or mental comfort,” Grimaldi said. “That does not necessarily mean a sexual pose—it could even mean a pose that the model says would be physically difficult to execute and hold the pose for the necessary time.”

 

Do: Decide what environment is most comfortable for you.

Some situations may be strictly silent, such as at the academy, where “students do not initiate conversation with the model,” Grimaldi said. But model Kurt McVey finds such buttoned-up atmospheres stifling.

 

That’s why he got involved with the Artful Bachelorette, which hosts nude figure drawing classes for brides-to-be and their friends. He was struck by the amount of laughter in the room, which he found to be “a counterbalance to the often pretentious New York art world,” McVey told artnet News.

 

“They encourage engagement with the model and the people in the class,” he said. “As the model, I’m providing a space for what I like to call consensual objectification!”

 

He finds the experience of modeling in this environment to be “continually cathartic and therapeutic for me as an individual—and incredibly liberating for the women.”

 

A party with nude figure drawing hosted by the Artful Bachelorette. Photo courtesy of the Artful Bachelorette.

A party with nude figure drawing hosted by the Artful Bachelorette. Photo courtesy of the Artful Bachelorette.

 

Don’t: Bring your cell phone.

Posing nude for a drawing or painting is a completely different beast than posing for a photograph—and permission for one does not imply permission for the other.

 

“Because cell phones have the capability of taking photographs (along with the instant ability to post images on social media), students are notified that cell phone use under any circumstance is strictly forbidden in the classroom,” said Grimaldi. “The models are also encouraged that should they see a cell phone, they have every right to terminate the pose.”

  

Follow Artnet News on Facebook:

news.artnet.com/art-world/guide-to-nude-modeling-1196627

Images of the naked human body provoke conflicting feelings: shame, admiration, curiosity, desire, disgust, anger. This is especially true when these images appear in public spaces, whether physical or virtual. Nudity on European beaches, for example, is falling in popularity because of shame linked to social media. Facebook has drawn ire for removing images of naked bodies by celebrated artists such as Peter Paul Rubens and Pablo Picasso. And here in Los Angeles, art museums are not allowed to display nude images on street banners and billboards because they may offend, but perhaps also because they divert drivers’ eyes from the road. This is why you will see only a discreet detail on the street banners for The Renaissance Nude, an exhibition opening at the Getty Center on October 30.

 

None of these conflicted responses to the human body, however, is especially new. Ever since the Renaissance of the 1400s and 1500s, the nude—the unclothed human form—has been one of the defining features of art in Europe. Yet artists’ and viewers’ attitudes toward the nude were as varied and complex centuries ago as they are today.

 

The exhibition The Renaissance Nude (October 30, 2018–January 27, 2019), for which I served as lead curator, explores precisely this theme. It traces the gradual emergence of the naturalistic nude to artistic prominence over the course of more than a century and explores the many ways nudes appeared in art, how and where they were displayed, and how people reacted to them. Along the way, the exhibition and accompanying book explode some long-held myths about the nude in the European art tradition, revealing parallels between Renaissance Europe and our own cultural moment.

 

Myth #1: Renaissance Europeans Were Comfortable with Nude Bodies in Art

The rise of the nude in art in the Renaissance was driven by a revival of interest in Greek and Roman art, which is centered on the body, and by a rise in the closer study of nature. In Italy during the later 1400s, drawing of undressed models became common practice for artists. Within a few decades, this new practice spread to northern Europe as well. In fact, the dominant role of observing and sketching from the nude in an artist’s training has lasted into our own era.

 

But the use of the nude in art, particularly religious art, was controversial during the Renaissance. Images of beautiful bodies can be highly sensual, which made some observers uncomfortable—then as much as now.

 

The classical revival resulted in new types of Christian imagery, such as in the depictions of Christ and Christian martyr-saints as partially or fully undressed heroes. In the exhibition you can see this transformation between two paintings of Christ as the Man of Sorrows, one by the Italian artist Michele Giambono (shown below), and another by his compatriot Marco Zoppo, which shows Christ as a much more muscular, heroic figure.

 

Myth #2: Renaissance Nudes Always Reflected the Highest Ideals of Humankind

Graceful, classically inspired representations of the unclothed human body became the ideal for artists from the Renaissance onward, first in Italy and France during the 1400s and soon thereafter in the rest of Europe.

 

As a result, intellectuals devised elaborate justifications for the representation of the sensual nude. A Greek humanist of the time living in Italy did so by admitting that it is sinful to admire a woman for her physical allure, but that depictions of the human body undressed can and should be appreciated as a reflection of the intelligence and abilities of the artist. In the Renaissance, achievement in representing the body became the standard for measuring artistic genius.

 

The humanist’s argument, intended for an elevated circle of cultivated, largely male patrons and collectors, may seem a bit disingenuous today. Scholars have argued that some men of that era commissioned major artists to paint images of erotic subjects such as the Loves of the Gods as metaphorical tributes to their own sexual prowess. Painted for Federico II Gonzaga, Duke of Mantua, Correggio’s Danaë, with its exquisitely rendered and ethereal representation of female beauty, is a good example This painting was enjoyed then for its erotic appeal, and is still by some viewers today. Others find it challenging to reconcile the painting’s exceptional artistry with its objectification of the female body.

Myth #4: Renaissance Artists Were Only Interested in Ideal Bodies

Expressions of the flawless body were an important manifestation of the nude in the Renaissance. But artists also depicted nude figures in a range of human conditions, both physical and spiritual. Images of the sick, the anxious, and the aged are an important part of the story of the Renaissance nude.

 

Christian figures and stories were the most widespread subject in Renaissance art, serving to decorate churches, private chapels, and homes. And these religious figures often look very different from the ideal body.

  

brewminate.com/deconstructing-myths-about-the-nude-in-ren...

We had a complete change this Christmas – we cancelled it! - we went walking in The Lakes, or Wasdale more precisely. We were staying at Irton Hall B & B, they had over 70 in for Christmas dinner but we ate jam bread on the slopes of Sca Fell Pike. Fantastic. We had a front wheel puncture on a run flat tyre on the new car with a 100 mile still to drive on the afternoon of Christmas eve on our way there. I drove straight to the nearest ATS – where I have an account – they shook their heads and directed me to Westhoughton Tyres, the lads there were fantastic and got us on our way in good time. BMW dealer advice was run on the flat tyre and then throw it away - £250! Where I would have got a tyre on the western side of the Lakes over Christmas I don’t know, ATS didn’t have one to sell me.

 

The weather was forecast good for Christmas day but after a fine start it was raining before we even left the car park in Wasdale. We headed up Lingmell and ran into snow on the summit. The path onto Sca Fell Pike was very icy, snow covered and visibility was low, the snow kept falling. We didn’t linger long, it was too cold to have dinner up there so we dropped down onto the Corridor Route, where we had our dinner. We went that way to stretch the walk out, having originally intended to cross to Great End. The tops were so icy, glazed, with not enough snow to get a grip on that we decide to leave it for another day. From Styhead we headed back to Wasdale and a dull but fine finish to the day. A drink in the bar at Irton Hall was on the radar.

 

Every morning we headed into Wasdale early, it got colder, icier and sunnier as the days went by. We went up Yewbarrow, it was an icy scramble up and I decided it was too dangerous to go down Stirrup Crag to Dore Head so went back the same way. It turned out to be the right decision as we lingered on the top, going to view points that we wouldn’t have and getting some decent photos. One morning we walked over the Screes tops, Illgill Head and Whin Rigg, dropping down the steep slope to The southern end of Wast Water. Having said that I would never walk the Screes path alongside Wast Water again the memory of how awful it is in the rain had faded. There is only really a quarter of a mile out of three miles that is really bad, every rock was like glass with the potential to break a leg every step. It seemed a long way and I was getting killer looks from Herself.

 

We made our way onto Sca Fell on a beautiful morning, clear blue sky. The snow line had got lower most nights but we never had the low level snow that caused problems in the rest of the country. I chose a, sometimes, pathless way to the summit, partly because I’d never been that way but also to stay in the sun, to keep the view and to avoid the ways that would be a touch dangerous, it was -4 and seared with ice for the last 600 feet. After 15 minutes on the summit wispy thin cloud came racing in, crossing the Lake District in minutes, the photos show it heading towards us and I was glad to have got the clear photos first. Looking out to sea a great mattress of cloud was heading straight for us. It was calm and sunny one minute and the next we were engulfed in thick cloud with 30 yards visibility at the most. I have never had a clear sky turn to cloud so fast – ever! We were going down to Slightside next which was OK, about a mile following the ridge down, the problem was getting back to Wasdale from there. We needed to get to Great Howe which meant a pathless trek a mile SW across Quagrigg Moss – a bog full of tarnlets, it would be a nightmare in low visibility. After getting some accurate compass bearings and heading down off Slightside we suddenly dropped out of the cloud and could see our target, brilliant, we legged it across the semi frozen bog and finally felt able to rest and grab a sandwich and cup of tea. We had to find our way down Raven Crags, which was interesting – and steep! We needed to get to the footbridge to get onto the Burnmoor Tarn path back to Wasdale. As we got closer to Burnmoor Tarn the light that I had been cursing gave us a gorgeous sunset. I had one eye on a gap in the cloud low down in the sky out at sea and I was hoping the sun would break through, it did. Burnmoor Tarn was like a mirror, reflecting the surrounding mountains, including Yewbarrow and parts of the Mosedale Horseshoe in the far distance. There was just the two of us, we had barely seen a soul all day, it was a fantastic end to a tough day. As we dropped into Wasdale I caught the deep pink and orange of the last of the sun, I was shooting into it but I had nothing to lose. There would have been quite a few tripods at the opposite end of the lake but I think I was in the better place – for a change.

 

On our final walking day we decided to head up Great Gable. It was clear of cloud for a change but ominously the surrounding tops, including the Sca Fells were cloud covered. Another beautiful but very cold morning, it was going to be very icy up there so we elected to go via Styhead and the tourist track. We would choose a way off once we were up there. Long before we got to the top, although we couldn’t see it, we knew the cloud was swirling in and out on the summit so it was going to be hit and miss for the photos. The cloud was down for the last 500 feet but once on the frozen top it kept clearing briefly – very briefly. There were more people up there than we had seen the entire trip previously. People were getting out after Christmas, many had parked at the top of Honister for the fairly easy walk in across Green Gable, some were not dressed for winter walking it has to be said. We left for an icy scramble down to Aaron Slack, up onto Green Gable them we galloped down Aaron Slack to Styhead and back to Wasdale.

 

We had a complete change this Christmas – we cancelled it! - we went walking in The Lakes, or Wasdale more precisely. We were staying at Irton Hall B & B, they had over 70 in for Christmas dinner but we ate jam bread on the slopes of Sca Fell Pike. Fantastic. We had a front wheel puncture on a run flat tyre on the new car with a 100 mile still to drive on the afternoon of Christmas eve on our way there. I drove straight to the nearest ATS – where I have an account – they shook their heads and directed me to Westhoughton Tyres, the lads there were fantastic and got us on our way in good time. BMW dealer advice was run on the flat tyre and then throw it away - £250! Where I would have got a tyre on the western side of the Lakes over Christmas I don’t know, ATS didn’t have one to sell me.

 

The weather was forecast good for Christmas day but after a fine start it was raining before we even left the car park in Wasdale. We headed up Lingmell and ran into snow on the summit. The path onto Sca Fell Pike was very icy, snow covered and visibility was low, the snow kept falling. We didn’t linger long, it was too cold to have dinner up there so we dropped down onto the Corridor Route, where we had our dinner. We went that way to stretch the walk out, having originally intended to cross to Great End. The tops were so icy, glazed, with not enough snow to get a grip on that we decide to leave it for another day. From Styhead we headed back to Wasdale and a dull but fine finish to the day. A drink in the bar at Irton Hall was on the radar.

 

Every morning we headed into Wasdale early, it got colder, icier and sunnier as the days went by. We went up Yewbarrow, it was an icy scramble up and I decided it was too dangerous to go down Stirrup Crag to Dore Head so went back the same way. It turned out to be the right decision as we lingered on the top, going to view points that we wouldn’t have and getting some decent photos. One morning we walked over the Screes tops, Illgill Head and Whin Rigg, dropping down the steep slope to The southern end of Wast Water. Having said that I would never walk the Screes path alongside Wast Water again the memory of how awful it is in the rain had faded. There is only really a quarter of a mile out of three miles that is really bad, every rock was like glass with the potential to break a leg every step. It seemed a long way and I was getting killer looks from Herself.

 

We made our way onto Sca Fell on a beautiful morning, clear blue sky. The snow line had got lower most nights but we never had the low level snow that caused problems in the rest of the country. I chose a, sometimes, pathless way to the summit, partly because I’d never been that way but also to stay in the sun, to keep the view and to avoid the ways that would be a touch dangerous, it was -4 and seared with ice for the last 600 feet. After 15 minutes on the summit wispy thin cloud came racing in, crossing the Lake District in minutes, the photos show it heading towards us and I was glad to have got the clear photos first. Looking out to sea a great mattress of cloud was heading straight for us. It was calm and sunny one minute and the next we were engulfed in thick cloud with 30 yards visibility at the most. I have never had a clear sky turn to cloud so fast – ever! We were going down to Slightside next which was OK, about a mile following the ridge down, the problem was getting back to Wasdale from there. We needed to get to Great Howe which meant a pathless trek a mile SW across Quagrigg Moss – a bog full of tarnlets, it would be a nightmare in low visibility. After getting some accurate compass bearings and heading down off Slightside we suddenly dropped out of the cloud and could see our target, brilliant, we legged it across the semi frozen bog and finally felt able to rest and grab a sandwich and cup of tea. We had to find our way down Raven Crags, which was interesting – and steep! We needed to get to the footbridge to get onto the Burnmoor Tarn path back to Wasdale. As we got closer to Burnmoor Tarn the light that I had been cursing gave us a gorgeous sunset. I had one eye on a gap in the cloud low down in the sky out at sea and I was hoping the sun would break through, it did. Burnmoor Tarn was like a mirror, reflecting the surrounding mountains, including Yewbarrow and parts of the Mosedale Horseshoe in the far distance. There was just the two of us, we had barely seen a soul all day, it was a fantastic end to a tough day. As we dropped into Wasdale I caught the deep pink and orange of the last of the sun, I was shooting into it but I had nothing to lose. There would have been quite a few tripods at the opposite end of the lake but I think I was in the better place – for a change.

 

On our final walking day we decided to head up Great Gable. It was clear of cloud for a change but ominously the surrounding tops, including the Sca Fells were cloud covered. Another beautiful but very cold morning, it was going to be very icy up there so we elected to go via Styhead and the tourist track. We would choose a way off once we were up there. Long before we got to the top, although we couldn’t see it, we knew the cloud was swirling in and out on the summit so it was going to be hit and miss for the photos. The cloud was down for the last 500 feet but once on the frozen top it kept clearing briefly – very briefly. There were more people up there than we had seen the entire trip previously. People were getting out after Christmas, many had parked at the top of Honister for the fairly easy walk in across Green Gable, some were not dressed for winter walking it has to be said. We left for an icy scramble down to Aaron Slack, up onto Green Gable them we galloped down Aaron Slack to Styhead and back to Wasdale.

 

We had a complete change this Christmas – we cancelled it! - we went walking in The Lakes, or Wasdale more precisely. We were staying at Irton Hall B & B, they had over 70 in for Christmas dinner but we ate jam bread on the slopes of Sca Fell Pike. Fantastic. We had a front wheel puncture on a run flat tyre on the new car with a 100 mile still to drive on the afternoon of Christmas eve on our way there. I drove straight to the nearest ATS – where I have an account – they shook their heads and directed me to Westhoughton Tyres, the lads there were fantastic and got us on our way in good time. BMW dealer advice was run on the flat tyre and then throw it away - £250! Where I would have got a tyre on the western side of the Lakes over Christmas I don’t know, ATS didn’t have one to sell me.

 

The weather was forecast good for Christmas day but after a fine start it was raining before we even left the car park in Wasdale. We headed up Lingmell and ran into snow on the summit. The path onto Sca Fell Pike was very icy, snow covered and visibility was low, the snow kept falling. We didn’t linger long, it was too cold to have dinner up there so we dropped down onto the Corridor Route, where we had our dinner. We went that way to stretch the walk out, having originally intended to cross to Great End. The tops were so icy, glazed, with not enough snow to get a grip on that we decide to leave it for another day. From Styhead we headed back to Wasdale and a dull but fine finish to the day. A drink in the bar at Irton Hall was on the radar.

 

Every morning we headed into Wasdale early, it got colder, icier and sunnier as the days went by. We went up Yewbarrow, it was an icy scramble up and I decided it was too dangerous to go down Stirrup Crag to Dore Head so went back the same way. It turned out to be the right decision as we lingered on the top, going to view points that we wouldn’t have and getting some decent photos. One morning we walked over the Screes tops, Illgill Head and Whin Rigg, dropping down the steep slope to The southern end of Wast Water. Having said that I would never walk the Screes path alongside Wast Water again the memory of how awful it is in the rain had faded. There is only really a quarter of a mile out of three miles that is really bad, every rock was like glass with the potential to break a leg every step. It seemed a long way and I was getting killer looks from Herself.

 

We made our way onto Sca Fell on a beautiful morning, clear blue sky. The snow line had got lower most nights but we never had the low level snow that caused problems in the rest of the country. I chose a, sometimes, pathless way to the summit, partly because I’d never been that way but also to stay in the sun, to keep the view and to avoid the ways that would be a touch dangerous, it was -4 and seared with ice for the last 600 feet. After 15 minutes on the summit wispy thin cloud came racing in, crossing the Lake District in minutes, the photos show it heading towards us and I was glad to have got the clear photos first. Looking out to sea a great mattress of cloud was heading straight for us. It was calm and sunny one minute and the next we were engulfed in thick cloud with 30 yards visibility at the most. I have never had a clear sky turn to cloud so fast – ever! We were going down to Slightside next which was OK, about a mile following the ridge down, the problem was getting back to Wasdale from there. We needed to get to Great Howe which meant a pathless trek a mile SW across Quagrigg Moss – a bog full of tarnlets, it would be a nightmare in low visibility. After getting some accurate compass bearings and heading down off Slightside we suddenly dropped out of the cloud and could see our target, brilliant, we legged it across the semi frozen bog and finally felt able to rest and grab a sandwich and cup of tea. We had to find our way down Raven Crags, which was interesting – and steep! We needed to get to the footbridge to get onto the Burnmoor Tarn path back to Wasdale. As we got closer to Burnmoor Tarn the light that I had been cursing gave us a gorgeous sunset. I had one eye on a gap in the cloud low down in the sky out at sea and I was hoping the sun would break through, it did. Burnmoor Tarn was like a mirror, reflecting the surrounding mountains, including Yewbarrow and parts of the Mosedale Horseshoe in the far distance. There was just the two of us, we had barely seen a soul all day, it was a fantastic end to a tough day. As we dropped into Wasdale I caught the deep pink and orange of the last of the sun, I was shooting into it but I had nothing to lose. There would have been quite a few tripods at the opposite end of the lake but I think I was in the better place – for a change.

 

On our final walking day we decided to head up Great Gable. It was clear of cloud for a change but ominously the surrounding tops, including the Sca Fells were cloud covered. Another beautiful but very cold morning, it was going to be very icy up there so we elected to go via Styhead and the tourist track. We would choose a way off once we were up there. Long before we got to the top, although we couldn’t see it, we knew the cloud was swirling in and out on the summit so it was going to be hit and miss for the photos. The cloud was down for the last 500 feet but once on the frozen top it kept clearing briefly – very briefly. There were more people up there than we had seen the entire trip previously. People were getting out after Christmas, many had parked at the top of Honister for the fairly easy walk in across Green Gable, some were not dressed for winter walking it has to be said. We left for an icy scramble down to Arron Slack, up onto Green Gable them we galloped down Arron Slack to Styhead and back to Wasdale.

 

We had a complete change this Christmas – we cancelled it! - we went walking in The Lakes, or Wasdale more precisely. We were staying at Irton Hall B & B, they had over 70 in for Christmas dinner but we ate jam bread on the slopes of Sca Fell Pike. Fantastic. We had a front wheel puncture on a run flat tyre on the new car with a 100 mile still to drive on the afternoon of Christmas eve on our way there. I drove straight to the nearest ATS – where I have an account – they shook their heads and directed me to Westhoughton Tyres, the lads there were fantastic and got us on our way in good time. BMW dealer advice was run on the flat tyre and then throw it away - £250! Where I would have got a tyre on the western side of the Lakes over Christmas I don’t know, ATS didn’t have one to sell me.

 

The weather was forecast good for Christmas day but after a fine start it was raining before we even left the car park in Wasdale. We headed up Lingmell and ran into snow on the summit. The path onto Sca Fell Pike was very icy, snow covered and visibility was low, the snow kept falling. We didn’t linger long, it was too cold to have dinner up there so we dropped down onto the Corridor Route, where we had our dinner. We went that way to stretch the walk out, having originally intended to cross to Great End. The tops were so icy, glazed, with not enough snow to get a grip on that we decide to leave it for another day. From Styhead we headed back to Wasdale and a dull but fine finish to the day. A drink in the bar at Irton Hall was on the radar.

 

Every morning we headed into Wasdale early, it got colder, icier and sunnier as the days went by. We went up Yewbarrow, it was an icy scramble up and I decided it was too dangerous to go down Stirrup Crag to Dore Head so went back the same way. It turned out to be the right decision as we lingered on the top, going to view points that we wouldn’t have and getting some decent photos. One morning we walked over the Screes tops, Illgill Head and Whin Rigg, dropping down the steep slope to The southern end of Wast Water. Having said that I would never walk the Screes path alongside Wast Water again the memory of how awful it is in the rain had faded. There is only really a quarter of a mile out of three miles that is really bad, every rock was like glass with the potential to break a leg every step. It seemed a long way and I was getting killer looks from Herself.

 

We made our way onto Sca Fell on a beautiful morning, clear blue sky. The snow line had got lower most nights but we never had the low level snow that caused problems in the rest of the country. I chose a, sometimes, pathless way to the summit, partly because I’d never been that way but also to stay in the sun, to keep the view and to avoid the ways that would be a touch dangerous, it was -4 and seared with ice for the last 600 feet. After 15 minutes on the summit wispy thin cloud came racing in, crossing the Lake District in minutes, the photos show it heading towards us and I was glad to have got the clear photos first. Looking out to sea a great mattress of cloud was heading straight for us. It was calm and sunny one minute and the next we were engulfed in thick cloud with 30 yards visibility at the most. I have never had a clear sky turn to cloud so fast – ever! We were going down to Slightside next which was OK, about a mile following the ridge down, the problem was getting back to Wasdale from there. We needed to get to Great Howe which meant a pathless trek a mile SW across Quagrigg Moss – a bog full of tarnlets, it would be a nightmare in low visibility. After getting some accurate compass bearings and heading down off Slightside we suddenly dropped out of the cloud and could see our target, brilliant, we legged it across the semi frozen bog and finally felt able to rest and grab a sandwich and cup of tea. We had to find our way down Raven Crags, which was interesting – and steep! We needed to get to the footbridge to get onto the Burnmoor Tarn path back to Wasdale. As we got closer to Burnmoor Tarn the light that I had been cursing gave us a gorgeous sunset. I had one eye on a gap in the cloud low down in the sky out at sea and I was hoping the sun would break through, it did. Burnmoor Tarn was like a mirror, reflecting the surrounding mountains, including Yewbarrow and parts of the Mosedale Horseshoe in the far distance. There was just the two of us, we had barely seen a soul all day, it was a fantastic end to a tough day. As we dropped into Wasdale I caught the deep pink and orange of the last of the sun, I was shooting into it but I had nothing to lose. There would have been quite a few tripods at the opposite end of the lake but I think I was in the better place – for a change.

 

On our final walking day we decided to head up Great Gable. It was clear of cloud for a change but ominously the surrounding tops, including the Sca Fells were cloud covered. Another beautiful but very cold morning, it was going to be very icy up there so we elected to go via Styhead and the tourist track. We would choose a way off once we were up there. Long before we got to the top, although we couldn’t see it, we knew the cloud was swirling in and out on the summit so it was going to be hit and miss for the photos. The cloud was down for the last 500 feet but once on the frozen top it kept clearing briefly – very briefly. There were more people up there than we had seen the entire trip previously. People were getting out after Christmas, many had parked at the top of Honister for the fairly easy walk in across Green Gable, some were not dressed for winter walking it has to be said. We left for an icy scramble down to Arron Slack, up onto Green Gable them we galloped down Arron Slack to Styhead and back to Wasdale.

 

We walked over the two tops that form the Screes, it rained low, snowed high, visibility on top was poor and then I decided to use the Screes path back to the car park at Wasdale. A big mistake in the wet, every boulder was deadly slippy. I only used the little G1X MK2, I carried the 5D but it stayed in my backpack for a change, there wasn't much to get excited about

 

We had a complete change this Christmas – we cancelled it! - we went walking in The Lakes, or Wasdale more precisely. We were staying at Irton Hall B & B, they had over 70 in for Christmas dinner but we ate jam bread on the slopes of Sca Fell Pike. Fantastic. We had a front wheel puncture on a run flat tyre on the new car with a 100 mile still to drive on the afternoon of Christmas eve on our way there. I drove straight to the nearest ATS – where I have an account – they shook their heads and directed me to Westhoughton Tyres, the lads there were fantastic and got us on our way in good time. BMW dealer advice was run on the flat tyre and then throw it away - £250! Where I would have got a tyre on the western side of the Lakes over Christmas I don’t know, ATS didn’t have one to sell me.

 

The weather was forecast good for Christmas day but after a fine start it was raining before we even left the car park in Wasdale. We headed up Lingmell and ran into snow on the summit. The path onto Sca Fell Pike was very icy, snow covered and visibility was low, the snow kept falling. We didn’t linger long, it was too cold to have dinner up there so we dropped down onto the Corridor Route, where we had our dinner. We went that way to stretch the walk out, having originally intended to cross to Great End. The tops were so icy, glazed, with not enough snow to get a grip on that we decide to leave it for another day. From Styhead we headed back to Wasdale and a dull but fine finish to the day. A drink in the bar at Irton Hall was on the radar.

 

Every morning we headed into Wasdale early, it got colder, icier and sunnier as the days went by. We went up Yewbarrow, it was an icy scramble up and I decided it was too dangerous to go down Stirrup Crag to Dore Head so went back the same way. It turned out to be the right decision as we lingered on the top, going to view points that we wouldn’t have and getting some decent photos. One morning we walked over the Screes tops, Illgill Head and Whin Rigg, dropping down the steep slope to The southern end of Wast Water. Having said that I would never walk the Screes path alongside Wast Water again the memory of how awful it is in the rain had faded. There is only really a quarter of a mile out of three miles that is really bad, every rock was like glass with the potential to break a leg every step. It seemed a long way and I was getting killer looks from Herself.

 

We made our way onto Sca Fell on a beautiful morning, clear blue sky. The snow line had got lower most nights but we never had the low level snow that caused problems in the rest of the country. I chose a, sometimes, pathless way to the summit, partly because I’d never been that way but also to stay in the sun, to keep the view and to avoid the ways that would be a touch dangerous, it was -4 and seared with ice for the last 600 feet. After 15 minutes on the summit wispy thin cloud came racing in, crossing the Lake District in minutes, the photos show it heading towards us and I was glad to have got the clear photos first. Looking out to sea a great mattress of cloud was heading straight for us. It was calm and sunny one minute and the next we were engulfed in thick cloud with 30 yards visibility at the most. I have never had a clear sky turn to cloud so fast – ever! We were going down to Slightside next which was OK, about a mile following the ridge down, the problem was getting back to Wasdale from there. We needed to get to Great Howe which meant a pathless trek a mile SW across Quagrigg Moss – a bog full of tarnlets, it would be a nightmare in low visibility. After getting some accurate compass bearings and heading down off Slightside we suddenly dropped out of the cloud and could see our target, brilliant, we legged it across the semi frozen bog and finally felt able to rest and grab a sandwich and cup of tea. We had to find our way down Raven Crags, which was interesting – and steep! We needed to get to the footbridge to get onto the Burnmoor Tarn path back to Wasdale. As we got closer to Burnmoor Tarn the light that I had been cursing gave us a gorgeous sunset. I had one eye on a gap in the cloud low down in the sky out at sea and I was hoping the sun would break through, it did. Burnmoor Tarn was like a mirror, reflecting the surrounding mountains, including Yewbarrow and parts of the Mosedale Horseshoe in the far distance. There was just the two of us, we had barely seen a soul all day, it was a fantastic end to a tough day. As we dropped into Wasdale I caught the deep pink and orange of the last of the sun, I was shooting into it but I had nothing to lose. There would have been quite a few tripods at the opposite end of the lake but I think I was in the better place – for a change.

 

On our final walking day we decided to head up Great Gable. It was clear of cloud for a change but ominously the surrounding tops, including the Sca Fells were cloud covered. Another beautiful but very cold morning, it was going to be very icy up there so we elected to go via Styhead and the tourist track. We would choose a way off once we were up there. Long before we got to the top, although we couldn’t see it, we knew the cloud was swirling in and out on the summit so it was going to be hit and miss for the photos. The cloud was down for the last 500 feet but once on the frozen top it kept clearing briefly – very briefly. There were more people up there than we had seen the entire trip previously. People were getting out after Christmas, many had parked at the top of Honister for the fairly easy walk in across Green Gable, some were not dressed for winter walking it has to be said. We left for an icy scramble down to Arron Slack, up onto Green Gable them we galloped down Arron Slack to Styhead and back to Wasdale.

 

Blackrock covers a large but not precisely defined area, rising from sea level on the coast to 90 metres (300 ft) at White's Cross on the N11 national primary road. Blackrock is bordered by Booterstown, Mount Merrion, Stillorgan, Foxrock, Deansgrange and Monkstown.

  

Blackrock is a large commercial centre with cafes, restaurants, boutiques, hairdressers and barbers, a tattoo and piercing studio, pharmacies, supermarkets, art galleries, antiques and home improvements outlets as well as bars such as The Breffni, Jack O'Rourkes, O'Donohues, Flash Harrys, Conways, The Wicked Wolf and the Ten Tun Tavern.

 

The Blackrock Shopping Centre was built in 1984 by Superquinn who managed the development and are the anchor store. Superquinn has now become Supervalu.

 

There are many high street finance branches for AIB, Bank of Ireland, EBS, National Irish Bank, Ulster Bank and the Blackrock Credit Union. Permanent TSB closed their Blackrock branch in March 2010 but retain their administrative offices on Carysfort Avenue.

 

There are many office buildings that house large corporations such as Zurich Financial Services and AIG, and car dealers such as Carroll & Kinsella Motors, Maxwell Motors (generally BMW) and Eco Aer (eco electric vehicles).

We had a complete change this Christmas – we cancelled it! - we went walking in The Lakes, or Wasdale more precisely. We were staying at Irton Hall B & B, they had over 70 in for Christmas dinner but we ate jam bread on the slopes of Sca Fell Pike. Fantastic. We had a front wheel puncture on a run flat tyre on the new car with a 100 mile still to drive on the afternoon of Christmas eve on our way there. I drove straight to the nearest ATS – where I have an account – they shook their heads and directed me to Westhoughton Tyres, the lads there were fantastic and got us on our way in good time. BMW dealer advice was run on the flat tyre and then throw it away - £250! Where I would have got a tyre on the western side of the Lakes over Christmas I don’t know, ATS didn’t have one to sell me.

 

The weather was forecast good for Christmas day but after a fine start it was raining before we even left the car park in Wasdale. We headed up Lingmell and ran into snow on the summit. The path onto Sca Fell Pike was very icy, snow covered and visibility was low, the snow kept falling. We didn’t linger long, it was too cold to have dinner up there so we dropped down onto the Corridor Route, where we had our dinner. We went that way to stretch the walk out, having originally intended to cross to Great End. The tops were so icy, glazed, with not enough snow to get a grip on that we decide to leave it for another day. From Styhead we headed back to Wasdale and a dull but fine finish to the day. A drink in the bar at Irton Hall was on the radar.

 

Every morning we headed into Wasdale early, it got colder, icier and sunnier as the days went by. We went up Yewbarrow, it was an icy scramble up and I decided it was too dangerous to go down Stirrup Crag to Dore Head so went back the same way. It turned out to be the right decision as we lingered on the top, going to view points that we wouldn’t have and getting some decent photos. One morning we walked over the Screes tops, Illgill Head and Whin Rigg, dropping down the steep slope to The southern end of Wast Water. Having said that I would never walk the Screes path alongside Wast Water again the memory of how awful it is in the rain had faded. There is only really a quarter of a mile out of three miles that is really bad, every rock was like glass with the potential to break a leg every step. It seemed a long way and I was getting killer looks from Herself.

 

We made our way onto Sca Fell on a beautiful morning, clear blue sky. The snow line had got lower most nights but we never had the low level snow that caused problems in the rest of the country. I chose a, sometimes, pathless way to the summit, partly because I’d never been that way but also to stay in the sun, to keep the view and to avoid the ways that would be a touch dangerous, it was -4 and seared with ice for the last 600 feet. After 15 minutes on the summit wispy thin cloud came racing in, crossing the Lake District in minutes, the photos show it heading towards us and I was glad to have got the clear photos first. Looking out to sea a great mattress of cloud was heading straight for us. It was calm and sunny one minute and the next we were engulfed in thick cloud with 30 yards visibility at the most. I have never had a clear sky turn to cloud so fast – ever! We were going down to Slightside next which was OK, about a mile following the ridge down, the problem was getting back to Wasdale from there. We needed to get to Great Howe which meant a pathless trek a mile SW across Quagrigg Moss – a bog full of tarnlets, it would be a nightmare in low visibility. After getting some accurate compass bearings and heading down off Slightside we suddenly dropped out of the cloud and could see our target, brilliant, we legged it across the semi frozen bog and finally felt able to rest and grab a sandwich and cup of tea. We had to find our way down Raven Crags, which was interesting – and steep! We needed to get to the footbridge to get onto the Burnmoor Tarn path back to Wasdale. As we got closer to Burnmoor Tarn the light that I had been cursing gave us a gorgeous sunset. I had one eye on a gap in the cloud low down in the sky out at sea and I was hoping the sun would break through, it did. Burnmoor Tarn was like a mirror, reflecting the surrounding mountains, including Yewbarrow and parts of the Mosedale Horseshoe in the far distance. There was just the two of us, we had barely seen a soul all day, it was a fantastic end to a tough day. As we dropped into Wasdale I caught the deep pink and orange of the last of the sun, I was shooting into it but I had nothing to lose. There would have been quite a few tripods at the opposite end of the lake but I think I was in the better place – for a change.

 

On our final walking day we decided to head up Great Gable. It was clear of cloud for a change but ominously the surrounding tops, including the Sca Fells were cloud covered. Another beautiful but very cold morning, it was going to be very icy up there so we elected to go via Styhead and the tourist track. We would choose a way off once we were up there. Long before we got to the top, although we couldn’t see it, we knew the cloud was swirling in and out on the summit so it was going to be hit and miss for the photos. The cloud was down for the last 500 feet but once on the frozen top it kept clearing briefly – very briefly. There were more people up there than we had seen the entire trip previously. People were getting out after Christmas, many had parked at the top of Honister for the fairly easy walk in across Green Gable, some were not dressed for winter walking it has to be said. We left for an icy scramble down to Aaron Slack, up onto Green Gable them we galloped down Aaron Slack to Styhead and back to Wasdale.

 

Exhibition Jean Tinguely - Machine Spectacle 1 Oct 2016 - 5 Mar 2017 in the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam

 

Jean Tinguely is famous for his playful, boldly kinetic machines and explosive performances. Everything had to be different, everything had to move. Precisely twenty-five years after his death, the Stedelijk Museum opens a Tinguely retrospective: the largest-ever exhibition of the artist to be mounted in a Dutch museum.

 

The Swiss artist Jean Tinguely (1925–1991) played a key role in the rise of kinetic art in the fifties. With over a hundred machine sculptures, most of which are in working order, paired with films, photos, drawings, and archive materials, the presentation takes the public on a chronological and thematic journey of Tinguely’s artistic development and ideas, from his love of absurd play to his fascination for destruction and ephemerality.

The presentation features his early wire sculptures and reliefs, in which Tinguely imitated and animated the abstract paintings of artists such as Malevich, Miró, and Klee; the interactive drawing machines and wild dancing installations constructed from salvaged metal, waste materials, and discarded clothing; and his streamlined, military-looking black sculptures.

 

Tinguely’s self-destructive performances are a special feature of the Stedelijk presentation. The enormous installations Tinguely created between 1960–1970 (Homage to New York, Étude pour une fin du monde No. 1, Study for an End of the World No. 2, and La Vittoria) were designed to spectacularly disintegrate in a barrage of sound. The presentation also spotlights the exhibitions Tinguely organized at the Stedelijk, Bewogen Beweging (1961) and Dylaby (1962), and the gigantic sculptures he later produced: HON – en katedral (“SHE – a cathedral,” 1966), Crocrodrome (1977) and the extraordinary Le Cyclop (1969–1994), which is still on display outside Paris. The survey ends with a dramatic grand finale, the remarkable, room-filling installation, Mengele-Totentanz (1986), a disturbing display of light and shadow never previously shown in the Netherlands. Tinguely realized the work after witnessing a devastating fire, reclaiming objects from the ashes to piece together his installation: scorched beams, agricultural machinery (made by the Mengele company), and animal skeletons. The final piece is a gigantic memento mori, yet also an invocation of the Nazi concentration camps. Its juddering movements and piercing sounds evoke a haunting, grisly mood.

 

Jean Tinguely created his work as a rejection of the static, conventional art world; he sought to emphasize play and experiment. For Tinguely, art was not about standing in a sterile white space, distantly gazing at a silent painting. He produced kinetic sculptures to set art and art history in motion, in works that animated the boundary between art and life. With his do-it-yourself drawing machines, Tinguely critiqued the role of the artist and the elitist position of art in society. He renounced the unicity of “the artist’s hand” by encouraging visitors to produce work themselves. Collaboration was integral to Tinguely’s career. He worked extensively with artists like Daniel Spoerri, Niki de Saint Phalle (also his wife), Yves Klein, and others from the ZERO network, as well as museum directors such as Pontus Hultén, Willem Sandberg, and Paul Wember. Thanks to his charismatic, vibrant personality and the dazzling success with which he presented his work (and himself) in the public sphere, Tinguely was a vital figure within these networks, acting as leader, inspirator, and connector.

Amsterdam has enjoyed a dynamic history with Tinguely. The exhibitions Bewogen Beweging (1961) and Dylaby (1962), for which Tinguely was (co)curator, particularly underline the extraordinarily close relationship that sprang up between the museum and the artist. Not only did he bring his kinetic Méta machines to the Netherlands, he also brought his international, avant-garde network, leaving an enduring impression on museum goers who flocked to see these experimental exhibitions. Close relationships with Willem Sandberg, then director of the Stedelijk Museum, and curator Ad Petersen prompted various retrospectives and acquisitions for the collection: thirteen sculptures, including his famous drawing machine, Méta-Matic No. 10 (1959), Gismo (1960), and the enormous Méta

We had a complete change this Christmas – we cancelled it! - we went walking in The Lakes, or Wasdale more precisely. We were staying at Irton Hall B & B, they had over 70 in for Christmas dinner but we ate jam bread on the slopes of Sca Fell Pike. Fantastic. We had a front wheel puncture on a run flat tyre on the new car with a 100 mile still to drive on the afternoon of Christmas eve on our way there. I drove straight to the nearest ATS – where I have an account – they shook their heads and directed me to Westhoughton Tyres, the lads there were fantastic and got us on our way in good time. BMW dealer advice was run on the flat tyre and then throw it away - £250! Where I would have got a tyre on the western side of the Lakes over Christmas I don’t know, ATS didn’t have one to sell me.

   

The weather was forecast good for Christmas day but after a fine start it was raining before we even left the car park in Wasdale. We headed up Lingmell and ran into snow on the summit. The path onto Sca Fell Pike was very icy, snow covered and visibility was low, the snow kept falling. We didn’t linger long, it was too cold to have dinner up there so we dropped down onto the Corridor Route, where we had our dinner. We went that way to stretch the walk out, having originally intended to cross to Great End. The tops were so icy, glazed, with not enough snow to get a grip on that we decide to leave it for another day. From Styhead we headed back to Wasdale and a dull but fine finish to the day. A drink in the bar at Irton Hall was on the radar.

   

Every morning we headed into Wasdale early, it got colder, icier and sunnier as the days went by. We went up Yewbarrow, it was an icy scramble up and I decided it was too dangerous to go down Stirrup Crag to Dore Head so went back the same way. It turned out to be the right decision as we lingered on the top, going to view points that we wouldn’t have and getting some decent photos. One morning we walked over the Screes tops, Illgill Head and Whin Rigg, dropping down the steep slope to The southern end of Wast Water. Having said that I would never walk the Screes path alongside Wast Water again the memory of how awful it is in the rain had faded. There is only really a quarter of a mile out of three miles that is really bad, every rock was like glass with the potential to break a leg every step. It seemed a long way and I was getting killer looks from Herself.

   

We made our way onto Sca Fell on a beautiful morning, clear blue sky. The snow line had got lower most nights but we never had the low level snow that caused problems in the rest of the country. I chose a, sometimes, pathless way to the summit, partly because I’d never been that way but also to stay in the sun, to keep the view and to avoid the ways that would be a touch dangerous, it was -4 and seared with ice for the last 600 feet. After 15 minutes on the summit wispy thin cloud came racing in, crossing the Lake District in minutes, the photos show it heading towards us and I was glad to have got the clear photos first. Looking out to sea a great mattress of cloud was heading straight for us. It was calm and sunny one minute and the next we were engulfed in thick cloud with 30 yards visibility at the most. I have never had a clear sky turn to cloud so fast – ever! We were going down to Slightside next which was OK, about a mile following the ridge down, the problem was getting back to Wasdale from there. We needed to get to Great Howe which meant a pathless trek a mile SW across Quagrigg Moss – a bog full of tarnlets, it would be a nightmare in low visibility. After getting some accurate compass bearings and heading down off Slightside we suddenly dropped out of the cloud and could see our target, brilliant, we legged it across the semi frozen bog and finally felt able to rest and grab a sandwich and cup of tea. We had to find our way down Raven Crags, which was interesting – and steep! We needed to get to the footbridge to get onto the Burnmoor Tarn path back to Wasdale. As we got closer to Burnmoor Tarn the light that I had been cursing gave us a gorgeous sunset. I had one eye on a gap in the cloud low down in the sky out at sea and I was hoping the sun would break through, it did. Burnmoor Tarn was like a mirror, reflecting the surrounding mountains, including Yewbarrow and parts of the Mosedale Horseshoe in the far distance. There was just the two of us, we had barely seen a soul all day, it was a fantastic end to a tough day. As we dropped into Wasdale I caught the deep pink and orange of the last of the sun, I was shooting into it but I had nothing to lose. There would have been quite a few tripods at the opposite end of the lake but I think I was in the better place – for a change.

   

On our final walking day we decided to head up Great Gable. It was clear of cloud for a change but ominously the surrounding tops, including the Sca Fells were cloud covered. Another beautiful but very cold morning, it was going to be very icy up there so we elected to go via Styhead and the tourist track. We would choose a way off once we were up there. Long before we got to the top, although we couldn’t see it, we knew the cloud was swirling in and out on the summit so it was going to be hit and miss for the photos. The cloud was down for the last 500 feet but once on the frozen top it kept clearing briefly – very briefly. There were more people up there than we had seen the entire trip previously. People were getting out after Christmas, many had parked at the top of Honister for the fairly easy walk in across Green Gable, some were not dressed for winter walking it has to be said. We left for an icy scramble down to Aaron Slack, up onto Green Gable them we galloped down Aaron Slack to Styhead and back to Wasdale.

  

Blackrock covers a large but not precisely defined area, rising from sea level on the coast to 90 metres (300 ft) at White's Cross on the N11 national primary road. Blackrock is bordered by Booterstown, Mount Merrion, Stillorgan, Foxrock, Deansgrange and Monkstown.

  

Blackrock is a large commercial centre with cafes, restaurants, boutiques, hairdressers and barbers, a tattoo and piercing studio, pharmacies, supermarkets, art galleries, antiques and home improvements outlets as well as bars such as The Breffni, Jack O'Rourkes, O'Donohues, Flash Harrys, Conways, The Wicked Wolf and the Ten Tun Tavern.

 

The Blackrock Shopping Centre was built in 1984 by Superquinn who managed the development and are the anchor store. Superquinn has now become Supervalu.

 

There are many high street finance branches for AIB, Bank of Ireland, EBS, National Irish Bank, Ulster Bank and the Blackrock Credit Union. Permanent TSB closed their Blackrock branch in March 2010 but retain their administrative offices on Carysfort Avenue.

 

There are many office buildings that house large corporations such as Zurich Financial Services and AIG, and car dealers such as Carroll & Kinsella Motors, Maxwell Motors (generally BMW) and Eco Aer (eco electric vehicles).

Exhibition Jean Tinguely - Machine Spectacle 1 Oct 2016 - 5 Mar 2017 in the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam

 

Jean Tinguely is famous for his playful, boldly kinetic machines and explosive performances. Everything had to be different, everything had to move. Precisely twenty-five years after his death, the Stedelijk Museum opens a Tinguely retrospective: the largest-ever exhibition of the artist to be mounted in a Dutch museum.

 

The Swiss artist Jean Tinguely (1925–1991) played a key role in the rise of kinetic art in the fifties. With over a hundred machine sculptures, most of which are in working order, paired with films, photos, drawings, and archive materials, the presentation takes the public on a chronological and thematic journey of Tinguely’s artistic development and ideas, from his love of absurd play to his fascination for destruction and ephemerality.

The presentation features his early wire sculptures and reliefs, in which Tinguely imitated and animated the abstract paintings of artists such as Malevich, Miró, and Klee; the interactive drawing machines and wild dancing installations constructed from salvaged metal, waste materials, and discarded clothing; and his streamlined, military-looking black sculptures.

 

Tinguely’s self-destructive performances are a special feature of the Stedelijk presentation. The enormous installations Tinguely created between 1960–1970 (Homage to New York, Étude pour une fin du monde No. 1, Study for an End of the World No. 2, and La Vittoria) were designed to spectacularly disintegrate in a barrage of sound. The presentation also spotlights the exhibitions Tinguely organized at the Stedelijk, Bewogen Beweging (1961) and Dylaby (1962), and the gigantic sculptures he later produced: HON – en katedral (“SHE – a cathedral,” 1966), Crocrodrome (1977) and the extraordinary Le Cyclop (1969–1994), which is still on display outside Paris. The survey ends with a dramatic grand finale, the remarkable, room-filling installation, Mengele-Totentanz (1986), a disturbing display of light and shadow never previously shown in the Netherlands. Tinguely realized the work after witnessing a devastating fire, reclaiming objects from the ashes to piece together his installation: scorched beams, agricultural machinery (made by the Mengele company), and animal skeletons. The final piece is a gigantic memento mori, yet also an invocation of the Nazi concentration camps. Its juddering movements and piercing sounds evoke a haunting, grisly mood.

 

Jean Tinguely created his work as a rejection of the static, conventional art world; he sought to emphasize play and experiment. For Tinguely, art was not about standing in a sterile white space, distantly gazing at a silent painting. He produced kinetic sculptures to set art and art history in motion, in works that animated the boundary between art and life. With his do-it-yourself drawing machines, Tinguely critiqued the role of the artist and the elitist position of art in society. He renounced the unicity of “the artist’s hand” by encouraging visitors to produce work themselves. Collaboration was integral to Tinguely’s career. He worked extensively with artists like Daniel Spoerri, Niki de Saint Phalle (also his wife), Yves Klein, and others from the ZERO network, as well as museum directors such as Pontus Hultén, Willem Sandberg, and Paul Wember. Thanks to his charismatic, vibrant personality and the dazzling success with which he presented his work (and himself) in the public sphere, Tinguely was a vital figure within these networks, acting as leader, inspirator, and connector.

Amsterdam has enjoyed a dynamic history with Tinguely. The exhibitions Bewogen Beweging (1961) and Dylaby (1962), for which Tinguely was (co)curator, particularly underline the extraordinarily close relationship that sprang up between the museum and the artist. Not only did he bring his kinetic Méta machines to the Netherlands, he also brought his international, avant-garde network, leaving an enduring impression on museum goers who flocked to see these experimental exhibitions. Close relationships with Willem Sandberg, then director of the Stedelijk Museum, and curator Ad Petersen prompted various retrospectives and acquisitions for the collection: thirteen sculptures, including his famous drawing machine, Méta-Matic No. 10 (1959), Gismo (1960), and the enormous Méta

We walked over the two tops that form the Screes, it rained low, snowed high, visibility on top was poor and then I decided to use the Screes path back to the car park at Wasdale. A big mistake in the wet, every boulder was deadly slippy. I only used the little G1X MK2, I carried the 5D but it stayed in my backpack for a change, there wasn't much to get excited about

 

We had a complete change this Christmas – we cancelled it! - we went walking in The Lakes, or Wasdale more precisely. We were staying at Irton Hall B & B, they had over 70 in for Christmas dinner but we ate jam bread on the slopes of Sca Fell Pike. Fantastic. We had a front wheel puncture on a run flat tyre on the new car with a 100 mile still to drive on the afternoon of Christmas eve on our way there. I drove straight to the nearest ATS – where I have an account – they shook their heads and directed me to Westhoughton Tyres, the lads there were fantastic and got us on our way in good time. BMW dealer advice was run on the flat tyre and then throw it away - £250! Where I would have got a tyre on the western side of the Lakes over Christmas I don’t know, ATS didn’t have one to sell me.

 

The weather was forecast good for Christmas day but after a fine start it was raining before we even left the car park in Wasdale. We headed up Lingmell and ran into snow on the summit. The path onto Sca Fell Pike was very icy, snow covered and visibility was low, the snow kept falling. We didn’t linger long, it was too cold to have dinner up there so we dropped down onto the Corridor Route, where we had our dinner. We went that way to stretch the walk out, having originally intended to cross to Great End. The tops were so icy, glazed, with not enough snow to get a grip on that we decide to leave it for another day. From Styhead we headed back to Wasdale and a dull but fine finish to the day. A drink in the bar at Irton Hall was on the radar.

 

Every morning we headed into Wasdale early, it got colder, icier and sunnier as the days went by. We went up Yewbarrow, it was an icy scramble up and I decided it was too dangerous to go down Stirrup Crag to Dore Head so went back the same way. It turned out to be the right decision as we lingered on the top, going to view points that we wouldn’t have and getting some decent photos. One morning we walked over the Screes tops, Illgill Head and Whin Rigg, dropping down the steep slope to The southern end of Wast Water. Having said that I would never walk the Screes path alongside Wast Water again the memory of how awful it is in the rain had faded. There is only really a quarter of a mile out of three miles that is really bad, every rock was like glass with the potential to break a leg every step. It seemed a long way and I was getting killer looks from Herself.

 

We made our way onto Sca Fell on a beautiful morning, clear blue sky. The snow line had got lower most nights but we never had the low level snow that caused problems in the rest of the country. I chose a, sometimes, pathless way to the summit, partly because I’d never been that way but also to stay in the sun, to keep the view and to avoid the ways that would be a touch dangerous, it was -4 and seared with ice for the last 600 feet. After 15 minutes on the summit wispy thin cloud came racing in, crossing the Lake District in minutes, the photos show it heading towards us and I was glad to have got the clear photos first. Looking out to sea a great mattress of cloud was heading straight for us. It was calm and sunny one minute and the next we were engulfed in thick cloud with 30 yards visibility at the most. I have never had a clear sky turn to cloud so fast – ever! We were going down to Slightside next which was OK, about a mile following the ridge down, the problem was getting back to Wasdale from there. We needed to get to Great Howe which meant a pathless trek a mile SW across Quagrigg Moss – a bog full of tarnlets, it would be a nightmare in low visibility. After getting some accurate compass bearings and heading down off Slightside we suddenly dropped out of the cloud and could see our target, brilliant, we legged it across the semi frozen bog and finally felt able to rest and grab a sandwich and cup of tea. We had to find our way down Raven Crags, which was interesting – and steep! We needed to get to the footbridge to get onto the Burnmoor Tarn path back to Wasdale. As we got closer to Burnmoor Tarn the light that I had been cursing gave us a gorgeous sunset. I had one eye on a gap in the cloud low down in the sky out at sea and I was hoping the sun would break through, it did. Burnmoor Tarn was like a mirror, reflecting the surrounding mountains, including Yewbarrow and parts of the Mosedale Horseshoe in the far distance. There was just the two of us, we had barely seen a soul all day, it was a fantastic end to a tough day. As we dropped into Wasdale I caught the deep pink and orange of the last of the sun, I was shooting into it but I had nothing to lose. There would have been quite a few tripods at the opposite end of the lake but I think I was in the better place – for a change.

 

On our final walking day we decided to head up Great Gable. It was clear of cloud for a change but ominously the surrounding tops, including the Sca Fells were cloud covered. Another beautiful but very cold morning, it was going to be very icy up there so we elected to go via Styhead and the tourist track. We would choose a way off once we were up there. Long before we got to the top, although we couldn’t see it, we knew the cloud was swirling in and out on the summit so it was going to be hit and miss for the photos. The cloud was down for the last 500 feet but once on the frozen top it kept clearing briefly – very briefly. There were more people up there than we had seen the entire trip previously. People were getting out after Christmas, many had parked at the top of Honister for the fairly easy walk in across Green Gable, some were not dressed for winter walking it has to be said. We left for an icy scramble down to Arron Slack, up onto Green Gable them we galloped down Arron Slack to Styhead and back to Wasdale.

 

At midday precisely, the first round is fired to honour The Queen's Accession to the Throne.

 

The King's Troop, Royal Horse Artillery was founded in 1947 by King George VI. On her accession, Queen Elizabeth II, kept its name to honour her father. It is a ceremonial mounted unit of the British Army and the Household Division. Its duties include the firing of gun salutes on royal anniversaries and state occasions, and providing a gun carriage and team of black horses for state and military funerals.

Members of The Troop also operate as fighting soldiers, deploying to Iraq and Afghanistan as HGV drivers who deliver ammunition to artillery units around the battlefield.

St Margaret, Reydon, Suffolk

 

Reydon is a suburb of Southwold. In terms of population, they are about the same size. But which one of the two have you heard of? Precisely. Reydon is agri-industrial, and when you cross over the river from one parish to the other, the houses double in price. Not so long ago, a beach hut changed hands in Southwold for £100,000.

 

St Margaret sits away from the houses, on the road towards Wangford, anonymously pretty in an overgrown graveyard. It is an older church than Southwold's late-medieval parvenu, although it underwent a serious tarting-up in the 15th century. In the churchyard wall there is a surviving mounting block, so that the gentry could climb straight onto their horses from the churchyard without descending to the muddy road.

 

On the north side there is a very good late 1980s extension. The architect was Andrew Anderson. The graveyard is wide and spacious, but there are many more modern graves than 19th century ones, a mark of how the town has grown. You can't fail to miss the extraordinary bronze angel to the south of the chancel. To the west of the church are the older memorials. One of them is a cute little child's grave, to Percy Hunt, son of Henry and Harriet, who had died at the age of just ten months in August 1888. Grieve not with helpless sorrow, it reads, Jesus hath felt your pain. He did thy lamb but borrow, he'll bring him back again, the theology of which seems curious, to say the least. The tiny tombstone is covered in a century or more of moss. It was very moving. His parents' larger graves are beside it. His father had died in 1910 at the age of 60, his mother surviving into the 1930s, when she died at 86. There were no other Hunt graves nearby, and I wondered if little Percy had been their only child. Counting backwards, I worked out that she must have had her baby in her mid-forties - was this an unexpected late fruit after barren decades? And were their hopes dashed? It was all very sad.

 

You step into a clean, bright, neatly-kept interior, perhaps a bit smaller than might be expected from the outside. When I'd last visited in 2002, the church still bore all the hallmarks of enthusiastic Victorians re-ritualising it in the 1870s, the organ up in the chancel blocking a view of the east end. But that has now gone, and the church has a feeling of simplicity and space. There is an image niche in the eastern splay of each window, one with a lovely Blessed Virgin and Child statue in it. The best of the glass is a window by A L Moore of Christ meeting the woman at the well. You can tell at a glance that she's probably had six husbands, and she's not married to the one she's with at the minute. Less good is the east window, Ward & Hughes 'trampolining Jesus' Ascension scene rejigged by the King Workshop in the modern era.

Exhibition Jean Tinguely - Machine Spectacle 1 Oct 2016 - 5 Mar 2017 in the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam

 

Jean Tinguely is famous for his playful, boldly kinetic machines and explosive performances. Everything had to be different, everything had to move. Precisely twenty-five years after his death, the Stedelijk Museum opens a Tinguely retrospective: the largest-ever exhibition of the artist to be mounted in a Dutch museum.

 

The Swiss artist Jean Tinguely (1925–1991) played a key role in the rise of kinetic art in the fifties. With over a hundred machine sculptures, most of which are in working order, paired with films, photos, drawings, and archive materials, the presentation takes the public on a chronological and thematic journey of Tinguely’s artistic development and ideas, from his love of absurd play to his fascination for destruction and ephemerality.

The presentation features his early wire sculptures and reliefs, in which Tinguely imitated and animated the abstract paintings of artists such as Malevich, Miró, and Klee; the interactive drawing machines and wild dancing installations constructed from salvaged metal, waste materials, and discarded clothing; and his streamlined, military-looking black sculptures.

 

Tinguely’s self-destructive performances are a special feature of the Stedelijk presentation. The enormous installations Tinguely created between 1960–1970 (Homage to New York, Étude pour une fin du monde No. 1, Study for an End of the World No. 2, and La Vittoria) were designed to spectacularly disintegrate in a barrage of sound. The presentation also spotlights the exhibitions Tinguely organized at the Stedelijk, Bewogen Beweging (1961) and Dylaby (1962), and the gigantic sculptures he later produced: HON – en katedral (“SHE – a cathedral,” 1966), Crocrodrome (1977) and the extraordinary Le Cyclop (1969–1994), which is still on display outside Paris. The survey ends with a dramatic grand finale, the remarkable, room-filling installation, Mengele-Totentanz (1986), a disturbing display of light and shadow never previously shown in the Netherlands. Tinguely realized the work after witnessing a devastating fire, reclaiming objects from the ashes to piece together his installation: scorched beams, agricultural machinery (made by the Mengele company), and animal skeletons. The final piece is a gigantic memento mori, yet also an invocation of the Nazi concentration camps. Its juddering movements and piercing sounds evoke a haunting, grisly mood.

 

Jean Tinguely created his work as a rejection of the static, conventional art world; he sought to emphasize play and experiment. For Tinguely, art was not about standing in a sterile white space, distantly gazing at a silent painting. He produced kinetic sculptures to set art and art history in motion, in works that animated the boundary between art and life. With his do-it-yourself drawing machines, Tinguely critiqued the role of the artist and the elitist position of art in society. He renounced the unicity of “the artist’s hand” by encouraging visitors to produce work themselves. Collaboration was integral to Tinguely’s career. He worked extensively with artists like Daniel Spoerri, Niki de Saint Phalle (also his wife), Yves Klein, and others from the ZERO network, as well as museum directors such as Pontus Hultén, Willem Sandberg, and Paul Wember. Thanks to his charismatic, vibrant personality and the dazzling success with which he presented his work (and himself) in the public sphere, Tinguely was a vital figure within these networks, acting as leader, inspirator, and connector.

Amsterdam has enjoyed a dynamic history with Tinguely. The exhibitions Bewogen Beweging (1961) and Dylaby (1962), for which Tinguely was (co)curator, particularly underline the extraordinarily close relationship that sprang up between the museum and the artist. Not only did he bring his kinetic Méta machines to the Netherlands, he also brought his international, avant-garde network, leaving an enduring impression on museum goers who flocked to see these experimental exhibitions. Close relationships with Willem Sandberg, then director of the Stedelijk Museum, and curator Ad Petersen prompted various retrospectives and acquisitions for the collection: thirteen sculptures, including his famous drawing machine, Méta-Matic No. 10 (1959), Gismo (1960), and the enormous Méta

We had a complete change this Christmas – we cancelled it! - we went walking in The Lakes, or Wasdale more precisely. We were staying at Irton Hall B & B, they had over 70 in for Christmas dinner but we ate jam bread on the slopes of Sca Fell Pike. Fantastic. We had a front wheel puncture on a run flat tyre on the new car with a 100 mile still to drive on the afternoon of Christmas eve on our way there. I drove straight to the nearest ATS – where I have an account – they shook their heads and directed me to Westhoughton Tyres, the lads there were fantastic and got us on our way in good time. BMW dealer advice was run on the flat tyre and then throw it away - £250! Where I would have got a tyre on the western side of the Lakes over Christmas I don’t know, ATS didn’t have one to sell me.

 

The weather was forecast good for Christmas day but after a fine start it was raining before we even left the car park in Wasdale. We headed up Lingmell and ran into snow on the summit. The path onto Sca Fell Pike was very icy, snow covered and visibility was low, the snow kept falling. We didn’t linger long, it was too cold to have dinner up there so we dropped down onto the Corridor Route, where we had our dinner. We went that way to stretch the walk out, having originally intended to cross to Great End. The tops were so icy, glazed, with not enough snow to get a grip on that we decide to leave it for another day. From Styhead we headed back to Wasdale and a dull but fine finish to the day. A drink in the bar at Irton Hall was on the radar.

 

Every morning we headed into Wasdale early, it got colder, icier and sunnier as the days went by. We went up Yewbarrow, it was an icy scramble up and I decided it was too dangerous to go down Stirrup Crag to Dore Head so went back the same way. It turned out to be the right decision as we lingered on the top, going to view points that we wouldn’t have and getting some decent photos. One morning we walked over the Screes tops, Illgill Head and Whin Rigg, dropping down the steep slope to The southern end of Wast Water. Having said that I would never walk the Screes path alongside Wast Water again the memory of how awful it is in the rain had faded. There is only really a quarter of a mile out of three miles that is really bad, every rock was like glass with the potential to break a leg every step. It seemed a long way and I was getting killer looks from Herself.

 

We made our way onto Sca Fell on a beautiful morning, clear blue sky. The snow line had got lower most nights but we never had the low level snow that caused problems in the rest of the country. I chose a, sometimes, pathless way to the summit, partly because I’d never been that way but also to stay in the sun, to keep the view and to avoid the ways that would be a touch dangerous, it was -4 and seared with ice for the last 600 feet. After 15 minutes on the summit wispy thin cloud came racing in, crossing the Lake District in minutes, the photos show it heading towards us and I was glad to have got the clear photos first. Looking out to sea a great mattress of cloud was heading straight for us. It was calm and sunny one minute and the next we were engulfed in thick cloud with 30 yards visibility at the most. I have never had a clear sky turn to cloud so fast – ever! We were going down to Slightside next which was OK, about a mile following the ridge down, the problem was getting back to Wasdale from there. We needed to get to Great Howe which meant a pathless trek a mile SW across Quagrigg Moss – a bog full of tarnlets, it would be a nightmare in low visibility. After getting some accurate compass bearings and heading down off Slightside we suddenly dropped out of the cloud and could see our target, brilliant, we legged it across the semi frozen bog and finally felt able to rest and grab a sandwich and cup of tea. We had to find our way down Raven Crags, which was interesting – and steep! We needed to get to the footbridge to get onto the Burnmoor Tarn path back to Wasdale. As we got closer to Burnmoor Tarn the light that I had been cursing gave us a gorgeous sunset. I had one eye on a gap in the cloud low down in the sky out at sea and I was hoping the sun would break through, it did. Burnmoor Tarn was like a mirror, reflecting the surrounding mountains, including Yewbarrow and parts of the Mosedale Horseshoe in the far distance. There was just the two of us, we had barely seen a soul all day, it was a fantastic end to a tough day. As we dropped into Wasdale I caught the deep pink and orange of the last of the sun, I was shooting into it but I had nothing to lose. There would have been quite a few tripods at the opposite end of the lake but I think I was in the better place – for a change.

 

On our final walking day we decided to head up Great Gable. It was clear of cloud for a change but ominously the surrounding tops, including the Sca Fells were cloud covered. Another beautiful but very cold morning, it was going to be very icy up there so we elected to go via Styhead and the tourist track. We would choose a way off once we were up there. Long before we got to the top, although we couldn’t see it, we knew the cloud was swirling in and out on the summit so it was going to be hit and miss for the photos. The cloud was down for the last 500 feet but once on the frozen top it kept clearing briefly – very briefly. There were more people up there than we had seen the entire trip previously. People were getting out after Christmas, many had parked at the top of Honister for the fairly easy walk in across Green Gable, some were not dressed for winter walking it has to be said. We left for an icy scramble down to Aaron Slack, up onto Green Gable them we galloped down Aaron Slack to Styhead and back to Wasdale.

 

We had a complete change this Christmas – we cancelled it! - we went walking in The Lakes, or Wasdale more precisely. We were staying at Irton Hall B & B, they had over 70 in for Christmas dinner but we ate jam bread on the slopes of Sca Fell Pike. Fantastic. We had a front wheel puncture on a run flat tyre on the new car with a 100 mile still to drive on the afternoon of Christmas eve on our way there. I drove straight to the nearest ATS – where I have an account – they shook their heads and directed me to Westhoughton Tyres, the lads there were fantastic and got us on our way in good time. BMW dealer advice was run on the flat tyre and then throw it away - £250! Where I would have got a tyre on the western side of the Lakes over Christmas I don’t know, ATS didn’t have one to sell me.

 

The weather was forecast good for Christmas day but after a fine start it was raining before we even left the car park in Wasdale. We headed up Lingmell and ran into snow on the summit. The path onto Sca Fell Pike was very icy, snow covered and visibility was low, the snow kept falling. We didn’t linger long, it was too cold to have dinner up there so we dropped down onto the Corridor Route, where we had our dinner. We went that way to stretch the walk out, having originally intended to cross to Great End. The tops were so icy, glazed, with not enough snow to get a grip on that we decide to leave it for another day. From Styhead we headed back to Wasdale and a dull but fine finish to the day. A drink in the bar at Irton Hall was on the radar.

 

Every morning we headed into Wasdale early, it got colder, icier and sunnier as the days went by. We went up Yewbarrow, it was an icy scramble up and I decided it was too dangerous to go down Stirrup Crag to Dore Head so went back the same way. It turned out to be the right decision as we lingered on the top, going to view points that we wouldn’t have and getting some decent photos. One morning we walked over the Screes tops, Illgill Head and Whin Rigg, dropping down the steep slope to The southern end of Wast Water. Having said that I would never walk the Screes path alongside Wast Water again the memory of how awful it is in the rain had faded. There is only really a quarter of a mile out of three miles that is really bad, every rock was like glass with the potential to break a leg every step. It seemed a long way and I was getting killer looks from Herself.

 

We made our way onto Sca Fell on a beautiful morning, clear blue sky. The snow line had got lower most nights but we never had the low level snow that caused problems in the rest of the country. I chose a, sometimes, pathless way to the summit, partly because I’d never been that way but also to stay in the sun, to keep the view and to avoid the ways that would be a touch dangerous, it was -4 and seared with ice for the last 600 feet. After 15 minutes on the summit wispy thin cloud came racing in, crossing the Lake District in minutes, the photos show it heading towards us and I was glad to have got the clear photos first. Looking out to sea a great mattress of cloud was heading straight for us. It was calm and sunny one minute and the next we were engulfed in thick cloud with 30 yards visibility at the most. I have never had a clear sky turn to cloud so fast – ever! We were going down to Slightside next which was OK, about a mile following the ridge down, the problem was getting back to Wasdale from there. We needed to get to Great Howe which meant a pathless trek a mile SW across Quagrigg Moss – a bog full of tarnlets, it would be a nightmare in low visibility. After getting some accurate compass bearings and heading down off Slightside we suddenly dropped out of the cloud and could see our target, brilliant, we legged it across the semi frozen bog and finally felt able to rest and grab a sandwich and cup of tea. We had to find our way down Raven Crags, which was interesting – and steep! We needed to get to the footbridge to get onto the Burnmoor Tarn path back to Wasdale. As we got closer to Burnmoor Tarn the light that I had been cursing gave us a gorgeous sunset. I had one eye on a gap in the cloud low down in the sky out at sea and I was hoping the sun would break through, it did. Burnmoor Tarn was like a mirror, reflecting the surrounding mountains, including Yewbarrow and parts of the Mosedale Horseshoe in the far distance. There was just the two of us, we had barely seen a soul all day, it was a fantastic end to a tough day. As we dropped into Wasdale I caught the deep pink and orange of the last of the sun, I was shooting into it but I had nothing to lose. There would have been quite a few tripods at the opposite end of the lake but I think I was in the better place – for a change.

 

On our final walking day we decided to head up Great Gable. It was clear of cloud for a change but ominously the surrounding tops, including the Sca Fells were cloud covered. Another beautiful but very cold morning, it was going to be very icy up there so we elected to go via Styhead and the tourist track. We would choose a way off once we were up there. Long before we got to the top, although we couldn’t see it, we knew the cloud was swirling in and out on the summit so it was going to be hit and miss for the photos. The cloud was down for the last 500 feet but once on the frozen top it kept clearing briefly – very briefly. There were more people up there than we had seen the entire trip previously. People were getting out after Christmas, many had parked at the top of Honister for the fairly easy walk in across Green Gable, some were not dressed for winter walking it has to be said. We left for an icy scramble down to Arron Slack, up onto Green Gable them we galloped down Arron Slack to Styhead and back to Wasdale.

 

No visit to Cambodia is complete without attending at least one traditional Khmer dance performance, often referred to as 'Apsara Dance' after one of the most popular Classical dance pieces. Traditional Khmer dance is better described as 'dance-drama' in that the dances are not merely dance but are also meant to convey a story or message. There are four main modern genres of traditional Khmer dance: 1) Classical Dance, also known as Court or Palatine Dance (lakhon preah reach troap or lakhon luong); 2) Shadow theater (sbeik thom and sbeik toot); 3) Lakhon Khol (all-male masked dance-drama.); 4) Folk Dance (Ceremonial and Theatrical).

   

As evidenced in part by the innumerable apsaras (celestial dancers) that adorn the walls of Angkorian and pre-Angkorian temples, dance has been part of Khmer culture for well more than a millennium, though there have been ruptures in the tradition over the centuries, making it impossible to precisely trace the source of the tradition. Much of traditional dance (especially Classical) is inspired by Angkorian-era art and themes, but the tradition has not been passed unbroken from the age of Angkor. Most traditional dances seen today were developed in the 18th through 20th centuries, beginning in earnest with a mid-19th century revival championed by King Ang Duong (reigned 1841-1869). Subsequent Kings and other Khmer Royals also strongly supported the arts and dance, most particularly Queen Sisowath Kossamak Nearireach (retired King Norodom Sihanouk's mother) in the mid-20th century, who not only fostered a resurgence in the study and development of Khmer traditional dance, but also helped move it out of the Palace and popularize it. Queen Sisowath Kossamak trained her grand daughter Princess Bopha Devi in the art of traditional dance from early childhood, who went on to become the face of Khmer traditional dance in the 1950s and 60s both in Cambodia and around the world. Many traditional dances that are seen in performances today were developed and refined between the 1940s and 1960s under the guidance and patronage of Queen Sisowath Kossamak at the Conservatory of Performing Arts and the Royal University of Fine Arts in Phnom Penh. Almost all of the Theatrical Folk dances that are presented in modern performances were developed during this period. Like so much of Cambodian art and culture, traditional dance was almost lost under the brutal repression of the Khmer Rouge regime of the late 1970s, only to be revived and reconstructed in the 1980s and 90s due, in large part, to the extraordinary efforts of Princess Bopha Devi.

   

Classical dance, including the famous 'Apsara dance,' has a grounded, subtle, even restrained, yet feather-light, ethereal appearance. Distinct in its ornate costuming, taut posture, arched back and feet, fingers flexed backwards, codified facial expressions, slow, close, deliberate but flowing movements, Classical dance is uniquely Khmer. It presents themes and stories inspired primarily by the Reamker (the Cambodian version of the Indian classic, the Ramayana) and the Age of Angkor.

   

Folk Dance come in two forms: ceremonial and theatrical. As a general rule, only Theatrical Folk Dance is presented in public performances, with Ceremonial Folk Dances reserved for particular rituals, celebrations and holidays. Theatrical Folk Dances such as the popular Good Harvest Dance and the romantic Fishing Dance are usually adaptations of dances found in the countryside or inspired by rural life and practices. Most of the Theatrical Folk Dances that are seen in performances today were developed at the Royal University of Fine Arts in Phnom Penh in the 1960s as part of an effort to preserve and perpetuate Khmer culture and arts.

   

Shadow theatre comes in two forms: Sbeik Thom (big puppets that are actually panels depicting certain characters from the story) and Sbeik Toot (small articulated puppets). The black leather puppets are held in front of a light source, either in front or behind a screen, creating a shadow or silhouette effect. Sbeik Thom is the more uniquely Cambodian, more formal of the two types, restricting itself to stories from the Reamker. The performance is accompanied by a pin peat orchestra and narration, and the puppeteers are silent, moving the panels with dance-like movements. Sbeik Toot has a far lighter feel, presenting popular stories of heroes, adventures, love and battles, with or without orchestra and with the puppeteers often doing the narration.

   

Lakhon Khol is all male masked theatre presenting exclusively stories from the Reamker.

 

Most dance performances in Siem Reap offer a mixture of Classical and Theatrical Folk dances. A few venues offer Shadow Theater. Many of the dance performances in Siem Reap consist of 4-6 individual dances, often opening with an Apsara Dance, followed by two other Classical dances and two or three Theatrical Folk dances. The Apsara Dance is a Classical dance inspired by the apsara carvings and sculptures of Angkor and developed in the late 1940s by Queen Sisowath Kossamak. Her grand daughter and protégé, Princess Bopha Devi, was the first star of the Apsara Dance. The central character of the dance, the apsara Mera, leads her coterie of apsaras through a flower garden where they partake of the beauty of the garden. The movements of the dance are distinctly Classical yet, as the dance was developed for theatrical presentation, it is shorter and a bit more relaxed and flowing than most Classical dances, making it both an excellent example of the movements, manner and spirit of Classical dance and at the same time particularly accessible to a modern audience unaccustomed to the style and stories of Khmer dance-drama.

   

Another extremely popular dance included in most traditional dance performances in Siem Reap is the Theatrical Folk Dance known as the 'Fishing Dance.' The Fishing Dance is a playful, energetic folk dance with a strong, easy-to-follow story line. It was developed in the 1960s at the Royal University of Fine Arts in Phnom Penh and was inspired by the developer's interpretation of certain rather idealized and stereotyped aspects aspects of rural life and young love. Clad in rural attire, a group of young men and women fish with rattan baskets and scoops, dividing their attention between work and flirtatious glances. Women are portrayed as hardworking, shy, demurring and coy, whereas the young men are strong, unrestrained, roguish and assertive. As the dance continues a couple is separated from the group allowing the flirtations between them to intensify, only to be spoiled by the male character playing a bit too rough, leading to her coy rejection. He pokes and plays trying to win her back, bringing only further rejection. Eventually he gently apologizes on bended knee and after some effort, draws a smile and her attention once again. Just as they move together, the group returns, startling the couple and evoking embarrassment as they both rush to their 'proper' roles once again. The men and women exit at opposite sides of the stage, leaving the couple almost alone, but under pressure of the groups, they separate, leaving in opposite directions, yet with index finger placed to mouth, hint of a secret promise to meet again. (In an interesting side note, placing one's index finger to the lips to denote quiet or secrecy is not, generally speaking, a gesture found in Cambodia, but is common in the West. Its employment in the dance probably indicates a certain amount of 'foreign influence' amongst the Cambodian choreographers when the dance was developed in the 1960s.)

 

Source: Canby Publications Co., Ltd.

Lake Saiko, Japan

Photograph taken at an altitude of Seven metres, in the magic of the Golden hour around sunrise at 05:16am, (sunrise was at precisely 06.15am) on Saturday 6th September 2014 off the Patricia Bay Highway 17, on Lochside Drive close to Frost Avenue and the Lochside Waterfront Park, in beautiful Sidney by the sea on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada.

  

Here, we are looking over towards Mt Baker in Washington State, USA from beautiful Sidney by the sea on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada. Also known as Koma Kulshan, (pronounced kō-ō’mah’ kool-shän’),she is an active glaciated andesitic stratovolcano in the Cascade Volcanic Arc and the North Cascades of Washington State in the United States, standing 3,286 metres tall and was first ascended in 1868, her last eruption recorded in 1880.

  

The name Mount Baker first appeared in print in Captain Vancouver’s 1798 narrative of his voyage around Vancouver Island. Legend has it that his third-lieutenant, Joseph Baker, was the first to spot the mountain while they sailed into Dungeness Bay on April 30th, 1792. Also known by the Lummi as Kwud-Shad, and Koba (meaning 'high mountain always covered with snow', was the Skagit name.

  

.

.

  

Nikon D800 70mm 1/80s f/2.8 iso100 RAW (14 bit) Manual focus. Manual exposure. Matrix metering. Auto white balance.

  

Nikkor AF-S 70-200mm f/2.8G ED IF VRII. Jessops 77mm UV filter. Nikon MB-D12 battery grip. Two Nikon EN-EL batteries. Nikon DK-17M Magnifying Eyepiece. Nikon DK-19 soft rubber eyecup. Manfrotto MT057C3 057 Carbon Fiber Tripod 3 Sections (Payload 18kgs). Manfrotto MH057M0-RC4 057 Magnesium Ball Head with RC4 Quick Release (Payload 15kgs). Manfrotto quick release plate 410PL-14.Jessops Tripod bag. Optech Tripod Strap.Digi-Chip 64GB Class 10 UHS-1 SDXC. Lowepro Transporter camera strap. Lowepro Vertex 200 AW camera bag. Nikon MC-DC2 remote shutter release. Nikon GP-1 GPS unit.

  

.

.

  

LATITUDE: N 48d 38m 16.07s

LONGITUDE: W 123d 24m 12.47s

ALTITUDE: 7.0m

  

RAW (TIFF) FILE SIZE: 103.00MB

PROCESSED (JPeg) SIZE: 11.07MB

  

.

.

  

Processing power:

HP Pavillion P6-2388EA Desktop with AMD A10-5700 APU processor. AMD Radeon HD 7570 graphics. 2TB with 8GB RAM. 64-bit Windows 8.1. Verbatim USB 2.0 1TB desktop hard drive. Nikon VIEWNX2 Version 2.10.0 64bit. Adobe photoshop Elements 8 Version 8.0 64bit

 

Although admittedly not a particularly remarkable sunset, this image is a reprise of another picture taken by me and posted six months previously, from the same location, and for precisely the same reason. My description of the other photo is incorporated here by reference, as whatever I could say here would be substantially the same as what I wrote that time. Suffice it to say that I wasn't able to hear a lot over the telephone, but what I did hear was pleasant and edifying. I hope to be able to attend the Madsens' gathering in person the next time it is held, in April of 2007. (This image, by the way, differs from the previous one in two respects. First, our palm tree has been trimmed since then, although it looks like it might need it again soon. Second, this photo was taken in October, with the sun a bit further south in its journey along the ecliptic.)

 

There are a couple of things I can add this time, however. First, while I listened in, I frequently heard birds chirping over the telephone, and for a few minutes figured the Madsens must have decided to buy a couple of cockatiels as well, following my example. After a while, however, I noticed that the Madsens' birds chirped and squealed a fraction of a second after one of our birds emitted an identical chirp or squeal. In other words, our birds' noise echoed over the telephone, although I am not sure whether Barney and the others at his end heard any of it.

 

The other item is this. My wife was cooking dinner while I was listening in to the post-Conference wrap-up. At one point she walked out the front door, only to return less than a minute later, which I thought rather unusual for her. Then she appeared upset or annoyed about something, and I wondered if it was my fault somehow. Later I found out that it wasn't, but when I learned what had happened, I couldn't blame her for being a little upset. She and Vanessa had gone to the store late the previous evening, which was Saturday. I went to bed while they were gone, and must have fallen asleep almost immediately because I never heard them come home. As it turned out, while in the course of preparing our meal, Sheila discovered that about $25.00 worth of meat, which she had purchased the night before, was missing. She finally went out to the car looking for it. The high temperature that day in the Phoenix area had been about 100 degrees, so she opened the trunk of our car, and -- well, the odor told her immediately that the meat was no longer edible. They had somehow overlooked it when bringing in the groceries after that little Saturday-night excursion to Fry's supermarket.

 

So much, then, for my Conference weekend, which as always was memorable, and a spiritual feast as well -- even though the more literal, material feast ended up being something less than it could have been.

...more snowballs to throw. :)

Which is precisely why I started a group this winter so I could throw snowballs at everyone. That and because I refuse to grow up.

At least that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Virtual Snowball Fight!

Join if you have some pics of snowballs in flight. :)

 

And yes, I'm a dork that threw a weak ass snowball so I would knock down my camcorder. Plus the batteries died shortly after.

It was the thought that counts.

 

Santhals are the aboriginal residents of India, now they belong to the eastern part of India especially from Santhal Parganas. Precisely, this is in Chhotonagpur tabletop area.

Due to the existence of British emperor and drastic steps taken by Indian feudal system, innate aboriginality of Santhals was demolished. As a result they migrated to the far eastern (West Bengal, Orissa) and to the area lied in central India (Chhatishgarh, Madhya Pradesh). Their primitive livelihood like harvesting and cattle culture had been transformed into other modern era socio-economic work structure.

This photo documentation has been carried out at Santiniketan which is in West Bengal and this place was treated as one of the peaceful rest houses of migrated Santhals. As an obvious outcome of globalization migrated tribal community of India suffers from their original identity. Throughout socio-economic reconstruction lead them to utter destruction resulting in cultural mix up with the deletion of originality. Actually a pseudo culture engulfed their identity.

Santhals posses a unique type of celebration, in the forms of dance and music. A point to note that, their form of performing arts is quite different in nature from Aryan culture. Key feature behind their dance and music is rhythm. Group performance with enchanting rhythm is the basic constructing part of their dance, naming ‘BAHA’. Males and females take equal part in Baha. Santhals use some instruments entirely designed by their own excellence. Interesting enough that no string instrument is designed and percussions take the prime role. Tamak, Dhamsa, Madol, Ghoyang are the preliminary instruments used in Baha. In general females take part in dance whereas males play the instruments but there is also exception.

BADNA is the most important festival of Santhals. This is performed after the yield of crop. Besides HOOL is another important festival of Santhals. Hool is performed for the remembrance of the biggest Santhali strike back to the British emperor lead by Sidhoo, Kanhoo in nineteenth century.

 

We had a complete change this Christmas – we cancelled it! - we went walking in The Lakes, or Wasdale more precisely. We were staying at Irton Hall B & B, they had over 70 in for Christmas dinner but we ate jam bread on the slopes of Sca Fell Pike. Fantastic. We had a front wheel puncture on a run flat tyre on the new car with a 100 mile still to drive on the afternoon of Christmas eve on our way there. I drove straight to the nearest ATS – where I have an account – they shook their heads and directed me to Westhoughton Tyres, the lads there were fantastic and got us on our way in good time. BMW dealer advice was run on the flat tyre and then throw it away - £250! Where I would have got a tyre on the western side of the Lakes over Christmas I don’t know, ATS didn’t have one to sell me.

 

The weather was forecast good for Christmas day but after a fine start it was raining before we even left the car park in Wasdale. We headed up Lingmell and ran into snow on the summit. The path onto Sca Fell Pike was very icy, snow covered and visibility was low, the snow kept falling. We didn’t linger long, it was too cold to have dinner up there so we dropped down onto the Corridor Route, where we had our dinner. We went that way to stretch the walk out, having originally intended to cross to Great End. The tops were so icy, glazed, with not enough snow to get a grip on that we decide to leave it for another day. From Styhead we headed back to Wasdale and a dull but fine finish to the day. A drink in the bar at Irton Hall was on the radar.

 

Every morning we headed into Wasdale early, it got colder, icier and sunnier as the days went by. We went up Yewbarrow, it was an icy scramble up and I decided it was too dangerous to go down Stirrup Crag to Dore Head so went back the same way. It turned out to be the right decision as we lingered on the top, going to view points that we wouldn’t have and getting some decent photos. One morning we walked over the Screes tops, Illgill Head and Whin Rigg, dropping down the steep slope to The southern end of Wast Water. Having said that I would never walk the Screes path alongside Wast Water again the memory of how awful it is in the rain had faded. There is only really a quarter of a mile out of three miles that is really bad, every rock was like glass with the potential to break a leg every step. It seemed a long way and I was getting killer looks from Herself.

 

We made our way onto Sca Fell on a beautiful morning, clear blue sky. The snow line had got lower most nights but we never had the low level snow that caused problems in the rest of the country. I chose a, sometimes, pathless way to the summit, partly because I’d never been that way but also to stay in the sun, to keep the view and to avoid the ways that would be a touch dangerous, it was -4 and seared with ice for the last 600 feet. After 15 minutes on the summit wispy thin cloud came racing in, crossing the Lake District in minutes, the photos show it heading towards us and I was glad to have got the clear photos first. Looking out to sea a great mattress of cloud was heading straight for us. It was calm and sunny one minute and the next we were engulfed in thick cloud with 30 yards visibility at the most. I have never had a clear sky turn to cloud so fast – ever! We were going down to Slightside next which was OK, about a mile following the ridge down, the problem was getting back to Wasdale from there. We needed to get to Great Howe which meant a pathless trek a mile SW across Quagrigg Moss – a bog full of tarnlets, it would be a nightmare in low visibility. After getting some accurate compass bearings and heading down off Slightside we suddenly dropped out of the cloud and could see our target, brilliant, we legged it across the semi frozen bog and finally felt able to rest and grab a sandwich and cup of tea. We had to find our way down Raven Crags, which was interesting – and steep! We needed to get to the footbridge to get onto the Burnmoor Tarn path back to Wasdale. As we got closer to Burnmoor Tarn the light that I had been cursing gave us a gorgeous sunset. I had one eye on a gap in the cloud low down in the sky out at sea and I was hoping the sun would break through, it did. Burnmoor Tarn was like a mirror, reflecting the surrounding mountains, including Yewbarrow and parts of the Mosedale Horseshoe in the far distance. There was just the two of us, we had barely seen a soul all day, it was a fantastic end to a tough day. As we dropped into Wasdale I caught the deep pink and orange of the last of the sun, I was shooting into it but I had nothing to lose. There would have been quite a few tripods at the opposite end of the lake but I think I was in the better place – for a change.

 

On our final walking day we decided to head up Great Gable. It was clear of cloud for a change but ominously the surrounding tops, including the Sca Fells were cloud covered. Another beautiful but very cold morning, it was going to be very icy up there so we elected to go via Styhead and the tourist track. We would choose a way off once we were up there. Long before we got to the top, although we couldn’t see it, we knew the cloud was swirling in and out on the summit so it was going to be hit and miss for the photos. The cloud was down for the last 500 feet but once on the frozen top it kept clearing briefly – very briefly. There were more people up there than we had seen the entire trip previously. People were getting out after Christmas, many had parked at the top of Honister for the fairly easy walk in across Green Gable, some were not dressed for winter walking it has to be said. We left for an icy scramble down to Arron Slack, up onto Green Gable them we galloped down Arron Slack to Styhead and back to Wasdale.

 

We had a complete change this Christmas – we cancelled it! - we went walking in The Lakes, or Wasdale more precisely. We were staying at Irton Hall B & B, they had over 70 in for Christmas dinner but we ate jam bread on the slopes of Sca Fell Pike. Fantastic. We had a front wheel puncture on a run flat tyre on the new car with a 100 mile still to drive on the afternoon of Christmas eve on our way there. I drove straight to the nearest ATS – where I have an account – they shook their heads and directed me to Westhoughton Tyres, the lads there were fantastic and got us on our way in good time. BMW dealer advice was run on the flat tyre and then throw it away - £250! Where I would have got a tyre on the western side of the Lakes over Christmas I don’t know, ATS didn’t have one to sell me.

 

The weather was forecast good for Christmas day but after a fine start it was raining before we even left the car park in Wasdale. We headed up Lingmell and ran into snow on the summit. The path onto Sca Fell Pike was very icy, snow covered and visibility was low, the snow kept falling. We didn’t linger long, it was too cold to have dinner up there so we dropped down onto the Corridor Route, where we had our dinner. We went that way to stretch the walk out, having originally intended to cross to Great End. The tops were so icy, glazed, with not enough snow to get a grip on that we decide to leave it for another day. From Styhead we headed back to Wasdale and a dull but fine finish to the day. A drink in the bar at Irton Hall was on the radar.

 

Every morning we headed into Wasdale early, it got colder, icier and sunnier as the days went by. We went up Yewbarrow, it was an icy scramble up and I decided it was too dangerous to go down Stirrup Crag to Dore Head so went back the same way. It turned out to be the right decision as we lingered on the top, going to view points that we wouldn’t have and getting some decent photos. One morning we walked over the Screes tops, Illgill Head and Whin Rigg, dropping down the steep slope to The southern end of Wast Water. Having said that I would never walk the Screes path alongside Wast Water again the memory of how awful it is in the rain had faded. There is only really a quarter of a mile out of three miles that is really bad, every rock was like glass with the potential to break a leg every step. It seemed a long way and I was getting killer looks from Herself.

 

We made our way onto Sca Fell on a beautiful morning, clear blue sky. The snow line had got lower most nights but we never had the low level snow that caused problems in the rest of the country. I chose a, sometimes, pathless way to the summit, partly because I’d never been that way but also to stay in the sun, to keep the view and to avoid the ways that would be a touch dangerous, it was -4 and seared with ice for the last 600 feet. After 15 minutes on the summit wispy thin cloud came racing in, crossing the Lake District in minutes, the photos show it heading towards us and I was glad to have got the clear photos first. Looking out to sea a great mattress of cloud was heading straight for us. It was calm and sunny one minute and the next we were engulfed in thick cloud with 30 yards visibility at the most. I have never had a clear sky turn to cloud so fast – ever! We were going down to Slightside next which was OK, about a mile following the ridge down, the problem was getting back to Wasdale from there. We needed to get to Great Howe which meant a pathless trek a mile SW across Quagrigg Moss – a bog full of tarnlets, it would be a nightmare in low visibility. After getting some accurate compass bearings and heading down off Slightside we suddenly dropped out of the cloud and could see our target, brilliant, we legged it across the semi frozen bog and finally felt able to rest and grab a sandwich and cup of tea. We had to find our way down Raven Crags, which was interesting – and steep! We needed to get to the footbridge to get onto the Burnmoor Tarn path back to Wasdale. As we got closer to Burnmoor Tarn the light that I had been cursing gave us a gorgeous sunset. I had one eye on a gap in the cloud low down in the sky out at sea and I was hoping the sun would break through, it did. Burnmoor Tarn was like a mirror, reflecting the surrounding mountains, including Yewbarrow and parts of the Mosedale Horseshoe in the far distance. There was just the two of us, we had barely seen a soul all day, it was a fantastic end to a tough day. As we dropped into Wasdale I caught the deep pink and orange of the last of the sun, I was shooting into it but I had nothing to lose. There would have been quite a few tripods at the opposite end of the lake but I think I was in the better place – for a change.

 

On our final walking day we decided to head up Great Gable. It was clear of cloud for a change but ominously the surrounding tops, including the Sca Fells were cloud covered. Another beautiful but very cold morning, it was going to be very icy up there so we elected to go via Styhead and the tourist track. We would choose a way off once we were up there. Long before we got to the top, although we couldn’t see it, we knew the cloud was swirling in and out on the summit so it was going to be hit and miss for the photos. The cloud was down for the last 500 feet but once on the frozen top it kept clearing briefly – very briefly. There were more people up there than we had seen the entire trip previously. People were getting out after Christmas, many had parked at the top of Honister for the fairly easy walk in across Green Gable, some were not dressed for winter walking it has to be said. We left for an icy scramble down to Aaron Slack, up onto Green Gable them we galloped down Aaron Slack to Styhead and back to Wasdale.

 

We had a complete change this Christmas – we cancelled it! - we went walking in The Lakes, or Wasdale more precisely. We were staying at Irton Hall B & B, they had over 70 in for Christmas dinner but we ate jam bread on the slopes of Sca Fell Pike. Fantastic. We had a front wheel puncture on a run flat tyre on the new car with a 100 mile still to drive on the afternoon of Christmas eve on our way there. I drove straight to the nearest ATS – where I have an account – they shook their heads and directed me to Westhoughton Tyres, the lads there were fantastic and got us on our way in good time. BMW dealer advice was run on the flat tyre and then throw it away - £250! Where I would have got a tyre on the western side of the Lakes over Christmas I don’t know, ATS didn’t have one to sell me.

 

The weather was forecast good for Christmas day but after a fine start it was raining before we even left the car park in Wasdale. We headed up Lingmell and ran into snow on the summit. The path onto Sca Fell Pike was very icy, snow covered and visibility was low, the snow kept falling. We didn’t linger long, it was too cold to have dinner up there so we dropped down onto the Corridor Route, where we had our dinner. We went that way to stretch the walk out, having originally intended to cross to Great End. The tops were so icy, glazed, with not enough snow to get a grip on that we decide to leave it for another day. From Styhead we headed back to Wasdale and a dull but fine finish to the day. A drink in the bar at Irton Hall was on the radar.

 

Every morning we headed into Wasdale early, it got colder, icier and sunnier as the days went by. We went up Yewbarrow, it was an icy scramble up and I decided it was too dangerous to go down Stirrup Crag to Dore Head so went back the same way. It turned out to be the right decision as we lingered on the top, going to view points that we wouldn’t have and getting some decent photos. One morning we walked over the Screes tops, Illgill Head and Whin Rigg, dropping down the steep slope to The southern end of Wast Water. Having said that I would never walk the Screes path alongside Wast Water again the memory of how awful it is in the rain had faded. There is only really a quarter of a mile out of three miles that is really bad, every rock was like glass with the potential to break a leg every step. It seemed a long way and I was getting killer looks from Herself.

 

We made our way onto Sca Fell on a beautiful morning, clear blue sky. The snow line had got lower most nights but we never had the low level snow that caused problems in the rest of the country. I chose a, sometimes, pathless way to the summit, partly because I’d never been that way but also to stay in the sun, to keep the view and to avoid the ways that would be a touch dangerous, it was -4 and seared with ice for the last 600 feet. After 15 minutes on the summit wispy thin cloud came racing in, crossing the Lake District in minutes, the photos show it heading towards us and I was glad to have got the clear photos first. Looking out to sea a great mattress of cloud was heading straight for us. It was calm and sunny one minute and the next we were engulfed in thick cloud with 30 yards visibility at the most. I have never had a clear sky turn to cloud so fast – ever! We were going down to Slightside next which was OK, about a mile following the ridge down, the problem was getting back to Wasdale from there. We needed to get to Great Howe which meant a pathless trek a mile SW across Quagrigg Moss – a bog full of tarnlets, it would be a nightmare in low visibility. After getting some accurate compass bearings and heading down off Slightside we suddenly dropped out of the cloud and could see our target, brilliant, we legged it across the semi frozen bog and finally felt able to rest and grab a sandwich and cup of tea. We had to find our way down Raven Crags, which was interesting – and steep! We needed to get to the footbridge to get onto the Burnmoor Tarn path back to Wasdale. As we got closer to Burnmoor Tarn the light that I had been cursing gave us a gorgeous sunset. I had one eye on a gap in the cloud low down in the sky out at sea and I was hoping the sun would break through, it did. Burnmoor Tarn was like a mirror, reflecting the surrounding mountains, including Yewbarrow and parts of the Mosedale Horseshoe in the far distance. There was just the two of us, we had barely seen a soul all day, it was a fantastic end to a tough day. As we dropped into Wasdale I caught the deep pink and orange of the last of the sun, I was shooting into it but I had nothing to lose. There would have been quite a few tripods at the opposite end of the lake but I think I was in the better place – for a change.

 

On our final walking day we decided to head up Great Gable. It was clear of cloud for a change but ominously the surrounding tops, including the Sca Fells were cloud covered. Another beautiful but very cold morning, it was going to be very icy up there so we elected to go via Styhead and the tourist track. We would choose a way off once we were up there. Long before we got to the top, although we couldn’t see it, we knew the cloud was swirling in and out on the summit so it was going to be hit and miss for the photos. The cloud was down for the last 500 feet but once on the frozen top it kept clearing briefly – very briefly. There were more people up there than we had seen the entire trip previously. People were getting out after Christmas, many had parked at the top of Honister for the fairly easy walk in across Green Gable, some were not dressed for winter walking it has to be said. We left for an icy scramble down to Arron Slack, up onto Green Gable them we galloped down Arron Slack to Styhead and back to Wasdale.

 

Clara and Elise exchange weary glances as the train gently rocks beneath them. Their gloves rest neatly in their laps, fingers lightly intertwined in frustration. The list of rules seems endless, but they know each one by heart. Aunt Matilde’s standards are absolute, and breaking even a single one would lead to scolding—or worse.

 

Matilde’s Strict Dress and Behavior Code

 

Clothing Rules

 

Shirts must be crisp, perfectly white, and fully buttoned – Always fastened to the top, collars stiff and tight around the neck. Sleeves must be long, with cuffs buttoned snugly at the wrists.

 

Skirts must be structured and conservative – At least knee-length, preferably pleated or fitted. No casual fabrics or loose silhouettes. Must be properly ironed before wearing.

 

Blazers or cardigans are required in public – No exceptions. Jackets must be tailored; cardigans must be buttoned neatly without gaps.

 

Stockings must be worn at all times – Sheer, nude, or black, without runs, snags, or wrinkles. Bare legs are strictly forbidden.

 

High heels are mandatory – Black or nude pumps, minimum three inches in height. Walking gracefully is expected—no rushing or stomping.

 

Gloves must be worn when outdoors or in formal settings – Black leather or fabric, removed only when necessary.

 

Underwear must be structured and supportive – Tight-fitting shapewear is required to maintain a perfect silhouette. Corsets or waist cinchers may be required for special occasions.

 

Bras must be underwired and padded for structure – No soft cups, bralettes, or casual wear. Straps must never be visible.

 

Panties must be high-waisted and seamless – No visible lines, no lace or patterns. Only neutral colors are allowed.

 

Makeup & Grooming Rules

 

Makeup must be flawless and elegant – Foundation for perfect skin, subtle eyeshadow, precisely applied eyeliner, and always red or deep pink lipstick.

 

Eyebrows must be neatly shaped and filled in – No over-plucking or unkempt brows allowed.

 

Hair must always be styled properly – No loose, unbrushed hair. Either curled, styled into waves, or pinned back neatly.

 

Nails must be well-manicured and painted – Only classic shades such as nude, red, or French manicure. No chipped polish.

 

Perfume is required – A subtle, sophisticated scent, never overpowering but always noticeable.

 

Behavior & Etiquette Rules

 

Posture must always be perfect – Back straight, shoulders pulled back, chin slightly lifted. Slouching is unacceptable.

 

Legs must be crossed properly – Either at the knees or ankles, depending on the situation. No casual sitting positions.

 

Walking must be graceful – Small, controlled steps with no rushing or unladylike movements.

 

Speaking must be refined – No slang, no loud voices, and certainly no interrupting others. Speech must be articulate and well-paced.

 

Smiling is encouraged, but only when appropriate – No excessive grinning or laughing too loudly in public. Composure is key.

 

No fidgeting or adjusting clothing in public – Any discomfort must be endured silently until a private moment allows for readjustment.

 

Food must be eaten delicately – Small bites, no rushing, and no messy foods. Cutlery must be handled with precision.

 

Hands must remain neatly placed on the lap or at the sides when sitting – No leaning on tables, no elbows resting on surfaces.

 

Thank-yous and pleasantries are mandatory – Proper etiquette in every social interaction is expected at all times.

 

No expressing discomfort or fatigue – Complaining about the restrictive clothing, painful shoes, or long days is not permitted.

 

Elise sighs, looking down at her perfectly manicured hands. “I think we just listed half of my daily suffering.”

 

Clara swallows, feeling the firm press of her corset beneath her blouse. “And yet, we have no choice but to follow every single one.”

 

The train rattles on, and outside, the world moves freely—comfortably. But inside their carefully maintained appearance, Clara and Elise remain prisoners of elegance.

 

A Desperate Plea to Aunt Matilde

 

Clara and Elise stood stiffly in the grand sitting room of Aunt Matilde’s townhouse, their hands clasped in front of them, their posture unwavering despite the unbearable heat pressing against their layered clothing. The morning sun streamed in through the tall windows, casting golden light across the polished wooden floors, but instead of feeling warm and inviting, the air in the room was thick with tension.

 

Matilde sat before them in her perfectly tailored suit, her high-collared blouse as immaculate as ever. A cup of tea rested on the table beside her, untouched. She studied the two young women with a sharp, knowing gaze, already sensing the plea they were about to make.

 

Clara took a steadying breath. “Aunt Matilde,” she began, careful to keep her voice respectful, “Elise and I wanted to ask if we could make just a small adjustment to our attire today. It’s—” she hesitated, feeling the weight of Matilde’s cool stare, “—it’s very warm outside, and we thought perhaps—”

 

Elise, emboldened by Clara’s start, stepped in. “Perhaps we could just unbutton the top button of our blouses? Just for today? It would help us breathe more easily.”

 

Matilde set her teacup down with an audible clink and raised a single, disapproving eyebrow. “Unbutton your collars?” she repeated, her voice calm but laced with unmistakable disapproval.

 

Clara nodded quickly. “Yes, Aunt Matilde. Just the top button.” She swallowed, feeling the constriction of the fabric around her throat. “It’s a stifling summer day, and we’ll be walking quite a bit.”

 

Matilde exhaled slowly, as if the very notion exhausted her. “Clara, Elise,” she said, her tone measured, “there is a reason your collars are buttoned. A lady does not adjust her clothing merely for comfort. Elegance requires discipline, and discipline means enduring slight discomforts without complaint.”

 

Elise’s gloved hands clenched at her sides. “But Aunt Matilde, it’s not a slight discomfort—it’s suffocating! We can barely move our necks properly, and the heat—”

 

Matilde’s expression darkened. “You will not whine, Elise.”

 

Elise fell silent, pressing her painted lips together.

 

Clara tried again, shifting to another request. “Perhaps, then, we could at least take off our gloves? Just while we’re outside? Our hands get so warm, and it’s not as if we need them for anything formal today.”

 

Matilde sighed, shaking her head slightly. “Your gloves remain on.”

 

“But—” Elise tried again, but Matilde cut her off with a firm look.

 

“A proper lady does not go about with bare hands in public like some careless girl,” Matilde stated. “Your gloves complete your ensemble. You will wear them.”

 

Clara felt a sting of frustration but bit her tongue. She had expected resistance, but she was determined to try again. “What about our stockings?” she asked carefully. “It’s a dreadful day for heavy layers, Aunt Matilde, and no one will see—”

 

“Absolutely not,” Matilde interjected, her tone leaving no room for argument. “Stockings are non-negotiable. A lady’s legs must never be bare, regardless of the weather.”

 

Elise groaned softly, unable to hold back her exasperation. “But they’re unbearable! We’re already wearing long skirts. No one will see our bare legs!”

 

Matilde’s eyes narrowed. “And that, my dear, is exactly why no one should suspect that you are improperly dressed underneath. Your attire is a reflection of your standards, even in ways that are not immediately visible.”

 

Clara’s patience was wearing thin, but she forced herself to remain composed. “Aunt Matilde… we understand your rules, truly. We respect them. But just for today, given the circumstances—”

 

Matilde folded her arms across her chest. “Given the circumstances?” she echoed. “The circumstances being a warm summer’s day? Do you think women of refinement abandon their dignity just because the temperature rises?”

 

Elise muttered under her breath, “We wouldn’t be abandoning dignity. We’d just be a little less miserable.”

 

Matilde’s expression tightened. “Excuse me, young lady?”

 

Elise paled. “Nothing, Aunt Matilde.”

 

Matilde let the silence stretch before sighing. “I expected better from both of you. This conversation is unbecoming.” She took another sip of her tea before continuing, “If you wish to be taken seriously as proper young women, you must show resilience, not weakness. You will wear your gloves, your stockings, your buttoned blouses, and you will do so without further protest.”

 

Clara’s fingers twitched in frustration, but she knew pushing any further would only make things worse. She hesitated, then, almost fearing the answer, dared to ask one final question.

 

“Aunt Matilde… may we… would it be possible to wear trousers, instead of skirts?”

 

Matilde’s teacup stopped halfway to her lips. The very suggestion hung in the air like a forbidden curse. She placed the cup down slowly and fixed both girls with an icy glare.

 

“Trousers?” she repeated, as though testing the word on her tongue.

 

Elise straightened her posture but remained defiant. “Yes, Aunt Matilde. We don’t even own any, but we could buy a pair. Just for once. Just to see what it’s like.”

 

Matilde’s nostrils flared. “Absolutely not. The very idea is absurd.”

 

“But why?” Clara pressed. “Men wear them every day. They can walk freely, sit comfortably, and move without restriction. It’s unfair that we—”

 

Matilde cut her off with a sharp glance. “Men and women are not the same, Clara. And you will not dress like a man. I will not have my nieces traipsing about in such vulgar attire.”

 

Elise let out an incredulous laugh. “Vulgar? Trousers are vulgar?”

 

Matilde’s voice was razor-sharp. “On women, yes.”

 

Clara’s heart sank. They had lost.

 

Matilde picked up her tea again, signaling that the discussion was over. “You are both intelligent young women. I expect you to understand that propriety is not about convenience. It is about grace, discipline, and respectability.”

 

Clara and Elise exchanged a silent look. There was no winning this argument. No loosening of their collars, no relief from their gloves, no escape from the stockings that clung to their legs like a second skin.

 

Defeated, they murmured their acceptance, curtsied stiffly, and turned to leave the room. As they walked away, Matilde’s voice followed them, firm and unwavering.

 

“Now, go freshen up and reapply your lipstick. You both look fatigued, and that is not an acceptable appearance for a lady.”

 

The door closed behind them. Elise exhaled sharply, pressing her forehead against the wall. “I give up.”

 

Clara sighed, adjusting her suffocating collar. “So do I.”

 

And with that, they resigned themselves to yet another day of perfect, polished, and utterly uncomfortable elegance.

 

A Day of Elegance and Endurance

 

The sun was already high in the sky when Clara and Elise stepped out onto the bustling streets of New York. The city hummed with life—cars honked, pedestrians weaved through the sidewalks, and a warm breeze drifted between the towering buildings. But while the world around them moved freely, Clara and Elise felt anything but free.

 

Clara adjusted the cuffs of her crisp white blouse, the fabric pulled taut against her shoulders, refusing to give even as she tried to loosen it. The high collar, fastened all the way up, pressed against her throat, and though she tried to ignore it, the sensation of being constricted was ever-present. Elise, beside her, tugged at the fingers of her leather gloves, but even the small gesture was futile. The gloves were to stay on, just as their stockings, skirts, and perfectly buttoned blouses were non-negotiable.

 

"Where shall we go first?" Clara asked, forcing cheer into her voice.

 

Elise exhaled slowly, already feeling the sweat forming beneath her clothing. "Does it even matter? We could be strolling through paradise, and I'd still feel like I'm being suffocated by my own outfit."

 

Clara chuckled, though there was little amusement in it. "At least we look elegant," she offered.

 

Elise rolled her eyes. "Yes, we look like the epitome of refinement. But I’d trade all this elegance for just a moment of comfort."

A Walk Through the Park—A Struggle in Elegance

 

They decided to start their day in Central Park, hoping that the shade of the trees might bring some respite. But walking proved to be an ordeal. Their fitted skirts restricted their steps, forcing them into small, deliberate strides. Their high heels clicked against the pavement, adding an air of sophistication but punishing their feet with every step.

 

Elise let out a sigh of frustration. "I swear, if I trip on this ridiculous skirt one more time, I’ll scream."

 

Clara cast a sideways glance at her. "Careful, Aunt Matilde might sense your improper thoughts from across the city."

 

Elise scoffed, flexing her gloved fingers. "Oh yes, and she’d probably send a telegram ordering us to sit properly and compose ourselves immediately."

 

They found a bench beneath a large oak tree, hoping to rest, but even sitting was uncomfortable. Their skirts remained tight around their legs, and the stockings ensured that no cool air reached their skin. Clara shifted slightly, trying to find a more relaxed position, but her high collar made her posture rigid no matter what.

 

She sighed. "Even resting is exhausting in this outfit."

 

Elise reached up to unbutton the top of her blouse instinctively, but her gloved fingers struggled against the small, rigid buttons. Clara immediately grabbed her wrist. "Don’t. If Aunt Matilde somehow finds out, we’ll never hear the end of it."

 

Elise groaned in frustration but relented. "You know what I hate most?" she asked. "The fact that we could so easily find relief. If we could just loosen something—our collars, our gloves, anything—we'd be fine. But no, we must suffer for elegance."

 

Clara sighed, adjusting the stiff fabric of her blouse. "Aunt Matilde would say suffering builds character."

 

"Well, I’d rather be characterless and comfortable," Elise muttered.

Lunch in a Café—A Battle Against the Heat

 

By the time they reached a charming little café for lunch, the midday sun was merciless. The heat pressed against them, yet their clothing allowed for no relief. Their blouses, though pristine and starched, clung to their skin beneath the layers. Their stockings made their legs feel like they were trapped in an oven.

 

The moment they entered the café, the rush of cool, air-conditioned air was both a blessing and a cruel reminder of how unbearably hot they were. Elise sat down gingerly, careful not to wrinkle her skirt, while Clara tried once again to shift in her seat to find even the smallest amount of comfort.

 

The waiter arrived, smiling politely. "What can I get for you ladies?"

 

Clara forced a pleasant smile. "Just iced tea for me, please."

 

Elise, however, had other concerns. "Excuse me, sir, would it be terribly improper if we removed our gloves while we eat?" She held up her hands, fingers barely moving within the tight leather.

 

The waiter blinked, clearly caught off guard by such a formal question. "I… I don’t see why not?"

 

Elise’s eyes lit up in hope, but just as she was about to pull off her gloves, Clara placed a warning hand over hers. "Elise," she whispered, voice firm.

 

Elise groaned. "Clara, we’re inside, we’re sitting down, and he said it’s fine—"

 

"But Aunt Matilde wouldn't," Clara reminded her.

 

Elise exhaled sharply, her head tilting back in frustration. "You know what? I don’t even care anymore. Let the world judge me!"

 

Just as she slipped her fingers beneath the leather to pull off the gloves, the door to the café swung open.

 

A familiar, chilling voice cut through the air.

 

"Elise. Clara."

 

The girls froze. Slowly, they turned to see Aunt Matilde standing in the doorway, her posture as imposing as ever.

 

Elise’s hands dropped instantly, the gloves staying in place.

 

Clara, heart racing, quickly straightened her already-perfect posture.

 

Matilde strode toward them, her heels clicking in a way that sent shivers down their spines. She didn’t need to say anything. Her piercing gaze swept over them, noting every wrinkle, every sign of improper conduct.

 

"Not even a full day," she murmured disapprovingly, "and already you contemplate compromise?"

 

Elise clenched her jaw. "We were just trying to find some relief."

 

Matilde’s lips pressed together in disapproval. "Relief? And is dignity such a burden to you that you would abandon it so easily?"

 

Clara hurried to diffuse the tension. "Aunt Matilde, it’s just a warm day, and—"

 

"Enough," Matilde said coolly. "You will endure, as any proper lady should." She lifted her chin. "Now, sit up straight, adjust your gloves properly, and remember who you are."

 

Elise closed her eyes briefly, then opened them, defeated. "Yes, Aunt Matilde."

 

The rest of the meal passed in silence. The girls sipped their iced tea, their gloves remaining on, their collars pressing against their throats, their stockings ensuring their legs felt anything but free.

Evening—Resigned to Elegance

 

By the time the day ended, Clara and Elise collapsed onto the couch in their apartment. Their feet ached, their clothing felt like a prison, and yet… they had endured.

 

Elise let out a breath. "You know, I hate to admit it… but I suppose Aunt Matilde would be proud."

 

Clara smirked, unbuttoning her collar the second they were alone. "Proud or not, I’m sleeping in a nightgown so loose it might as well be a sheet."

 

Elise chuckled, slipping off her gloves at last. "Same. But you know… we did look stunning today."

 

Clara nodded. "We did. Even if we suffered for it."

 

And with that, they bid farewell to another day of restrained elegance, knowing that tomorrow would bring another battle between refinement and comfort.

This Five second long exposure was taken at an altitude of Forty one metres, in the magic of Twilight, prior to Sunrise which was at precisely 04:47am, at 02:01am on Thursday 3rd July 2014 off Lullingstone Lane next to the Lullingstone Roman Villa and overlooking the field adjacent to Eynsford Viaduct in the village of Eynsford, Kent, England.

  

.

.

  

Nikon D800 70mm 5 Second exposure f/2.8 iso160 RAW (14 bit) Nikon RC-DC2 remote shutter release. AF-S Single point focus. Manual exposure. Matrix metering. Auto white balance.

  

Nikkor AF-S 24-70mm f/2.8G ED IF. Jessops 77mm UV filter. Nikon MB-D12 battery grip. Two Nikon EN-EL batteries. Nikon DK-17M Magnifying Eyepiece. Nikon DK-19 soft rubber eyecup. Manfrotto MT057C3 057 Carbon Fiber Tripod 3 Sections (Payload 18kgs). Manfrotto MH057M0-RC4 057 Magnesium Ball Head with RC4 Quick Release (Payload 15kgs). Manfrotto quick release plate 410PL-14.Jessops Tripod bag. Optech Tripod Strap.Digi-Chip 64GB Class 10 UHS-1 SDXC. Lowepro Transporter camera strap. Lowepro Vertex 200 AW camera bag. Nikon MC-DC2 remote shutter release. Nikon GP-1 GPS unit.

  

.

.

  

LATITUDE: N 51d 21m 51.74s

LONGITUDE: E 0d 11m 48.92s

ALTITUDE: 41.0m

  

RAW (TIFF) FILE: 103.00MB

PROCESSED FILE: 20.42MB

  

.

.

  

Processing power:

HP Pavillion Desktop with AMD A10-5700 APU processor. HD graphics. 2TB with 8GB RAM. 64-bit Windows 8.1. Verbatim USB 2.0 1TB desktop hard drive. Nikon VIEWNX2 Version 2.90 64bit. Adobe photoshop Elements 8 Version 8.0 64bit

  

The Abbey of Saint-Benoît-sur-Loire , more precisely Fleury Abbey , is a Benedictine abbey which stands on the territory of the French commune of Saint-Benoît-sur-Loire in the Loiret department in the Centre-Val region of Loire .

 

The first monastery founded in the early Middle Ages in 651 was one of the first in Gaul to live according to the rule of Saint Benedict and the relics of Saint Benedict were transferred there. At the beginning of the 11th century , the abbey was one of the cultural centers of the West and then shone thanks to its important library and its scriptorium . After a fire in 1026, the current church was rebuilt and its porch tower occupied an important place at the beginning of the period dominated by Romanesque art , due to the high quality of the sculptures on the capitals.

 

The abbey church is classified as a historic monument . The site is located in the eastern part of the Loire Valley, a UNESCO World Heritage Site .

 

Location

Fleury Abbey is located in the territory of the commune of Saint-Benoît-sur-Loire , 650 meters from the north bank of the Loire and 114 meters above sea level, in the French department of Loiret and the natural region of the Loire Valley . The abbey church is accessible via Rue Orléanaise (departmental road 60), Rue and Place de l'Abbaye.

 

History

Introduction of the Benedictine rule in France

The origin of the Benedictine rule in France is described in the life of Saint Maur which is a forgery, written by Odo de Glanfeuil (en) in the 9th century 1 .

 

The bishop of Le Mans , during the lifetime of Saint Benedict , sent religious from his diocese to Monte Cassino to learn about the rule of Saint Benedict . On the day of Epiphany 542 , Saint Maurus left Monte Cassino and Benedict of Nursia. He spent the Easter period near Auxerre in a place called Font-Rouge near a solitary man called Romain who had given the monastic habit to Benedict of Nursia. He arrived with his monks in Orléans where he attempted, without success, to introduce the Benedictine rule at the abbey of Saint-Pierre-aux-Bœufs, which later took the name of Saint-Aignan note 1 . Following the death of the bishop of Le Mans , Saint Innocentus, and the refusal of his successor to receive Saint Maur, he remained in Orléans, then headed to Angers , where with the help of Count Florus, he created Glanfeuil Abbey . This is Odo's story, but it has no historical value 2 .

 

The first oratories

Under the episcopate of the Bishop of Orléans Leodegarius , the abbot of the Saint-Aignan collegiate church of Orléans , Léodebold, wished to introduce the rule of Saint Benedict into his abbey. Faced with the refusal of his monks, he decided to found a new abbey. For this he exchanged with the Frankish king Clovis II and the support of his wife Bathilde , favorable to the establishment of new abbeys, a property that he owned with the Gallo-Roman villa of Floriacum near Orléans and the edges Of the loire. The same year of his exchange, in 651, he sent monks, probably including Liébaut and Rigomaire , the future first abbots of Fleury, to found the new abbey. They probably initially used the old buildings of this royal possession. One of the oratories founded is dedicated to Saint Peter , the other to the Virgin Mary 3 , 2 .

 

The relics of Saint Benedict

Mommolin , the second abbot of Fleury, having a mystical vision of Saint Benedict , asked one of his monks, Aigulfe , to go to Italy and bring back to the abbey of Fleury the body of Saint Benedict which was then in the abandoned monastery of Monte Cassino . Aigulfe goes to Rome with monks from Le Mans who wish to bring back the relics of Saint Scholastica buried next to Saint Benedict. There he collected the bodies of Saint Benedict and Saint Scholastica. Despite the pope's opposition, the return of Aigulfe and his companions with the relics of Saint Benedict and Saint Scholastica to the abbey of Fleury took place inJune 655. The body of Saint Scholastica was then given to the monks who came from Le Mans. The body of Saint Benedict was first placed in the Saint-Pierre church then, finally, buried in the church dedicated to the Virgin Mary inDecember 655. The abbey then took the name of Saint-Benoît de Fleury or Saint-Benoît-Fleury. The date of this translation varies according to the authors: 653 for Mabillon, 655 for Dom Chazal, 660 for the Benedictines of the 17th century . The date of 660 might make more sense if we consider that the pope at the time of this transfer was Vitalian 3 .

 

Around 752-754, monks from the Abbey of Monte Cassino, accompanied by Carloman , came to the abbey accompanied by the Archbishop of Reims to take back the relics of Saint Benedict on the order of Pope Zacharias and King Pepin the Brief . Legend has it that a miracle by Saint Benedict meant that Abbot Medon gave the monks of Montecassino only a few bones from the body of Saint Benedict 3 .

 

In 887, a portion of the relics of Saint Benedict were given to the monastery of Perrecy-les-Forges dependent on the abbey of Fleury-Saint-Benoît. At the request of Pope Urban V , in 1364, they were sent to Montpellier , then in 1725, given to the Bec Abbey (Le Bec-Hellouin). At the request of the King of Poland Stanislaus Leszczyński , in 1736, a small part of the saint's bones was donated to the monastery of Saint Leopold, in Russia and after the French Revolution , donations of relics of Saint Benedict were more numerous

 

A first monastery founded in the High Middle Ages , theJune 27, 651, is then located in the Kingdom of the Franks 5 , 6 . This monastery is one of the first in Celtic Gaul to live according to the rule of Saint Benedict . The relics of Saint Benedict were transferred there by monks who went to look for the abandoned bones of their master, which is the origin of the current name of the abbey 7 .

 

The temporal is constituted, after Leodebold who gives in his will the domain of Fleury, around 670, the king of the Franks of Neustria and the Burgundians Clotaire III confirms to the abbey goods which will form the priory of Saint-Benoît-du-Sault , then the king of the Franks Thierry III made a donation near Bordeaux as Pepin I , Charlemagne 's father had done before him. Between 691 and 720, a royal prince offered vast domains in the diocese of Langres where the abbot of Saint-Benoît created a monastery under his authority. Before 720, the monks cleared land which formed hermitages in the forest of Orléans , in Sologne and on the banks of the Loire.

 

In the first years of the 9th century , the bishop of Orléans Théodulphe governed the abbey. He held high positions under Charlemagne and wanted education to be given to all those who held office. The monks of Saint-Benoît agree to teach the young nobles. He built the Carolingian oratory of Germigny-des-Prés .

 

In the 9th century , the situation was prosperous, the Frankish king Louis the Pious visited the monastery, confirmed the privileges including that of operating four boats on the Loire, exempted the abbey from all religious and civil jurisdiction and the priory of La Réole is returned to him. With the rise of feudalism , the stronghold of Fleury was divided into thirteen town halls including Saint-Benoît-sur-Loire , Guilly , Tigy , Germigny-des-Prés , Bray-en-Val and Châtenoy . The abbey has numerous serfs on its estates 3 .

 

In 845, King Charles the Bald visited the abbey. Around 853, the Normans went up the Loire and the monks received the monks from Touraine who fled with the relics of Saint Martin then left for Auxerre . The populations are in poverty, the fields are no longer cultivated and the crops are plundered. King Charles the Bald granted new domains to the abbey in the country of Mâcon, Autun and Chalon, including the domain of Perrecy-les-Forges which would become a rich monastery. He established the abbey law by separating the abbot's property from that of the monks.

 

The end of the 9th and the beginning of the 10th century was a period of weakening of religious discipline and decadence. King Carloman II visits the monastery which is in ruins, the convent buildings are no longer habitable, the church is devastated, the tomb of Saint Benedict is empty because the relics are in Orléans for security reasons. The king gives the order to repair the buildings and rebuild the church. The monks returned to the abbey in 883. A fort was built at the southeast corner of the monastery in 883.

 

Around 897, the Normans who still traveled the Loire with their ships returned to Saint-Benoît and plundered the monastery but the monks left with the body of Saint Benedict. After all these invasions we are witnessing the withering away of discipline

 

The new king Raoul of Burgundy elected in 922 knew Abbot Odon de Cluny and gave him the task of restoring the monastery on the banks of the Loire. The abbey of Saint-Benoît-sur-Loire, which is in the royal domain, becomes the propagator of the Cluniac reform . The introduction of the methods of Cluny revives perfect fidelity to the Benedictine Rule , silence, prayer, work, frugality, abstinence and the divine office celebrated with as much splendor as possible. The number of religious increased and the monastery model served as a reference and transmitted the reform to the monasteries of France, Lorraine , Rhineland , Flanders , Brittany and England . Among his novices, an Englishman, Oswald became archbishop of York and spread reform in England.

 

Two abbots made Saint-Benoît-sur-Loire one of the cultural centers of the West: Abbon (from 988 to 1004) 9 and Gauzlin (from 1004 to 1030). The abbey then shines thanks to its important library and its scriptorium , which produced works such as the Fleury Games Book . The successor of Odo de Cluny , Abbot Abbon (988-1004) 10 , 9 , is an Orléanais who fights to preserve the assets of the abbey which the bishop of Orléans Arnoult 11 disputes with him because, since the Council of Chalcedon of 451, the bishop has all power over the abbeys of his diocese, controls the election of abbots and can intervene if necessary. Abbon obtained the Roman exemption from Pope Gregory V which was confirmed by Pope Benedict VIII 12 . We owe him works touching on grammar, dialectics , cosmography , computing , mathematics, liturgy , canon law and ecclesiastical history .

 

In 1004, King Robert the Pious had the natural son of Hugh Capet , Gauzlin raised at the abbey, designated as his abbot. Donations poured in from the Count of Gascony, the Norman ducal family and several lords of Spain. William I of Bellême gives the abbey of Lonlay in Normandy, Abbot Gauzlin sends brothers there and a monk named William

 

The buildings suffered a fire in 1026. The current building was rebuilt under the leadership of Gauzlin, then abbot of Saint-Benoît, from 1027. The work began with the porch tower, construction of which began a few years earlier and who seems to have escaped the fire.

 

The apse , the crypt and the choir were completed and consecrated in 1108, allowing the burial in the sanctuary, the same year, of the King of France Philip I. The nave continues to reach the porch tower with Gothic arches . Most of the building was completed around 1218.

 

In 1130, the abbey experienced one of the most beautiful days in its history when Bernard de Clairvaux came to bless the alliance of the Roman Church and the Capetian Monarchy between Pope Innocent II and King Louis VI the Fat .

 

At the beginning of the 13th century the abbey had around 170 religious . Around sixty monks live at the monastery, 70 in the large conventual priories of La Réole, Perrecy-les-Forges and Saint-Benoît-du-Sault and 40 in the small priories. But in 1299, finances were in a critical state and the number of religious was limited to 45 in Saint-Benoît-sur-Loire, 24 in La Réole, 20 in Perrecy-les-Forges and 12 in Saint-Benoît-du- Sault

 

The weakening

At the end of the Middle Ages , the abbey of Saint-Benoît, like its peers, suffered a decline. The number of his possessions and their dissemination lead to disputes with the laity and material concerns. In 1335, life was difficult for religious people who were extremely frugal. During the Hundred Years' War , extraordinary contributions had to be paid while revenues declined.

 

In 1358-1359, the English garrisoned Châteauneuf-sur-Loire , ravaged the surrounding area, and devastated the buildings and the monastery church. A fire completed its destruction then in 1363, a band of Bretons forced the abbey to pay a ransom. Around 1369, new bands ravaged the country.

 

In 1372, the state of the monastery was lamentable due to a lack of money to restore it and there was great difficulty in having the property usurped during the period of unrest returned. In 1415, there were only twenty-four religious left.

 

In 1429, Joan of Arc and Charles VII passed through Saint-Benoît-sur-Loire on the road which connects the castle of Sully-sur-Loire and that of Châteauneuf-sur-Loire which remained in French hands. In 1443, a petition to the pope depicted calamities, incursions of warriors, epidemics and famine. Resources are so limited that nothing can be done about the buildings. With abbots whose election is the result of intrigue, the community is divided, rebellious and blames the abbots for the frugality in which it lives. In 1471, the Parliament of Paris imposed a reform but its effect did not seem decisive. Soon the abbacy will be nothing more than a title and its income a prebend 8

 

The commendation regime

The end of the 15th century was marked by the first commendatory abbots . From now on, the abbots will be great lords, royal favorites, rarely present and anxious to collect large profits. The life of monks becomes more secular than religious. The effective power and influence, both spiritual and temporal, on their destinies pass into the hands of the priors. The officers and particularly the cellarer tend to make profits and there are fewer monks. The order is the revenge of the episcopate against the system of exemptions.

 

The first two commendatory abbots are elected by the religious. Cardinal Jean VI de La Trémoïlle (1486-1507) restored the church and the convent buildings. Cardinal Étienne Poncher (1507-1524) separated the dormitories into cells and completed the abbey dwelling.

 

In 1515, the concordat between Francis I and Pope Leo X granted the king the appointment of bishops and abbots.

 

The monks refused to welcome Cardinal Antoine Duprat (1525-1535) and François I came in person to install him. He demolished the Saint-Michel tower, of which only the peristyle and the upper floor remained. With his successor the abbey suffered alienations but the king granted the bourgeois of Saint-Benoît-sur-Loire the rights of a town with the possibility of enclosing itself with walls.

 

With Cardinal Odet de Coligny -Châtillon (1551-1569) the treasure and the library were pillaged; he sides with the Calvinists . During the three following abbatiats, there was a total withering away of monastic discipline due to its isolation. Some abbeys joined together into a Gallican Congregation of Exempts.

 

Charles of Orléans (1584-1601), natural son of Charles IX, restored the monastery and the church destroyed by a fire but the unrest which shook the Orléanais led to numerous defections. There are only five clerics left armed by the League , the others are dispersed.

 

At the end of the 16th century the abbey's assets were squandered. After the conversion of Henry IV , the monks returned to the monastery but indiscipline was at its height

 

In 1618, the Congregation of Saint-Maur was founded, approved by Louis XIII and Pope Gregory XV in 1621. Very quickly several monasteries affiliated but many old religious resisted and were guaranteed an exceptional regime. The young people accept the reform with the ancient Benedictine observances: residence, silence, abstinence and the performance of religious services in their entirety. To this we add meditation and a great fervor for intellectual work.

 

Cardinal Richelieu , abbot of Saint-Benoît-sur-Loire from 1621 to 1642, introduced the Reform of Saint-Maur into the abbey. THEMay 26, 1627, the chapter decides that the old and the new will form two communities, each with its own prior. In 1660, there was only one elder left, there were twenty Maurists, including the prior and the sub-prior, and they undertook the work of recovery. To enhance the splendor of worship, they whitewashed the church and embellished it with new ornaments. They taught philosophy, theology and rhetoric and a library was established. They find old titles in the archives and restore alienated rights. This new income made it possible to restore the buildings and gardens, a new shrine for the relics of Saint Benedict cost 15,000 pounds and a building was constructed to house it

 

In 1645, the movement of the entrance door gave rise to the publication of a map exposing the project: Plan et Figure de l'Abbaye, & Villenie de St Benoist su Loire .

 

In 1712, the construction of a large building containing the regular places began: cells, refectory and common room, two new wings, one of which joins the transept of the church and the other leads towards the apse. They house the chapter house, the sacristy, the infirmary, the hostelry, the library and the other operational annexes. The facades are lined with terraces overlooking the gardens with a panorama towards the valley and the Loire.

 

Jansenism was introduced into the teaching of the abbey schools where philosophy, theology, Latin, Greek, Hebrew, physics, mathematics and history were studied. The religious refuse to renounce this doctrine despite the injunctions of the Bishop of Orléans .

 

Around 1760, recruitment for cloisters became difficult, literature and philosophy discredited religious vows and the public witnessed the decline of monasteries.

 

In 1789, in the registers of grievances of Saint-Benoît-sur-Loire, the parishioners asked King Louis XVI for the creation of a college run by the Benedictines, free for local children and paying for foreigners

 

In 1788, there remained in the monastery only around ten monks and around fifteen novices who no longer respected the austerity of their Order. The decree ofApril 6, 1792on religious communities forces them to leave the abbey. Two religious sign the constitutional oath and practice in Bray-en-Val and Saint-Benoît-sur-Loire, the other marries and remains in the village 16 .

 

Benoît Lebrun , a Parisian architect based in Orléans, purchased on 24 Fructidor Year IV all the buildings, 22 acres of land forming an enclosure surrounded by fishponds and attached to the abbey. He planned to install a factory there, but the project did not come to fruition. He also bought the church on the condition of rebuilding another one for the 900 parishioners of the town but exchanging it for that of Fleury. He demolished the buildings then sold the site to a local owner 16 , 17 .

 

Of the important library of several thousand works, only 231 volumes remain which are transported to the libraries of Orléans

 

From 1850, Félix Dupanloup , bishop of Orléans, wanted to reestablish monastic orders and in particular that of Saint Benedict. THEJanuary 6, 1865, he announced to the commune authorities the arrival of two Benedictines to administer the parish. The monastic community dispersed during the French Revolution of 1789 regained possession of the church but the real refoundation took place during the Second World War , in 1944, with the arrival of around ten monks from the Abbey of the Pierre-Qui-Vire in Saint-Léger-Vauban ( Yonne ) 3 , 18 .

 

The abbey, attached to an international union of abbeys and Benedictine houses called the Congregation of Subiaco , has 32 religious in 2017 and welcomes several hundred guests each year and nearly 100,000 visitors, tourists or pilgrims. The brothers make a living from sales in the monastic craft shop, from making monk-shaped candy, from hospitality and donations. Unlike the Congregation of Solesmes , the abbey of Saint-Benoît-sur-Loire has granted, since the reforms of Pope Paul VI , a large place for French during the divine office while retaining Gregorian chant at mass and for the main festivals

 

The monk designs intellectual education, then, the whole life of the spirit in relation to the encounter with God in the liturgy , prayer, meditated and prayed reading, memorization, recitation, infinitely repeated and internally ruminated commentary. . The love of letters is closely linked to this search for God 20 .

 

The abbey founded in 651 had the mission of establishing on the banks of the Loire the principles of the rule of Saint Benedict in a population where pagan beliefs persist despite the first attempts at Christianization . The Rule, which adapts to each country, can allow the elite to cultivate themselves, almsgiving is in the spotlight and the divine office is characterized by its variety and suggestive by its symbolism. This custom is widely distributed.

 

Liturgical life takes up a considerable place, the cultivation of the fields is ceded to lay people, the professions entrusted to servants and many religious are content with spiritual and intellectual activity

 

At the end of the 8th century , a reading room was set up and books were distributed, probably sermons and treatises by the Fathers of the Church . The monks copy manuscripts and are renowned for the quality of the calligraphy and illuminations , the style of which is also that of the Marmoutier Abbey (Tours) and which constitutes a school of the Loire distinct from that of Paris. From the 10th to the 12th century , the abbey hosted a large number of writers. Abbot Abbon writes treatises on all concepts. At the end of the 10th century the pope ordered a beautiful missal from the abbot . The treatise on the Miracula is written by four monks; it is a manuscript from the end of the 12th or beginning of the 13th century containing ten mysteries with musical notation which forms the outline of the Game of Saint Nicholas by the trouvère - minstrel Jean Bodel 21 , 8 , 22 .

 

At the end of the Middle Ages, intellectual activity waned and it was not until the 17th century that the Congregation of Saint-Maur was reformed that it regained new fervor. The monks work on the manuscripts and charters which fuel the great historical investigation of the French cleric and historian Jean Mabillon . In 1658, the archives were inventoried and historical notes written. Dom Chazal wrote, from 1697 to 1723, a work on the entire history of the abbey

For the two of you who have been hassling me to get this puppy done-with. Thanks for the motivation! ;) Part 3 should come much more quickly...

 

Also, next time, I shall try to incorporate even MORE parentheses and double-quotes! Anyone know if there's a Guinness Record for that? :/

…

 

All content of this and other eric Hews flickr sets, both visual and verbal content, are Copyright © 2008 eric Hews.

 

www.erichews.com

 

Thanks for contacting me about the usage of my stuff.

 

The important things I wanted to test with this simple setup were:

 

1) do these things work at all?

2) how strong are they (roughly)

3) how straight are the rods going to be?

4) how precisely will the "nut" move along the threads?

5) how fast can these things go?

 

I did get one of the actuators working, and it works great. It's strong enough to move whatever I'm going to give, which is great for only 5v. The rods were a little off-center, but I was able to gently bend them back to "straight enough." Whatever the nut gets clamped to will hold the rod firmly in place, so I'm not worried about that. The precision is tied to the speed. These are almost too precise for me. In fact, I'm going to go out on a limb and say they're most definitely more than I'll need. These are accurate enough to place grains of fine sand next to each other. According to the spec sheet, one step = a linear movement of .00012" (.003048mm), which is incredible.

 

In the stamp code, I left a variable delay between steps. If I set this to 0, the motor would sing, meaning it wouldn't move at all, but the shaft would vibrate in place fast enough to emit a high pitch tone. If I set it to 5, it moved slowly, but wasn't very strong. If I put in a delay of 10ms, I got what seemed to be the optimum movement, but here's the bad part. With a 10ms delay between steps, it took the nut over 256 seconds to move across its entire threaded rod, which is only about 6" long. That's over 4 1/4 minutes!

 

Hopefully I'll get better results with the PIC microcontroller. Both the stamp and PIC are 20MHz, but it's been my observation that the PIC does things far more quickly. There might be more to the stamp's timing that I'm not understanding, which is very likely with me, but honestly, I don't hold out hope for making these things very much faster. I'm considering upping the voltage a bit, even though I was using 5v here, and they're rated for 5v. If I keep it stepping at a higher rate, perhaps the PWM effect of a higher frequency of shorter bursts will allow me to move them more quickly without killing them. I'm wondering if I can ramp up voltage with stepping speed, such that for more intricate areas, I use less, and and 5v when I come to a stop, but maybe when it's cruising at top speed, it's using more like 9v. Does that make any sense?

 

One future problem will be if I decide to engrave or sculpt anything, or carve out my own printed circuit boards (a small dream I've had since high school), I'll need something like a Dremel multitool, which is loud. With this thing going so slowly, it will have to run for hours, perhaps even a day or two to finish up. I live in an apartment, and can't subject my neighbors to that kind of punishment. I've considered options like building a sound-proof box, which has much of its own appeal, but who knows what I'll eventually decide. Either way, I don't think I really want to leave a Dremel running overnight.

We had a complete change this Christmas – we cancelled it! - we went walking in The Lakes, or Wasdale more precisely. We were staying at Irton Hall B & B, they had over 70 in for Christmas dinner but we ate jam bread on the slopes of Sca Fell Pike. Fantastic. We had a front wheel puncture on a run flat tyre on the new car with a 100 mile still to drive on the afternoon of Christmas eve on our way there. I drove straight to the nearest ATS – where I have an account – they shook their heads and directed me to Westhoughton Tyres, the lads there were fantastic and got us on our way in good time. BMW dealer advice was run on the flat tyre and then throw it away - £250! Where I would have got a tyre on the western side of the Lakes over Christmas I don’t know, ATS didn’t have one to sell me.

 

The weather was forecast good for Christmas day but after a fine start it was raining before we even left the car park in Wasdale. We headed up Lingmell and ran into snow on the summit. The path onto Sca Fell Pike was very icy, snow covered and visibility was low, the snow kept falling. We didn’t linger long, it was too cold to have dinner up there so we dropped down onto the Corridor Route, where we had our dinner. We went that way to stretch the walk out, having originally intended to cross to Great End. The tops were so icy, glazed, with not enough snow to get a grip on that we decide to leave it for another day. From Styhead we headed back to Wasdale and a dull but fine finish to the day. A drink in the bar at Irton Hall was on the radar.

 

Every morning we headed into Wasdale early, it got colder, icier and sunnier as the days went by. We went up Yewbarrow, it was an icy scramble up and I decided it was too dangerous to go down Stirrup Crag to Dore Head so went back the same way. It turned out to be the right decision as we lingered on the top, going to view points that we wouldn’t have and getting some decent photos. One morning we walked over the Screes tops, Illgill Head and Whin Rigg, dropping down the steep slope to The southern end of Wast Water. Having said that I would never walk the Screes path alongside Wast Water again the memory of how awful it is in the rain had faded. There is only really a quarter of a mile out of three miles that is really bad, every rock was like glass with the potential to break a leg every step. It seemed a long way and I was getting killer looks from Herself.

 

We made our way onto Sca Fell on a beautiful morning, clear blue sky. The snow line had got lower most nights but we never had the low level snow that caused problems in the rest of the country. I chose a, sometimes, pathless way to the summit, partly because I’d never been that way but also to stay in the sun, to keep the view and to avoid the ways that would be a touch dangerous, it was -4 and seared with ice for the last 600 feet. After 15 minutes on the summit wispy thin cloud came racing in, crossing the Lake District in minutes, the photos show it heading towards us and I was glad to have got the clear photos first. Looking out to sea a great mattress of cloud was heading straight for us. It was calm and sunny one minute and the next we were engulfed in thick cloud with 30 yards visibility at the most. I have never had a clear sky turn to cloud so fast – ever! We were going down to Slightside next which was OK, about a mile following the ridge down, the problem was getting back to Wasdale from there. We needed to get to Great Howe which meant a pathless trek a mile SW across Quagrigg Moss – a bog full of tarnlets, it would be a nightmare in low visibility. After getting some accurate compass bearings and heading down off Slightside we suddenly dropped out of the cloud and could see our target, brilliant, we legged it across the semi frozen bog and finally felt able to rest and grab a sandwich and cup of tea. We had to find our way down Raven Crags, which was interesting – and steep! We needed to get to the footbridge to get onto the Burnmoor Tarn path back to Wasdale. As we got closer to Burnmoor Tarn the light that I had been cursing gave us a gorgeous sunset. I had one eye on a gap in the cloud low down in the sky out at sea and I was hoping the sun would break through, it did. Burnmoor Tarn was like a mirror, reflecting the surrounding mountains, including Yewbarrow and parts of the Mosedale Horseshoe in the far distance. There was just the two of us, we had barely seen a soul all day, it was a fantastic end to a tough day. As we dropped into Wasdale I caught the deep pink and orange of the last of the sun, I was shooting into it but I had nothing to lose. There would have been quite a few tripods at the opposite end of the lake but I think I was in the better place – for a change.

 

On our final walking day we decided to head up Great Gable. It was clear of cloud for a change but ominously the surrounding tops, including the Sca Fells were cloud covered. Another beautiful but very cold morning, it was going to be very icy up there so we elected to go via Styhead and the tourist track. We would choose a way off once we were up there. Long before we got to the top, although we couldn’t see it, we knew the cloud was swirling in and out on the summit so it was going to be hit and miss for the photos. The cloud was down for the last 500 feet but once on the frozen top it kept clearing briefly – very briefly. There were more people up there than we had seen the entire trip previously. People were getting out after Christmas, many had parked at the top of Honister for the fairly easy walk in across Green Gable, some were not dressed for winter walking it has to be said. We left for an icy scramble down to Aaron Slack, up onto Green Gable them we galloped down Aaron Slack to Styhead and back to Wasdale.

 

This photograph was taken in the magic of The Golden Hour around Sunrise, (Sunrise was at precisely 07:56am), at an altitude of One metre, at 07:51am on Sunday January 11th 2014 off Botany Road and Marine Drive, on the sandy shoreline of Botany Bay in Broadstairs, Kent, England.

  

I set off at 05:30am on a very chilly morning, around two degrees, and a bracing wind that pounded flesh and bones, but well worth the one and a half hour journey there to enjoy a lovely sunrise. The seven bays in Broadstairs consist of: (From south to north) Dumpton Gap, Louisa Bay, Viking Bay, Stone Bay, Joss Bay, Kingsgate Bay and Botany Bay.

  

.

.

  

Nikon D800 26mm 1/400s f/2.8 iso125 RAW (14Bit) -2.7EV compensation. Manual focus. Manual exposure. Matrix metering. Auto white balance.

  

Nikkor AF-S 24-70mm f/2.8G ED IF. Jessops 77mm UV filter. Nikon MB-D12 battery grip. Two Nikon EN-EL batteries. Nikon DK-17M Magnifying Eyepiece. Nikon DK-19 soft rubber eyecup. Manfrotto MT057C3 057 Carbon Fiber Tripod 3 Sections (Payload 18kgs). Manfrotto MH057M0-RC4 057 Magnesium Ball Head with RC4 Quick Release (Payload 15kgs). Manfrotto quick release plate 410PL-14.Jessops Tripod bag. Optech Tripod Strap.Digi-Chip 64GB Class 10 UHS-1 SDXC. Lowepro Transporter camera strap. Lowepro Vertex 200 AW camera bag. Nikon MC-DC2 remote shutter release. Nikon GP-1 GPS unit.

  

.

.

  

LATITUDE: N 51d 23m 19.25s

LONGITUDE: E 1d 26m 19.20s

ALTITUDE: 1.0m

  

RAW (TIFF) FILE SIZE: 103.00MB

PROCESSED (JPeg) SIZE: 13.33MB

  

Processing power:

HP Pavillion P6-2388EA Desktop with AMD A10-5700 APU processor. AMD Radeon HD 7570 graphics. 2TB with 8GB RAM. 64-bit Windows 8.1. Verbatim USB 2.0 1TB desktop hard drive. Nikon VIEWNX2 Version 2.10.0 64bit. Adobe photoshop Elements 8 Version 8.0 64bit

 

SEE ALL PICTURES FOR DETAILS. . .EXCELLENT CONDITION $275.00 SOLD ONLY WITH GRAVITY BOOTS

 

Full inversion option: compared with competing brands, engineering tests have shown that Teeter inversion tables are the most precisely balanced to allow controlled lockout in full inversion

Quick and easy assembly: 85% pre-assembled with less than ¼ the average number of parts of other inversion tables; includes tools for assembly and DVD guide

Value-added materials: Laminated Owner’s Manual comes attached to the unit; Instructional DVD includes five exercise and stretching Healthy Back Classes by Dr. Shawn; 90-page book on inversion

Heat treated steel for added strength in key structural components

Auto-locking hinges to secure the bed frame from disconnecting from the base for portability and security when during stretching or exercise

Specialized pivot bearings for a lifetime of squeak-free rotation

Adjustable roller hinges with cam locks offers added stability and choice of three rates of rotation

 

Adjustable tether strap allows user to pre-set angle before inverting

 

De-rattler knob reduces shifting for smooth, quiet rotation – the only style on the market to structurally engage the main shaft

Injection-coated rubber hand grips for added durability

 

Triple-plated chrome main shaft: embossed height markers in both in. and cm. allow easy adjustment for users from 4’8” to 6’6” (142 to 198 cm)

 

Removable nylon mat: adjustable and washable

High quality finishes: scratch-resistant powder coating and triple-plated chrome

Curved front ankle clamps for greater comfort and security

Easily folds for storage to 28" x 16" x 66" (71 x 41 x 168 cm)

 

Enhance your stretching experience with the Teeter Hang Ups® F7000 Inversion Table. In addition to all of the patented and unique features of our base model, the F7000 is designed to include features that improve user-friendliness and effectiveness. The highlight of the F7000 is the EZ-Stretch Traction Handles, which provide added benefit to inverted stretching and decompression. The handles make it possible to achieve the equivalent of a fully inverted stretch even while at lesser angles. In addition, they can be used as a tool for intermittent traction and oscillation.

 

The benefits of inversion start at an angle of just 20 degrees and are fully realized at 60 degrees, which is equivalent to the angle of the A-frame rear legs.

www.teetertv.com/?x=baa

www.teetertv.com/?page=Page::why

www.amazon.com/Teeter-Hang-Ups-Adapter-Kit/dp/B000PX1ZVU/...

info@pictureamoment.com

870-743-3980

Located in Harrison, Arkansas

LOCAL PICKUP ONLY

Taken at precisely 12:41 on a Friday afternoon, my records state this was a southbound coal train, but today I'm wondering if maybe it was actually a household waste train that we used to see from time to time.

 

Anyway, 56001 was to last a further 5½ years in traffic before withdrawal came in September 1996. She was cut up at Cardiff Canton TMD by contractors MRJ Phillips during May 1997. RIP.

Diorama: hout, glas, panelen, gips, karton, acryl, touw, metaal, opgezette muizen en vogels

Diorama: wood, glass, panels, plaster, cardboard, acrylic, rope, metal, taxidermic mice and artificial birds

 

GEM Den Haag 2011

 

Hij slaapt met een schetsboekje naast zijn bed, zodat hij ‘s ochtends in het schemergebied tussen slaap en waken, meteen zijn dromen kan noteren. Deze notities zijn het uitgangspunt van de fantastische werken die Marcel Dzama (Canada, 1974) maakt. De in New York werkzame Dzama is een veelzijdig kunstenaar die in een sprookjesachtige verbeeldingswereld op lieflijke wijze de meest gruwelijke onderwerpen aan de orde stelt. Hoewel hij in Noord-Amerika en Europa de laatste jaren veel tentoonstellingen gehad, is deze solo in het GEM, museum voor actuele kunst het eerste overzicht in Nederland van zijn diorama’s, tekeningen, sculpturen en schilderijen

 

A sketchbook lies at his bedside, so he can record his dreams as soon as he wakes up, still half-asleep. Its contents form the point of departure for the fantastical works of Marcel Dzama (b. Canada, 1974). New York-based Dzama is a multifaceted artist who conjures up an out-of-this-world imaginative universe in innocent-looking images addressing the most gruesome subjects. Although he has exhibited widely in North America and Europe over recent years, this solo show at the GEM, museum of contemporary art is the first ever presentation of his dioramas, drawings, sculptures and paintings to be held in the Netherlands

Exhibition Jean Tinguely - Machine Spectacle 1 Oct 2016 - 5 Mar 2017 in the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam

 

Jean Tinguely is famous for his playful, boldly kinetic machines and explosive performances. Everything had to be different, everything had to move. Precisely twenty-five years after his death, the Stedelijk Museum opens a Tinguely retrospective: the largest-ever exhibition of the artist to be mounted in a Dutch museum.

 

The Swiss artist Jean Tinguely (1925–1991) played a key role in the rise of kinetic art in the fifties. With over a hundred machine sculptures, most of which are in working order, paired with films, photos, drawings, and archive materials, the presentation takes the public on a chronological and thematic journey of Tinguely’s artistic development and ideas, from his love of absurd play to his fascination for destruction and ephemerality.

The presentation features his early wire sculptures and reliefs, in which Tinguely imitated and animated the abstract paintings of artists such as Malevich, Miró, and Klee; the interactive drawing machines and wild dancing installations constructed from salvaged metal, waste materials, and discarded clothing; and his streamlined, military-looking black sculptures.

 

Tinguely’s self-destructive performances are a special feature of the Stedelijk presentation. The enormous installations Tinguely created between 1960–1970 (Homage to New York, Étude pour une fin du monde No. 1, Study for an End of the World No. 2, and La Vittoria) were designed to spectacularly disintegrate in a barrage of sound. The presentation also spotlights the exhibitions Tinguely organized at the Stedelijk, Bewogen Beweging (1961) and Dylaby (1962), and the gigantic sculptures he later produced: HON – en katedral (“SHE – a cathedral,” 1966), Crocrodrome (1977) and the extraordinary Le Cyclop (1969–1994), which is still on display outside Paris. The survey ends with a dramatic grand finale, the remarkable, room-filling installation, Mengele-Totentanz (1986), a disturbing display of light and shadow never previously shown in the Netherlands. Tinguely realized the work after witnessing a devastating fire, reclaiming objects from the ashes to piece together his installation: scorched beams, agricultural machinery (made by the Mengele company), and animal skeletons. The final piece is a gigantic memento mori, yet also an invocation of the Nazi concentration camps. Its juddering movements and piercing sounds evoke a haunting, grisly mood.

 

Jean Tinguely created his work as a rejection of the static, conventional art world; he sought to emphasize play and experiment. For Tinguely, art was not about standing in a sterile white space, distantly gazing at a silent painting. He produced kinetic sculptures to set art and art history in motion, in works that animated the boundary between art and life. With his do-it-yourself drawing machines, Tinguely critiqued the role of the artist and the elitist position of art in society. He renounced the unicity of “the artist’s hand” by encouraging visitors to produce work themselves. Collaboration was integral to Tinguely’s career. He worked extensively with artists like Daniel Spoerri, Niki de Saint Phalle (also his wife), Yves Klein, and others from the ZERO network, as well as museum directors such as Pontus Hultén, Willem Sandberg, and Paul Wember. Thanks to his charismatic, vibrant personality and the dazzling success with which he presented his work (and himself) in the public sphere, Tinguely was a vital figure within these networks, acting as leader, inspirator, and connector.

Amsterdam has enjoyed a dynamic history with Tinguely. The exhibitions Bewogen Beweging (1961) and Dylaby (1962), for which Tinguely was (co)curator, particularly underline the extraordinarily close relationship that sprang up between the museum and the artist. Not only did he bring his kinetic Méta machines to the Netherlands, he also brought his international, avant-garde network, leaving an enduring impression on museum goers who flocked to see these experimental exhibitions. Close relationships with Willem Sandberg, then director of the Stedelijk Museum, and curator Ad Petersen prompted various retrospectives and acquisitions for the collection: thirteen sculptures, including his famous drawing machine, Méta-Matic No. 10 (1959), Gismo (1960), and the enormous Méta