View allAll Photos Tagged value
Whatever transformation or changes your organisation needs to make, especially if related to technologies like AI, you have to focus on your people, embrace their diversity, take their values and behaviours into account, and trust them!
My sketchnotes of a AHRMIO webinar with Anna A. Tavis, Ph.D Sabrina Depicker Christian Weber John Santurbano - 12/07/2023
Cormorant, also called shag, any member of about 26 to 30 species of water birds constituting the family Phalacrocoracidae (order Pelecaniformes or Suliformes). In the Orient and elsewhere these glossy black underwater swimmers have been tamed for fishing. Cormorants dive for and feed mainly on fish of little value to man. Guano produced by cormorants is valued as a fertilizer.
It’s commonly found in wetlands, coastal areas, and along rivers and lakes across parts of Europe, Africa, Asia, and Australia. Prefers shallow wetlands, including marshes, estuaries, mudflats, lagoons, and rice paddies. It’s often seen wading gracefully through shallow waters in search of food.
During the 19th century, little egrets were heavily hunted for their beautiful breeding plumes, which were highly valued in the fashion industry for hats. This exploitation led to the founding of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) in the UK to help protect them and other threatened bird species.
Weather dull as usual so capturing reflections of the sea,looks like a wee funny face with red lipstick ?
As we go through the pages of history, what we see is that we are fighting each other the most. While talking of peace, we have created the weapons of mass destruction for our fellows. The Value of human life is now almost equal to the value of a bullet or the plastic explosive device. So it is like we all have a price tag for what is priceless.
Our country is becoming a lawless territory. Police has very little to say and so does the politicians. unemployment rate is very high, I see some fellows use magnets to collect scrap metal, they hardly have any cloths, hands pitch black, eyes empty, and blown up hairs, we have thousand and thousand of people living off waste. If that is not enough to put a tear in ones eye, just switch on the TV, any news channel, the people of Swat valley, who use to be in a wonderful breeze of the snow capped mountains and wonderful lakes and rivers are now all shattered, struggling to be just alive in the hot plans of Mardan.
Who is responsible, who is not. In my opinion we are the one, we have been fooled so many times and keep living that way. We sold our own life and now struggling to get the price tag off our body. We need to change, and I am amazed what our founder told us 60 years ago when we got this wonderful piece of land, three simple words that has it all...
Unity, Faith, Discipline.
Thanks for stopping by. Donate or Pray for our fellows from Swat Valley.
Image ©Philip Krayna, BoxxCarr, all rights reserved. This image is not in the public domain. Please contact me for permission to download, license, reproduce, or otherwise use this image, or to just say "hello". I value your input and comments. See more at www.boxxcarr.com.
Built c. 1858 at nos. 96 & 98 Water Street.
"The Bell O'Donnell House, located at 96-98 Water Street, is situated on the southeast corner of Mary and Water Streets, in the City of Guelph. This two-storey limestone building was designed in the Gothic Revival style by architect Matthew Bell and was constructed in circa 1858.
The property was designated, by the City of Guelph for its historic and architectural value, under Part IV of the Ontario Heritage Act (By-law 1979-10058).
The Bell O'Donnell House is associated with Matthew Bell (1820-1883), an architect, sculptor and mason. Bell came to Guelph from Newcastle, England with his family around 1850 and purchased the property, on which the home stands, in 1858. From the quarry at the junction of Water Street and the stone bridge, Bell procured the limestone needed to build this, his first home. The building served as the Bell family's residence until it was sold, in 1872, to local melodeon-maker John Jackson. Long-time owner Wilf O'Donnell purchased the property in 1948.
The Bell O'Donnell House has come to receive national recognition due to the distinctive series of eight carved stone heads which adorn the northeast gable of the house. It is due to these near life-size heads that the home has become colloquially known as “The House of Heads”. The structure has survived with little alteration for 150 years and is one of a number of stone houses, including 40 and 49 Albert Street and 22-26 Oxford Street, in this area of the City, which illustrate Bell's fine sculptural decoration.
The Bell O'Donnell House is an example of fine craftsmanship and exquisite detail, as illustrated in the sculptural decoration of the eight carved stone heads adorning the home's northeast elevation. During the winters, Bell worked on sculpting intricately detailed lintels for the windows and doorways, the eight heads, and other carved works to be used in the construction of this fine Gothic Revival structure. It has been noted that Bell was a great devotee of the works of Charles Dickens, and that perhaps the heads were modeled after characters from his novels. The interior of the home is also impressive, containing much of the original woodwork including an unusual staircase, lit by a skylight." - info from the City of Guelph.
"Guelph (/ˈɡwɛlf/ GWELF; 2021 Canadian Census population 143,740) is a city in Southwestern Ontario, Canada. Known as The Royal City, it is roughly 22 km (14 mi) east of Kitchener and 70 km (43 mi) west of Downtown Toronto, at the intersection of Highway 6, Highway 7 and Wellington County Road 124. It is the seat of Wellington County, but is politically independent of it.
Guelph began as a settlement in the 1820s, established by John Galt, who was in Upper Canada as the first superintendent of the Canada Company. He based the headquarters, and his home, in the community. The area—much of which became Wellington County—was part of the Halton Block, a Crown reserve for the Six Nations Iroquois. Galt is generally considered Guelph's founder.
For many years, Guelph ranked at or near the bottom of Canada's crime severity list. However, the 2017 index showed a 15% increase from 2016. It had one of the country's lowest unemployment rates throughout the Great Recession. In late 2018, the Guelph Eramosa and Puslinch entity had an unemployment rate of 2.3%, which decreased to 1.9% by January 2019, the lowest of all Canadian cities. (The national rate at the time was 5.8%.) Much of this was attributed to its numerous manufacturing facilities, including Linamar." - info from Wikipedia.
Late June to early July, 2024 I did my 4th major cycling tour. I cycled from Ottawa to London, Ontario on a convoluted route that passed by Niagara Falls. During this journey I cycled 1,876.26 km and took 21,413 photos. As with my other tours a major focus was old architecture.
Find me on Instagram.
I wish I could remember where I got this bracelet - I feel it has sentimental value, but not necessarily mine - then I think - that's just in my head. Gathering a few things that need to be repaired - maybe a project for tomorrow....
www.northwaleswildlifetrust.org.uk/cemlynwebpages/cemlyni...
Introduction to Cemlyn
Cemlyn is one of North Wales Wildlife Trust’s star reserves and regarded by the Anglesey County Council as the “jewel in the crown” of its Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.
It is valued both for its scenic qualities and its unique range of wildlife, and is as popular with general visitors – local people, holidaymakers, walkers etc. as it is with birdwatchers and naturalists.
Situated on the North coast of Anglesey, about three miles West of Cemaes, the reserve land, which is owned by the National Trust and has been leased by NWWT since 1971, includes a large lagoon, separated from the sea by a spectacular, naturally-created shingle ridge.
The ridge, known as Esgair Gemlyn, is formed by the process of longshore drift, its profile changing with the action of tide and weather. This unique geographical feature also provides a habitat for interesting coastal plants such as Sea Kale, Sea Campion, and Yellow Horned Poppy.
In the summer, the lagoon is the backdrop for Cemlyn’s most famous wildlife spectacle. Clustered on islands in the brackish water is a large and internationally important seabird colony, including breeding Common and Arctic Terns, and one of the U.K.’s largest nesting populations of Sandwich Terns. From the vantage point of the tern viewing area on the ridge, visitors experience these rare and elegant birds close-up – chasing and diving in courtship displays; incubating eggs; preening and bathing in the lagoon, or calling to their hungry chicks as they come winging in with freshly-caught fish.
Around the reserve there are also areas of coastal grassland, farmland, scrub, wetland, and both rocky and sandy shore encircling Cemlyn Bay. These are home to a wealth of life - birds, mammals, insects, wildflowers and marine creatures which, together with the tern colony, make up a fascinating ecosystem: an ideal ‘outdoor classroom’ for studying biodiversity.
In addition to being a Wildlife Trust reserve, Cemlyn is a Special Protection Area, a candidate Special Area of Conservation, and a Site of Special Scientific Interest. It is also part of the Anglesey Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.
www.northwaleswildlifetrust.org.uk/cemlynwebpages/History...
History of the reserve
Much of Cemlyn’s history as a wildlife site is tied to the story of Captain Vivian Hewitt, who came to the area in the 1930s, settling in Bryn Aber, the large house that dominates the western end of the reserve, and buying up much of the surrounding land.
A wealthy eccentric, his interest in birds led him to construct the first dam and weir at Cemlyn, replacing tidal saltmarsh with a large and permanent lagoon which he intended as a refuge for wildfowl. He also had a scheme to nurture an area of woodland within the grounds of Bryn Aber, to attract smaller birds. To this end he began construction of an imposing double wall, which was intended both as a wind-brake for the trees, and a means for observing the birds – the gap between the two walls had viewing holes. A further plan to top the walls with polished stone was never completed, and after Captain Hewitt’s death the house was left to his housekeeper’s family, but the walls themselves remain, and lend the site its mysterious, even foreboding presence.
It is the legacy of the lagoon that has had most significance for wildlife however. The change from a tidal habitat that frequently dried out in summer, to a stable body of water encompassing small islands, has provided the terns with nesting sites that are less attractive to ground predators. Over the following decades, various changes have occurred to the lagoon – some natural, eg. storms breaking over and swamping – some man-made, eg. the reconstruction of the weir and the creation or removal of islands. The water level and salinity of the lagoon is now monitored to maintain the ideal habitat for terns and other wildlife.
A couple of years after Captain Hewitt died, the Cemlyn estate was bought by the National Trust. Since 1971, they have leased the land around the lagoon to the North Wales Wildlife Trust, who manage it as a nature reserve. The two organisations work in partnership to enhance and maintain the site for wildlife and the public.
The reserve has had a warden every summer since 1981, with two wardens being employed every season since 1997. With the help of numerous volunteers, their work has included the detailed monitoring of the tern’s breeding success, protection of the colonies from a variety of natural predators (and in a couple of cases from the unwanted attentions of egg-collectors), as well as recording other forms of wildlife, and providing information to the public. Their presence on the ridge and around the reserve helps maintain the profile of Cemlyn as an important and nationally valuable site.
www.northwaleswildlifetrust.org.uk/cemlynwebpages/wildlif...
Terns
Three species of tern breed regularly at Cemlyn. The numbers of Sandwich Tern nesting on the islands in the lagoon have been going up in recent years, making the colony one of the largest in the country.
There were over 1000 nests in 2005, and a good percentage of chicks fledged. The Sandwich Terns generally nest in dense groups, and seem to benefit from being close to groups of nesting Black-headed Gulls, which react aggressively to the threat of a predator, while the Sandwich Terns sit tight. Common Terns nest in sparser groups and smaller numbers on the islands, as do the very similar Arctic Terns, which make an epic journey from the southern to the northern hemisphere and back every year - the longest migration of any bird.
One of Britain's rarest seabirds, the Roseate Tern was a former breeder at Cemlyn, and is still sometimes seen on passage, as are other rarities like Little Tern and Black Tern. A vagrant Sooty Tern caused great excitement when it visited the colony in the summer of 2005.
The tern colony is the main focus of conservation work at Cemlyn. Because of disturbance at their traditional breeding areas, due to increased coastal access and development, terns have declined historically in Britain, so sites like Cemlyn, which still hold healthy populations, are a precious and nationally importance resource.
Two wardens are employed by NWWT every summer, to monitor and protect the terns. As well as dealing with disturbance and predation, they record the numbers of nests, the fledging success of chicks, and also the kinds of fish being brought in by their parents. Feeding studies are important because availability of fish, especially the terns ideal food, Sandeels, can be the key factor in a successful breeding season. The combined results of warming seas and commercial overfishing of Sandeels around Shetland for example, have had a disastrous effect on the productivity of Arctic Terns there.
All terns are migratory. Sandwich Terns are usually the first to be seen, in late March and April, with the bulk of breeding adults of all species arriving on site in May. June and July are the busiest months for the terns, and a good time to visit the reserve, the lagoon islands becoming a hive of activity.
By mid-August, the majority of chicks should have fledged, and be ready to join their parents on the journey south to their wintering areas - the coast of West Africa in the case of most Common and Sandwich Terns, even further south for Arctics.
www.northwaleswildlifetrust.org.uk/cemlynwebpages/wildlif...
Other Birds
Oystercatcher and Ringed Plover both breed on the reserve, making their nests in the shingle of the Esgair.
In such an exposed choice of site, both species rely on wonderful camouflage of eggs and chick. In response to a direct perceived threat however, adult Ringed Plovers may resort to the 'broken wing trick' - drawing the attention of a potential predator by feigning injury and leading it away from the nest. To protect these waders, as well as the tern colony, visitors are asked to avoid walking on the lagoon-side of the Esgair during the summer months.
Cemlyn's situation and range of habitats make it a haven for a range of birds at all times of the year. Coot, Little Grebe and Shelduck can usually be seen around the lagoon, and Stonechats are a regular feature of the surrounding areas of scrub.
A variety of waders such as Curlew, Dunlin, Golden Plover, and Redshank use the area, and Purple Sandpiper may be seen on the rocky shoreline.
Summer visitors to look out for include Whitethroat and Sedge Warbler, while Wigeon, Teal, Red-breasted Meganser and other widfowl may be present in significant numbers in Autumn and Winter.
Other migrants turn up from time to time, and over the years a variety of rarities have been spotted –
2005 sightings included, apart from the Sooty Tern, an American Golden Plover, a Terek Sandpiper and a Melodious Warbler. Any keen birdwatcher will want to scour the site for something unusual.
www.northwaleswildlifetrust.org.uk/cemlynwebpages/wildife...
Other animals
Grey Seals can often be seen in the sea around Cemlyn, or hauled up on Craig yr Iwrch, the rocky island just off the Trwyn, and Harbour Porpoise sometimes feed close to the western end of Cemlyn Bay.
Brown Hares can be seen in or around the reserve, occasionally crossing the Esgair at dawn or dusk.
Weasels and Stoats both hunt the hedgerows and grassland at Cemlyn, and during the summer, basking Adders and Common Lizards may be spotted.
There’s also a wide range of insect life – butterflies, such as Grayling, Wall Brown and Common Blue, and day-flying moths like the Six-spot Burnet can all be seen, as can various beetles, grasshoppers and dragonflies.
www.northwaleswildlifetrust.org.uk/cemlynwebpages/wildlif...
Underwater Life
The coastline of Cemlyn includes areas of shingle, sand and exposed rocky shore. These provide habitats for a variety of marine life including sea-anemones, crabs, prawns, blennies, butterfish, winkles, whelks, limpets, coastal lichens and a range of seaweeds. e.g. kelp.
The lagoon, with its changing mixture of fresh and salt water is a challenging environment, but Grey Mullet and Eels thrive in the brackish conditions. In fact Cemlyn is one of the top sites for specialised saline lagoon wildlife including shrimps and molluscs, and waterplants like Tassel Pondweed.
www.northwaleswildlifetrust.org.uk/cemlynwebpages/wildlif...
Plantlife
The shingle of the Esgair is one of the harshest habitats imaginable for plants – arid because of the quick-draining pebbles, and exposed to wind, salt-spray, and the ravages of winter storms. Nevertheless it provides a home to specialists like the rare Sea Kale, whose deep roots and fleshy leaves enable it to survive close to the tide-line, and whose profuse white flowers give off a strong sweet smell.
Other characteristic coastal plants to look for along the ridge include Sea Campion, Sea Beet, and the striking Yellow Horned Poppy. Stands of Sea Purslane and Glasswort (Sea Asparagus) can be found at low tide close to the car park at Bryn Aber.
The grassland around Cemlyn is rich in wildflowers; an early spread of colour is provided by Spring Squill and Thrift which punctuate the grass with blues and pinks, while later blooming flowers along the Trwyn include Tormentil, Yellow Rattle, Knapweed and Centaury.
www.northwaleswildlifetrust.org.uk/cemlynwebpages/seasons...
Cemlyn through the Seasons
Spring
Early signs of Spring may include the first Wheatears arriving on Trwyn Cemlyn, the first Manx Shearwaters weaving through the waves out to sea, or the first Sandwich Tern’s call in the Bay - these are all possible from March onwards. Later on, Spring colour on the grassland around the reserve is provided by Spring Squill and Thrift which stud the ground with blues and pinks, and the first sunny spells may tempt out Common Lizards or Adders to bask. By mid-May, a range of birdlife is becoming visible and audible around the reserve, including terns settling on the islands in the lagoon, Whitethroat and Sedge Warbler singing in the scrub and water-margins, Whimbrel foraging along the rocky shore, and other waders like Dunlin and Black-tailed Godwit on the beach or in the lagoon.
Summer
Summer sees activity on the lagoon islands reach fever pitch with the terns and Black-headed Gulls using every hour of daylight to bring food to fast-growing chicks. The sight, sound and smell of this bustling seabird metropolis make up a memorable Cemlyn experience. June and July is the time to see the stands of Sea Kale in full flower, and to spot Yellow Horned Poppy and Sea Campion along the Esgair - Oystercatcher and Ringed Plover are also nesting on the shingle during this period. On the Trwyn, look out for Tormentil and the deep pink flowers of Centaury, as well as the passing colours of butterflies like Small Heath and Common Blue.
Also look out for the red and green leaf-beetle Chrysolina polita on the Dwarf Willow along Trwyn Pencarreg.
Autumn
The tern chicks are usually fledged by mid-August, ready to start the long migration south to their wintering grounds on the coast of Africa, so by early Autumn, the islands seem strangely peaceful. Other wildlife moves in however – flocks of Golden Plover, along with other waders like Lapwing and Curlew can be seen. Big Autumn tides can uncover interesting marine life that usually remains hidden on the lower reaches of the shore, and rough weather at this time brings a range of seabirds passing close to Trwyn Cemlyn – Manx Shearwaters, Gannets, Kittiwakes and Guillemots.
Winter
The lagoon remains an important resource for birds throughout the Winter months – Little Grebe, Shoveler, and Shelduck can regularly be seen, along with the Coot and Wigeon that also graze on the surrounding fields. The Herons that fish the lagoon at Cemlyn through the year are sometimes joined by a Little Egret darting in the shallows for shrimps. Red-breasted Merganser and Great Crested Grebe can often be spotted either in the lagoon or out in the Bay, while on the rocky shore, a keen eye may pick out a Turnstone or Purple Sandpiper foraging close to the water’s edge.
www.northwaleswildlifetrust.org.uk/english/angleseycoasta...
www.northwaleswildlifetrust.org.uk/english/angleseycoasta...
Education & Outreach
The aim of the project is to raise awareness in local children about the importance of biodiversity and conservation by enabling them to explore the array of unique wildlife habitats on their local doorstep.
The project is designed to link in with National Curriculum topics covered in subjects including Science, Geography, History, English & RE, and provide a basis for ongoing work in the classroom. These different topics are often linked in with general environmental themes, in a conscious effort to encourage pupils to think about their relationship to their surroundings.
The activities include carrying out habitat surveys, where pupils record different species along a line of samples (as in an ecological transect), investigating the wildlife of the lagoon and shore using nets, and observing the tern colony through binoculars. Art-based exercises focus on perception of surroundings through the senses and encourage pupils to explore, using materials found on the beach to create their own 3D designs.
In some cases, the People and Wildlife Officers can visit schools to give illustrated talks and initiate written or interactive exercises in the classroom.
Outreach
The Coastal Nature Reserves project also involves general education, awareness-raising and outreach to the local community. Activities have been organised both on and off the reserve - there was a Cemlyn Creature Count in June 2010, and guided walks have also been arranged for the general public as well as for youth clubs and a daycentre group for people with learning difficulties. The project has been represented in The Anglesey Show and the Wylfa Community Fun Day. Illustrated talks have also been carried out for groups such as the Urdd, Scouts and for two branches of the University of the 3rd Age.
The People and Wildlife team aim to extend the range of this work, and are very keen to hear from any organisations or community groups interested in either on or off-site activities.
www.northwaleswildlifetrust.org.uk/english/angleseycoasta...
How to get involved
Anglesey’s coastline is famous for its stunning scenery and the fantastic array of wildlife it holds. North Wales Wildlife Trust has a number of ways you can get involved in helping to protect this resource and raise awareness about its importance. The emphasis is very much on getting people involved, interacting with and enjoying their local naturalheritage.
As a volunteer with the Coastal Nature Reserve Project, opportunities will vary depending on the reserve and time of year. There’s a rough guide (by location) to the possibilities below.
Cemlyn Nature Reserve
The season will commence with a volunteer open day in March. This is a fantastic opportunity to meet the rest of the Cemlyn team, learn more about the work, the reserve and the wildlife you may encounter, with a guided walk and volunteer fact sheets also provided.
Check out the detailed information on helping at Cemlyn here (pdf 80k)
Mariandyrys Nature Reserve
Working to maintain the diverse grasslands and heathlands by scrub clearance and fencing
Monitoring and species survey work
Help with events and raising awareness
Coed Porthamel Reserve
Scrub clearance
Path and fence maintenance
Building and erecting bird and bat boxes
Porth Diana and Trearddur Bay
Help with events such as guided walks and beach cleans
Surveys (including Spotted Rock Rose) and monitoring
Working to maintain the diverse grasslands and heathlands by scrub clearance and fencing
www.northwaleswildlifetrust.org.uk/cemlynwebpages/visitin...
Visiting the reserve
Cemlyn is sign-posted from Tregele on the A5025 between Valley and Amlwch. Although the roads to the site are narrow, there are two car parks adjacent to the reserve (OS 1:50, 000 Sheet 114 and Explorer 262. Grid ref. SH329936 & SH336932).
The reserve is open throughout the year: admission is free.
Group visits are possible by appointment
Suggested walks around Cemlyn
These are a few popular routes around the reserve, focussing mainly on wildlife and landscape features.
Esgair Gemlyn
The shingle ridge at Cemlyn is accessible from the Beach car park at the eastern end of the reserve.
Although the distance along the ridge to the tern viewing area opposite the islands is only about 0.5 km, it's worth bearing in mind that during the summer months, visitors are asked to use only the seaward side of the ridge, and the shingle can make for arduous walking.
It’s a much shorter walk from the Bryn Aber car park on the western side of the lagoon, but beware – the causeway linking the car park and the ridge can flood an hour or more either side of high tide, so it’s worth checking the times to avoid getting stranded.
During the summer, daily tide-times may be chalked up close to the causeway by the wardens.
Outside of the tern breeding season, the lagoon-side of the ridge is open to the public, and its interesting habitat can be explored at closer range.
Trwyn Cemlyn
This little peninsula (Trwyn is Welsh for nose) makes a favourite short walk for local people. Accessible via the Bryn Aber car park, it comprises coastal grassland with small patches of gorse and heather, and a rocky shoreline allowing views out to The Skerries in the west, Wylfa to the east, and if there’s good visibility, sometimes the Isle of Man to the north.
It’s a good spot for spring wildflowers, and also for seeing seabirds, seals, and sometimes porpoises.
It also links up with the National Trust coastal footpath to the west.
Lagoon inlet
The narrow bridge at the western end of the lagoon, just before Bryn Aber, makes a good vantage point for the lagoon islands if the ridge is inaccessible. It also allows views over the freshwater inlet and the adjacent area of gorse and scrub known as Morfa. The road alongside the inlet that leads to the farm of Tyn Llan has no parking, but a walk down gives views of the reedy inlet margins and surrounding damp pasture, which sometimes harbour interesting birdlife.
Coastal footpath towards Hen Borth
.Cemlyn forms the eastern end of a stretch of wonderful coastal footpath, taking in rugged landscape characteristic of the north Anglesey coast.
From the stile at the ‘brow’ of Trwyn Cemlyn, the path leads off the reserve up past Craig yr Iwrch, an outlying rock favoured by seals, cormorants and roosting curlews, and along the cliffs, passing Tyn Llan farm on the left, to the bay of Hen Borth.
Keen walkers may wish to carry on following the coastline as far as Carmel Head or Ynys y Fydlyn, while others may wish to visit the small church of St Rhwydrus, returning through the gate by the farm and back past the lagoon inlet.
Coast towards Wylfa Head
Trwyn Pencarreg - the area of rocky outcrops, grassland and coastal heath to the east of the Beach car park at Cemlyn, is interesting for its plant communities, wildflowers and insects, and for its impressive views back across Cemlyn Bay. A circular walk is possible via the old mill at Felin Gafnan.
The National Trust has produced a booklet detailing several circular walks around, or starting from Cemlyn. It includes illustrated routes for all of the areas described above, and of walks that take you further afield.
To obtain a copy, or for further information regarding other National Trust walks on Anglesey, contact:
The National Trust Wales, Trinity Square, Llandudno, LL30 2DE
Sebastiano Ricci 1659-1734 Venise
Bethsabée au bain 1700s
Galleria Nazionale di Parma
THE WOMAN IN THE PAINTING OF THE CATHOLIC AND HUMANIST EUROPE
Art in general, and painting in particular, bear witness to the importance accorded to women in European civilization.
But the image of women has evolved according to the ideological context, the beliefs in force at this or that time in European history.
By starting the European art history around 500, ie with Christianity, the subject of women in the painting of Europe will be evoked through five dossiers :
1 ° The woman in the painting of Catholic Europe. From 500 to 1500 approximately. However easel painting began only around 1300. Previously painting is manifested through the frescoes, mosaics, stained glass and in books: the illuminations.
2 ° The woman in the painting of Catholic and Humanist Europe. From 1500 to 1800 approximately
3 ° The woman in the painting of the Protestant Netherlands in the 17th century
4 ° The woman in the painting of the ideologically plural Europe of the 19th century. 1800-1950 approximately
5 ° The woman in the Official Contemporary Art. 1950 ...
The image of woman in European painting diversified a lot in the Renaissance, in certain social circles.
To understand this evolution one must first make a little some true history. This is why we have to leave the woman, during a few paragraphs (A), in order to explain the title, quite unusual in historiography, given at this period in the history of Europe: Catholic and Humanist Europe. Then it will be possible to study the image of the woman (B). A woman, who in this file of 74 paintings, will be less represented by the Virgin Mary and the Saints (18 paintings) but more by Venus, Diana or Bathsheba. But it is certain that this choice does not reflect, in number, the production of the artists of these three centuries, a production which is thematically very balanced between Catholicism and Humanism. The Church remains indeed throughout the period a decisive sponsor for the art of European painting. From the point of view of style, he is the same throughout these three centuries: "the full painting", in three dimensions, as well as she's finished developing herself towards 1500 following a persevering collaboration between the Italian South and the Flemish and Germanic North of Europe
A/
From the years 1500s onward, it is the "Renaisssance", for the official western historiography, the history taught and divulged widely, since the 19th century
In reality, Europe does not know in the 16th century, in relation to the immediately preceding centuries, any Renaissance: neither economic, nor political, nor artistic, nor scientific, nor technical, nor spiritual, nor intellectual, nor moral of course. These rebirths are much earlier, they are done, gradually but continuously, after the year 1000, to adopt a memorable date.
On the other hand, at the "Renaissance" the European aristocratic elite, including the high clergy, Popes in the lead, undertakes a new approach to the thought of Greco-Roman antiquity, discovery which is enriched by the taking of Constantinople by the Turks, and the consecutive exile of great Byzantine intellectuals with their ancient documents.
"The Renaissance" is a return to the past of Greek and Roman Europe, and a rehabilitation of certain values peculiar to ancient paganism. Certainly ancient thought was partly known by the the Scolasticism of the Middle Ages, but it is undeniable that in the intellectual, aristocratic and very great bourgeois circles of Western Europe, the interpretation imposed by Catholic Christianity in the reading of ancient texts ceases to be binding at the end of the 15th century.
It is this ideological turn that modern and contemporary historiography, "formatted" by the "Enlightenment", calls a "Renaissance". As if the Europe of that time had come out of the deep shadows of previous centuries.
Man does not like facts that do not conform to his world view. When the facts are contrary to his beliefs, he ignores them. Elites can even invent facts that have never existed, but have the advantage of concordant with the beliefs they want to impose on peoples : These are "the ideological facts". These facts are not facts, they do not exist, they are totally imagined to serve a cause. "The Renaissance" is largely an "ideological fact". A major ideological fact, entirely built on a few real facts and others not real at all.
However, it is true that Rebirth also has existed as a real fact. But not a renaissance of Europe, a renaissance of antiquity. It is Humanism that appears. A conception of the world, an ideology, quite simple, somewhat egocentric: The belief in human begins to appear under the belief in God. It is in Greco-Roman antiquity that the elites of the 16th century will seek the premises of the ideology of the primacy of man. It is true that ancient art is to the glory of the human being: All Gods are in his image. And even Zeus comes to seek among the mortals some of his many mistresses.
In painting the "growth" of the human throughout the Catholic period and at the beginning of the Catholic-Humanist period is very obvious: The donor couples of the early Gothic are very small characters at the bottom of the painting. Gradually over the decades ... they grow, and gradually they settle on the side flaps, then in the middle of the central part. They even push God and his cohort of saints off the picture. But where are we going? Until there is only the donors.
For the ideologues and historians of the "Enlightenment", who analyze the phenomenon of rebirth two or three centuries later, through their own rationalist, atheistic, materialistic and progressive ideology, it is "The Renaissance". For it is the beginning of a new revelation, the premises of a New New Testament. The "Reason Goddess" will prevail over Catholic religious Obscurantism (Jews and Protestants are apparently more enlightened). Victory is certain because Progress is irresistible (Condorcet). The humanism of the Renaissance, which was a form of respect for the man different from the Catholic version, but not incompatible with it, has become, over the centuries, "The Hommisme", in other words the cult of human. The recognition of human dignity within a complex universe that must be respected, has become the adoration of human aspiring to the total mastery of the universe. The divinity is now distant, accessory, absent even, and man can thus settle in the center of the world. And soon the man will be God. This is the current ideological project of the West for the world, the Globalist project. The present of the West is only one step on the path of universal society, governing the Whole Earth, a society enlightened by the new man, the god-man.
These ideological, profane, secular, supposedly rationalist delusions, in reality Gnostics and Kabbalistic, belong to the same kind of thinking as certain religious fanaticism. They have nothing to do with the conceptions of the world of Greco-Roman antiquity.
In the visions of the world of Greco-Roman antiquity human was not the center of the Universe. The man had to respect the Universal Harmony, not to disturb the Order of the World by his pretensions and his untimely actions. The major fault for the ancient man, Greek or Roman, was the Hubris: the Pride, the demeasurement, which leads the man to believe himself the equal of the Gods.
The Man-God, is simply Luciferian. In Christian symbolism it is the Angel who wants to take the place of God. A vision of the world that has seduced many humans for millennia, under multiple forms allegedly esoteric and magical.
The God-Man, Master of the universe, is absolutely not a characteristic concept of Greco-Roman antiquity, despite some misunderstood appearances. Except for the pathological case of Alexander, a pathology denounced in his own time. The divinization of the Ptolemaic or Roman emperors was only a political process, which no elite of these times took seriously beyond its social and civic utility.
For the new ideology of the "Enlightenment", apparently rationalist but in fact Kabbalistic, after the Renaissance came the essential stage of the Reformation, then the determining one of the French Revolution, then that of "proletarian Internationalism", finally that of the newest winner: the Capitalistic globalism. The Globalism, the last avatar of the thought of the "lights", claims to illuminate the whole planet. Christians, Muslims, Hinduists, Buddhists, Confucianists, Shintoists, Animists, Atheists, Agnostics, Pagans. All will have to submit to the "Light", the only one, the true one. All will have to submit to "Reason", the only one, the true one. The ideological and political elite of Europe and the West no longer belong to humanist thought, they practices the "Hommisme", the adoration of man. The adoration of the human "Master of the World" has replaced his perception, wise and measured, as a simple element of a universe that surpasses it infinitely. The Science being one of the great references of the contemporary era it is necessary to specify that the God-Man is not a scientific concept either. Or only of a science betrayed, enslaved, used by the political and ideological elites to justify their religion of the Human.
At the time of the "Renaissance" the history of ideas has not yet arrived at this stage. Indeed, a remarkable feature of this "Renaissance" is that it does not concern the lives of peoples.
It is a strictly elitist ideological phenomenon. Catholicism remains the generally uncontested belief in the population. And likewise among the elites, Catholicism is absolutely not invalidated. The Church is also at the head of this movement. The ideological and political elites of Europe only grant themselves an opening on other ideological horizons, other visions of the world, other morals, in parallel with the catholic beliefs but not in replacement of them.
In the painting, and especially that of the woman the implications are going to be very important. But only in a certain art, an art reserved, confidential, intended for the aristocratic elite and very large bourgeois. Nothing changes in painting and sculpture destined for the populations and the middle classes. Mary and the Saints continue to dominate absolutely. But even in the painting for the aristocracy the art influenced by Humanism is added only to the painting inspired by the Church. A two-speed art thus appears in the aristocratic and plutocratic milieus, where the two visions of the world rub shoulders, without any confrontation.
That is why the period of European history that will follow, until around 1800, can be called "Catholic and Humanist Europe".
The agreement is not perfect between the two ideologies, but it is balanced, it will last three centuries in a large part of the Mediterranean, Celtic, Germanic and Slavic Europe of the west.
This appellation cannot obviously apply to the Slavic Orthodox Europe, nor of course to Europe colonised by the Ottomans, whose paths are diferent.
It is also necessary to exclude the part of Europe which was "reformed", protestant, in the north essentially, Europe which had remained outside the limits of the Roman Empire.
But in reality the reform is, for the most part, triple at that time: Anglican, Lutheran and Calvinist. These reforms are not exactly the same in their cultural consequences, and it is the Calvinist reform in the Low Countries of the north which, for various reasons, political and religious, constitutes the most obvious break with Catholicism, but also has with Humanism. The northern Netherlands will set up a completely original and new paint in which the image of the woman will change dramatically.
On the other hand, in North Germany, Christian Lutheran, the aristocracy has retained a political power distinct from the upper middle class. The aristocracy has also preserved memories and institutions of the times of the Holy Germanic Empire turned towards Rome and Italy. This reformed Germany remains culturally much more connected to Catholic Europe and especially Humanist than the Netherlands. Her art and in particular the image of the woman is not different from that which can be seen in France or Italy. England has been an island for a long time, and English painting is also somewhat different from that of the Continent. England is no longer Catholic since 1534, she is Anglican. A schism whose motives are entirely political. After much hesitation and going back and forth, finally, Anglicanism is not quite Puritanism. The Mayflower pilgrims have noticed this. In addition, the memories of antiquity are very far away and English painting has never cultivated much Greek mythology. But the themes of English painting are much more aristocratic than those of Dutch painting. The image of the woman is closer to that existing on the continent outside the Netherlands. However, the female nude is almost completely absent from English painting.
B/
Thematically the image of women in European painting has evolved over the centuries.
1° Throughout the Gothic period the woman is triply symbolic.
- Symbol of the fall of man (Eve) Then symbol of his redemption (Mary). First dialectical symbolic, subtly evocative of the relations between man and woman.
- Symbol of sacred, mystical love, with the Virgin Mary and the saints. Symbol also of the love of the child and the family.
- More global symbol of the love of beings and their protection, especially the poor and the weak against the rich and the violent. This symbol is evoked by the iconography of Virgins of Protection or Mercy.
2° In the 16th century, the image of the woman is also inspired, parallel to this first symbolic Catholic and Orthodox, which does not disappear, representations of Greek Antiquity.
An ancient Civilization for which the woman is doubly symbolic of Love and Beauty.
- The woman is symbolic of a form of Sacred Love. Sacred Love which through the goddess of Love, and also other major or minor Goddesses, is the reminder of the creative, centripetal link which is at the source of the primordial Life; and who perpetuates it in all beings since the origin of the worlds. The woman is then the symbol of Eros, which in Greek cosmogony, as evoked by Hesiod in his Theogony, is one of the primordial forces, binding, aggregating, which presided over the formation of the world. This Eros should not be confused with Eros (Cupid) the companion of Aphrodite (Venus). It is a Primordial Force that is at the origin of the World, an intuitive evocation, in mythical form, of the universal attraction of Isaac Newton.
- The beautiful woman, naked or dressed, is also for the Greeks the reflection and the symbol of the Beauty of the Universe. As also the male beauty, equally celebrated. The human being must be beautiful because he must be in the image of the Harmony of the World and that the Beautiful is an invitation to the Good and the True and thus an essential element of the Order of the World
The image of the woman, who was totally monopolized by Mary and the Holy Women in the period of Catholic Europe, Has diversified greatly in 1500.
Two new iconographic sources appear:
- The Greco-Roman antiquity, from the historical angle or from the mythological angle
- The Old Testament, of which some texts, not very many, are conducive to painting the woman.
These two sources all go in the same direction: they allow to introduce in European painting many possibilities to represent the female nude.
For the ancient source nothing surprising, the Greek and Roman Antiquity has constantly celebrated both female and male nudity.
For the Semitic source, on the contrary, it is very surprising. The entire Semitic culture is very hostile to the nude and moreover aniconic: totally unfavorable to the images. The use of the Old Testament to celebrate the female nude is clearly the hallmark of a non-Semitic, Indo-European interpretation of the Old Testament.
At the Renaissance, so there is a big change: Eve is nolonger the only one to be naked.
Catholicism, unlike Hinduism, is not favorable to the representation of the nude, feminine or masculine. And we will see by studying the painting of the Netherlands that Protestantism is even more unfavorable to the nude.
With Humanism, all the goddesses of Greece and of ancient Rome, the Olympian ones, or those more minor, will be reborn. The Renaissance is, in painting, an explosion of Goddesses, Nymphs, Bacchantes, Maenads and beautiful mortals mistresses of Zeus. All these women are little dressed, and often not at all.
The Old Testament is less rich: Bathsheba, Suzanne, Judith, the daughters of Lot, Dalila ..... The list is not long, but it will serve a lot, until the 20th century.
The people, on the other hand, must remain chaste, so it is not concerned by this new painting and this new image of women, which is reserved for the secular and religious aristocracy. The princes of the Church are most often the juniors of the Princes in political and military power. Not exclusively, however, because the Church has been a very effective social lift. Private salons of bishops and cardinals do not exhibit the same paint as churches and public halls.
In short, to make it simple:
Humanism it is for the European aristocracy, not for the peoples.
Catholicism it is for the European peoples, and also for the aristocracy.
However, the Old Testament will penetrate much more than in the previous period, all religious painting for popular use. In the Catholic Europe of medieval times rare are the scenes taken from the Old Testament. This is not the case after 1500. Obviously new influences have been exercised, which are not only humanist. But in art inspired by the Old Testament, for the people, the woman is dressed (Esther for example). The girls of Lot, Bathsheba, Suzanne, Judith ... are representations reserved for aristocrats.
Mary and the Holy Women remain quite present at all levels of society, in the churches, in the popular houses, in the bourgeois salons, in the palaces of the aristocracy and kings. Indeed the European elite, humanist, remains profoundly Catholic for a few centuries yet.
Ultimately in the Renaissance, the big change in the representation of the woman is that she puts herself naked. This event should not be underestimated. This is another reason, for many men, to see an immense progress there. After a thousand years during which it was only possible to see a naked woman, Eve, and from time to time, the breast of a nursing mother. Sometimes also some damned, because in Catholic iconography before the Renaissance the elect are dressed, but the damned can be naked. Nudity being a sign of diabolical lust.
The reintroduction of the nude into European painting in the 16th century is a return to certain values of Greek-Roman and pagan antiquity. Values that belong to the very old Indo-European fund. It is clearly a break with Christian conceptions very inspired by a culture completely foreign to Europe: the Semitic Jewish culture, very hostile to the nude and eroticism, which had triumphed over the Greco-Roman culture of inspiration towards 500 ac.
Change is important, but in painting only, because in everyday life, European humanity has not deprived itself of anything at all, and certainly not lust, during these thousand years, at all levels of society. Despite Catholicism, Mary, the Saints, Saint Michael and the Holy Spirit, the "Devil" has never been very far from men.
The renaissance is therefore also a real fact, at least in painting and sculpture, because it is not only a renaissance of antiquity, it is also a renaissance of the female nude and the male nude.
A rebirth of lust? Certainly not, everything just continues as before.
Catholic and humanist Europe will last three centuries, and the image of the woman that his painting will spread takes on a tremendous scale, carnal, with Pierre Paul Rubens whose art represents the summit of the collaboration between Catholicism and the Humanism.
There is not with Rubens the distant reserve of Leonardo da Vinci or Raphael. The wife of Rubens is absolutely queen, glorious, fulfilled, including in his flesh. Except Mary, of course, but not puritanical. The virgins of Rubens are reserved as they should, But they are women, women to whom peoples can identify themselves .
This art to the glory of the woman is highly political, it has been painted to counter the sad flesh of Protestant art and regain ground, especially throughout Eastern Europe and southern Germany. A battle won otherwise than by arms. Through the art.
This is the whole explanation of the golds, stuccoes, frescoes and of the superlative paintings of Baroque: The Baroque is a Counter-Reformation, the affirmation of a Humanist Catholicism that was expressed artistically and used the woman in his fight against Protestantism. The Church of that time did not lack a certain audacity, and did not cultivate sad repentance. Art, painting, women have gained a lot in this policy.
In the catholic-humanist Europe, reconquered on the Reformation, during two more centuries, the woman will be constantly present in one form or another, always beautiful, always representative of her sex, always a little, or much naked, sometimes sacred sometimes profane, sometimes Catholic, sometimes Greek or Roman.
At the end of the period, however, the art of Baroque-Rococo, in the 18th century, gives of the woman a very profane image, a woman of lighter manners with painters like François Boucher, Jean-Antoine Watteau, Nicolas Lancret, Jean Honore Fragonard, Jean Baptiste Pater. This art of the "carpe diem" will spread in almost all the aristocratic Europe of the time. This theme of women is relatively new because it moves away from the Catholic religion, it is obvious. But it is also moving away from the humanist vision. It is a painting in which the feminine nude is cultivated for itself, without passing through the pretext of ancient or biblical references. This lightweight art is also the antithesis of the image of the Protestant woman of the Netherlands, which we will see in the next chapter.
It is necessary to say a word of the technique, even if the technique is not specific to the representation of the woman but obviously concerns all the themes of the paint. The technique is essential, because it will make the woman more pulpy, more vaporous, but more realistic, less symbolic, than in times of strictly Catholic Europe. The linear woman of the First Gothic, like that of the International Gothic, looks a little like the models of contemporary fashion shows. Infinitely better than skeletons, but she may lack some tasty curves.
Gothic spirituality is a little detrimental to the materiality of the image of women. The Gothic woman has angles. The woman of the humanist Renaissance, becomes more tangible, takes forms much more enveloping, more tactile, more realistic, more seductive.
However, the Renaissance is not, as far as the pictorial technique is concerned, a revolution. It is more a point of arrival than a point of departure. The rebirth is certainly the starting point, towards more than three centuries, of a painting perfectly imitating Nature. A paint perfectly imitating the woman. But the Renaissance is also the culmination of a long path undertaken since the middle of the Gothic to paint in three dimensions, and not only in two dimensions as in the Byzantine times, in the Romanesque period and early Gothic. From the 13th century to the 16th century European painting technically went from "flat painting" in two dimensions to "full painting" in three dimensions. From an approximate, sketched and symbolic representation of the world to an exact, faithful representation of nature. Exact representation that does not exclude the symbolic interpretation.
But a woman in three dimensions, from a certain point of view, is better than a woman in two dimensions.
Italy have finalizing around 1490-1510 two decisive techniques for the representation of space in three dimensions on a flat surface:
- The mathematical perspective, more exact, but not more aesthetically credible, than that intuitive of Gothic, or the atmospheric perspective of Flemish painters (Patinir, Bruhegel Jan, Momper ...)
- The Sfumato, "the Maniera Moderna", which merges the objects and the figures, in their spatial environment. Space then gently envelops beings and things, in a more credible way, than in the first Gothic painting, and even that of a certain terminal Gothic, called "International Gothic", with linear tendencies and acute contours.
But the Cologne school with Stephan Lochner and especially the Flemish school with Jan Van Eyck, had shown since the 1440s that painters from the North of Europe had invented a perspective that, although imperfectly mathematically, was everything actually aesthetically credible. They had also been able to represent perfectly in their environment, in an insensitive, melted way, the Virgins and Children who were the theme of their painting. These Flemish "Primitives" knew perfectly well how to create a progressive, gentle atmosphere, in line with our vision of the world. The art of Jan Van Eyck, Stephan Lochner, and Hans Memling still 40 and 20 years before 1500, is less linearly Gothic than that of Botticcelli, for example in "The Birth of Venus" (1480). So the Renaissance is not only Italian, the so-called "Primitives" Flemings have participated a lot, even if it is within the framework of an exclusively Catholic thematique, which is not considered, by the historiography dependent on "Enlightenment", like progressist.
The Mona Lisa is certainly a brilliant perfection of the Sfumato, and of the "maniera moderna", the art of melting the beings and the things in the atmosphere, but, at the same era, Giorgione, often finished by Titian because of the premature death of Giorgione, realizes very similar works, in regards to technique.
The Mona Lisa is more significant, exemplary even, as an archetype of the new spirit, of the new symbolism of the woman, and even of the symbolism of the human in general. The Mona Lisa is in the painting a model completed, exemplary, of the humanist spirit. The Mona Lisa is not Mary, this is important at the ideological level, for some it is even a decisive progress, but it is not Venus either. The Mona Lisa is not Catholic, without being anti-Catholic, and without being Antique. She is a new archetype, and especially universal
The Mona Lisa is the expression of the timeless, universal humanism of Leonardo da Vinci. All of Leonardo da Vinci's work is absolutely exemplary in its themes of the intelligent balance between Catholicism and Humanism, which was established during the Renaissance. This is his greatness which is not only technical. Technically the work of Vinci is a magnificent achievement, which like other works of the same period, will serve this model, for about 350 years, to European painting. But conceptually, metaphysically, the Mona Lisa is still, in our time, even for other civilizations, a living reference, shared at the elite level and instinctively at the popular level. Try to photograph it in the Louvre, if you are not a professional! The crowd of the public is proof that the Mona Lisa is the illustration of a true universalism, cultivated and rooted in the wisdom of particular and different peoples.
The Mona Lisa is intelligently and spiritually universal, she is at the antipodes of a globalism, universally accultured, whose manufactured speech, and the "conceptualist" pretentions masks the poverty of spirit of its projects for the world. She is the opposite of the so-called culture of a globalism of uprooted and robotic mens.
Consequence for the woman of this technical evolution of the European painting, multisecular evolution that culminates to the rebirth?
With the return to the Antique and the end of the ban thrown on the nude, the woman wraps herself even better in her nakedness. She is softer, but apparently only. Judith savagely slays the poor Holofernes, as Artemisia Gentileschi and Caravaggio show. Caravaggio's painting belongs for many of his works to Catholic iconography. The Church is always a key sponsor if an artist wants to succeed. But the art of Caravaggio is also often inspired by a more aggressive, subtly anti-Catholic humanism. Angelo Merisi was not an Angel, or rather a fallen angel, as in his "Victorious Love".
Similarly, in a completely different style, Paolo Veronese, whose religious paintings are often a shining display of consumerist and futile materialism. Unlike Tintoretto. The Church was not mistaken, who frowned at some of Veronese's paintings. Yet the Church at Venice, well kept in hand by a very merchant-minded aristocracy of mind, was broad-minded. So there are tensions between the two ideologies, tensions that will grow over the centuries.
The art of the Baroque-Rococo, of the 18th century French, which then spread throughout Europe is a very obvious expression of the appearance of new trends. It is the woman of Jean Antoine Watteau, François Boucher, Jean Honoré Fragonard.
Because a more systematic, more simplistic, more materialistic ideology than Humanism is settling, surreptitious at first, then more and more effectively to reign undivided on the West.
Humanism is the expression of a thought which, in order not to be of a religious spirit according to the definition of religion which imposes itself with the Christian monotheism, was, however, of spiritualistic and highly philosophical tendencies. Hence the agreement preserved with Catholicism. At the 18th century arises a materialistic thought, intellectually limited, whose French Rococo art is a first testimony. And the image of the woman changes accordingly.
The public may prefer Mary to Judith, if he wants to forge himself an exemplary image of the woman.
But he may prefer also Aphrodite-Venus or Mary Magdalene, not too repentant yet. In the Renaissance and long after it, the aristocrat and the big bourgeois now have the choice between several images of the woman. And most often they cultivate the two, or three, or four images of the woman simultaneously or successively. Sometimes a Virgin Mary adoring the Child, sometimes a triumphant Venus, sometimes an ambiguous Diana, sometimes a repentant Mary Magdalene, sometimes a San Sebastian, androgynous equally ambiguous.
This globally bipolar balance situation of the image of women in the art of painting will continue, throughout Catholic and Humanist Europe, until the French Revolution. Always in an simplified dating, but memorable and synthetically exact.
But there is a "reserve", an exception, which is the Protestant Netherlands in the 17th century. Until the middle of the 19th century the European woman will paint herself, outside the Netherlands, according to the double dialectical criterion of Catholicism and Humanism, and in the style of "the full painting" to which painters from all over Europe had succeeded around 1510-1520. In the northern Netherlands, Protestants, Reformed Calvinists will change the image of the woman. They will not change the image of the woman technically, because the technique of "full painting", perfectly imitating the surrounding world, is acquired for more than three centuries, until about 1850. But the Protestant painters -calvinists of the Netherlands will change the image of the woman thematically. As much as the rebirth had done, but in other directions.
(To be continued!)
Sony A7RII & Sony FE 24-240mm f/3.5-6.3 OSS Lens SEL24240! California Spring Wildflowers Superbloom Carrizo Plains National Monument! God Spilled the Paint Desert Wildflowers Super Bloom! Temblor Range! Elliot McGucken Fine Art Landscape & Nature Photography! Wildflower Superbloom!
Wikipedia reports on the Carrizo Plain National Monument: "Carrizo Plain National Monument
Aerial-SanAndreas-CarrizoPlain.jpg
Aerial view of the Carrizo Plain.
The San Andreas Fault is on the right.
Map showing the location of Carrizo Plain National Monument Map showing the location of Carrizo Plain National Monument
LocationSan Luis Obispo & Kern counties, California
Nearest cityCalifornia Valley, California
Coordinates35.1913582°N 119.7929080°W[1]Coordinates: 35.1913582°N 119.7929080°W[1]
Area246,812 acres (998.81 km2)[2]
EstablishedJanuary 17, 2001
Governing bodyBureau of Land Management
WebsiteCarrizo Plain National Monument
Carrizo Plain Rock Art Discontiguous District
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
U.S. National Historic Landmark District
Area1215
NRHP reference #01000509[3]
Significant dates
Added to NRHPMay 23, 2001
Designated NHLDMarch 2, 2012
"Superbloom" in the Temblor Range, April 2017
The Carrizo Plain is a large enclosed grassland plain, approximately 50 miles (80 km) long and up to 15 miles (24 km) across, in southeastern San Luis Obispo County, California, about 100 miles (160 km) northwest of Los Angeles.[4] It contains the 246,812-acre (99,881 ha)[2] Carrizo Plain National Monument, and it is the largest single native grassland remaining in California. It includes Painted Rock in the Carrizo Plain Rock Art Discontiguous District, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. In 2012 it was further designated a National Historic Landmark due to its archeological value. The San Andreas Fault cuts across the plain."
Support epic fine art! 45surf ! Bitcoin: 1FMBZJeeHVMu35uegrYUfEkHfPj5pe9WNz
Exalt the goddess archetype in the fine art of photography! My Epic Book: Photographing Women Models!
Portrait, Swimsuit, Lingerie, Boudoir, Fine Art, & Fashion Photography Exalting the Venus Goddess Archetype: How to Shoot Epic ... Epic! Beautiful Surf Fine Art Portrait Swimsuit Bikini Models!
Follow me my good friends!
Facebook: geni.us/A0Na3
Instagram: geni.us/QD2J
Golden Ratio: geni.us/9EbGK
45SURF: geni.us/Mby4P
Fine Art Ballet: geni.us/C1Adc
Some of my epic books, prints, & more!
Epic Poetry inspires all my photography: geni.us/9K0Ki Epic Poetry for Epic Landscape Photography: Exalt Fine Art Nature Photography with the Poetic Wisdom of John Muir, Emerson, Thoreau, Homer's Iliad, Milton's Paradise Lost & Dante's Inferno Odyssey
Exalt your photography with Golden Ratio Compositions!
Golden Ratio Compositions & Secret Sacred Geometry for Photography, Fine Art, & Landscape Photographers: How to Exalt Art with Leonardo da Vinci's, Michelangelo's!
Epic Landscape Photography:
A Simple Guide to the Principles of Fine Art Nature Photography: Master Composition, Lenses, Camera Settings, Aperture, ISO, ... Hero's Odyssey Mythology Photography)
All my photography celebrates the physics of light! dx4/dt=ic! Light Time Dimension Theory: The Foundational Physics Unifying Einstein's Relativity and Quantum Mechanics: A Simple, Illustrated Introduction to the Physical: geni.us/Fa1Q
Ralph Waldo Emerson. The happiest man is he who learns from nature the lesson of worship.
Lucius Annaeus Seneca: On entering a temple we assume all signs of reverence. How much more reverent then should we be before the heavenly bodies, the stars, the very nature of God!
John Muir: All the wild world is beautiful, and it matters but little where we go, to highlands or lowlands, woods or plains, on the sea or land or down among the crystals of waves or high in a balloon in the sky; through all the climates, hot or cold, storms and calms, everywhere and always we are in God's eternal beauty and love. So universally true is this, the spot where we chance to be always seems the best.
Oh, value quilt, I love you so.
hmm, 3 pictures of the same thing.
Ever so slightly annoyed with myself that I didn't make it much bigger. It's about 50 x 60 inches. I'd like a much bigger one next time, there will be a next time.
If a nation values anything more than freedom, it will lose its freedom;
and the irony of it is that if it is comfort or money it values more, it
will lose that, too.
(W. Somerset Maugham)
Pictured here is an item from the collection of Rococo art. Decorative Arts museum (Kunstgewerbemuseum) is part of the Kulturforum, a cultural complex built in West Berlin during the Cold War era. Its collection is highly impressive as much in terms of its scope (from masterpieces of Medieval jewelers to masterpieces of Rococo-style porcelain to masterpieces of XX century design) as in terms of the exceptionally high art value of each item.
На фото - экспонат из коллекции объектов искусства в стиле Рококо. Музей Декоративного Искусства (Кунстгевербемузеум) является частью Культурфорума, культурно-музейного комплекса, заложенного ещё в Западном Берлине во времена Холодной войны. Его коллекция потрясает как своим охватом всех возможных областей декоративного искусства (от шедевров средневековых ювелиров, до шедевров фарфора в стиле рококо, до шедевров дизайна начала ХХ века) так и высочайшей художественной ценностью всех представленных экспонатов.
Place: Magong, Penghu
The Nissan Cefiro is an icon in Taiwan. The car saved the struggling Yulon company, revived the image of Yulon Nissan and crucially changed the domestic car landscape and the spending habits of the Taiwanese people.
Yulon hit its lowest point of sales in 1993, due to a combination of bad marketing and distrust in the quality of Yulon's cars, due to the bad quality of the domestic Yue Loong Feeling/Yulon Arex and by relying on dated products Sunny B310 for a too long time. It especially faced strong competition from Ford Lio Ho and Honda Sanyang. In 1986, Yue Loong Nissan was over two times as popular as Ford Lio Ho outsold Honda Sanyang in 3:1. I don't have numbers for 1992/3, when the situation should have been even worse, but in 1991 Nissan Yue Loong only accounted for 20% of the market, easily left behind by Ford Lio Ho (30%), with Honda Sanyang in third position at 14% and Toyota Kuo Zui at 10.5%. People associated Yulon with low prices and bad quality.
This all changed with the launch of the Cefiro A32. Because the Cefiro had to change the perception of the brand, it was fully built in accordance with Japanese specifications. It replaced the old Cedric Y30 and was launched on the Taiwanese market in 1995. It was very luxurious and being without domestic competitors, it was terrific value too. It had great reviews and the unique selling point of having a tax friendly VQ20 2.0-litre V6 engine. Combined with great marketing, it was a sales hit. Apart from the 2.0, there was the VQ30 3.0-litre V6 engine, which became a hugely successful company car.
Yulon had the permission of changing the Cefiro according to its own taste, so it had a refresh every year for the domestic market, versions with the 3.0 V6 engine had a different grille and taillights, the option of a two tone colour paint. Taiwanese Cefiro's had double the amount of chrome of the international version (known in Europe as Maxima QX) and high end versions came fully-loaded with a beige interior, rear seat refrigerator, bar and a 10-inch SONY TV in the centre console, before unthinkable of a Taiwanese domestic car.
With the Sentra B14 also reaching heights and topping its class, Yulon Nissan was back on track.
Charles Le Brun 1619-1650 Paris
Vierge à l'Enfant
Virgin and Child 1650
Nancy Musée des Beaux Arts
THE WOMAN IN THE PAINTING OF THE CATHOLIC AND HUMANIST EUROPE
Art in general, and painting in particular, bear witness to the importance accorded to women in European civilization.
But the image of women has evolved according to the ideological context, the beliefs in force at this or that time in European history.
By starting the European art history around 500, ie with Christianity, the subject of women in the painting of Europe will be evoked through five dossiers :
1 ° The woman in the painting of Catholic Europe. From 500 to 1500 approximately. However easel painting began only around 1300. Previously painting is manifested through the frescoes, mosaics, stained glass and in books: the illuminations.
2 ° The woman in the painting of Catholic and Humanist Europe. From 1500 to 1800 approximately
3 ° The woman in the painting of the Protestant Netherlands in the 17th century
4 ° The woman in the painting of the ideologically plural Europe of the 19th century. 1800-1950 approximately
5 ° The woman in the Official Contemporary Art. 1950 ...
The image of woman in European painting diversified a lot in the Renaissance, in certain social circles.
To understand this evolution one must first make a little some true history. This is why we have to leave the woman, during a few paragraphs (A), in order to explain the title, quite unusual in historiography, given at this period in the history of Europe: Catholic and Humanist Europe. Then it will be possible to study the image of the woman (B). A woman, who in this file of 74 paintings, will be less represented by the Virgin Mary and the Saints (18 paintings) but more by Venus, Diana or Bathsheba. But it is certain that this choice does not reflect, in number, the production of the artists of these three centuries, a production which is thematically very balanced between Catholicism and Humanism. The Church remains indeed throughout the period a decisive sponsor for the art of European painting. From the point of view of style, he is the same throughout these three centuries: "the full painting", in three dimensions, as well as she's finished developing herself towards 1500 following a persevering collaboration between the Italian South and the Flemish and Germanic North of Europe
A/
From the years 1500s onward, it is the "Renaisssance", for the official western historiography, the history taught and divulged widely, since the 19th century
In reality, Europe does not know in the 16th century, in relation to the immediately preceding centuries, any Renaissance: neither economic, nor political, nor artistic, nor scientific, nor technical, nor spiritual, nor intellectual, nor moral of course. These rebirths are much earlier, they are done, gradually but continuously, after the year 1000, to adopt a memorable date.
On the other hand, at the "Renaissance" the European aristocratic elite, including the high clergy, Popes in the lead, undertakes a new approach to the thought of Greco-Roman antiquity, discovery which is enriched by the taking of Constantinople by the Turks, and the consecutive exile of great Byzantine intellectuals with their ancient documents.
"The Renaissance" is a return to the past of Greek and Roman Europe, and a rehabilitation of certain values peculiar to ancient paganism. Certainly ancient thought was partly known by the the Scolasticism of the Middle Ages, but it is undeniable that in the intellectual, aristocratic and very great bourgeois circles of Western Europe, the interpretation imposed by Catholic Christianity in the reading of ancient texts ceases to be binding at the end of the 15th century.
It is this ideological turn that modern and contemporary historiography, "formatted" by the "Enlightenment", calls a "Renaissance". As if the Europe of that time had come out of the deep shadows of previous centuries.
Man does not like facts that do not conform to his world view. When the facts are contrary to his beliefs, he ignores them. Elites can even invent facts that have never existed, but have the advantage of concordant with the beliefs they want to impose on peoples : These are "the ideological facts". These facts are not facts, they do not exist, they are totally imagined to serve a cause. "The Renaissance" is largely an "ideological fact". A major ideological fact, entirely built on a few real facts and others not real at all.
However, it is true that Rebirth also has existed as a real fact. But not a renaissance of Europe, a renaissance of antiquity. It is Humanism that appears. A conception of the world, an ideology, quite simple, somewhat egocentric: The belief in human begins to appear under the belief in God. It is in Greco-Roman antiquity that the elites of the 16th century will seek the premises of the ideology of the primacy of man. It is true that ancient art is to the glory of the human being: All Gods are in his image. And even Zeus comes to seek among the mortals some of his many mistresses.
In painting the "growth" of the human throughout the Catholic period and at the beginning of the Catholic-Humanist period is very obvious: The donor couples of the early Gothic are very small characters at the bottom of the painting. Gradually over the decades ... they grow, and gradually they settle on the side flaps, then in the middle of the central part. They even push God and his cohort of saints off the picture. But where are we going? Until there is only the donors.
For the ideologues and historians of the "Enlightenment", who analyze the phenomenon of rebirth two or three centuries later, through their own rationalist, atheistic, materialistic and progressive ideology, it is "The Renaissance". For it is the beginning of a new revelation, the premises of a New New Testament. The "Reason Goddess" will prevail over Catholic religious Obscurantism (Jews and Protestants are apparently more enlightened). Victory is certain because Progress is irresistible (Condorcet). The humanism of the Renaissance, which was a form of respect for the man different from the Catholic version, but not incompatible with it, has become, over the centuries, "The Hommisme", in other words the cult of human. The recognition of human dignity within a complex universe that must be respected, has become the adoration of human aspiring to the total mastery of the universe. The divinity is now distant, accessory, absent even, and man can thus settle in the center of the world. And soon the man will be God. This is the current ideological project of the West for the world, the Globalist project. The present of the West is only one step on the path of universal society, governing the Whole Earth, a society enlightened by the new man, the god-man.
These ideological, profane, secular, supposedly rationalist delusions, in reality Gnostics and Kabbalistic, belong to the same kind of thinking as certain religious fanaticism. They have nothing to do with the conceptions of the world of Greco-Roman antiquity.
In the visions of the world of Greco-Roman antiquity human was not the center of the Universe. The man had to respect the Universal Harmony, not to disturb the Order of the World by his pretensions and his untimely actions. The major fault for the ancient man, Greek or Roman, was the Hubris: the Pride, the demeasurement, which leads the man to believe himself the equal of the Gods.
The Man-God, is simply Luciferian. In Christian symbolism it is the Angel who wants to take the place of God. A vision of the world that has seduced many humans for millennia, under multiple forms allegedly esoteric and magical.
The God-Man, Master of the universe, is absolutely not a characteristic concept of Greco-Roman antiquity, despite some misunderstood appearances. Except for the pathological case of Alexander, a pathology denounced in his own time. The divinization of the Ptolemaic or Roman emperors was only a political process, which no elite of these times took seriously beyond its social and civic utility.
For the new ideology of the "Enlightenment", apparently rationalist but in fact Kabbalistic, after the Renaissance came the essential stage of the Reformation, then the determining one of the French Revolution, then that of "proletarian Internationalism", finally that of the newest winner: the Capitalistic globalism. The Globalism, the last avatar of the thought of the "lights", claims to illuminate the whole planet. Christians, Muslims, Hinduists, Buddhists, Confucianists, Shintoists, Animists, Atheists, Agnostics, Pagans. All will have to submit to the "Light", the only one, the true one. All will have to submit to "Reason", the only one, the true one. The ideological and political elite of Europe and the West no longer belong to humanist thought, they practices the "Hommisme", the adoration of man. The adoration of the human "Master of the World" has replaced his perception, wise and measured, as a simple element of a universe that surpasses it infinitely. The Science being one of the great references of the contemporary era it is necessary to specify that the God-Man is not a scientific concept either. Or only of a science betrayed, enslaved, used by the political and ideological elites to justify their religion of the Human.
At the time of the "Renaissance" the history of ideas has not yet arrived at this stage. Indeed, a remarkable feature of this "Renaissance" is that it does not concern the lives of peoples.
It is a strictly elitist ideological phenomenon. Catholicism remains the generally uncontested belief in the population. And likewise among the elites, Catholicism is absolutely not invalidated. The Church is also at the head of this movement. The ideological and political elites of Europe only grant themselves an opening on other ideological horizons, other visions of the world, other morals, in parallel with the catholic beliefs but not in replacement of them.
In the painting, and especially that of the woman the implications are going to be very important. But only in a certain art, an art reserved, confidential, intended for the aristocratic elite and very large bourgeois. Nothing changes in painting and sculpture destined for the populations and the middle classes. Mary and the Saints continue to dominate absolutely. But even in the painting for the aristocracy the art influenced by Humanism is added only to the painting inspired by the Church. A two-speed art thus appears in the aristocratic and plutocratic milieus, where the two visions of the world rub shoulders, without any confrontation.
That is why the period of European history that will follow, until around 1800, can be called "Catholic and Humanist Europe".
The agreement is not perfect between the two ideologies, but it is balanced, it will last three centuries in a large part of the Mediterranean, Celtic, Germanic and Slavic Europe of the west.
This appellation cannot obviously apply to the Slavic Orthodox Europe, nor of course to Europe colonised by the Ottomans, whose paths are diferent.
It is also necessary to exclude the part of Europe which was "reformed", protestant, in the north essentially, Europe which had remained outside the limits of the Roman Empire.
But in reality the reform is, for the most part, triple at that time: Anglican, Lutheran and Calvinist. These reforms are not exactly the same in their cultural consequences, and it is the Calvinist reform in the Low Countries of the north which, for various reasons, political and religious, constitutes the most obvious break with Catholicism, but also has with Humanism. The northern Netherlands will set up a completely original and new paint in which the image of the woman will change dramatically.
On the other hand, in North Germany, Christian Lutheran, the aristocracy has retained a political power distinct from the upper middle class. The aristocracy has also preserved memories and institutions of the times of the Holy Germanic Empire turned towards Rome and Italy. This reformed Germany remains culturally much more connected to Catholic Europe and especially Humanist than the Netherlands. Her art and in particular the image of the woman is not different from that which can be seen in France or Italy. England has been an island for a long time, and English painting is also somewhat different from that of the Continent. England is no longer Catholic since 1534, she is Anglican. A schism whose motives are entirely political. After much hesitation and going back and forth, finally, Anglicanism is not quite Puritanism. The Mayflower pilgrims have noticed this. In addition, the memories of antiquity are very far away and English painting has never cultivated much Greek mythology. But the themes of English painting are much more aristocratic than those of Dutch painting. The image of the woman is closer to that existing on the continent outside the Netherlands. However, the female nude is almost completely absent from English painting.
B/
Thematically the image of women in European painting has evolved over the centuries.
1° Throughout the Gothic period the woman is triply symbolic.
- Symbol of the fall of man (Eve) Then symbol of his redemption (Mary). First dialectical symbolic, subtly evocative of the relations between man and woman.
- Symbol of sacred, mystical love, with the Virgin Mary and the saints. Symbol also of the love of the child and the family.
- More global symbol of the love of beings and their protection, especially the poor and the weak against the rich and the violent. This symbol is evoked by the iconography of Virgins of Protection or Mercy.
2° In the 16th century, the image of the woman is also inspired, parallel to this first symbolic Catholic and Orthodox, which does not disappear, representations of Greek Antiquity.
An ancient Civilization for which the woman is doubly symbolic of Love and Beauty.
- The woman is symbolic of a form of Sacred Love. Sacred Love which through the goddess of Love, and also other major or minor Goddesses, is the reminder of the creative, centripetal link which is at the source of the primordial Life; and who perpetuates it in all beings since the origin of the worlds. The woman is then the symbol of Eros, which in Greek cosmogony, as evoked by Hesiod in his Theogony, is one of the primordial forces, binding, aggregating, which presided over the formation of the world. This Eros should not be confused with Eros (Cupid) the companion of Aphrodite (Venus). It is a Primordial Force that is at the origin of the World, an intuitive evocation, in mythical form, of the universal attraction of Isaac Newton.
- The beautiful woman, naked or dressed, is also for the Greeks the reflection and the symbol of the Beauty of the Universe. As also the male beauty, equally celebrated. The human being must be beautiful because he must be in the image of the Harmony of the World and that the Beautiful is an invitation to the Good and the True and thus an essential element of the Order of the World
The image of the woman, who was totally monopolized by Mary and the Holy Women in the period of Catholic Europe, Has diversified greatly in 1500.
Two new iconographic sources appear:
- The Greco-Roman antiquity, from the historical angle or from the mythological angle
- The Old Testament, of which some texts, not very many, are conducive to painting the woman.
These two sources all go in the same direction: they allow to introduce in European painting many possibilities to represent the female nude.
For the ancient source nothing surprising, the Greek and Roman Antiquity has constantly celebrated both female and male nudity.
For the Semitic source, on the contrary, it is very surprising. The entire Semitic culture is very hostile to the nude and moreover aniconic: totally unfavorable to the images. The use of the Old Testament to celebrate the female nude is clearly the hallmark of a non-Semitic, Indo-European interpretation of the Old Testament.
At the Renaissance, so there is a big change: Eve is nolonger the only one to be naked.
Catholicism, unlike Hinduism, is not favorable to the representation of the nude, feminine or masculine. And we will see by studying the painting of the Netherlands that Protestantism is even more unfavorable to the nude.
With Humanism, all the goddesses of Greece and of ancient Rome, the Olympian ones, or those more minor, will be reborn. The Renaissance is, in painting, an explosion of Goddesses, Nymphs, Bacchantes, Maenads and beautiful mortals mistresses of Zeus. All these women are little dressed, and often not at all.
The Old Testament is less rich: Bathsheba, Suzanne, Judith, the daughters of Lot, Dalila ..... The list is not long, but it will serve a lot, until the 20th century.
The people, on the other hand, must remain chaste, so it is not concerned by this new painting and this new image of women, which is reserved for the secular and religious aristocracy. The princes of the Church are most often the juniors of the Princes in political and military power. Not exclusively, however, because the Church has been a very effective social lift. Private salons of bishops and cardinals do not exhibit the same paint as churches and public halls.
In short, to make it simple:
Humanism it is for the European aristocracy, not for the peoples.
Catholicism it is for the European peoples, and also for the aristocracy.
However, the Old Testament will penetrate much more than in the previous period, all religious painting for popular use. In the Catholic Europe of medieval times rare are the scenes taken from the Old Testament. This is not the case after 1500. Obviously new influences have been exercised, which are not only humanist. But in art inspired by the Old Testament, for the people, the woman is dressed (Esther for example). The girls of Lot, Bathsheba, Suzanne, Judith ... are representations reserved for aristocrats.
Mary and the Holy Women remain quite present at all levels of society, in the churches, in the popular houses, in the bourgeois salons, in the palaces of the aristocracy and kings. Indeed the European elite, humanist, remains profoundly Catholic for a few centuries yet.
Ultimately in the Renaissance, the big change in the representation of the woman is that she puts herself naked. This event should not be underestimated. This is another reason, for many men, to see an immense progress there. After a thousand years during which it was only possible to see a naked woman, Eve, and from time to time, the breast of a nursing mother. Sometimes also some damned, because in Catholic iconography before the Renaissance the elect are dressed, but the damned can be naked. Nudity being a sign of diabolical lust.
The reintroduction of the nude into European painting in the 16th century is a return to certain values of Greek-Roman and pagan antiquity. Values that belong to the very old Indo-European fund. It is clearly a break with Christian conceptions very inspired by a culture completely foreign to Europe: the Semitic Jewish culture, very hostile to the nude and eroticism, which had triumphed over the Greco-Roman culture of inspiration towards 500 ac.
Change is important, but in painting only, because in everyday life, European humanity has not deprived itself of anything at all, and certainly not lust, during these thousand years, at all levels of society. Despite Catholicism, Mary, the Saints, Saint Michael and the Holy Spirit, the "Devil" has never been very far from men.
The renaissance is therefore also a real fact, at least in painting and sculpture, because it is not only a renaissance of antiquity, it is also a renaissance of the female nude and the male nude.
A rebirth of lust? Certainly not, everything just continues as before.
Catholic and humanist Europe will last three centuries, and the image of the woman that his painting will spread takes on a tremendous scale, carnal, with Pierre Paul Rubens whose art represents the summit of the collaboration between Catholicism and the Humanism.
There is not with Rubens the distant reserve of Leonardo da Vinci or Raphael. The wife of Rubens is absolutely queen, glorious, fulfilled, including in his flesh. Except Mary, of course, but not puritanical. The virgins of Rubens are reserved as they should, But they are women, women to whom peoples can identify themselves .
This art to the glory of the woman is highly political, it has been painted to counter the sad flesh of Protestant art and regain ground, especially throughout Eastern Europe and southern Germany. A battle won otherwise than by arms. Through the art.
This is the whole explanation of the golds, stuccoes, frescoes and of the superlative paintings of Baroque: The Baroque is a Counter-Reformation, the affirmation of a Humanist Catholicism that was expressed artistically and used the woman in his fight against Protestantism. The Church of that time did not lack a certain audacity, and did not cultivate sad repentance. Art, painting, women have gained a lot in this policy.
In the catholic-humanist Europe, reconquered on the Reformation, during two more centuries, the woman will be constantly present in one form or another, always beautiful, always representative of her sex, always a little, or much naked, sometimes sacred sometimes profane, sometimes Catholic, sometimes Greek or Roman.
At the end of the period, however, the art of Baroque-Rococo, in the 18th century, gives of the woman a very profane image, a woman of lighter manners with painters like François Boucher, Jean-Antoine Watteau, Nicolas Lancret, Jean Honore Fragonard, Jean Baptiste Pater. This art of the "carpe diem" will spread in almost all the aristocratic Europe of the time. This theme of women is relatively new because it moves away from the Catholic religion, it is obvious. But it is also moving away from the humanist vision. It is a painting in which the feminine nude is cultivated for itself, without passing through the pretext of ancient or biblical references. This lightweight art is also the antithesis of the image of the Protestant woman of the Netherlands, which we will see in the next chapter.
It is necessary to say a word of the technique, even if the technique is not specific to the representation of the woman but obviously concerns all the themes of the paint. The technique is essential, because it will make the woman more pulpy, more vaporous, but more realistic, less symbolic, than in times of strictly Catholic Europe. The linear woman of the First Gothic, like that of the International Gothic, looks a little like the models of contemporary fashion shows. Infinitely better than skeletons, but she may lack some tasty curves.
Gothic spirituality is a little detrimental to the materiality of the image of women. The Gothic woman has angles. The woman of the humanist Renaissance, becomes more tangible, takes forms much more enveloping, more tactile, more realistic, more seductive.
However, the Renaissance is not, as far as the pictorial technique is concerned, a revolution. It is more a point of arrival than a point of departure. The rebirth is certainly the starting point, towards more than three centuries, of a painting perfectly imitating Nature. A paint perfectly imitating the woman. But the Renaissance is also the culmination of a long path undertaken since the middle of the Gothic to paint in three dimensions, and not only in two dimensions as in the Byzantine times, in the Romanesque period and early Gothic. From the 13th century to the 16th century European painting technically went from "flat painting" in two dimensions to "full painting" in three dimensions. From an approximate, sketched and symbolic representation of the world to an exact, faithful representation of nature. Exact representation that does not exclude the symbolic interpretation.
But a woman in three dimensions, from a certain point of view, is better than a woman in two dimensions.
Italy have finalizing around 1490-1510 two decisive techniques for the representation of space in three dimensions on a flat surface:
- The mathematical perspective, more exact, but not more aesthetically credible, than that intuitive of Gothic, or the atmospheric perspective of Flemish painters (Patinir, Bruhegel Jan, Momper ...)
- The Sfumato, "the Maniera Moderna", which merges the objects and the figures, in their spatial environment. Space then gently envelops beings and things, in a more credible way, than in the first Gothic painting, and even that of a certain terminal Gothic, called "International Gothic", with linear tendencies and acute contours.
But the Cologne school with Stephan Lochner and especially the Flemish school with Jan Van Eyck, had shown since the 1440s that painters from the North of Europe had invented a perspective that, although imperfectly mathematically, was everything actually aesthetically credible. They had also been able to represent perfectly in their environment, in an insensitive, melted way, the Virgins and Children who were the theme of their painting. These Flemish "Primitives" knew perfectly well how to create a progressive, gentle atmosphere, in line with our vision of the world. The art of Jan Van Eyck, Stephan Lochner, and Hans Memling still 40 and 20 years before 1500, is less linearly Gothic than that of Botticcelli, for example in "The Birth of Venus" (1480). So the Renaissance is not only Italian, the so-called "Primitives" Flemings have participated a lot, even if it is within the framework of an exclusively Catholic thematique, which is not considered, by the historiography dependent on "Enlightenment", like progressist.
The Mona Lisa is certainly a brilliant perfection of the Sfumato, and of the "maniera moderna", the art of melting the beings and the things in the atmosphere, but, at the same era, Giorgione, often finished by Titian because of the premature death of Giorgione, realizes very similar works, in regards to technique.
The Mona Lisa is more significant, exemplary even, as an archetype of the new spirit, of the new symbolism of the woman, and even of the symbolism of the human in general. The Mona Lisa is in the painting a model completed, exemplary, of the humanist spirit. The Mona Lisa is not Mary, this is important at the ideological level, for some it is even a decisive progress, but it is not Venus either. The Mona Lisa is not Catholic, without being anti-Catholic, and without being Antique. She is a new archetype, and especially universal
The Mona Lisa is the expression of the timeless, universal humanism of Leonardo da Vinci. All of Leonardo da Vinci's work is absolutely exemplary in its themes of the intelligent balance between Catholicism and Humanism, which was established during the Renaissance. This is his greatness which is not only technical. Technically the work of Vinci is a magnificent achievement, which like other works of the same period, will serve this model, for about 350 years, to European painting. But conceptually, metaphysically, the Mona Lisa is still, in our time, even for other civilizations, a living reference, shared at the elite level and instinctively at the popular level. Try to photograph it in the Louvre, if you are not a professional! The crowd of the public is proof that the Mona Lisa is the illustration of a true universalism, cultivated and rooted in the wisdom of particular and different peoples.
The Mona Lisa is intelligently and spiritually universal, she is at the antipodes of a globalism, universally accultured, whose manufactured speech, and the "conceptualist" pretentions masks the poverty of spirit of its projects for the world. She is the opposite of the so-called culture of a globalism of uprooted and robotic mens.
Consequence for the woman of this technical evolution of the European painting, multisecular evolution that culminates to the rebirth?
With the return to the Antique and the end of the ban thrown on the nude, the woman wraps herself even better in her nakedness. She is softer, but apparently only. Judith savagely slays the poor Holofernes, as Artemisia Gentileschi and Caravaggio show. Caravaggio's painting belongs for many of his works to Catholic iconography. The Church is always a key sponsor if an artist wants to succeed. But the art of Caravaggio is also often inspired by a more aggressive, subtly anti-Catholic humanism. Angelo Merisi was not an Angel, or rather a fallen angel, as in his "Victorious Love".
Similarly, in a completely different style, Paolo Veronese, whose religious paintings are often a shining display of consumerist and futile materialism. Unlike Tintoretto. The Church was not mistaken, who frowned at some of Veronese's paintings. Yet the Church at Venice, well kept in hand by a very merchant-minded aristocracy of mind, was broad-minded. So there are tensions between the two ideologies, tensions that will grow over the centuries.
The art of the Baroque-Rococo, of the 18th century French, which then spread throughout Europe is a very obvious expression of the appearance of new trends. It is the woman of Jean Antoine Watteau, François Boucher, Jean Honoré Fragonard.
Because a more systematic, more simplistic, more materialistic ideology than Humanism is settling, surreptitious at first, then more and more effectively to reign undivided on the West.
Humanism is the expression of a thought which, in order not to be of a religious spirit according to the definition of religion which imposes itself with the Christian monotheism, was, however, of spiritualistic and highly philosophical tendencies. Hence the agreement preserved with Catholicism. At the 18th century arises a materialistic thought, intellectually limited, whose French Rococo art is a first testimony. And the image of the woman changes accordingly.
The public may prefer Mary to Judith, if he wants to forge himself an exemplary image of the woman.
But he may prefer also Aphrodite-Venus or Mary Magdalene, not too repentant yet. In the Renaissance and long after it, the aristocrat and the big bourgeois now have the choice between several images of the woman. And most often they cultivate the two, or three, or four images of the woman simultaneously or successively. Sometimes a Virgin Mary adoring the Child, sometimes a triumphant Venus, sometimes an ambiguous Diana, sometimes a repentant Mary Magdalene, sometimes a San Sebastian, androgynous equally ambiguous.
This globally bipolar balance situation of the image of women in the art of painting will continue, throughout Catholic and Humanist Europe, until the French Revolution. Always in an simplified dating, but memorable and synthetically exact.
But there is a "reserve", an exception, which is the Protestant Netherlands in the 17th century. Until the middle of the 19th century the European woman will paint herself, outside the Netherlands, according to the double dialectical criterion of Catholicism and Humanism, and in the style of "the full painting" to which painters from all over Europe had succeeded around 1510-1520. In the northern Netherlands, Protestants, Reformed Calvinists will change the image of the woman. They will not change the image of the woman technically, because the technique of "full painting", perfectly imitating the surrounding world, is acquired for more than three centuries, until about 1850. But the Protestant painters -calvinists of the Netherlands will change the image of the woman thematically. As much as the rebirth had done, but in other directions.
(To be continued!)
"Has joy any survival value in the operations of evolution? I suspect that it does; I suspect that the morose and fearful are doomed to quick extinction. Where there is no joy there can be no courage; and without courage all other virtues are useless."
- Edward Abbey
Jenny Lake, at the base of the Grand Tetons in Wyoming--the kind of place where you could spend weeks and never lack for places to wander. I took this after a hike around to Hidden Falls, right before sunset. The colors changed considerably from the afternoon. I love the colors and gentle painting of clouds across the sky. It's hard to be unhappy in such a place. I always feel so alive during these adventures.