The Birth Of Modern Painting

(via The Outline of Art) William Orpen writes:

The Art of the Florentine Masters, From Giotto and Angelico to Lippi and Botticelli

Giotto, a Shepherd boy, was drawing pictures of his father’s sheep on a slate, when Cimabue, the great artist of the time, happened to be passing by. Struck by the boy’s talent, Cimabue obtained permission from his father and took the lad with him to Florence as his apprentice. When the artist was commissioned to decorate the church at Assisi, he entrusted his apprentice with painting the scenes from the life of St Francis which were to adorn the walls of the upper church. In these frescoes the young Giotto proved himself, in the words of Ruskin, ‘a daring naturalist in defiance of tradition, idealism, and formalism’. Besides his work at Assisi, Giotto also worked at Rome, and important frescoes by him, notably ‘The Bewailing of St Francis’ and ‘Herod’s Birthday Feast’, are in S. Croce at Florence, but the greatest and most famous of all his undertakings is the series of frescoes which he painted in the Chapel of the Arena at Padua. The date of this enterprise can be fixed with some certainty because it is known that in 1306 Dante was Giotto’s guest at Padua, and the poet is said to have assisted the painter in his choice of subjects. Petrarch was also the friend of Giotto.

It is interesting to compare Cimabue’s ‘Madonna and Child’ and his pupil’s ‘The Bewailing of St Francis.’ To be fair to the elder artist, we must remember what came before. We have only to look at Margaritone’s altarpiece in the National Gallery to see the oppressive type of Byzantine art, destitute of any feeling for beauty or truth to nature. From whom Cimabue received his training we know not—there was no famous painter before him—but we do know he was held in high esteem by his contemporaries. The ‘Madonna’ he painted for S.Maria Novella aroused such enthusiasm that it was carried to the church preceded by trumpeters and followed by a procession of Florentines. But whatever the advance made by Cimabue, Giotto advanced still further.

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If we study Cimabue’s ‘Madonna’ at the National Gallery we find that his figures, though not entirely lifeless as the heavily gilded Byzantine figures, are wooden,formal, and conventional, while Giotto’s figures have individuality and human feeling, and his groups have a new realism and dramatic vigor. Giotto had a more extended range of color than Cimabue; he showed a preference for gayer and lighter schemes, and he gave a more careful imitation of nature than existed in the works of his predecessors. When we hail Giotto as a daring naturalist, we must think of him in relation to the artists who preceded him, and not to those later painters who gradually learnt to give accurate and complete expression to the truths of nature. Yet his Paduan frescoes show, as it has been well said, ‘the highest powers of the Italian mind and hand at the beginning of the fourteenth century.’ Although a shepherd in his youth, it is strange that his drawings of sheep do not appear correct to modern eyes.

As will be seen from his ‘The Bewailing of St.Francis’, his backgrounds, though in a sense true to nature, are not realistic. His buildings and his trees are far too small, being drawn neither in true perspective nor in correct proportion to the human figures. His hills are bare and jagged cliffs, his trees have only a dozen leaves for foliage; but it was an innovation for fields, trees, and animals to appear at all, and no imperfections in their rendering can rob the painter of the glory of having extended the subject matter of his art. Giotto was the first Gothic painter to depict action, to substitute the dramatic human life for eternal repose of the divine. To his contemporaries his realism must have seemed amazing, and we can understand Boccaccio, after looking at earlier Byzantine paintings, writings enthusiastically in the Decamerone:

Giotto was such a genius that there was nothing a Nature which he could not have represented in such a manner that it not only resembled, but seemed to be, the thing itself.

Giotto was not only a painter: he was also an architect. When he returned to Florence in 1334 the city honored him and itself by appointing him Master of the Works of the Cathedral. Two great architectural works were planned and begun by him at Florence, the West Front of the Cathedral and its detached Campanile or bell tower. The latter exists to this day as a monument of his genius, although its author did not live to see its completion. But its lower courses were completed from Giotto’s design, and he was able with his own hand to carve the first course of its sculpted ornaments, illustrating arts and industries, before he died on January 8, 1337.

Giotto was the first of the great Florentine painters. Among his immediate successors was Andrea Orcagna, whose famous ‘The Coronation of the Virgin’ is in the National Gallery. Orcagna was painter, sculptor, architect, and poet. More of a dreamer than his shrewd practical predecessor, Orcagna did not so much develop the realistic side of Giotto as refine and intensify his psychology. He carried on the Giottosque tradition of truth and simplicity, but drama and action appealed to him less powerfully than the expression of emotion and deep religious feeling. In his masterpieces we are arrested not by any movement, but by the variety and intensity of the feelings expressed in the figures. This religious intensity led to a greater formality than is found in Giotto and to a curious suggestion of a return to Byzantine lack of humanity.

Jean-Baptiste Tavernier’s Travels In India

Journey of the author to other mines, and concerning the method of searching for diamonds.
(via Jean-Baptiste Tavernier’s Travels In India / V Ball / Edited by William Crooke)

While the Messers. Fremlin and Francis Breton were Presidents at Surat on behalf of the English Company, a Jew named Edwards Ferdinand, a free merchant, that is to say not subject to any Company, combined with these two gentlemen, a short time after the mine was discovered, to purchase a stone. This stone was clean and of good form, and weighed 42 carats. Edward went to Europe, and Messers. Fremlin and Breton placed the stone in his hands to sell to the best advantage, and render an account to them. On his arrival at Leghorn he showed it to some Jew friends, who offered him 25000 piastres for it. But as he asked 30000 he was unable to let them have it, and took it to Venice to get it cut. It was well cut, without any injury, but upon being put upon the wheel it immediately broke into nine pieces. I myself was on one occasion deceived by one of these stones, which weighed 2 carats; it broke into small pieces on the wheel when it was only half finished.

A continuation of the Author’s Journeys to the Diamond Mines

I now come to the third mine, which is the most ancient of all, and is situated in the Kingdom of Bengal. You may call it by the name Soumelpour, which is a large town near to which the diamonds are found, or rather by the name Koel, which is that of the river in the sand of which they are found. The country through which this river has its course belongs to a Raja who was formerly a tributary of the Great Mogul, but withdrew from his allegiance during the wars between Shahjahan and Jahangir his father. Immediately on his coming to the throne Shahjahan sent to demand tribute and arrears of it from this Raja, and the Raja, as his property was not sufficient to discharge the whole, quitted the country and took refuge with his subjects in the mountains. Upon the news of the Raja’s first refusal, Shahjahan, who did not know that purposed to abscond, but believed that he intended to defend himself, sent an army into his country, where he was persuaded that he would find an abundance of diamonds. It happened otherwise, however, for those who were sent into the country of the Raja found neither diamonds, inhabitants, nor food, as the Raja had ordered all the grain which his subjects could not carry with them to be burnt, and this was so effectually done that the greater portion of Shahjahan’s army perished of famine. The final result of the matter was, that the Raja returned to his country on agreeing to pay a light annual tribute to the Great Mogul.

The following is the route to be followed from Agra to this mine: from Agra to Halabas, 130 coss; Halabas to Banarous, 33 coss; Banarous to Saseron, 4 coss. From Agra to Sasaram you travel eastwards, but between Sasaram and the mine you turn to the south and come first to a large town—21 coss. This town is that of the Raja of whom I have just spoken, to whom the country belongs which is traversed by the river in which the diamonds are found.

After this town the traveler reaches a fortress called Rohtas—4 coss. It is one of the strongest places in Asia, situated upon a mountain having six great bastions and twenty-seven pieces of cannon, with three trenches full of water in which there are good fish. There is but a single path by which to ascend the mountain, where there is a plain of half a league or so in area, on which corn and rice are cultivated. There are more than twenty springs which irrigate the soil, and all about the mountain from the base to the top, there are precipices covered for the most part with jungle. The Rajas ordinarily held this fortress with from 700 to 800 men, but at present it belongs to the Great Mogul, who acquired it by skill of that great Captain Mir Jumla of whom I have so often had occasion to speak. The last Raja left three sons who betrayed each other; the eldest was poisoned, the second attached himself to the court of the Great Mogul, who gave him the command of 4000 horse, and the youngest maintains his position in the country by paying tribute like his father. All the Kings of India, successors of Tamerlane, have besieged this place without being able to take it, and indeed two of these Kings died in the city of Sasaram.

Jean-Baptiste Tavernier’s Travels In India (continued)

Innovations Networks

New business models: (via Knowledge @ Wharton) Here is an edited transcript of the conversation between Larry Huston + Knowledge @ Wharton on looking for ideas outside the company + other viewpoints @ http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm?articleid=1837

Colors Of Dawn, Dusk Decoded

(via Times of India) Scattering happens when light collides against molecules in the atmosphere, causing it to scatter. The study, by researchers at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, shows how scattering determines the colours you see in the sky at sunset or sunrise.

According to Steven Ackerman, who led the study, the colour blue, being of shorter wavelength, is scattered more than other colours by the molecules. This, he says, is why blue light reaches our eyes from all directions on a clear day and the sky appears blue. At sunrise or sunset, explains Ackerman, as the Sun is low on the horizon, sunlight passes through more of the atmosphere - and hence encounters more molecules. “When the path is long enough, all of the blue and violet light scatters out of your line of sight. The other colours continue to your eyes. This is why sunsets are often yellow, orange, and red.” As red has the longest wavelength of any visible light, the sun seems red when it’s on the horizon, where its extremely long path through the atmosphere scatters all other colours away.

Useful link:
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Colours_of_dawn_dusk_decoded/articleshow/2544426.cms

Insightful and educational.

Goldbricks Of Speculation

Here is an interesting book for everyone: Gold Bricks of Speculation; Chicago, 1904, A Study of Speculation and Its Counterfeits, and an exposé of the methods of bucketshop, and 'get-rich-quick' swindles.

Kandahar

Kandahar (2001)
Directed by: Mohsen Makhmalbaf
Screenplay: Mohsen Makhmalbaf
Cast: Nelofer Pazira, Hassan Tantai

(via YouTube): Kandahar a movie about Afghanistan (2001)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJKQ_ZsTJN0

It was natural + a masterpiece + a visual experience.

Rainbow Warrior

(via The Guardian) Angela Neustatter writes about Kate Dineen, the only woman on earth trained in the 900-year-old Indian art of fresco painting + other viewpoints @ http://arts.guardian.co.uk/art/visualart/story/0,,2210121,00.html

The Empire's New Clothes

Pernilla Holmes writes about Yinka Shonibare + the hybrid art + other viewpoints @ http://artnews.com/issues/article.asp?art_id=1202

Tracking The Trophy Brigade

Sylvia Hochfield writes about artworks that disappeared into the Soviet Union after World War II + Soviet writers Konstantin Akinsha / Grigorii Kozlov's story of the Soviet Union’s secret depositories of looted art + other viewpoints @ http://www.artnews.com/anniversary/top8.asp

Jean-Baptiste Tavernier’s Travels In India

Journey of the author to other mines, and concerning the method of searching for diamonds.
(via Jean-Baptiste Tavernier’s Travels In India / V Ball / Edited by William Crooke)

After the miners have selected the place where they desire to work, they smooth down another spot close by, of equal or rather greater extent, round which they erect an enclosing wall of two feet in height.

At the base of this little wall they make openings, at every two feet, for the escape of the water, which they close till it is time for the water to be drawn off. This place being thus prepared, all who are about to engage in the search assemble, men, women, and children, together with their employer and a party of his relatives and friends. He brings with him a figure in stone of the god whom they worship, which is placed standing on the ground, and each person prostrates himself three times before it, their priest, however, offering up the prayer. This prayer being finished, he makes a particular kind of mark upon the forehead of each one with a paste composed of saffron and gum, in order that it may sustain seven or eight grains of rice, which he places upon it. Then they wash their bodies with water which each of them carries in a vessel, and sit down in ranks to eat that which is presented at the feast given by their employer at the beginning of their work, in order to give them courage and induce them to acquit themselves faithfully. This feast merely consist of a portion of rice to each, which is distributed by the Brahman, because every idolater can eat what is served to him by the hands of the priests. Some among them are so superstitious that they will not eat what is prepared even by their own wives, and prefer to cook for themselves. The plate upon which the rice is placed is made of the leaves of a tree pinned together; to some extent they resemble our walnut leaves. To each there is also given about a quarter of a pound of melted butter in a little cup of copper, with some sugar.

When dinner is finished, each starts to work, the men to excavate the earth, and the women and children to carry it to the place which has been prepared as I have said above. They excavate to 10, 12, or 14 feet in depth, but when they reach water there is nothing more to hope for. All the earth is carried to this place, men, women, and children draw water with pitchers from the hole which they have excavated, and throw it upon the earth which they have placed there, in order to soften it, leaving it in this state for one or two days, according to the tenacity of the clay, until it becomes like soup. This done, they open the holes which they made in the wall to let off the water, then they throw on more, so that all the slime may be removed, and nothing remain but sand. It is a kind of clay which requires to be washed two or three times. They then leave it to be dried by the sun, which quickly effected by the great heat. They have a particular kind of basket made something like a winnowing fan, in which they place the earth, which they agitate as we do when winnowing grain. The fine part is blown away, and the coarse stuff which remains is subsequently replaced on the ground.

All the earth having been thus winnowed, they spread it with a rake and make it as level as possible. Then they all stand together on the earth, each with a large baton of wood like a huge pestle, half a foot wide at the base, and pound the earth, going from one end to the other, always pounding each part two or three times; they then place it again in the baskets and winnow it, as they did on the first occasion, after which they spread it out again and range themselves on one side to handle the earth and search for the diamonds, in which process they adopt the same method as at Rammalakota. Formerly, instead of using wooden pestles for pounding the earth, they pounded it with stones, and it was that method which produced so many flaws in the diamonds.

As for the royalties which are paid to the King, the annual wages to the miners for their work, and the presents which are given to them when they find any large stone which they carry to the master whom they serve, all are the same as at the Rammalakota mine. No one hesitated formerly to purchase diamonds which had a green crust on the surface, because when cut they proved to be white and of very beautiful water.

About 30 or 40 years ago a mine situated between Kollur and Rammalakota was discovered, but the King ordered it to be closed on account of fraud, as I shall explain in a few words. Stones were found in it which had this green crust, beautiful and transparent, more beautiful even than the others, but when one attempted to grind them they broke in pieces. Whenever they were ground by another stone of the same quality which had been found in the same mine they submitted to the grinding without breaking, but were unable to bear the wheel, upon which they immediately flew into pieces. It is on this account that one is careful not to buy those which have been ground in this way, through fear of their breaking, and it is, as I said, on account of the deceptions which have been practised with these stones that the King ordered the mine to be closed.

Jean-Baptiste Tavernier’s Travels In India (continued)

Wine-making Waste Turned Into Electricity

(via Winebusiness) Canada Wine Region Adds Electricity to its Crops

I think it's a unique way of producing renewable energy via processing the food and beverage waste. The concept should be tested in other parts of the world, especially in the emerging wine markets like China and India.

A Flat-Bottomed Variety Of The Pointed Star Cut

(via Diamond Cuts in Historic Jewelry:1381-1910) Herbert Tillander writes:

In 1896 Bauer described a flat-bottomed, eightfold variant of the Pointed Star Cut, which he introduced as a ‘Cross Rose’. However, his drawings are not even of a diamond but of a cinnamon stone, a type of garnet. In fact, no such diamond has ever been documented, so Bauer’s ‘Cross Rose’ has no place in diamond history.

However, my attention was caught by a casual remark by Alfred Eppler and a line drawing of a cut similar to Bauer’s, although crowned, which he inconsistently called a Rose. Later I came across a reproduction of an engraving by Wenceslas Hollar, which showed some half a dozen examples of type drawn by Eppler. Hollar’s engraving suggests a jeweled badge of an Order of the Garter, for which the diamonds, including the flat-bottomed Star Cuts, must still have been available even though they were by the obsolete. In 1523 Henry VIII had given express permission for those on whom he had conferred the Order of the Garter to decorate their insignias ‘at their pleasure.’ The drawing by Hollar is clearly a design for one such order. Although both Bauer and Eppler were wrong in calling their stones ‘Roses’ of any sort, Hollar must have had a number of such stones—at least, those depicted by Eppler—at his disposal in order to include so many in his design.

In appears that in the sixteenth century flat-bottomed Pointed Star Cuts of the type found in the Order of the Garter were occasionally fashioned from discarded Indian Tablet Cuts (flat Table Cuts with table and culet facets of approximately the same size). Strangely enough, these may even be forerunners of the Standard Full Rose Cut (also known as the Dutch, or Holland, Rose), a design with six-fold symmetry which was first introduced around 1600 when, at the large cutting centers of the Netherlands, cleaving became a separate, specialized profession.

Teaching Yourself Programming In Ten Years

Here is an interesting essay ( http://www.norvig.com/21-days.html) on Peter Norvig's site: Teach Yourself Programming in Ten Years

Norvig was spot on. He was writing about computers. In my view, there are no books on how to learn gem and jewelry business, gem identification and treatments, grading of diamonds and colored stones, in a few days. It's a big joke. A little learning can be a dangerous thing. There are no real short cuts. Researchers (Hayes, Bloom) have shown it takes about ten years to develop expertise in any of a wide variety of areas.

Yojimbo

Yojimbo (1961)
Directed by: Akira Kurosawa
Screenplay: Ryuzo Kikushima, Akira Kurosawa
Cast: Toshiro Mifune, Tatsuya Nakadai

(via YouTube): 'Yojimbo' Akira Kurosawa. Trailer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YArp_JuwWAA

Yojimbo - End Showdown
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eijUlCEAyAw

A real gem. It's fascinating + delightful to watch Kurosawa films. I enjoyed it.

Warhol 'Liz' Painting Sells For US$23M

(via AP) Andy Warhol's turquoise-background Elizabeth Taylor portrait sold for $23.7 million Tuesday (November 13, 2007) at Christie's auction house to an anonymous bidder.

Useful link:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071114/ap_en_ot/warhol_auction

Screen Savers

Carly Berwick writes about artist-museum conservation partnership concepts + how to save from obsolescence Net art and its new-media siblings + the rapid pace of technological innovation + other viewpoints @ http://artnews.com/issues/article.asp?art_id=1170

Making A Difference

Sylvia Hochfield writes about Andrew Decker’s 'A Legacy of Shame,' the first of dozens of articles by ARTnews writers on the subject of artworks looted by the Nazis during World War II + other viewpoints @ http://www.artnews.com/anniversary/top7.asp

Jean-Baptiste Tavernier’s Travels In India

Concerning Diamonds, And The Mines And Rivers Where They Are Found; And Especially Of The Author’s Journey To The Mine Of Rammalakota
(via Jean-Baptiste Tavernier’s Travels In India / V Ball / Edited by William Crooke)

When I arrived at Golkonda, three days had elapsed since the death of Boete, the apothecary, and the room where I had left him had been sealed with two seals—one that of the Kazi, who corresponds to the Chief Justice, and the other that of Shahbandar, who is the Provost of the merchants. An officer of justice watched the door of the chamber together with the servants whom I had left with the deceased. Immediately on my arrival the fact was announced to the Kazi and the Shanbandar, and forthwith they sent for me.

After I had saluted them, the Kazi asked me whether the money which was in the chamber of the deceased was mine, and how I could prove it. I said I had no better proof to show him than the letters of exchange which I had given to the Shroff, and that since my departure he had by my orders paid the sum to the deceased; that I had instructed the latter in case the Shroff paid in silver to change it into golden pagodas, and forward them to me. Upon his reply, they sent to call the two Shroffs who had paid my bills, to know if it was true, and as they agreed that it was, the Kazi forthwith ordered his lieutenant to open the door of the room, and see if the seals were intact on all the bags. He did not leave till he had my assurance that I had found the full sum, and that nothing was wanting. I returned with him to make the same declaration to the Kazi and the Shahbandar, and to thank them for their trouble, and it ended by my signing a document which they had written in Persian, in which I testified my satisfaction.

The lieutenant told me that I must pay the charges of the burial of Boete, those due to the persons who had placed the seals, and to the officer who had kept guard at the door of the chamber. These all amounted to but 9 rupees, or 4½ ecus of our money. One would not have got off so easily in most places in Europe.

Journey of the author to other mines, and concerning the method of searching for diamonds.

Seven days journey east of Golconda there is another diamond mine, called Gani in the language of the country, and Coulour in the Persian tongue.

It is close to a large town on the same river which I crossed when coming from the other mine, and at a league and a half from the town there are high mountains in the form of a cross. The space between the town and the mountains is a plain where the mine is situated and the diamonds are found. The nearer one searches toward the mountains the larger the stones which are found, but when one ascends too high nothing is found.

It is only about 100 years since this mine was discovered when a poor man, digging a piece of ground where he purposed to sow millet, found a pointe naive weighing nearly 25 carats. This kind of stone being unknown to him, and appearing remarkable, he carried it to Golkonda, and by good luck addressed himself to one who traded in diamonds. The trader having ascertained from the peasant the place where he had found the stone, was much surprised to see a diamond of such a weight, especially because the largest that had hitherto been seen did not exceed 10 or 12 carats.

The rumor of this new discovery quickly spread abroad throughout all the country, and some persons of wealth in the town commenced to mine in this land, where they found, and where they still find, large stones in greater abundance than in any other mine. They are found here at present, I say, many stones from 10 up to 40 carats, and sometimes indeed much larger; among others the great diamond which weighed 900 carats before cutting, which Mir Jumla presented to Aurangzeb, as I have elsewhere related.

But if this mine of Kollur is of importance on account of the number of large stones which are found there, it is a misfortune that, as a rule, these stones are not clear, and that their water contains indications of the quality of the soil where they are found. If the soil is marshy and humid, the stone tends to blackness; if it is reddish, it tends to red, and so with the other conditions, sometimes towards green, sometimes towards yellow, just as there is diversity of soil in the area between the town and the mountain. Upon the majority of these stones, after they are cut, there always appears a kind of grease which necessitates one always carrying a handkerchief in the hand in order to wipe them.

As regards the water of the stones, it is to be remarked that instead of, as in Europe, employing daylight for the examination of stones in the rough (brutes), and so carefully judging their water and any flaws which they may contain, the Indians do this at night; and they place in a hole which they excavate in a wall, one foot square, a lamp with a large wick, by the light of which they judge of the water and the cleanness of the stone, as they hold it between their fingers. The water which they term ‘celestial’ is the worst of all, and it is impossible to ascertain whether it is present while the stone is in the rough. But though it may not be apparent on the mill, the never-failing test for correctly ascertaining the water is afforded by taking the stone under a leafy tree, and in the green shadow one can easily detect if it is blue.

The first time I was at this mine there were nearly 60000 persons working there, including men, women, and children, who are employed in diverse ways, the men in digging, the women and children in carrying earth, for they search for the stones at this mine in an altogether different manner from that practised at Rammalakota.

Jean-Baptiste Tavernier’s Travels In India (continued)

Rhapsody In Blue

(via YouTube): George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue part1/2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiyc9Ak3EtQ

George Gershwin's - Rhapsody in Blue part 2/2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOcuvv01nO4

I loved it.

Vegetable Oil + Energy

Here is an interesting story where you can buy a car with a diesel engine and use vegetable oil + they say you can run a car on a 15% diesel / 85% vegetable oil mix. Save energy!

Useful link:
www.ravenfamily.org/andyg/vegoil.htm