Tanagra Figurine: Lady in blue (Dame en bleu)

Public Domain Photo: Lady in Blue, painted terracotta figurine of the type Large Herculaneum Woman, Tanagra Figurine dating 330 to 300 BC, height 32.5 cm (12 ¾ in.), Louvre Museum, Paris

The Lady in blue (Dame en Bleu) is a terracotta figurine that used to be produced in Tanagra, a town north of Athens in Greece from the later part of 4th century BC. They were often painted with natural colors, and were about 4 to 8 inches tall.

Tanagra figures were discovered by ploughmen of Vratsi in Boeotia, Greece by the end of the 1860s when they dug up ancient tombs. The largest collection of figurines were found in 1874 from the tombs of the Hellenistic period, which shows that the city was the main source of these figures which were also exported to distant places.

Cleopatra on stamps of Germany, 1984

Here is a scan of a 30 Pfennig postahge stamp of Germany depicting the image of Cleopatra VI, issued on 12 January 1984. The offset-printed issue had a circulation of 14.5 million stamps. The image used for the stamp was the photo of the marlbe head of Cleopatra VI, the last Pharao of Ptolemaic dynasty of Egypt (30-40 BC), from the Altes Museum Berlin (Berliner Museumsinsel). The photo of the original marble figure is below:

President Kennedy’s family in Hyannis Port

Public Domain Photo: President John F. Kennedy and his family in Hyannis Port in 1963 with their dogs - photo dated 14 August 1963 by Cecil W. Stoughton, White House Photographs.

The photo shows President John F. Kennedy, John F. Kennedy Jr. (born in 1960, killed in an airplane crash on July 16, 1999), Mrs. Jacqueline Lee Bouvier Kennedy, and Caroline Bouvier Kennedy (the only surviving child of the four children of John F. Kennedy and Jacqueline Kennedy, born in 1957, a lawyer and the president of the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation).

Hyannis Port, a village located in Barnstable, Massachusetts, was the location of the Kennedy Compound and Kennedy family residences, and hence it is included in the National Register of Historic Places.

Renoir: Bal du Moulin de la Galette

Public Domain Photo: Bal du Moulin de la Galette (1876), oil on canvas painting of dimensions 131 cm x 175 cm (52 in x 69 in) currently housed at Musée d'Orsay, Paris.

Bal du Moulin de la Galette (commonly referred to as ‘Le Moulin de la Galette’ or ‘Dance at Le Moulin de la Galette’) by the acclaimed French artist Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841-1919), is considered one of the most celebrated masterpieces of Impressionism.

In this oil painting created in 1876, Renoir depicts a typical impressionist scene of a social gathering on a Sunday afternoon at Moulin de la Galette in Montmartre district of Paris, where working class people, dressed up in their best outfits, loved to celebrate the evenings by eating galettes, drinking, dancing, and meeting other Parisians. Also, Renoir recreated the late 19th century real Parisian life in Bal du Moulin de la Galette, though his style is typically Impressionist, but rich in color, form, and typical fluidity of his brushstrokes.

Bal du Moulin de la Galette came in the collection of Musée du Luxembourg in Paris in 1896, and in 1929 it was transferred to the Musée du Louvre, and in 1986 it was transferred to the Musée d'Orsay in Paris, where it is still located.

Pierre-Auguste Renoir also created a SMALLER VERSION (78 cm x 114 cm) of “Bal du Moulin de la Galette” with the same title and it is in private collection. It was earlier in the collection of American millionaire and U.S. Ambassador to the Court of St. James's, John Hay Whitney. After his death, his widow Betsey Roosevelt Whitney (an American philanthropist and the ex-wife of James Roosevelt) sold the painting for US$78,100,000 at an auction Sotheby's (New York City) to the Japanese business tycoon Ryoei Saito (Saito Ryoei) in May 1990.

In 1991 Saito created an international outcry by declaring that he wished to cremate the painting (which is the fifth most expensive painting ever sold after adjusting for dollar value as per consumer price index), with him when he would be dead, along with Vincent van Gogh’s ‘Portrait of Dr. Gachet’, which also Saito purchased for a record price of US$82.5 million.

Ryoei Saito’s desire to cremate Bal du Moulin de la Galette could not be fulfilled as his bankers, who held the painting as collateral security against his loans, sold the painting through Sotheby's to an unknown buyer, when Saito and his business empire went broke.

Now, though the painting’s ownership and location are uncertain, it is believed to be owned by a Swiss art collector.

Kazimir Malevich: Suprematist Composition

Public Domain Image: Suprematist Composition, oil on canvas painting (1916), dimensions 88.5 cm x 71 cm (34.8 in x 28 in), by Russian painter Kazimir Malevich (1878-1935).

Kazimir Malevich’s magnum opus Suprematist Composition (blue rectangle over the red beam), representing a geometrical figures and vibrant colors in space, was sold on November 3, 2008 at an auction at Sotheby's in New York City for just over US$60 million. The purchase by an anonymous buyer set the world record for Suprematist Composition as the most expensive work in Russian art.

Kazimir Malevich, also known by alternatively spelt names such as Kasimir Malewitsch and Kazimierz Malewicz, is considered the pioneer of Geometric Abstract art or Geometric Abstraction, also known as Suprematism.

Japanese Garden at Devonian Botanical Garden in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada

Public Domain Photo: The central lake and bridge section of the Japanese Garden of the Devonian Botanical Garden located in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada

Please do not misunderstand the name ‘Japanese Garden’ as it may give the impression that it is a Garden in Japan. In fact the name is internationally used to refer to any garden that is built and maintained in the traditional Japanese style in any part of the world. Such gardens can add beauty and the richness of Japanese culture and styling in developing and maintaining gardens, especially when they are developed as an expression of art and mostly linked to ink paintings and calligraphy. So, Japanese Gardens are very popular not only in Japan, but they are very popular in the West since the 19th century. An example is the above photo of the the Devonian Botanic Garden in Canada.

Established in 1959 by the University of Alberta, The Devonian Botanic Garden is near the town of Devon. This garden is spread over an expanse of sand dune shoreline of the pre-glacial Lake Edmonton, and it measures over 30 hectares (or, over 80 acres), to which about 110 acres of natural habitat areas was added in the year 1976. Renowned for its diverse variety of flora and fauna, including the alpine types of hardy plants found in the coldest of terrains, the University of Alberta conducts a variety research activities on plant conservation, microfungi, bryophyte ecology, horticultural plants, etc. with an emphasis on unfolding secrets of biodiversity.

Carl Fredrik Hill: Trädet och flodkröken III (Bois-le-Roi)

Public Domain Images: Trädet och flodkröken III (Bois-le-Roi), oil on canvas painting (1877) by Swedish artist Carl Fredrik Hill (1849-1911), currently located at Nationalmuseum Stockholm (National Museum of Fine Arts, the national gallery of Sweden).

Carl Fredrik Hill: Seine-Landschaft mit Pappeln

Public Domain Image: Seine-Landschaft mit Pappeln (1877), oil on canvas painting by Swedish painter Carl Fredrik Hill (1849-1911), 74 cm x 108 cm, located at Nationalmuseum, Stockholm.

Carl Fredrik Hill: Seine-Landschaft bei Bois-Le-Roi

Public Domain Photo: Seine-Landschaft bei Bois-Le-Roi (variously titled in English as ‘Seine Landscape in Bois-Le-Roi’, ‘The Tree and the River Bend’, ‘Motive from Bois-le-Roi on the River Seine’, etc.), oil on canvas painting (1877) , 53 cm x 72 cm, by the Swedish painter Carl Fredrik Hill, currently in Göteborgs konstmuseum (Gothenburg Museum of Art) in Sweden.

Having born and spent the early years of his life in Lund, Sweden, Carl Fredrik Hill (1849-1911) started his career as a landscape painter. After studying at the Stockholm Academy of Fine Arts, Hill moved to France, and went to Barbizon in the south of Paris in 1874. Barbizon was home to several artists and most of the budding artists of his time converged there.

Hill had had little success as an artist, because his works were not accepted at the Paris Salons. Eventually at the age of 28, he was hospitalized with a severe psychotic attack, ending his career as a landscape painter. With the help of his friends, he went home where he was hospitalized. After a short period in the St. Lars mental hospital in Lund, he was mostly restrained to his home in the care of his sister and mother until his death in 1911.

The period of 28 years before his death is considered his ‘second great period’ as art writers would later describe. It was a new phase of his career that saw him creating thousands of drawings applying various techniques and using watercolor, India ink, pencil, ink, crayon, etc. His inspiration for these works was his memories of various scenes that influenced him, his vivid imagination and art illustrations found on books and other publications.

Hill’s life as an artist started with the vehement opposition from his father who was a mathematics professor who did not want him to become an artist. It was followed by various rejections of his works by the Paris Salons, and possibly such depressive treatment he got must have lead to his suffering from the psychotic attack which was later diagnosed as hallucinations and paranoia. After being released from the hospital, he continued to work only to find an outlet for his creative quest, and to defend himself from the staring failure of his life as an artist. And Carl Fredrik Hill was never given the recognition as an artist during his lifetime.

Several of his work were neglected and lost, but some 3500 drawings are estimated to exist. Out of these, over 2000 drawings and 23 of his oil paintings are in the Malmö Art Museum. Most of these works were donated to the museum by Hill's heirs.

After Carl Fredrik Hill’s death his drawings were located mainly by artists, who admired his work and style. In 1949 an exhibition of his works was held in Geneva, Hamburg, London, Basel, Luzern, and in Paris in 1952. These exhibitions triggered of a series of books on Hill’s works. Now Hill is recognized as one of the best of Sweden's landscape painters, and his works inspire artists internationally. A recognition that eluded Hill during his lifetime!

Art critics and historians have opined that Hill anticipated many of the modern art movements and his works even influenced great artists such as Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse and many others.

Arunima Kumar performs at Khajuraho Dance Festival

Public Domain Photo: Kuchipudi dancer Arunima Kumar performs at the Khajuraho Dance Festival on 5th February 2010.