Leonid Afremov

Little Friend

Leonid Afremov is a famous Belarusian painter, who was born in 1955 in Vitebsk. Coincidentally or not, it is the same town where Marc Chagall was born.

Considering his connection with art, earlier he had composed paintings with watercolour and only on commission. At that time his works of art hadn’t been successful and therefore he had had financial problems as well. But then in 1994 his 16-year-old son Dimitrij started to go from house to house and managed to sell several paintings by his father. Due to his son’s efforts, his paintings are very popular and Leonid managed to find his own style.

His artistic style is unique and easily recognized. He uses a palette-knife instead of regular brushes to put paint on canvas. The palette-knife itself is intended to be used for cleaning old paint from canvas.  It is very rare that an artist ventures to use it as an instrument in painting together with a brush, and it is even rarer that an artist uses it as his or her only instrument. Working with palette-knife gives fantastic possibilities, but it is also fantastically difficult to master. It also took 10 years for Leonid Afremov to acquire his own palette-knife handling.  

In 2004 Afremov sold a painting via EBay and then the prices were just getting higher and higher. Nowadays an original Afremov oil painting costs thousands of dollars, even in the case that the artist represents himself and does not work with any galleries. 

Taking his artistic philosophy into consideration, Leonid Afremov keeps the majority of his art politically neutral. His paintings are not offensive to anyone, nor do they send any hidden messages. The paintings usually reflect certain personal memories and emotions. Leonid Afremov tries to draw the viewer to have a certain feeling rather than tell a story via the painting. The neutral attributes of Afremov’s art make the paintings appealing to almost any social, ethnic and age group. Almost every painting he painted has a very personal inspiration.

His art can be reflected as very positive through the bright colours he uses. The artist’s paintings are considered to be extremely calming by psychologists and psychiatrists as well. His works of art are even used for medical treatment.

Nowadays Afremov often shows up in TV shows and gives interviews for artistic magazines.  

The title of the painting, which I personally liked the most, is ‘Little Friend’.  On the painting there is a couple under one umbrella and a little dog. In the case of Leonid, the motif of umbrella can be regarded as a returning motif, because it is noticeable on several paintings. Moreover, the presence of the dog is also significant. As the artist is a friend of animals, he has several paintings about dogs, horses, tigers and cats. Purgel Zsófia

Ivan Le Lorraine Albright (1897-1983)

The Picture of Dorian Gray (1943)

Oil on canvas

Ivan Albright (1897-1983) was an American painter who lived in the 20th century. He is considered to be one of the first magic realist painters – an artistic style that was widely spread and influential throughout that period. During the First World War, he did medical illustrations for a hospital that is said to be one of the most important events which influenced his later style.

Albright was obsessed of details, he carefully planned every step and setting for his paintings before starting work. His paintings were detailed to the point of texture due to the fact that they often took him years to finish, adding detail upon detail until he was satisfied with his masterpiece. He regularly used a brush with only a single bristle and spent hours and hours to finish very little pieces of his paintings. He also carved his own frames and built his own reference models. He focused on a few themes through most of his works, particularly death, life, the material and the spirit, and the effects of time. He painted very complex works, and their titles matched their complexity. He would not name a painting until it was complete, at which time he would come up with several possibilities, more poetic than descriptive, before deciding on one. Such an example is Poor Room - There is No Time, No End, No Today, No Yesterday, No Tomorrow, Only the Forever, and Forever and Forever Without End (The Window). One of his most famous paintings, which took him some ten years to complete, was titled That Which I Should Have Done I Did Not Do (The Door), which won top prize at three major exhibitions.

In 1943 he was commissioned to create the painting for Albert Lewin's film adaptation of Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray. The story of this amazing book is the following: Dorian Gray commissions a painter to make a portrait of himself as an attractive young and beautiful man, but, later, he trades his soul for an ever-youthful appearance. Later on, he leads an increasingly dissolute and evil life; however, his appearance never shows any changes or any physical effect of his sins or age. Those all have been transferred to his portrait. The painting had to be an extraordinary one. After all, the entire film and book hangs on the notion that the corruptions that this painting undergoes will shock the audience – in which, I think, he succeeded. Ivan’s realistic, but exaggerated depictions of decay and corruption made him very well suited to undertake such a project.

The reason why I choose this painting is because I am a huge fan of the novel itself. It was a really enjoyable reading for me and I really appreciated the painting itself as well. I like those works of arts which have something strange inside or make me wonder a little bit, and, I think Albright has made an amazing job with his painting. Someone needs to be very enthusiastic about their own job to be able to create these kinds of masterpieces, and, this attitude must be appreciated. After all, painting in his own style was not just a work for him; that was his lifestyle. Hermann Tímea

Ilka Barta

Little Universe, 2015

21x19,5 cm

China ink on paper

This work of art is something different from what we would usually expect to be included in our virtual gallery. It is not something created by a professional artist, but an accidental work by a student at TÓK, who is not remotely professional and happens to be my best friend. It was her homework to finish the pattern given on the right side of the drawing any way she wanted. When she finished her work she was clumsy enough to spill ink on it. We can see that this clumsiness has somehow become the essence of the picture. Later, she wanted to throw it away, but I - as an enthusiastic collector of everything - didn’t let her do so. As a result, it hangs on my wall with her autograph on it since our ironic autographing ceremony. She also encouraged me whenever I have a visitor at our flat to tell them that this work of art was created by someone very famous and to ask for their opinion. She is flattered that now her work is in the same gallery with Dalí, Klimt, Moreau, Albright and the other extraordinary pieces represented here.

My interpretation of the drawing is quite complex. To me, the main part represents a heart and the accidental ink splash has the shape of two heads. These heads are not detailed at all while the heart is really meticulous. It could symbolize the constant debate between the heart and the mind and here, in this picture, the heart is what dictates and that is more important. My other interpretation is that the main part has 3 layers: some fish-like figures at the bottom representing water, some little molecules or organic particles in the middle representing the earth and some mountain shapes at the top representing the way to the sky. In this way the whole drawing can evoke the image of the universe showing that we all have a little universe inside us.

So can it be considered a real work of art?

I think the point is that everybody can be an artist in their own way and that art is really subjective. To me, it is the unity of sensual and intellectual pleasure.

But the question remains: What does art really mean to you? Edvi Adrienn

Salvador Dali

The Persistence of Memory, 1931

Salvador Dali was a prominent Spanish surrealist painter. Dalí was a skilled draftsman, and he is best known for the striking and bizarre images in his surrealist work. He was introduced to surrealism in 1929, in which he was influenced by Sigmund Freud’s writings on psychology. According to Freud, dreams are coded messages from the subconscious, and Surrealist artists like Dalí were interested in what could be revealed by their dreams. Dalí induced hallucinations in order to access his subconscious while creating, and this is the process he called the paranoiac-critical method.

The Persistence of Memory was produced in 1931. Dalí was incorporating an understanding of the world introduced by Albert Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity and although some critics believe that the soft watches are an unconscious symbol of the relativity of space and time, Dali disproved this assumption. Around the time of the painting’s creation, Dali perfected his "paranoiac-critical method." and he reached a point where he could make make what he called “hand-painted dream photographs.” He said that on one hot August afternoon, in 1931, when he was eating his lunch, he came upon one of his most stunning hallucinations. Upon taking a pencil, and sliding it under a bit of Camembert cheese, which had become softer and runnier than usual in the summer heat, Dali was inspired with the idea for the melting watches. Besides the melting watches we can see craggy rocks to the right. His native Catalonia had a major influence on Dali's works. His family's summer house in the shade of Mount Pani inspired him to integrate its likeness into his paintings again and again. In the middle of the composition, it is possible to recognize a human figure which Dali used to represent himself. The figure can be read as a "fading" creature, one that often appears in dreams where the dreamer cannot pinpoint the creature's exact form and composition. One can observe that the creature has one closed eye with several eyelashes, suggesting that the creature is also in a dream state. The next thing we can recognise in the painting is the orange clock at the bottom left which is covered in ants. Dalí often used ants in his paintings as a symbol of decay. He met ants the first time as a child, watching the decomposed remains of small animals being eaten by them. He watched with fascination and repulsion, and continued to use them in his work, as a symbol of decadence. Interestingly, according to his autobiography, Dali suffered from the so called Ekbom syndrome in his late age, which is a disease that causes people to falsely believe they are invaded by bugs on or under their skin.

Salvador Dalí inspired many modern artists, such as Damien Hirst, Noel Fielding, Jeff Koons and most other modern surrealists. Salvador Dalí's manic expression and famous moustache have made him something of a cultural icon for the bizarre and surreal. Herenik Enikő

Salvador Dalí (1904-1989)

Gala Contemplating the Mediterranean Sea Which at Twenty Meters Becomes the Portrait of Abraham Lincoln (Homage to Rothko), 1976

Oil and collage on canvas, 99 1/4 x 75 1/2 inches

Dalí Theatre and Museum, Figueres (Spain)

Salvador Dalí is mostly known as a Spanish surrealist, dadaist and cubist painter of the 20th century; however, his Catalan identity is undeniable, just as is his versatility in artistic fields. He had great achievements in literature, sculpture, and architecture; for instance, the Theatre and Museum in Figueres is a remarkable manifestation of his architectural endeavours. He is also noted for his contributions to photography, cinematography, theatre, fashion and for designing other peculiarities such as the worldwide known Chupa Chups logo or a collection of 39 pieces of jewellery, called The Jewels of Dalí. These examples may show that considering him only as a painter might be misleading.

Gala Contemplating the Mediterranean Sea Which at Twenty Meters Becomes the Portrait of Abraham Lincoln (Homage to Rothko) is the bizarre fruit of an experiment on visual perception. Dalí was inspired by a Scientific American article written by Leon D. Harmon in the magazine entitled “The Recognition of Faces”.  Harmon aimed to discover the minimum number of pixels that can describe a unique human face. According to him, 256 pixels would be the solution that he investigated through the portrait of Lincoln in the five dollar bill; nevertheless, Dalí was challenged by this idea, he opted for as few as 121 pixels, and this enigmatic painting became the result.

Standing close, a nude lady – Gala – appears with her back turned to us, pondering in the direction of the ascending or descending Mediterranean sun. That sun can also be seen as the image of Christ, colouring the painting with a biblical allusion to the question of mortality and immortality. This image may remind us of the ephemeral nature of life and beauty with a bit of a melancholic aftertaste. However, when observing it from further away it becomes the portrait of Abraham Lincoln as the title would suggest.

This duality and ambiguity that the painting reflects – life and death, sight and insight or Spanish and American identity – give the impression that nothing ought to be seen only from one perspective. The broader picture is always indispensable in order to understand its core. Another aspect the duality may suggest is that pluralism is a value in itself, and diversity arm in arm with solidarity can lead us to a more colourful world. Szántó Hanna

Alfred Eisenstaedt

Victory over Japan Day (V - J Day)

This photo, entitled Victory over Japan Day (V - J Day), portrays an American sailor kissing a woman in a white dress in Times Square in New York City on August 14, 1945. This photo was published in Life Magazine.

Alfred Eisenstaedt was a German-born American photographer and photojournalist. He began his career in pre-World War II in Germany. After moving to US, he has become a photographer in Life Magazine. The photographer is also famous for his works such as portraits of Sophia Loren and the Ice-Skating Waiter.

The photo was taken accidentally, when President Harry S. Truman announced the end of the war on Japan by US. It was only a moment which was successfully immortalized. Eisenstaedt was walking through the crowd and then he noticed a sailor, who was grabbing every female he could find and kissing them. Also, he noticed a nurse who was just standing in the crowd and as the photographer had hoped: the sailor grabbed the nurse and bent down to kiss her. The author says that it is the contrast between white dress and dark uniform gives the photograph its extra impact.

Eisenstaedt took the V-J Day picture using a Leica IIIa. He was rapidly changing events during the V - J Day celebrations, so he did not manage to obtain the names or any details of identity of the subjects in the photo. Nevertheless, with today's technology, we could identitfy the real characters in the photo: they were Greta Friedman and George Mendosa. However, there are still some people claimes to be the sailor and the nurse. Personally, I am impressed by the impulse of these people in the photo and the spontaneity of the moment. Szmocskó Erika

Hegarty

Valerie Hegarty is an American artist born in Vermont in 1967. She mastered in Fine arts in the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Her home and workplace is currently New York. She makes use of the art technique Trompe-l'œil in most of her works in order to realistically conceive the effect of natural and man-made catastrophes on treasured cultural items, to show the darker side of American society and the damage it has caused through its history. Given that, you’ll find that her work is characterized by canvases and antiques which have been burned, torn, broken, shot at or destroyed. This disturbing work is premeditated. Her work’s aim is to reminisce man’s struggle to civilize nature and the costs which occur. She takes and reproduces past Art History paintings and destroys them as a way to make them look as if they’d been through a natural disaster – more historical evidence is put on the historical painting because they don’t simply depict an experience, they actually go through one. To produce these works Valerie uses fire, water, guns and a diversity of natural forces like earthquakes and woodpeckers. She considers her works as living things going through change. Looking at them offers us the ultimate experience of the sublime – a natural disaster is itself a sublime happening. She wants to show what’s left behind – it is like being an archaeologist, it is to determine where an object came from and what happened to it. Through time, she began taking this deterioration further: what would happen if these remains of nature’s destruction collapsed in such a manner that they in fact began to rejuvenate? She started then adding roots and representing nature growing out of the canvases. 

This piece is called First Harvest in the Wilderness with Woodpecker and it is a recreation of the painting “The First Harvest in the Wilderness” originally made by Asher B. Durand in 1855. The original painting was ordered by the Brooklyn Institute with the purpose of  adding it to the Gallery of Fine arts. The money came from Augusts Graham, a philanthropist, who was involved with the Institute and wanted his donations to go to living American artists.
Durand’s picture depicts the softer side of the Manifest Destiny (the belief that the US was destined to expand across the entire continent) in the form of a pioneer family domesticating the frontier by settling and doing agricultural work.

Valerie recreated the painting and then added a Woodpecker to it. With this bird derives the holes all over the work which make it seem as though the canvas itself was in the landscape depicted – it turns the painting alive.  This work represents the darker side of transformation of frontier into farmland, the destruction that comes with it. The woodpecker represents the human’s destruction but as an inevitable destruction.  The choice of the woodpecker might be related to the pioneers as these used wood.

A possible interpretation is that this is a criticism to the American expansion and destruction of nature. As humans destroy nature, the nature destroys humans’ work. The woodpecker is an antisocial species that is aggressive towards other members of their sort and to other species that live in groups, they are attention-grabbers and opportunity takers – each tree is a door. Through these features they represent the Americans during the expansion and how they acted towards the Native Americans and nature. Curiously, and paradoxically, these are considered lucky birds by Native Americans – representing friendship and happiness; besides, there are many Native American legends with woodpeckers. There is a bittersweet side to the expansion.

 I chose this work because I wanted something unique. Also, I feel a connected to this painting since, by looking at it, I become part of the experience which provides more meaning to it.  It is almost as you can hear the holes being pecked – the painting is so vivid that it is possible to hear and visualize the action.

Furthermore, the idea of the Sublime is very close to me and it is something I pursue when it comes to aesthetics and experiences. All of Valerie’s works have the idea of Sublime embedded in them – landscape and sublime destruction (natural disasters and grandiosity). They are terrifyingly beautiful, darkness becomes beauty. 

 “The Notion of transformation comes in because things have to break down before they grow again.” (Hegarty, 2008) Boliero Rita

Ipodzanyman

As last time most of the presentations focused on personal experiences, I also thought that I come up with something that’s very important and meaningful for me. Well, a couple of years back (3-4) I wasn’t that outgoing a person (I partied occasionally), but it’s just that I couldn’t find that cultural layer that I feel most comfortable with. Then basically dnb found me.

What is drum and bass?

We are in 1991, a new style is blowing up the spot all over the UK - its name is hardcore. Hardcore was a totally new type of music that was nothing like anything before it - events occurred in huge fields in the middle of nowhere or in warehouses that someone had just broken into. For these few years the rave/hardcore scene flourished and grew. However, who would have guessed that the scene was doomed, as with the merge of The Prodigy, the style became mainstream. Then, as a branch or different path from the hardcore scene, drum and bass had risen up.

Drum and Bass (commonly abbreviated to D&B or DnB) is a type of electronic dance music which emerged in the mid 1990s. The genre is characterized by fast breakbeats (typically between 160–190 bpm, occasional variation is noted in older compositions), with heavy bass, sub-bass lines, and occasional infra-bass lines. Drum and bass began as an offshoot of the United Kingdom rave scene of the very early 1990s. Over the first decade of its existence, the incorporation of elements from various musical genres lent to many permutations in its overall style. These permutations can be easily seen (or heard) nowadays, too. House, garage, dubstep, jungle, everything can be mixed in this style, yet it always sounds unique.

Music as art: Music convey emotions, general feelings, stories, even without lyrics, it makes a first-hand experience and it is personal. Nevertheless, with the covers of albums, EPs and or LPs, musicians have the opportunity to express themselves photographically, visually, too. Take the attached picture into consideration, for instance. It’s Pendulum’s logo, and that is a very complex, maze-like figure. If someone sees it for the first time, can not help but start to think right away, what this could be? How is it connected to them? What is the story behind it? And boom, they have an immediate relation to their music, even without listening to them. So even in music, 2Dimensional art does play an important role.

The songs I used to my presentation: Calyx & Teebee – Panic attack; Secondcity – What can I do? (Fred V & Grafix remix) Nagy Bence

JR

Women Are Heroes

JR is an artist and photographer born in France, and this is a kind of anonymous name. He is a unique artist, who owns the biggest art gallery in the world. He exhibits freely in the streets of the world, catching the attention of people who are not typical museum visitors. His work mixes Art and Act, talks about commitment, freedom, identity and limits.

He uses only paper and glue. The most interesting point is that he creates his works using only paper and glue with local people’s cooperation without any sponsor.

This work of art I chose is one of the works in his project called Women Are Heroes. JR decided to start this project because he felt that women always became the first targeted sacrifices during the conflicts and because he tried to show respects for those women. This project is conducted in various world places. In this work, the place is the first favela of Brazil named Providencia famous as the most dangerous place in the world at that time because the largest drug cartel controls it. There was no NGO, no media, no culture, no tourist agent—nothing—there were no eyewitnesses. JR went there and met a woman who said ‘we are hungry for culture, and we need culture out there’. Then, he took pictures of children and women, printed them, and pasted them on the wall because he wanted these people to feel that this art belongs to them. When he held a meeting and he talked with women, they all talked about the three kids who were killed by the Mafia on some steps. He pasted a big picture of the grandmother of one of murdered kids on the steps, which resulted in peace on the steps. These steps had been famous as the place for Mafia to sell drugs, but totally changed to just steps. Next, he painted enlarged local women's faces on their house walls. It can be seen well from a long distance . After project was finished, the media did not know what the picture was, and they had no choice but to visit the favela and ask a woman and get an explanation from her. Surprisingly, he managed to introduce culture to this city. This created a bridge between the media and the anonymous woman. Nevertheless, it is a funny thing that JR said ‘I am just doing art’.

 ‘‘Can Art Change the World?’’

At first, I asked everyone this question in my presentation. In my opinion, art has the power to change people’s perceptions. There are two reasons why I chose this work. First, I like this artist himself, JR, because I have never seen such a creative and funny artist as him. I want you to feel that art may turn people’s way of thinking inside out. Of course, although most people seem to like art in this class, I want you to see art from the different point of view and to consider what the role of art is for you. Secondly, I checked a lot of his projects, but I got an unforgettable impression by this project in that women are respected and it could contribute to one city’s development! As a conclusion, certainly it is too difficult for us to change the world; however, we can make use of art not only for just viewing, but also for the critical way to create the better world. ‘Art can attract people’, he said. Art is connected to various fields such as a comics, make-up, movie, fashion, hair style, and so on… I wonder if art has the possibility to expand the attractive strong points all over the world.

http://www.jr-art.net/　:here you can check his home page

The other projects I introduced were Face 2 Face & ELLIS Trailer. Kawaguchi Haruka

Gustav Klimt (1862-1918)

The Three Ages of Woman, 1905

Oil on canvas, 180x180 cm

Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna, Rome

Gustav Klimt (1862-1918) was an Austrian painter. He was born in Vienna, as the second of seven children. His father was a gold engraver, and both he and his two brothers displayed artistic talent at a young age. At the age of 14, Gustav was enrolled in the Vienna School of Arts and Crafts, where his younger brother Ernst later joined him. The Klimt brothers were very talented and successful, and soon, together with their friend Franz Matsch received several public commissions as a painter trio. Gustav had a very close relationship with Emilie Flöge, a sibling of his sister-in-law. The two families spent several summers together at Attersee, which inspired Gustav to paint his famous landscapes. Emilie and Gustav inspired each other mutually: the woman worked as a fashion designer, and her clothes were often inspired by Gustav’s paintings, while Gustav often dressed his models in clothes designed by Emilie. In 1892, both his father and brother died, so Gustav was suddenly responsible for both families. Klimt was a founding member of the Vienna Secession (1897-1908). The movement provided exhibitions for unconventional young artists, and even had its own magazine (Ver Sacrum). In 1894, Gustav was asked to decorate the ceiling of the Great Hall of the University of Vienna with three paintings. He completed the task, but he was harshly criticized for his radical themes, the paintings were even claimed to be pornographic. That was when Klimt decided not to accept public commissions any longer. He later lived a very secluded life and avoided socializing, and died in 1918 due to the influenza epidemic.

My chosen work by him is called The Three Ages of Woman. It was completed in 1905, and falls into Klimt’s most famous period, the so called “Golden Phase”. In that period, he used metallic paints and gold leaf (gold hammered into very thin sheets), and his paintings were highly ornamental. The Three Ages of Woman features three women in varying stages of age, symbolizing the cycle of life. The background is dark and neutral, so the figures are in the focal point of the painting. We can see two separate auras; the left one has warm, earthy tones, while the right one is painted with cool colors, and various shades of blue. The young woman has flowers in her hair, which represent spring, while the old woman turns her face down, and her body displays the visible effects of old age (sagging skin, bloated belly). The background around the three figures is inspired by the mosaics Klimt saw in Ravenna and Venice.

The reason why I chose this work of art is because a replica of it hangs in my mother’s bedroom, and I have a very special connection to it. I’ve lived all my life with my mother and my grandmother, and before I was born, my mom also lived with her mother and grandmother, so this painting represents something very personal to us. Also, when my mother was pregnant with me, and she was waiting to get her first sonogram done, she saw this picture on the wall of the maternity clinic. And as she looked at it, she suddenly understood, just how special it is, becoming a mother. So, this is why this painting has a soft spot in my heart. Bárdi Dorottya

Gustav Klimt (1862-1918)

Danaë

Gustav Klimt was born in Austria in 1862. He came from a poor family environment but this wasn’t an obstacle to his career because he was somehow genetically predisposed to arts since his father was a gold engraver and his mother had an unrealized ambition to be a musical performer. He was seen as an artist far ahead of his time and was also criticized due to the erotic and exotic nature of his work. Symbolism was used in his art forms but it was not at all subtle and it went far beyond what the imagination during the time frame accepted. As an example, this painting of Danaë is a typical representation of Klimt’s stylized eroticism.

In Greek mythology, Danaë is the daughter of Acrisios, King of Argos, and becomes the mother of Perseus. According to the legend, her father locked her up in a tower so that no one could approach her because an oracle foretold him that she would bear a son who would kill him. The god Zeus, overcome by the beauty of the young girl, takes the shape of a gold rain to conceive Perseus like rain fertilizes the soil.

I choose this work of art not only because Klimt and I had what it’s called love at first sight since he manages in a beautiful way through line to give form to the human body and the nature of human existence and explore universal emotions like suffering, hope and love but also because Danae shows us her natural way, a scene of fecundation, completely detached from judgements; she is giving birth but also she is being born again, feeling one the most amazing pleasures of life. There’s a whole ambiguous moment about her position and face, she might be dreaming or sleeping? But the truth is that we see a smile there so is she conscious or not? This is for me a symbol of divine love, transcendence and sensational beauty. Duarte Francisca

Gustave Moreau (1826-98)

Salomé (1876)

Gustave Moreau (1826-1898) was a French painter from Paris, who lived and worked at the height of the transartistic movement called Symbolism. Being a disciple of Symbolism practically demanded from him a literary approach towards painting, which he duly delivered as his painting are almost exclusively based on traditional literary stories originating from the Bible and the Greco-Roman myths. His themes may be considered conservative (mythological-Biblical characters are one of the main recurring themes in the fields of art), but the way he interpreted these stories were unique, innovative and in a certain aspect provocative - so much so that some of his paintings were deemed scandalous at the time of their production.

Moreau's favourite topic was undoubtedly Salomé - the controversial princess of the Bible who demanded the head of John the Baptist from Herod as a reward for her sensual dance at the king's birthday feast. Salomé is depicted in 19 paintings and over 150 drawings; her portrayal is as ambivalent as her character, with some of the works showing her as a ruthless femme fatale and others as an innocent fairy-like maid. The most famous Salomé painting entitled L'Apparition was created in 1876 and had a vast influence on contemporary artists - Oscar Wilde's drama and Richard Strauss's opera, with the eponymous title Salomé both owe their existence to Moreau's masterpiece.

My chosen work of art is not, however, the L'Apparition; this painting from 1876 is - surprisingly - called Salomé and displays a remarkable and jaw-droppingly beautiful painting style. Despite Moreau's fascination for the Renaissance period being clearly discernible in the painting (the use of the chiaroscuro technique, the anatomically precise representation of the human body and the underlying complexity of the painting), the distinct touch of Orientalism in the form of the richly decorated and excessively detailed jewellery, cloths and other ornaments is one of the main attracting feature of Salomé. Furthermore, the slightly blurred and obscure painting is covered all over with sharply drawn, incised figures of flowers and leaves which are there only for the sole purpose of aesthetic pleasure. This stunning technique lends a sense of multilayeredness to the painting as if the pencilled-in layer of ornaments could be detached from the underlying portrait of the princess.

Salomé, along with Moreau's other paintings, strives to suggest instead of define and to promote subjectivity over objectivity - this may be a reason why his paintings were so well received and admired by his fellow artists. Symbolism was one of those rare artistic movements that inextricably connected the different fields of art with each other; the Salomés depicted in Moreau's paintings, Wilde's literature and Strauss's music are all the different yet interconnected realisations of the overarching symbol of Salomé; this invisible connection is very hard to define, but I believe every keen art-enthusiast can instinctively perceive what I am talking about.

My reason for choosing this painting is much simpler though than the worship of the abovementioned interdisciplinarity: I value those works of art the most that provide me with intellectual and aesthetic delight at the same time - and Moreau's Salomé certainly falls in this category. Gyimesi Brigitta

Ralph Steadman

The piece depicts the titular White Rabbit running and looking at his watch. It is part of the critically acclaimed version of Alice in Wonderland, for which Steadman won the Francis Williams Book Illustration Award.

The artist Ralph Steadman is a British cartoonist born in 1936. He is known for his association with the so-called father of Gonzo journalism, Hunter S. Thompson. Thompson documented his drug-fueled psychedelic adventures with this unique genre of journalism called Gonzo, which is characterised by subjective first person narrative and a detached style.

Steadman provided the illustration to many of Thompson's works, which further enriches the reading experience. You can see the erratic style of this piece, a style which characterises most of Steadman's works. This style suggests that the artist was inspired, or maybe even influenced by drugs, but no one knows for sure if it was indeed created while Steadman was on drugs.

If you are interested in Ralph Steadman and his other works, I urge you to check out his official website: http://www.ralphsteadman.com/ Csonka Rozália

Sándor  Wagner

Titusz Dugovics’s Sacrifice was painted by Sándor Wagner, a Hungarian painter. He was born on the 16th of April, 1838 in Pest. He was the pupil of another Hungarian painter, Henrik Weber but later on decided to continue his studies at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich between 1856 and 1864. During this period he was the student of Karl Theodor von Piloty, a German painter whose influence can be seen on Weber’s other works, for example Mathias defeats Holubart which he painted for Pesti Vígadó, a Hungarian event centre. In 1866 he became a teacher at the Academy and slowly transitioned away from Hungarian themes but still retained his historical romance. One of his most important works is in Munich, his panoramic painting of Constantine the Great’s arrival. He liked traveling, especially to Italy and his home country, Hungary. Most of his works today can be found in the Hungarian National Gallery. Sándor Wagner died on the 19th January, 1919.

The painting itself shows us the turning point of the final siege of Belgrade in 1456. The siege took place between the 4th and the 22nd of July with Mihály Szilágyi and John Hunyadi defending against the Turkish armies of Mehmed II. With one Hungarian banner left on the towers the Turkish were desperate to place their final banner and win the battle. Titusz Dugovics was one of the defenders and made the ultimate sacrifice to turn the tide of battle. He grabbed the Turkish soldier with the banner and threw himself off with him, stopping the capture. His action gave morale to the Hungarians and confused the Turkish, eventually leading to the Hungarian victory. This very important victory was celebrated by all of Europe with Pope Callixtus III ordering the bells to ring every day at noon for the believers to pray for the defenders. The painting shows us the exact moment when Titusz grabs the Turkish soldier and decides to go down with him. We can see the the facial expressions of all fighters present with the Hungarians mostly exhausted by the fight. Titusz shows no fear on his expression while his fellow Turkish banner carrier is completely surprised. The colors are mostly dark and grey with the ongoing siege except around Titusz where the sky is gloriously white, catching the attention of the viewer. Not only that, but the white coloring seems like as some kind of halo above his head. Jánosi Adám

Gerda Gottlieb

A Summer Day, 1928

Gerda Gottlieb was a controversial Danish artist of the early twentieth century, and also the wife of the man who had the first recorded sex reassignment surgery. As an artist, she was ahead of her time. Her main themes being fashion and eroticism, she was one of the first female artists who depicted female sexual pleasures from a woman’s point of view; and with her works, she revolutionized the way women are portrayed in art today. Because of her illustrations for fashion magazines, Gottlieb is considered the most prominent representative of art deco. Besides all, she was a great pioneer of feminism and gender issues.

A Summer Day was painted in 1928 using watercolor. Gerda most likely painted it in a studio with posing models; therefore, the background must be a recall of her memories, probably her travels to France and Italy. The colors of this piece of art are really bright, fresh, and summer-like probably to represent the warm days of the season. On the other hand, the color of the women’s lips, the shoes, and the accessories is red, which makes a significant contrast and refer to femininity. The man standing behind the easel said to be the artist’s husband, Einar Wegener, while the woman lying naked is his woman alter ego, Lily Elbe. Since all of the models are facing the artist and the public, and Lily is the only one hiding and smelling a flower, it must be the reflection of reality. Sutus Dolli

Paige Bradley

Expansion

Paige Bradley is an American sculptor. She is known for representative figurative bronzes. Currently, living and working in London. The sculptor really loves figurative art as she believes that “it can speak essential, timeless and universal language”.

“Art is not entertainment.
Art is not luxury goods.
Art is culture.
It is you and me.”  Paige Bradley

In her works she shows the beauty of the human form and the yearning of the human spirit.

Expansion is a sculpture which depicts a woman sitting in a lotus position. Bradley conceived this piece when she moved to Manhattan in 2004. She was working on it for months, however the critics and her curators did not approve of the sculpture. After the shock she received from the critics, she took this wax sculpture and just dropped it on the floor. It shattered into many pieces. Nevertheless, after a lot of regression, the sculptor managed to cast all the pieces in bronze and put together the pieces so they could be arranged in a particular position relative to one another. She hired a lighting specialist who made an amazing contrivance to illuminate the sculpture from inside, so it looked even more astonishing broken than when it was intact. This work was located in the Brooklyn side, but now it is in a private collection. The message of the sculpture is:

“From the moment we are born, the world tends to have a box already built for us to fit inside.  Our umbilical cord never seems to be severed; we only find new needs to fill. If we disconnected and severed our attachments, would we shatter our confinements and expand beyond our shell? Would the world look different?  Would we recognize ourselves? Are we the box that we are inside, and to be authentically ‘un-contained’ would we still be able to exist? This is the irony of containment. As long as we don’t push on the walls of our surroundings, we may never know how strong we really are.” - Paige Bradley. Erika

Antonio Canova (1757-1822)

Psyche Revived by Cupid’s Kiss (1793)

Marble (168 cm)

Antonio Canova (1757-1822) was an Italian sculptor. By 1800, he was one of the most celebrated artists in Europe. He got countless commissions, and he had several famous patrons, including Napoleon. Most of his sculptures were inspired by ancient Greek and Roman stories.

My chosen work by him is called Psyche Revived by Cupid’s Kiss, and it was completed in 1793. The story that inspired the sculpture is about Psyche, a beautiful princess, and Cupid, Venus’ son, who fall in love with each other, but they have to endure several hardships and challenges before they can finally be together and get married. The sculpture depicts the moment when Cupid wakes Psyche up from a deadly sleep which was cast upon her. It is made of marble, and it is ca. 1.7 meters tall. Two versions were made of the sculpture, with slight differences; the first one is located in the Louvre in Paris, while the second one is in the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg. 

The reason why I chose this work of art is because I saw it in real life, when we visited the Louvre in Paris with my family. There was a huge crowd in the museum; I couldn’t get close to any of the artworks, except for this one. It seemed to be unable to catch people’s attention, but I was absolutely fascinated by it. I was 14 or 15 years old, and having no experience of my own, this gentle, loving movement represented for me everything I thought true love was about. It captures so many emotions: tenderness, passion, caring for each other… This is why it made such a great impression on me. Dorottya

Pier Group

Embrace, 2014

Embrace is a piece by The Pier Group shown in the 2014’s edition of the American festival Burning Man.

Burning Man started in 1986 on June 22nd when Larry Harvey and Jerry James decided to build a human statue and burn it on a San Francisco beach. Strangers started to show up to watch the flames, it resulted in a group of people around the burning statue singing songs about fire. The “man” was about two and a half meters tall; by 1990 the Man was already 12 meters tall. The police found out about the event and decided it was prohibited to burn the statue on that beach because it could potentially start a fire on the surrounding hillside. Therefore, the location changed to the black rock desert in the middle of Nevada. As the “man” grew, so did the  event’s population – the first time there were 35 people, by 2014 there were 65,922. The tickets now cost 392$ and can go up depending on the ticket.

The festival usually happens from the last Sunday in August to the first Monday in September. Every year there is a new theme and the goal of the festival is for the community to explore numerous ways of artistic self-expression and create works for pleasure and celebration. The most captivating works are large-scale structures that are burned at the end of the event.

The Pier Group is a large art group devoted to building large scale public art and bringing friends together to help constructing on the ideas brought forth at Burning Man. The Pier Group created, for the event, “The Pier”, the “La Llorona shipwreck of Pier 2” and “The Ichthyosaur Puppet Project”. In 2014 they produced “Embrace”.

 “Embrace” is a 21-meter wooden structure presenting two individuals embracing to represent all of the relationships that are made during the week-long event. The goal was creating a space which was sacred and contemplative. Embrace is a demonstration dedicated to the magnificence of immediacy. It is made to honor all of the relationships in people’s lives, reminding the spectators of the people they love, the people they have lost, family and friends and everyone else.

The observer can also go on a journey inside the piece, there are two large cathedral spaces making up the base of Embrace and each one has a colossal heart hanging from the ceilings. The hearts have a beat, a pulse and are illuminated. Then there are stairways which guide people up through the construction, passing by balconies around the hearts and going up to the shoulders. When in the shoulders, the spectator can stop and look upon the vastness of Black Rock Desert – there you can watch the sunset and reflect until you wait to move up into the heads. The necks have a long spiral stairway that leads to the head and the path becomes tighter and enclosed before it releases you to the mind. In each head, people gather to share stories, laugh and look out the eyes of the head they are into the other one. Each space has a mandala: one devoted to the act of Birth and creating and the other one to logic and reason. On the top you can gaze upon the stars as the top is open to the sky.

I selected this artwork because not only the piece itself fascinated me due to its size and interior details, but also because the event which it was built for mesmerizes me too. Burning Man is an art fest with a very symbolic concept and with massive works plus a very loving community. All of these and its setting turn it into something completely pleasing to the eye and of a transcendent sensation.  The interactive characteristics of the piece and its surroundings offered me that feeling and the symbolism involved in it captivated me. It reminded me of the importance of relationships but also how ephemeral these can be – turning each moment into something more significant. It also shows that art too can be ephemeral by burning the work that they put so much effort in creating. It is not the material that matters but what you felt by doing it or by exploring it. Everything is temporary and the ability of letting go of things is astoundingly difficult but beautiful. Rita

Peter Carl Fabergé

Easter Eggs, 1885-1917

Created between 1885 and 1917 with the exception of two years, the so-called Fabergé Eggs constitute a rare, limited set of jewelled eggs made by the Russian goldsmith Peter Carl Fabergé. Most eggs (about 50) were commissioned by the Tzars Alexander III and Nicholas II - these are the Imperial Eggs, but unfortunately only 43 survived the cruelty of passing years. Fabergé first gave an egg to Alexander III's wife as an Easter present, and she liked it so much that her husband subsequently ordered Fabergé to create an egg for his wife and his mother for every Easter. The artist could let his imagination run wild: all eggs are miniature beauties made of gold and precious stones, most frequently diamonds, rubies, sapphires and pearls. There was one requirement, however: each egg should contain a surprise, a custom dating back to the first egg of the telling name Hen; it was a life-like egg carved from opaque enamel-coated gold which, when opened, contained a yolk of matte gold with a little hen inside.

In the collection following the Hen Egg of 1885 there are such masterpieces as the Danish Palaces (pink enameled gold with diamonds, emeralds and sapphires, the surprise being a 10-panel screen consisting of little painting of castles, ships, etc. on mother of pearl), the Memory of Azov (solid green jasper lined with green velvet on the inside, the surprise being a successful Russian warship called Pamiat Azova), the Diamond Trellis Egg (a solid egg lined with satin and studded with diamonds), the Lilies of the Valley (an egg made in the Art Nouveau style, the surprise was three portraits of Nicholas II and his daughters which elevated out of the egg), the Bouquet of Lilies Clock (a beautiful piece, the interesting thing being that it is a functioning mini-clock), the unfortunately lost Royal Danish, the Peacock (the surprise, a little mechanical peacock can be lifted out and wound up so that it walks around and closes its tail; the artist spent 3 years on refining the mechanism), the Alexander III Equestrian (carved out of a rock-quartz crystal and containing a miniature figure of the Tzar on horseback) and the most expensive Fabergé egg ever made, the Winter (quartz/platinum studded with over 1500 diamond, the surprise is a basket of flowers similarly overloaded with diamonds).

These were a few examples of the Imperial Eggs, but Fabergé was commissioned by other royalties as well as an industrialist called Alexander Kelch, for whom the master made a series of 7 eggs. Of all the eggs some are in the private collections of US museums, Queen Elizabeth II or Albert II of Monaco, but 10 of them are displayed in the Kremlin Armoury in Moscow and 9 of them are in the Fabergé Museum of St Petersburg, owned by a wealthy businessman, Viktor Vekselberg.

My reason for choosing these eggs is simple - their only function is to be beautiful, apart from that they are basically worth nothing. Art in its purest form is to give us delight and a sense of beauty, it should not strive to change the world; if it does, that's excellent, but it should not be its primary goal. Another thing to mention here is that the production of these eggs, having been the symbols of the wealth, power and influence of the Romanov dynasty, effectively stopped after the Communist Revolution of 1917. Yet for some miraculous reason a large proportion of these mere luxury items survived the upcoming Socialist regime, demonstrating that art indeed is above the common flow of life. Brigitta

John Russel Pope

Thomas Jefferson Memorial

Washington D.C.

The Thomas Jefferson Memorial honours one of the most important of the American Founding Fathers, the main drafter and writer of the Declaration of Independence. He was the very first man in the position of the U.S. Secretary of State under first president George Washington, the second vice president under second president John Adams, and also the third president of the United States from 1801 to 1809.

The monument is located in the West Potomac Park on the shore of the Potomac River Tidal Basin, at the southern end of the National Mall in Washington D.C. The idea of building a memorial for Thomas Jefferson came from Franklin Delano Roosevelt who was a great admirer of his work. The neoclassical building was designed by architect John Russel Pope and built by John McShain (also known as the “Man who built Washington”) from 1939 to 1943. The designer’s main influences were the Roman Pantheon and the Rotunda designed by Jefferson at the University of Virginia which was established by him, as well. In 1947, the bronze statue of Thomas Jefferson was added to the memorial being 5.8 meters tall and weighing more than 4,000 kilograms. On the walls, there are excerpts from the Declaration of Independence, from Jefferson’s autobiography, and many more of his sentences from bills, laws and letters. The most important one is inscribed in a frieze and says “I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.” Dolli

Coricancha and the Church and Convent of Santo Domingo

Cusco, Peru

Coricancha Temple (sometimes spelled Korikancha or Qoricancha) is located in the political and religious capital of the Inca Empire, namely in Cusco, Peru. The original Quechua name of the city was Qosqo, meaning ‘navel’ or ‘centre’, but when the early Spanish conquerors arrived they could not resist the temptation to rename the city, so it became Cusco, meaning a hypocrite, humpback or small dog. Coricancha – meaning a golden courtyard in Quechua – was the most significant temple of the Inca culture, which was dedicated to Inti, the Sun God and not inconceivably to Viracocha, the creator God, as well. The temple, in other words the House of the Sun, was originally the centrepiece of a gigantic astronomical observatory and a calendrical device whose magnificent walls were made of finely polished stone and covered in sheets of solid gold and silver. Its courtyard was filled with golden statues and in its centre at one time an octagonal pure gold stone could have been admired. According to the Spanish reports the Inca temple was “fabulous beyond belief”; therefore, no wonder the Spanish soldiers felt the necessity to conquer this exquisite mix of architecture and peaceful spirituality, and then why they decided to capture Atahualpa, the Inca (king), ask for ransom in gold for the life of the leader, take most of the gold from Coricancha, melt it down and finally kill Atahualpa. Francisco Pizarro, the leader of the conquerors, ordered his brother to build a church on the foundations of this temple, and that is how later Juan Pizarro could cede it to the Dominican congregation. The first prior of the convent was Friar Juan de Olías, accompanied by a group of Mexican missionaries. Throughout history, they had to rebuild it several times due to the capricious nature of earthquakes that severely damaged the church. However, “thanks to” the natural forces, much more of the Coricancha’s original structure has been revealed since 1950, and it shows a dash of irony; the collapse of the Spanish architecture and those still standing ancient stones of Coricancha.

What I find most fascinating about this building is the result; the magical mixture of Catholicism and the Incan religion. I believe despite the cruelty of the history of this glorious building, the cruelty of history in general, religious and cultural syncretism is worth admiring. The conviction of the undeniable necessity of acculturation was transformed into transculturation and that is how the ultimate state of syncretism was achievable. Naturally it was not the desired and ideal goal of dominant people, but interestingly this unmovable ancient root still exists in society, in the mentality of those people and also in a thousand other varieties of such a fascinating piece of art. Hanna

Mainau Island

Lake Constance

Germany

Mainau Island, nicknamed the ‘Flower Island’ is one of the main tourist attractions in Germany. It is quite small, 45 hectares. The island lies off the shores of Lake Constance which is in the far south-west of Germany, close to Switzerland and Austria. Mainau gives home to an extraordinary diversity of flowers, trees and shrubs. Moreover, visitors also have the chance to get to know several other spectacles. For example, it is highly recommended to visit the palm house, which also includes a collection of 1200 orchids. Beside the palm house, the extremely old trees of the island are also popular. Here I think of the famous Victoria lime planted by the grand duke in1862 to mark the birth of his daughter or of the bizarrely knotted pagoda tree which is 150 years old. Finally, it is also important to mention the palace church of St. Mary, which was laid out for Grand Duke Friedrich 1of Baden and is the gem of the south-German baroque.  Zsófia

 Hieronimus Duquesnoy the Elder

Manneken Pis, 1619

Brussels

Originally meaning "Little man Pee” in Dutch, this 61 cm tall, bronze statue of a little boy urinating was sculptured by Hieronimus Duquesnoy the Elder in 1619. It is located in Brussels at the junction of Rue de l'Étuve/Stoofstraat and Rue du Chêne/Eikstraat, close to the Grand Place and the Town Hall. The original figure was repeatedly stolen however. The current statue was made in 1965 and the original restored version can be found in the Maison du Roi/Broodhuis, located on the Grand Place.

One would wonder how this particular sculpture came to be. There are several legends which tell the story. One of the legends is about a fight between the troops of Duke Godfrey III of Leuven and the Berthouts, the lords of Grimbergen. The interesting thing is that the young Duke was only two years old at the time. His basket was hung on a tree as a sort of encouragement for the troops. The Duke urinated on the enemy who eventually lost the battle. Another story tells us the adventures of young Julianske who defended Brussels from explosives deployed by a foreign power by urinating on the fuses. The tourists are often told the story in which a merchant has his son go missing during a visit to the city. The boy is eventually found urinating in a small garden. This image become a statue from the merchant as a gift for the citizens who helped him find his son. Losing sight of the son is the core of another legend, but the merchant is a mother and the boy is found in the corner of a small street instead. The fifth and final story is rather unbelievable as the boy in that particular tale manages to put out an entire fire with his urine, saving the king’s castle from burning down.

If you want to find the statue but you are not in Brussels, you have plenty of options as there are many replicas of it. Other Belgian cities such as Koksijde, Hasselt and Ghent all have a replica of their own. There is also one in Geraardsbergen called Manneke Pis and it’s a big contender for being the oldest statue, causing a debate between it and the Manneken Pis of Brussels. A Belgian-born waffle maker in Florida thought it would be a nice asset to his shop to have a replica in front of it but all he got was complaints from shoppers and he eventually took it away. Another working replica is found in Japan on the platform of Hamamatsuchō Station in Tokyo. It is a great source of pride for the station workers who occasionally dress it up.

Speaking of dresses, Manneken Pis wears several costumes a week according to a published schedule. There are over 900 costumes which can be viewed in a permanent exhibition inside the City Museum on the Grand Place. The costumes are managed by a non-profit association, The Friends of Manneken Pis, who review hundreds of submitted designs and select a small number to be used. Many of the costumes represent national dress, the uniforms of assorted trades, professions, associations and branches of the civil and military services. I have seen it myself when I was in Brussels and I highly recommend it to anyone who happens to be in the city. Adam

Matryoshka Dolls

Matroska dolls were originally intended to be children's toys, but these days they are kept in glass cabinets, not allowed to be touched.
Their origins are unclear - according to one theory they were brought back by Russian war prisoners after the Russian-Japanese war.
It is said that the first doll was created by Vasily Zvojdochkin, but the design we know today belongs to Sergey Maljutkin.
Matroska dolls' popularity boomed after they won third place at the Paris World Exhibition. Rozalia

OK Go

This Too Shall Pass

Rube Goldberg Machine

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qybUFnY7Y8w

 The music video’s main focus is a working mechanism called the Rube Goldberg machine. Rube Goldberg was a cartoonist who made drawings and short videos of his peculiar inventions in the 20th century. The contraptions were designed to perform a simple task in a complicated way. The expression later expanded to mean any confusing or complicated system. It was even added to the Merriam-Webster dictionary as an adjective referring to the complicated means by which a simple task is performed.

This particular mechanism in the video was created with the help of many physicists, scientists, circus riggers and engineers – most of whom work for NASA – involving the director and the band members, too. It was a 3-month-long preparation process preceding the 2 days of rehearsal and shooting. It is only a long one-shot take recorded by one guy with a steadycam. They had to run it around 60 times to finally get it right. The idea came from a Japanese TV show called Pythagoras Switch – from which they get most of their inspirations - and from a YouTube video of a Rube Goldberg machine built using nothing but office supplies. About that machine the bassist said: "There was something, not only clever about it, but it was inspirational in that they were just using materials that most of us have”. That’s the idea that really got me. I love how these mechanisms make everyday objects interact with each other and how they otherwise wouldn’t be able to work without each link helping the next one get further in the chain reaction. What also fascinates me is that it is somehow the perfect combination of art and science, here, with the contribution of music.

The band, OK Go, formed in 1998 in Chicago, Illinois. They are famous for their creative, often low-budget videos often using long one shot takes. Their first big hit was their 2006 song ’Here It Goes Again’. They have always tried to come up with something unexpected ever since they started. Their latest video was recorded in zero gravity on an airplane. Adri

Their other videos are also highly recommended:

Needing/Getting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MejbOFk7H6c

Last Leaf: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IkYfB1C0Zgc

The Writing’s On the Wall: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m86ae_e_ptU

White Knuckles: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nHlJODYBLKs

(White Knuckles – Outtakes + 4 Angles: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXJflIGDE-o)

Upside Down & Inside Out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWGJA9i18Co

You can read the interview with the bassist here: http://www.gigwise.com/features/55041/ok-go-reveal-all-about-this-too-shall-pass-video

Sedlec Ossuary

Kutna Hora, Czech Republic

The Sedlec Ossuary also known as the Church of Bones is one of the most unusual chapels you will ever see. If you think that you have seen everything in your life, think again! The Sedlec Ossuary is nothing spectacular in the outside. It is a small chapel located in Sedlec, in the suburbs of Kutna Hora, in the Czech Republic. You would think that it is just an average medieval gothic church. However, as you enter, you will soon realize why it is one of the most amazing and unique churches in the world.

You may wonder how all these bones ended up being placed in a small chapel located in the Czech Republic. It all goes back to 1278 when the King of Bohemia sent the abbot of the Sedlec Monastery to Jerusalem. He brought back a jar of earth from the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, the place where Jesus was crucified at Golgotha. When he got back, he put the earth over the cemetery. The rumour about his act soon spread out all over the place, and thus Sedlec became a popular place to be buried. Some people even brought their dead relatives to be buried in the Holy Soil of Sedlec. Soon, in Europe, in the 14th century, the plague caused the death of many people, and many people went to Sedlec before dying. In a short time a lot of people were buried in Sedlec, and thus came the idea of creating an ossuary. The task of creating the ossuary was given to a half blind monk who arranged the bones. But only more than 300 years later, the bones were arranged artistically as they are today. 

The Sedlec monastery was abolished by Joseph II. In 1783, however, the property of the abbey was purchased by the Schwarzenberg family from Orlík. Then, in 1870, a local woodcarver, Frantisek Rindt was given the task of decorating the chapel with the bones. And the amazing results speak for themselves. Between 40,000 and 70,000 human bodies are now arranged, and the place is now popularly known as the Church of Bones.

One of the most fascinating artistic works inside the Sedlec Ossuary is the big chandelier of bones that hangs in the centre of the Church of Bones. The immense chandelier contains at least one of every human bone. Another impressive artwork is the coat of arms of the Schwarzenberg family, also made of human bones, and, Rint’s name is also spelled in bones on the wall. Across the walls, there are giant chalices made out of limb bones and skulls. Farther out, at the four corners of the ossuary lie pressure-sensitive cages. There is a small and enigmatic hole penetrated through the centre of each cage as if inside lived an entire colony of carrion creatures. Above each pyramid, there is a large wooden crown.

There is an interesting concept that worth mentioning now. The most obvious places to look for memento mori meditations are in funeral art and aechitecture. This comes from Latin theory and it means to "remember Death“– which is associated with the Christian Hope of Resurrection. Its message with this unique place helps to understand the symbolism of the place and its decoration: it is not a celebration of death, but it symbolizes the equality of people in front of the throne of God. The point of all these bone Lego sculptures, at least officially, is that they show we’re all equal in the sight of the Lord.

The reason why I chose this kind of work of art is because, for me, it is brilliant! It is pretty amazing how someone is capable of making such an amazing architectural piece out of simple bones. It really has a special atmosphere. However, what really captured me is the meaning of this memento mori. In my opinion, this is a quite up-to-date issue, sadly, because discrimination is always present in our lives and ‘plays’ an important part. However, we should not forget that we are all equal. It doesn’t matter what the colour of our skin is or in what we believe. Inside, physically and structurally, we are all the same, and, on a level with death, we are all becoming the same. Timea

Jason deCaires Taylor

The Ring of Children, 2006

Grenada Underwater Sculpture park

The Molinere Underwater Sculpture Park is a collection of ecological underwater contemporary art located in the Caribbean-Sea off the west coast of Grenada. There are over sixty-five concrete individual sculptures covering an area of over 800 square meters. The artist is Jason deCaires Taylor, who began construction in 2006.

Over the past few decades, we have lost over 40% of our natural coral reefs. Scientists predict a permanent demise of 80% by 2050. Oceans teem with microscopic organisms that are constantly drifting down towards the sea bed, attaching to and colonising on the way any hard secure surface, such as rock outcrops, and thereby creating the basis of a natural reef. However, only about 10 – 15% of the sea bed has a solid enough substratum to allow reefs to form naturally. In order to increase the number of reefs in these areas artificial reefs have recently been created from materials that are durable, secure and environmentally sensitive. These sculptures are treated with a pH-reducing additive to make them coral-friendly, therefore they serve as artificial reefs, offering sanctuary for small fish and other organisms. Jason de Caires Taylor’s art is an example of generative human intervention in the ecosystem, showing what can be accomplished by individual imagination and collective effort.

The sculptures of this underwater gallery very much reflect Grenada’s culture. The sculptures change over time with the effects of their environment. These factors create a living aspect to the works, which would be impossible to reproduce artificially. As time passes and the works develop biological growth, they redefine the underwater landscape, evolving within the narrative of nature.

The Ring of Children is a circle of life size figures cast from local children linked by holding hands. Their transformation by nature, as they become remodelled by the environment and coral growth, reflects the changes of growing up thorough a lifetime. The children depict the adaptability of children in any environment as the sea embraces them and the children become part of their new environment.

I chose this particular sculpture collection, because it is a really eco-friendly piece of art. It is not only beautiful and meaningful, but also a successful attempt to actually save the world. Enikő

http://www.underwatersculpture.com/  

Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890)

Père Tanguy, 1887

Oil on canvas, 92 x 75 cm

Musee Rodin, Paris

I am a Japanese. When I saw this painting, I could not help thinking that this is a symbol for the mixture of European and Japanese cultures. The painter, Van Gogh had never been to Japan, but can get the point of Japanese painting well. This means that people can share our values and cultures without words regardless of their backgrounds. I had felt I was isolated by others since I came from Japan to Hungary because I am the only Asian in each class and nobody seems to care about my country. However, now I have a lot of European friends here although sometimes I cannot express what I think completely, and gradually came to understand that we can understand each other and be friends without their backgrounds. Therefore, I chose this work of art to share my feeling though this painting.

When it comes to the painting and the painter, having said goodbye to his native Brabant and his early religious vocation, Van Gogh joined his brother Theo in Paris, in March 1886. This was where he met one of the most delightful characters in the Parisian art world of the 1880s, the man his painter friends affectionately called “Pere Tanguy”. Julien-François Tanguy (1825-94) ran a small paint supplies shop, on the Rue Clauzel, and often accepted paintings in exchange for the goods he sold.

Van Gogh painted three portraits of Père Tanguy, whose friendship he valued enormously. In this work, with which the shopkeeper never parted, the pure colours, the use of contrasting complementary colours, the visible, well-positioned brushwork and the flat picture space are all features of a Neo-Impressionist style that the artist used very freely. He chose to represent the old man in a strictly frontal pose, immobile, lost in thought, with his hands clasped over his stomach, and succeeded in capturing all the sitter’s kindness and modesty. Van Gogh paid homage to the “colour grinder” by turning him into a sort of Japanese sage, placed against a background filled with some of the countless brightly coloured Japanese prints that the painter and his brother Theo collected. 

From 1887, Rodin could also admire the writer Edmond de Goncourt’s Japanese prints. The sculptor himself built up a private collection of prints, comparable to those of Monet and Van Gogh. Did Rodin purchase this major work of art in 1894 because he and Van Gogh shared a love of Japanese art? In any case, the sculptor bought two other important paintings of his and frequently spoke of his admiration for Vincent Van Gogh, whom he regarded as “an admirable demolisher of academic formulae, [who] also had a genius for light,” (Rodin, 1909). Haruka

http://www.musee-rodin.fr/en/collections/paintings/pere-tanguy

Joana Vasconcelos (1971-)

Coração Independente Dourado [Golden Independent Heart], 2004

Translucent plastic cutlery, painted iron, metal chain, motor, power supply unit, sound installation, 385 x 225 x 50 cm

Joana Vasconcelos was born in Paris in 1971. Lives and works in Lisbon. She has exhibited regularly since the mid-1990s. After her participation in the 51st International Art Exhibition– la Biennale di Venezia in 2005, her work became known internationally. She is also known for her crazy ways of presenting her points of view in art. This is the shape of an enormous 'heart of Viana', the iconic piece of Portuguese filigree, patiently filled in with red plastic cutlery. Suspended from its axis, the work makes a movement of circular rotation, evoking the cycles of life and of the eternal return, accompanied by the sound of three meaningful fado songs, "Estranha Forma de Vida [Strange Way of Life]", "Gaivota [Seagull]" and "Maldição [Curse]", interpreted by Amália Rodrigues, diva of Portuguese music in the second half of the 20^th century. The title of the work is taken precisely from a verse of the first of these three fados, written by Alfredo Duarte (Marceneiro) and Amália Rodrigues, whose lyric invokes the conflict between emotion and reason. By multiplying the use of plastic cutlery to the point of abstraction of their original form in order to convert them into a work of art inspired by a precious piece of filigree, the initial referents are transfigured by the suggested new social and artistic schemes, thus exposing the artificiality of the boundaries separating luxury and vulgarity. Golden Independent Heart presents itself as a powerful and emotive installation of sound and movement; a diptych dedicated to wealth, love and death, recurring themes in the lyrics of fado. Francisca

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TP4BnfUm0eI

Wembley Stadium

Even those people who do not watch football on a regular basis or even hate this sport are familiar with the stadium that is basically equal with football. As a certain Pelé said who knows this and that about the game “Wembley is the cathedral of football. It is the capital of football and it is the heart of football.”

Wembley is indeed more than just a stadium. It is also an area in northwest London. The original stadium was built in 1923 and had the name (British) Empire (Exhibition) Stadium. The original purpose was to have the World Exhibition there in 1925, but the first event it gave home to was the 1923 FA Cup final, where the estimated attendance was around 250,000. The capacity was made for no more than 127,000, thus after the very first event took place in Wembley, a regulation had to be made (down to 82,000) in order to prevent tragedies. The only tragedy  happened in 1996 during the Euro Cup finals, when the national team lost the semi-finals and could not secure a home victory during an international competition after the 1966 World Cup. However, Wembley is not only the home of football in England, as it held several Rugby League World Cups, and in addition it also holds speedway and greyhound racing; American football matches and a good amount of huge concerts.

On 7 October, 2000, Wembley closed its doors for 7 years, as a complete renovation was made on the stadium. The new stadium is currently one of the world’s finest UEFA elite category stadiums with 90,000 seats. The stadium's signature feature is a circular section lattice arch of 7 metres internal diameter with a 315 m span, erected some 22° off true, and rising to 133 m. It supports all the weight of the north roof and 60% of the weight of the retractable roof on the southern side. The archway is the world's longest unsupported roof structure. The stadium’s pitch is enhanced by desso technology which combines synthetic grass with the real Wembley grass to strengthen the surface. This system provides a consistently high standard playing surface at Wembley and enables the multi-use venue to host football, rugby, American football and music events.

The renovation came under a fairly huge price of 798 million pounds, but it gains profit slowly from the already mentioned NFL games, concerts, etc.; however, this money is nothing compared to the experiences and memories gained by those lucky people who ever have the opportunity to take part in any events hosted by the famous Wembley Stadium. Bence