art

"He was an admirer of the bullfight, and had once drawn my attention to the fact that only cricket and bullfighting had inspired any appreciable literature."

"What you are interested in is the art whereby a man using no tricks reduces a raging bull to his dimensions, and this means that the relationship between the two must always be maintained and even highlighted. The only way this can be achieved is with art. And what is the essence of this art? That the man carry himself with grace and that he move the bull slowly and with a certain majesty. That is, he must allow the inherent quality of the bull to manifest itself."

"Bullfighting is the only art in which the artist is in danger of death and in which the degree of brilliance in the performance is left to the fighter's honor."

"Bullfight critics row on row Crowd the vast arena full But only one man’s there who knows And he's the man who fights the bull."

"At the first bullfight I ever went to I expected to be horrified and perhaps sickened by what I had been told would happen to the horses. Everything I had read about the bull ring insisted on that point; most people who wrote of it condemned bullfighting outright as a stupid brutal business, but even those that spoke well of it as an exhibition of skill and as a spectacle deplored the use of the horses and were apologetic about the whole thing. The killing of the horses in the ring was considered indefensible. I suppose, from a modern moral point of view, that is, a Christian point of view, the whole bullfight is indefensible; there is certainty much cruelty, there is always danger, either sought or unlooked for, and there is always death, and I should not try to defend it now, only to tell honestly the things I have found true about it. To do this I must be altogether frank, or try to be, and if those who read this decide with disgust that it is written by some one who lacks their, the readers’, fineness of feeling I can only plead that this may be true. But whoever reads this can only truly make such a judgment when he, or she, has seen the things that are spoken of and knows truly what their reactions to them would be."

"I ask El Espinal mayors not to allow more events involving the death of people or animals [after the bullfighting stadium collapse]."

"The crowd are on their feet, stamping and cheering, but El Cid just stands and stares at the bull in grave silence, his face inscrutable. This was truly what Kenneth Tynan called in his 1955 book Bull Fever "the slow, sad fury of a perfect bullfight.""

"The Roman public's thirst for blood and pleasure in witnessing pain seems to have been unquenchable and without limit. The caged animals were kept in dungeons below the main arena. The terrified animals in their cages were hoisted up from this pit. And not only animals, human beings too, criminals, slaves and prisoners of war. And here in this arena they were set one upon the other to provide the crowd with spectacles of the most appalling carnage. It still continues to this day in Spain."

"Whether or not the artistic quality of the bullfight outweighs the moral question of the animals’ suffering is something that each person must decide for themselves – as they must decide whether the taste of a steak justifies the death of a cow. But if we ignore the possibility that one does outweigh the other, we fall foul of the charge of self-deceit and incoherence in our dealings with animals."

"There is an image I will never lose, much as I wish I could. It is of a man standing with half his face held in his right hand. Cheek, jaw and eyeball, like so much meat, resting in his palm as he walked towards his team uncomprehending, and they, with looks of absolute horror, grabbed his arms and rushed him to the infirmary of the ring. And yet here, in the amongst the carnage inflicted on a human body by a half ton of enraged animal, is the key to Juan José Padilla. The clue is in the phrase “stood up.” Soccer players are stretchered off the field from a tap to the ankle. Boxers go down from a padded glove. This was more than half a ton of muscle, focused into a pointed tip that ploughed through his skull like a sword through snow. And the man got up and walked."

"The stepped pyramid design, also known as stepped cross or crenellation patterns, was a basic element in the decorative artwork of the southern areas. It was commonly used on pottery, woven textiles, jewelry, metalwork at the end of the 4th/early 3rd millennium at Namazga, Sarazm, and Helmand sites (Mundigak, Shahr-i Sokhta, and Rud-i Biyaban), and even recognized in a wall painting from the early 3rd millennium palace at Tal-i Malyan in Fars. The same design has been identified on 5% of the ceramic decoration of the Sintashta and Potapovka ceramic tradition. This is possibly among the earliest evidence of southern influence and movement of goods to the north. It subsequently became a standard design element also on Petrovka and Andronovo pottery. It has been suggested that the design was conveyed to the northern steppes on textiles, possibly one of the commodities exchanged for metal."

"The diffusion of double-spiral-headed pins across northern and southern Eurasia demonstrates that objects, and the idea behind them, propagate between and through cultures due to various mechanisms and for various reasons, and that they are often transformed. Perhaps this explains why the spirals and their variations are so geographically and culturally scattered. Yet, once in the Eurasian steppe, the pins undoubtedly took on a local and not a Central Asian shape, and possibly also another meaning. The foreign idea was translated into a local medium, functioning in a local setting with its specific and local significance. Characteristic material culture forms and materials are transportable, but their meanings can be re-shaped and re-applied to fit diverse sociopolitical settings and a different array of participants. Thus, while the double-spiral-headed pins may have indeed originally been first produced in southwestern Central Asia (after Europe and the Near East), once they found their way to the Eurasian steppe they took on an indigenous shape and meaning, with each case different from the others."

"... in the first century AD, the first known copies of ' ('On Medical Material') were produced, translated into both Latin and Arabic. These were written by a Roman physician of Greek origin called . In this illustrated book he covered 600 plants with around a further 1,000 medicines made from them. It was widely read for thousands of years and was regarded as a pharmaceutical 'bible' for those in practice, becoming the most influential work on medicinal plants in both Christian and Islamic cultures. Astonishingly, a copy of the illustrated manuscript, dating back to the sixth century, is still in existence, held in Istanbul, Turkey."

"The artist must decide whether the correct botanical information has been conveyed in the the drawing in the best way possible. When and flowers are huddled together they can be repositioned to give a more open design; and leaves lining up with stems can be moved slightly so that the drawing can be clearly understood. It is difficult to know whether to include insect damage and nibbled bits, as well as leaves that have been on the plant all year and look discoloured and weary. When you are illustrating a plant that retains its bare leaves all through the year, such as a , it would be unwise to tidy up the plant and remove the older leaves as this would destroy part of the plant's life history. Leaves with autumnal fruits will not appear as fresh as they would in the spring."

"Choosing the subject for a drawing or painting is an important part of the creative process. Selecting a good example of the plant you are going to paint is the first step towards a good illustration."

"The earliest flower drawings were for the most part made to assist the searcher after herbs and s. was desired and soon to a surprising degree achieved, for there can be little doubt, as we shall see, that the illustrations provided for herbals nearly two thousand years ago were highly naturalistic. Gradually, however, unintelligent copying led to a debased and stylised type of figure which was nothing more than a decorative embellishment to the text. With the Renaissance came a revival of naturalism, but the function of the botanical illustrator remained at first unchanged."

"The artist may not ask any questions about the species at all, but rather look at a flower as an individual of nature with its own unique features of colour, texture, form, size, and proportion. Their first question may be 'how do I capture the essence of the flower in my canvas?' Or perhaps 'how do I create a work of true beauty that may equal or surpass nature itself?'"

"Why, yes, of course I wrote all the Arab of Mesopotamia. I've loved the reviews which speak of the practical men who were the anonymous authors, etc. It's fun being practical men, isn't it."

"After studying the optical effects of the , in 1960 began to make the extremely precise pictures for which she is known today. Her participation in , a 1965 show at the , earned Riley an international reputation. Although went out of fashion very quickly, Riley's work continued to fascinate viewers because of its impeccable technique and sophisticated compositions."

"By the mid-seventeenth century, depictions of s, animals, and plants had officially been declassed to the status of inferior art genres, deemed decorative, even frivolous—lacking the conceptual depth, moral integrity, and ethical elevation of art portraying grandiose human narratives. ... Or at least that was the case until aspiring female artists like , , , , , , , , Frances Elizabeth Tripp, , and , among others, turned to painting plants and flowers, spearheading an unparalleled botanical revolution in Western art. Initiating an unwavering, albeit gradual, ascent in the arts and in society, these women artists made the most of what was available to them to showcase their aptitudes, talent, and conceptual acumen."

"We know little of the practice of the arts by women in ancient times. The degraded condition of the sex in Eastern countries rendered woman the mere slave and toy of her master; but this very circumstance gave her artistic ideas capable of development into independent action. These first showed themselves in the love of dress and the selection of ornaments. From the early ages of the world, too, and were feminine employments, in which undying germs of art were hidden; for it belongs to human nature never to be satisfied with what merely minsters to necessity."

"The work of women artists, which often transgresses the racial, ethnic, and gender dictates of society, asks us to consider the ambiguous boundary between self and other not with horror and fear—a convention of exclusion on which much of society is founded—but as offering an opening onto a new form of ."

"To judge of the past from the present, let us take the English nation in India. It has held India for a longer period than the Greeks did Bactria from the time of Alexander to that of As'oka, but yet it has produced no appreciable effect on the architecture of its neighbours. The Bhutanese and the Sikimites have not yet borrowed a single English moulding. The Nepalese, under the administration of Sir Jung Bahadur, are not a whit behind-hand of As ́oka and his people; Sir Jung went to Europe, which As'oka never did; still there is no change perceptible in Nepalese architecture indicative of a European amalgamation. The Kashmiris and the Afghans have proved equally conservative, and so have the Burmese. But to turn from their neighbours to the people of Hindustan : these have had intimate intercourse with Europeans now for over three hundred years, and enjoyed the blessings of English rule for over a century, and yet they have not produced a single temple built in the Saxon, or any other European style. Thus the conclusion we are called upon to accept is that what has not been accomplished by the intimate intercourse of three centuries, and the absolute sovereignty of a century, in these days of railways, and electric telegraphs, and mass education, was effected by the Greeks two thousand years ago simply by living as distant neighbours for eighty years or so."

"From around 1600 to 1750, the Baroque period witnessed the creation of some of the greatest musical masterpieces ever composed."

"[Mughal court painting...] an art that developed so fast, had Persia, India, and Europe to draw on...why didn’t it do more? Why did this art, so human in the beginning, in the late sixteenth century, and so full of possibility, exhaust itself so quickly by the end of the seventeenth? The answer can be inferred from Imperial Mughal Painting. The art was limited by the civilization, by an idea of the world in which men were born only to obey the rules - Islam was always in the wings, waiting to resimplify and stifle. The art was limited by the despotism that went with this idea, the despotism that dealt only in power and glory but could create no nation. The art was limited by the ignorance and absurd conceit of a court dazzled by its own glitter. It shows in the paintings..."

""Commemoration" was a particularly important function of portraiture. 's well-known dictum on the ability of paintings to preserve the likeness of men after their deaths was an expression of faith in the magical victory of art over time, as if painting could overcome death. It is significant in this respect that the portrait itself is descended from the tomb effigy or least was originally associated with this art form. Examples of likenesses of deceased persons — usually members of the high clergy — in the form of reliefs or sculptures on altar tombs date from as early as the high or late Middle Ages: the tombstone of Archbishop Friederich of Wettin (c. 1152) at , for example, or that of (), shown in crowning two reduced-scale kings. Links between the portrait and the cult of the dead may be traced back to antique art. In Roman times and kept in the shrine in the of s."

"... It is part of the gift of time to us that a portrait, if only done ably, at last satisfies the generation which knew not the man portrayed. Even to old folk who once “saw Shelley plain,” and yet grow forgetful of the man's infinite variety, the portrait may serve."

"The fact that some of the noblest and most highly esteemed examples that survive to us of the best days of painting are those of portraiture is sufficient demonstration of the dignity of the art itself. To produce a portrait is to do much more than make a mere study of a head. Qualities of , balance of light and shade, appropriate accessories, and many other elements of a pictorial æsthetic nature combine to give dignity to the and mark it as a work of art."

"Independent portrait sculpture was revived around the middle of the in three main forms—the , the , and the . Equestrian monuments are over life-size, they were made by public decree, and were displayed in public places. Sculptured busts are life-size, were privately commissioned, and were displayed on private property. Medals are small in scale, they might be commissioned officially or privately, and they were intended for a selected audience that did not include the public at large but extended beyond the sitter's personal domain. ... None of these classes of portraiture had actually disappeared during the middle ages, but when they occurred they were included within some physical and conceptual context, such as church and tomb decoration, or ordinary coinage ..."

"The unusual personality of is reflected in an extraordinary number of portraits. They begin in his early youth, and do not end with his death. They continue during the and periods, and all subsequent periods down to modern times. The portraits of Alexander not only reflect the different phases of his short life but become an artistic motif for all following periods."

"Sweet breathe the henna-flowers that harem girls So love to twine among their glossy curls."

"O Attic shape! fair attitude! with brede Of marble men and maidens overwrought, With forest branches and the trodden weed; Thou, silent form! dost tease us out of thought As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral!"

"In time of yore when shepherds dwelt Upon the mountain rocks, And simple people never felt The pain of lovers’ mocks; But little birds would carry tales ’Twixt Susan and her sweeting, And all the dainty nightingales Did sing at lovers’ meeting: Then might you see what looks did pass Where shepherds did assemble, And where the life of true love was When hearts could not dissemble.Then yea and nay was thought an oath That was not to be doubted, And when it came to faith and troth We were not to be flouted. Then did they talk of curds and cream, Of butter, cheese and milk; There was no speech of sunny beam Nor of the golden silk. Then for a gift a row of pins, A purse, a pair of knives, Was all the way that love begins; And so the shepherd wives.But now we have so much ado, And are so sore aggrievèd, That when we go about to woo We cannot be believèd; Such choice of jewels, rings and chains, That may but favour move, And such intolerable pains Ere one can hit on love; That if I still shall bide this life ’Twixt love and deadly hate, I will go learn the country life Or leave the lover’s state."

"Et in Arcadia ego."

"Even in Arcadia, there am I [i.e. Death]"

"Polonius: The best actors in the world, either for tragedy, comedy, history, pastoral, pastoral-comical, historical-pastoral, tragical-historical, tragical-comical historical-pastoral, scene individable, or poem unlimited: Seneca cannot be too heavy, nor Plautus too light. For the law of writ and the liberty, these are the only men."

"The Sankirtana, ‘establishes and reinforces relationships between the individual and the community through life-cycle ceremonies. It can also be regarded as a vibrant practice promoting an organic relationship with people. Sankirtana works in harmony with the natural world, whose presence is acknowledged through its many rituals … the blending of the native pre-Hindu religious elements and cultural traditions with the great tradition of Hinduism led to the birth of a state deeply rooted in a unique form of Hindu Vaishnavism. This was aptly described as the ‘Meiteisation of Hinduism’. Thus, it seemed like a new civilizational renaissance were heralded in Manipur under Bhagyachandra. Old values were transmuted; old materials reorganized to yield new meanings. A new society thus emerged from the old, but without a break in continuity of tradition, rituals and customs."

"Bhagyachandra also went on to establish the Nata Sankirtana (also called Nupa Pala), a very crucial form of worship in Manipur. It is an intricate combination of rhythmic movents, music and rituals and is something that permeates every aspect of Manipuri life and culture, till date. It synthesized several elements of the pre-Vaishnava, indigenous Meitei culture, beliefs and rituals."

"Lots of people have lots of opinions about intimacy coaches and it's a relatively new job and I think people are still working out certain parameters. Some people will say, "Oh, I don't need them." But if that intimacy co-ordinator prevents that one actor from experiencing life-changing trauma then of course it justifies the other 99 people who don't need it. I needed it on this, definitely."

"I want to dedicate this award to the director of intimacy . Thank you for your existence in our industry, for making the space safe for creating physical, emotional, and professional boundaries so that we can make work about exploitation, loss of respect, about abuse of power, without being exploited or abused in the process. I know what it's like to shoot without an intimacy director — the messy, embarrassing feeling for the crew, the internal devastation for the actor. Your direction was essential to my show, and I believe essential for every production company that wants to make work exploring themes of consent."

"I think if you're a young woman on a set, which is largely peopled by men, the crew will be 90% men and the women won't be on the set with you, because generally speaking we do not have parity on any level on film sets, it's all men. And that's a very uncomfortable position for a young woman who's starting in the industry, but it is absolutely essential that there is someone there to protect them. Absolutely essential. It's not to say that they're going to be in there all the time arranging your boobs, it's that they can be there in case you might feel that there's a position that you've got into that you're not quite comfortable with, you know, your bum hole's waving in the air, and you just think I don't feel quite comfortable… I've worked with young actresses who've been truly traumatised by their experiences on set. And so, my passion for intimacy co-ordinators and protection for young women particularly, and young men, I mean, it's not necessarily an easy thing for any person."

"Even though I enjoy Hollywood romantic comedies like Notting Hill, it’s like they wear galoshes compared to the sly wit of a movie like Autumn Tale. They stomp squishy-footed through their clockwork plots, while Rohmer elegantly seduces us with people who have all of the alarming unpredictability of life. There’s never a doubt that Julia Roberts will live happily ever after. But Magali, now: One wrong step, and she’s alone with her vines forever."

"Shakespeare, from his very first experiment in the genre, conceived of the love comedy—the romantic comedy—as of something typically Italian, and for this reason he favoured the choice of Italian names for the main characters and, at least in the earliest examples, of Italian locations for the action."

"Romantic comedy was reborn in the films of the 1930s and ’40s. The distinction between a romantic comedy and the modern sense of romance is apparent in a comparison of [Leo McCarey's Love Affair] (1939), which the director remade as An Affair to Remember (1957). Both of these films are unequivocally modern romances, while Nora Ephron’s Sleepless in Seattle (1993), a film that pays extensive homage to An Affair to Remember, is clearly a romantic comedy."

"I simply regard romantic comedies as a subgenre of sci-fi, in which the world created therein has different rules than my regular human world. …. There is no difference between Ripley from Alien and any Katherine Heigl character."

"Romance depends not just on desire and affection but also on isolation from the claims of everyday life. It is on this point that these romantic comedies come closest to fitting the usual definition of the prose romance—as distinguished from the novel—one of the features of which is a setting far removed from everyday life: the forest, the ocean, a desert island, and the like. And yet in the Hollywood comedies I am discussing, most of the action takes place well within everyday settings."

"Today it’s no secret that movie studios release blockbuster action films to meet the higher energy levels of summer audiences, more intellectual fare for the winter months, and romantic comedies for spring. They don’t do it out of any sense of loyalty to our natural chronobiological rhythms, but because it’s good business."

"The Hindu understanding of the universe has often been misunderstood as bizarre and primitive. The Hindu imagery is in fact a sophisticated iconography conveying universal religious truths only now beginning to be understood in the West."

"The images of the Indian deities are usually highly magnetized, and when they are carried round the streets at the festivals their influence upon the people is unquestionably productive of much good. In many of the Hindu temples there are strong permanent influences at work, as is the case for example at Madura. Once when I visited that city some white ashes from the temple of Shiva were given to me, and also a bright crimson powder from the temple of Parvati, and I found that both of these were so powerfully magnetized as to retain their influence for some years and after much travelling. India is essentially a country of rites and ceremonies. The religion is full of them, and a great many of them are said to have been prescribed by the Manu Himself, though it is quite obvious that many others have been added at a much later date. p. 130"

"The comic-book medium, having come of age on the American cultural scene, must measure up to its responsibilities. Constantly improving techniques and higher standards go hand in hand with these responsibilities. To make a positive contribution to contemporary life, the industry must seek new areas for developing sound, wholesome entertainment. The people responsible for writing, drawing, printing, publishing, and selling comic books have done a commendable job in the past, and have been striving toward this goal. Their record of progress and continuing improvement compares favorably with other media in the communications industry. An outstanding example is the development of comic books as a unique and effective tool for instruction and education. Comic books have also made their contribution in the field of letters and criticism of contemporary life."