About Me

Kindness. Humanism.Secular. Sceptic. History, Pre-Raphaelites, Reading, Life-Long Learning. 'Sanity Is Not Statistical'.'Fill the unforgiving minute...'.

Saturday, 17 December 2011

The National Gallery Podcast: Episode Fifty Four

http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/paolo-uccello-saint-george-and-the-dragon

'Miranda Hinkley: So the count was living in Austria, but he was actually of Polish origin and that’s where things got sticky, because the Nazis confiscated all of the artworks belonging to foreign nationals in Austria.
Caroline Smith: Yes, any work belonging to a foreign national was potentially subject to confiscation and so after the annexation of Austria in 1938, a significant number of works from the Lanckoroński collection were confiscated: nearly 1,700 works, including the Uccello.'


' Monet was difficult because they had to wait on one of his paintings, and eventually he said, ‘oh, I’ll call it “Impression: Sunrise”’ – although now we think it’s actually a sunset, but that’s another story, isn’t it? But that was the painting that of course attracted the critics and gave the movement its name. It broke the mould entirely, and so 15 April 1874 was a very important day for art history. - Hames Heard, Impressionism

Friday, 16 December 2011

16 December 2011

'"The only position that leaves me with no cognitive dissonance is atheism. It is not a creed. Death is certain, replacing both the siren-song of Paradise and the dread of Hell. Life on this earth, with all its mystery and beauty and pain, is then to be lived far more intensely: we stumble and get up, we are sad, confident, insecure, feel loneliness and joy and love. There is nothing more; but I want nothing more." – The Portable Atheist: Essential Readings for the Non-Believer, 2007

Quotes

Hilaire Belloc’s ’Dedicatory Ode’

‘From quiet homes and first beginnings, out to the undiscovered ends, there’s nothing worth the wear of winning but laughter and the love of friends’

Plays

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pillowman#Act_I

Wednesday, 14 December 2011