Cyprus-Forum.com

[Oracle]

Be it a building, a statue, a painting ... whatever really does it for you as ART.

This is my favourite painting at the moment ....




John William Waterhouse, The Lady of Shallot

[bill cobbett]

My dear O, forgive me for saying so, but your fine choice of stance on the Turkish Problem is not matched by this poor choice as your fav. bit of art. Sort of thing you'd find on a biscuit tin (imho of course)

[kafenes]

Your showing your romantic side now O. It is very romantic but sad at the same time. Why is she holding the chain?

Interesting biography:

http://www.reproductionsart.com/waterhouse.html

[zan]

The basics of the tragedy:

On June 17, 1816, France’s new Bourbon government dispatched the frigates Medusa, Loire and Echo and the brig Argus to officially receive the British handover of the port of Saint-Louis in Senegal to France. The British, having restored the French monarchy, wanted to show their support for Louis XVIII, and were willing to give him the trading port.
The Medusa was to carry 365 crew and passengers, including Senegal’s governor-designate, Colonel Julien-Désire Schmaltz, from Port de Rochefort on the island of Aix on France’s west coast, to Senegal via Tenerife.

Captain Hugues Duroy de Chaumereys, 53, had spent most of his career sailing a desk at customs offices. His crew was appalled that a man who had never skippered a ship, let alone a fleet, was able to use his royalist connections to secure such a post.
Schmaltz wanted to reach St Louis as fast as possible, and against the objections of the crew, de Chaumereys plotted a course dangerously close to the shoreline. Within days mishaps seemed to presage disaster: a cabin boy was lost overboard; De Chaumareys quarrelled with his crew and passengers; the faster Medusa left the rest of the fleet behind.

On the morning of July 2, poor seamanship and worse navigation ran the Medusa aground in calm seas and clear weather on what was most likely the Arguin Banks off the coast of Mauritania. The hole in its hull was irreparable.
The next day the weather fouled as realisation set in that the four (some sources say six) lifeboats were wholly inadequate.
A raft measuring roughly 65 by 23 feet was built of masts and crossbeams and seats allotted. The ship was abandoned, 17 holdouts still aboard. The lifeboats were to tow the raft, which was carrying 150 passengers with a naval officer in command.
By the time of a third of the raft occupants had boarded it, however, it was underwater. Food supplies were jettisoned in a bid to float it, and it rose to within a metre of the surface, good enough, they supposed, to set off.

The semi-submerged, heavily laden raft naturally proved a hard pull. It didn’t take long for those on the lifeboats to decide, for reasons later encapsulated as “self-interest, incompetence, misfortune or seeming necessity”, to cut the ropes, four miles offshore.
The raft had no oars, rudder or navigation equipment, and by the second day three of its passengers had already committed suicide. That night the rest dived into their store of rum, then the drunken soldiers took up arms against the officers, killing several. By dawn 60 people remained alive, but by now, though only knee-deep in water rather than waist-deep, they were engulfed in delirium. Starving, some began eating the corpses, others their own faeces.

Over the next week there was more mutiny, murder and cannibalism. The 15 survivors on an increasingly buoyant raft were at one point befuddled by the visit of a white butterfly to their makeshift sail. Some were ecstatic at a possible sign of nearby land, some by the appearance of a morsel of food. Some saw a divine message, some a mockery of their plight.
The pessimists seemed vindicated when more days passed with no sign of land, the optimists when, on the 13th day, they were discovered by the Argus, almost by accident.

The 15 remaining were taken to Saint-Louis, where five died within days. Three of the 17 men who’d stayed on the Medusa were found alive (though quite mad from starvation) by a British ship, which got them back to France after the French Marine Minister failed to act.

The Medusa’s surgeon, Henri Savigny, submitted his account to the authorities, but it was leaked to an anti-Bourbon newspaper, the Journal des débats, and published on September 13, causing a scandal that politicians attempted in vain to dampen by covering up the facts. De Chaumereys was ultimately found culpable and court-martialed in Port de Rochefort.
The following year Savigny and ship’s geographer Alexander Corréard released a joint account that went through five printings in four years and carried the story to England as well.
Tales of the rescue and the horrors that preceded it held France in a dangerous grip. Guilt stalked the streets in search of fresh victims.



http://dalihouse.blogsome.com/2006/06/0 ... in-history



The only painting I really know about, thanks to Julian Barnes and his fantastic book "History of the world in 10 1/2 chapters".

[Nikitas]

Aegean traditional architecture. It is brilliant work of minimalist aesthetics, made of locally available materials, functional, blends with the surroundings and above all has been created with no formal architectural input.

Olympos in Karpathos, Santorini, Mykonos town, Anafi, all are great examples.

[T_C]

Anything and everything thats Guy Bourdin

[T_C]

Great find zan. Whilst working for Vivienne Westwood we did a photoshoot for US Flaunt magazine and we used this as the inspiration for one of the shots. Ill scan the magazine tomorrow and show you.

[Oracle]

My dear O, forgive me for saying so, but your fine choice of stance on the Turkish Problem is not matched by this poor choice as your fav. bit of art. Sort of thing you'd find on a biscuit tin (imho of course)

I love biscuits so maybe that's why I am drawn to it .... Sorry to be soporific but I got into the Pre-Raphaelites in my teens (always trying to grow my hair like the maidens) and I haven't grown out of them yet ..... much like my "politics" I guess.

Have you noticed the similarity in mood / style between the Pre-Raphaelites and Byzantine Icons?

[Raymanoff]

Rothko

[murf62]

An Italian masterpiece by Pierre Terblanche, which usually takes pride of place in my lounge.