The Dutch weekly Leids Nieuwsblad of 18 July has a report by Werner Zonderop of a lecture, by Christopher Brown, of the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, England, in Leiden.
Brown’s subject was famous seventeenth century painter Rembrandt, born 400 years ago in Leiden.
From the report:
[Constantijn] Huygens [private secretary of Prince Frederik Hendrik, “Stadhouder”, that is, literally, [in practice] hereditary viceroy … of the king of Spain, no longer recognized by the new Dutch republic, in revolt against Spain’s Habsburg dynasty] made it possible for Rembrandt to get his first commissions at the Stadhouder’s court [in The Hague].
In this way, in 1632, Rembrandt was allowed to paint the portrait of Amalia von Solms [1602-1675], the wife of Frederik Hendrik.
[She was thirty years old then; eighteen years younger than her husband].
However, the princess of Orange, [nee Countess of Solms-Braunfels], did not like the portrait as it turned out, at all.
She thought her appearance had not been idealized.
To her indignation, Rembrandt painted her too much as she really was: the mouth stiff and grim, knob-nosed and fat, with a rather stern look.
Maybe a bit in the vein of Goya a century and half later, who is said to have mocked the Spanish royal family in his portrait painting of them.
Rembrandt did not continue to work for the would be monarchs’ court in The Hague; who ultimtalely longed for absolute monarchy like in most other European countries then; including the principality of Orange in France, ruled by the Stadhouders’ dynasty.
He went to Amsterdam, where the merchant bourgeoisie often did not see eye to eye with the Orange princely family.
Madame Van Solms had a somewhat Imelda Marcos like reputation of wasting taxpayers’ money on expensive jewelry; contributing to tensions that would later lead to the “Regenten” (upper bourgeoisie in government) temporarily abolishing the office of Stadhouder.
Princess Amalia much prefered Gerard van Honthorst painting her to Rembrandt.
Even after eighteen years of aging since the Rembrandt portrait, Honthorst made her look more attractive.
Rembrandt and Goya: here.
This video by Jon Snow is called Iraq, The Hidden Story.
From Newsday in the USA:
Spray-Painting Politician Convicted
By Associated Press
July 20, 2006
TOLEDO, Ohio — A former councilman and one-time mayoral candidate was convicted of spray-painting anti-war slogans on highway overpasses.
Mike Ferner was found guilty of felony vandalism and possession of criminal tools. He faces up to two years in prison.
Ferner, 55, could have agreed to plead guilty to a misdemeanor charge and avoided trial.
But he said he saw the trial as another opportunity to make his case against the war in Iraq.
He was arrested in January along Interstate 475 and U.S. 23. The State Highway Patrol said Ferner painted the slogan “Troops Out Now” on several overpasses.
Ferner has been a critic of U.S. military action in Iraq and in 2003 took part in a “peace tour” there.
He was elected to City Council in 1989 as an independent.
In 1993, he ran unsuccessfully for mayor.
In The Netherlands and other countries, there is a tradition of all political parties spray painting.
No one of them goes to jail for it. Certainly not for two years; while Fox and other corporate media trumpet the Bush administration’s pro war views all the time.
From CBC in Canada:
Chilean modern art museum opens at former torture site
Thu, 20 Jul 2006
Chile has transformed a former secret police station, where dissidents were tortured under the Pinochet regime, into a vibrant modern art museum.
The Salvador Allende Solidarity Museum was inaugurated Tuesday evening, with local artist and politicians — including Chilean President Michelle Bachelet and Spanish Ambassador Jose Antonio Martinez — in attendance.
“One of my father’s dreams was that all people could have access to art,” said Isabel Allende, daughter of the late president, member of Chile’s Chamber of Deputies and cousin of the famed author by the same name [see also here and here].
The museum is housed in a two-storey, white house located in the downtown of the Chilean capital city, Santiago.
With a collection of about 2,800 pieces, the galleries are filled with works donated over the years by artists such as Pablo Picasso, Joan Miro, Frank Stella, Alexander Calder and Roberto Matta, said museum director and painter Jose Balmes.
According to Balmes, artists began donating their paintings, sculptures, engravings and other artworks to a collection Salvador Allende began during his brief reign in the early 1970s.
On photographer Tina Modotti:
here.
A report from the BBC; however, with two strange points:
Dinosaur named after electrician
A 70 million-year-old plesiosaur skeleton may be named after the electrician who found it, experts said.
The 4m-long dinosaur is the first of its age to be found and provides a missing link in its evolution, a Rotunda Geology Group spokeswoman said.
Plesiosaurs were big reptiles, living at the same time as dinosaurs.
However, they were not dinosaurs themselves.
Mark Evans, a plesiosaur expert from Leicester Museums, said it was one of the few plesiosaur skeletons from the early part of the Cretaceous period.
“We know about earlier plesiosaurs from the Jurassic period and ones from later on in the Cretaceous, so this new specimen fills a gap in our knowledge very nicely” he said.
“Although it looks like it belongs to a group of plesiosaurs with long necks, this plesiosaur is a new one, and will need a new name all of its own.”
This statement by Mr Evans contradicts the 70 million age claimed earlier in the BBC report, as that would put the fossil in the late Cretaceous, ‘just’ five million years before plesiosaurs, and dinosaurs, became extinct.
An earlier, probably more accurate, BBC report claims 132 million for this find.
