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The war in Ukraine continues with thousands Ukrainian's lives lost . Russia seems more desperate to gain some ground and perhaps against all odds the Ukrainians have held out but at a massive costs. This is senseless and seems only to continue as Putin's personal pilgrimage for power. He has wasted many young lives using his grinder tactics and for no discernible reason in reality

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Ukraine-Russia war latest: Putin apologises over Azerbaijan Airlines plane crash – but does not admit fault

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Ukraine-Russia war latest: Putin apologises over Azerbaijan Airlines plane crash – but does not admit fault - Azerbaijan says the plane had multiple holes in its fuselage and that the occupants had sustained injuries ‘due to foreign particles penetrating the cabin mid-flight’

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Whilst I will always agree that the initial attack on Israel was wrong, the response has been out of proportion. The cost in lives of the ordinary people of Gaza is extreme and will only generate another generation of bitterness. Netanyahu is out of control and not being held to account.

I don't know what to do about this as an individual but decent society needs to put a stop to this indiscriminate killing.

My personal belief is that the attack was on the behest of Russia wishing to deflect the attention of the West from Ukraine.

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Israel Gaza war | Latest News & Updates | BBC News

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Follow the latest news on the Israel Gaza war. Get live updates, maps, verified video reports and expert analysis from BBC journalists on the ground.

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Not/never married and no kids makes me somewhat socially unusual. Neither was planned its just they way it turned out. I have a number of lovely nieces and enjoy being their Aunty.

Both my parents have passed on and the family changes when the last parent goes. Whilst mums death was expected ( Dementia), Dads was sudden and as unexpected as it can be for an 88 year old. So 2021/22/23 became years of significant change in my immediate family ( far from smooth) and working life.

I have worked all my life and worked hard/long hours and lots of travelling . Later in life that involved starting and running businesses in the IT sector.

I'm still finding me after all the changes in my life of the last few years

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BBC Radio 4 - The Coming Storm, S2: 8. The Last Election…?

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A live audience, a professor, and the team

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Its seems we will have a President Trump despite his errant behaviour sexually and politically. This will administration will undoubtably be full of male right wing focused appointees, and the associated erosion of women's rights and freedoms.

His stance on NATO and America first will add to the destabilisation of western democracy. We have already seen the potential investment in Nigel Farage's campaign here is the UK by Trumps financial supporter increasing their influence on our society

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Follow the 2024 US presidential election results as they come in with BBC News. Find out if Trump or Harris is ahead as well as detailed state-by-state results.

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I have always been fascinated by his drawings, particularly of anatomy. He was ahead of his time.

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I am not sure when I first encountered Van Gogh but have admired the work and his tragic story for sometime. I was luck enough to see "Sun Flowers" when at the Louvre in France

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The Museum about Vincent van Gogh in Amsterdam

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See Vincent van Gogh's masterpieces such as Sunflowers, Almond Blossom, and his Self-Portraits, experience special exhibitions, guided tours, workshops, and more for all ages. Plan your visit, book tickets online.

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Learn about the work and career of artist Jenny Saville. Artworks, biography, exhibitions, editorial content, news, museum exhibitions, press, and more.

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I came to David Hockney later rather than earlier, I found him irritating on interviews. However as I have matured I realised that I like his art work even if I don't warm to the character . His work has changed over the years and i like the variety of media. He is a talented painter and that became even more evident to me having seen a portrait of his in the National Portrait Gallery

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1970s : Paintings : Works | David Hockney

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Official Works by David Hockney including exhibitions, resources and contact information.

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I came across Amy Drury due to a small exhibition held at West Dean. I later attended one of her courses at West dean as part of my FDAD courses. I continue to follow Amy's progress and painting as her style matures

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Amy Dury is a contemporary artist based in Brighton, UK. Her work is mostly figurative and portrait. Key themes are innocence, freedom, friendship, connection and family.

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I came across Cristina Cordova when looking for sculpture in clay courses . I initially found Cristina via a course of the Domestika platform. I really like her work, and the scale at which she works in the media

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From seeing some one of his paintings at the Tate, which drew me in the room and then seemed to evoke an emotional result and almost pulse through me. Prior to seeing the paintings in real life I would not have expected such a physical response to a piece of art

I'm not an abstractionist... I'm not interested in the relationship of color to form or anything else...I'm interested only in expressing basic human emotions - tragedy, ecstasy, and so on. And the fact that a lot of people break down and cry when confronted with my pictures shows that I can communicate those basic human emotions... The people who weep before my pictures are having the same religious experience I had when I painted them. And if you are moved only by their color relationship, then you miss the point." - By Mark Rothko Mark Rothko

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I saw a Klimt first in a gallery window in London when I was enroute to a meeting, the picture glowed through the window and after this I spent time finding out more about him and his work

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Gustav Klimt: Painting, Design and Modern Life | Tate

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In 2008, an exhibition at Tate Liverpool, Gustav Klimt: Painting, Design and Modern Life in Vienna 1900 told the story of the intellectual and cultural ambitions of Gustav Klimt and a number of his close contemporaries who, together, formed a radical cultural group called the Viennese Secession.

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A further example of an abuse of power/sexual predatory behaviour from rich men - following on from Geoffrey Epstein and Harvey Weinstein

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Mohamed Al Fayed’s abuse ‘could have been on same scale as Jimmy Savile’

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Mohamed Al Fayed’s abuse ‘could have been on same scale as Jimmy Savile’ - Al Fayed’s abuse ‘went far and wide’, Harrod’s survivors’ advocate has said

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Animals  - George, Alice , Pete and Thor

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Animals  - George, Alice , Pete and Thor

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I have a had a number of cats, I am only left with Turkish Pete now. As the same suggests I rescued Pete from Turkey after a holiday there. He is a unique character and is commonly known as six dinner Sid in the local area.

Alice I lost suddenly in 2023 to an aggressive cancer of the mouth, quite unexpectedly . I had had her and George together as kittens.

I lost my lovely George in September 24. George was awesome, a big beautiful boy cat, soft, cuddly and my animal soul mate, we were inseparable. Sadly he lost his life early to cancer, I still cant really speak about him to any degree yet.

As I lost George, Thor ( he came with the name) came in to my life as a bouncy cocker spaniel of one year and 4 months needing to be rehomed - its been a journey ! I love walking out with him in the country air and love our walks in all weathers. He comes with a certain amount of work but is settling in well and finally seems to listen to me.

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Local Countryside - The  South Downs - Butser Hill

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Local Countryside - The  South Downs - Butser Hill

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I was brought up near Petersfield in Hampshire, under the shadow of Buster Hill . It was a hamlet on the edge of the countryside at the foot of the downs. A place where my father also grew up as a child, and his father before him. I have a strong sense of connection with this landscape and place.

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I like how he paints and the brutal truth of his images

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Lucian Michael Freud (; 8 December 1922 - 20 July 2011) was a British painter and draughtsman, specialising in figurative art, and is known as one of the foremost 20th-century English portraitists. He was born in Berlin, the son of Jewish architect Ernst L. Freud and the grandson of Sigmund Freud. Freud got his first name "Lucian" from his mother in memory of the ancient writer Lucian of Samosata. His family moved to England in 1933, when he was 10 years old, to escape the rise of Nazism. He became a British naturalized citizen in 1939. From 1942 to 1943 he attended Goldsmiths' College, London. He served at sea with the British Merchant Navy during the Second World War.

His early career as a painter was influenced by surrealism, but by the early 1950s his often stark and alienated paintings tended towards realism. Freud was an intensely private and guarded man, and his paintings, completed over a 60-year career, are mostly of friends and family. They are generally sombre and thickly impastoed, often set in unsettling interiors and urban landscapes. The works are noted for their psychological penetration and often discomforting examination of the relationship between artist and model. Freud worked from life studies, and was known for asking for extended and punishing sittings from his models.

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Artist page for Lucian Freud (1922-2011)

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Female Entrepreneurs Lack of Funding  -2024

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Female Entrepreneurs Lack of Funding  -2024

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It seems that very little has changed and female entrepreneurs continue to struggle to get funding versus male entrepreneurs . The male club continues

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UK’s Funding Gap for Female Entrepreneurs Threatens Economic Growth

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The persistent funding gap between male and female-led businesses poses significant implications for the UK economy and its investors. Despite numerous initiatives aimed at addressing this disparity…

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On leaving Sixth Form I took up a role in Accounting and self studied for Accountancy exams before moving in to the IT industry in Consultancy/ Project Management. This eventually led me to running SME businesses in the IT Sector. So the last 30+ years I have worked in IT and in the last 20 Healthcare IT. I continue to work in this sector on a self employed basis ( part time) and hence have a strong interest in this business sector

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Top 10 Healthcare Technology Trends For 2024

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He is a ceramicist, printmaker and uses his art to make a social commentary. He has good stuff to say and has made art more accessible through his TV work and aspects such as Art Club

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Perry studied at Braintree College of Further Education from 1978 to 1979 and graduated from Portsmouth Polytechnic in 1982. He was awarded the Turner Prize in 2003.

He works in a variety of mediums but is best known as a ceramicist. There is a dissonance between the conventional forms of his vessels and the depictions that adorn them. He uses imagery and text to chronicle social concerns, his own formative experiences and to tell the story of his alter ego, Claire. The tone of his narratives is psychologically complex and often caustic. Although he uses traditional methods to make his pots, he employs a range of techniques, such as embossing and photographic transfers, to create intricate, animated surfaces.

Profile
Royal Academician
Printmaker

Born: 1960 in Chelmsford, England, United Kingdom

Nationality: British

Elected RA: 15 March 2011

Gender: Male

Preferred media: Ceramics

Works by Grayson Perry in the RA Collection

2 results

Summer Exhibition 2018

In our 250th year, Grayson Perry RA took the helm to coordinate the world's longest running and largest open-submission show: the Summer Exhibition.

Famous as the world's largest open submission show, the Summer Exhibition delivers a panorama of art in all mediums, a remarkable mixture of emerging artists and household names, and more.

Recent solo exhibitions

2016 Paper Tiger Whisky Soap Theatre (Dada Nice), Villa Arson, Nice

2018 Grayson Perry, KIASMA, Helskinki; touring to Monnaie de Paris, Paris Grayson Perry: Making Meaning, The Gallery at Windsor, Vero Beach, Florida The Vanity of Small Differences, Royal Hibernian Academy, Dublin

2017 The Most Popular Art Exhibition Ever!, Serpentine Gallery, London; touring to Arnolfini, Bristol Making Himself Claire: Grayson Perry's Dresses, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool Grayson Perry: The Life of Julie Cope, Firstsite Gallery, Colchester

2016 Hold Your Beliefs Lightly, Bonnefantenmuseum, Maastricht; touring to ARoS Aarhus Art Museum, Aarhus

2015 Provincial Punk, Turner Contemporary, Margate Small Differences, Pera Museum, Istanbul My Pretty Little Art Career, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney

2014 Who Are You?, National Portrait Gallery, London Walthamstow Tapestry, Winchester Discovery Centre

Selected collections

Arts Council Collection, London Birmingham Museums & Art Gallery Brighton & Hove Museums British Council Collection, London The British Library (Map Library), London British Museum, London Chelmsford Museum, Essex Crafts Council Collection, London Gallery of Modern Art, Glasgow Government Art Collection, London House of Commons Collection, London Leeds Museums and Galleries (City Art Gallery) Manchester City Galleries Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas The Museum of Modern Art, New York Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam Tate, London Victoria & Albert Museum, London Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, Connecticut

Awards

2017 Royal Television Society Programme Award (Best Presenter and Best Arts Programme) Evening Standard Contemporary Art Prize Grierson Award (Best Presenter)

2016 Political Studies Association Award RIBA Honorary Fellowship GQ Men / Writer of the Year Award

2015 Chancellor of the University of the Arts, London Trustee of the British Museum BAFTA (Best Specialist Factual)

2013 BAFTA (Best Specialist Factual) Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE)

2003 Turner Prize winner

Art Sales at the RA

The Island Of Bad Art

Winner of 2003's Turner Prize, Grayson Perry RA takes a swipe at the art establishment. His etching depicts an 'island of bad art' resembling Venice, home to the celebrated contemporary art biennale.

British-born Perry's etching presents the viewer with a 16th-century style map. And creates the same dissonance between conventional form and personal message the artist achieves in his best-known medium, ceramics. The print is available to buy through Art Sales at the RA.

Buy now

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Grayson Perry | Artist | Royal Academy of Arts

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Perry studied at Braintree College of Further Education from 1978 to 1979 and graduated from Portsmouth Polytechnic in 1982. He was awarded the Turner Prize in 2003. He works in a variety of mediums but is best known as a ceramicist. There is a dissonance between the conventional forms of his vessels and the depictions that adorn them.

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I found Sharon Griffin when looking at sculptors using clay . Sharon is a UK based artist and i have been following her on Instagram sine

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I found Alessandro Raho after seeing his picture of Judi Dench as the National Portrait Gallery. His work seems harder to find generally. He uses these plain whiter backgrounds which seems to force you to engage directly with the subject, who look straight back at you.

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Alessandro Raho - National Portrait Gallery

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Artist
Raho studied at Goldsmith’s College, and holds a contemporary approach to portraiture, but with an awareness of the English figurative tradition, photography is also central to his practice. Raho has exhibited in solo shows at Asprey Jacques in London and Chaim and Reed in New York. His work has been represented in a number of group exhibitions including an important survey of painting in a digital age, along with Chuck Close and Gerhard Richter, at the Kunsthalle in Basel in 2002.

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Natasha Mayo Figurative Ceramist, writer, researcher in Creative Pedagogies, Drawing & Socially Engaged Art Practice, drawing, ceramics, figurative ceramics, embodied knowledge, family

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Another artist that I have come to appreciate rather than one I understood in the earlier years of their career. I like her honesty and no frills approach. There is more depth and meaning to the older Tracey Emin for me

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Tracey Emin is a British artist known for making works that convey experiences and events from her own life by using a range of media, from needlework and drawing, to sculpture and installation. Her works can often be sexually provocative and their stories are revealed with a raw openness, which has often sparked debate

Until she was seven Emin lived in a Margate hotel owned by her Turkish-Cypriot father. Her nostalgia for the English seaside town is often present in her work.

Emin was part of the Young British Artists group which took the art world by storm with their controversial take on contemporary art in the late 1980s. Other YBAs included Sarah Lucas and Damien Hirst.

Introduction to her work

Emin's oeuvre spans drawings, tapestries, embroidery, film, bronze sculptures, neon signs and wooden constructions. Despite this variety, she consistently maintains a quality to her work which makes it clearly hers. Personal monologue is an important thread which runs through all her work.

Emin draws on her own experience to inform her work, this ranges from her sexual history, abuse and abortion to gender and relationships. As she explained in an interview:

I realised I was my work, I was the essence of my work - I always say that after I'm dead my work isn't going to be half as good.
Tracey Emin, The South Bank Show, 2001

And talking specifically about using the bird as her motif, Emin had this to say:

They represent something to me which is heavenly, because they fly. It's like ascension. That was a time in my life when I really needed to rise above the situation I was in, and birds seemed the perfect metaphor for me. Sometimes when I'm in a strange mood or maybe a bit low, I try to take myself out of it by drawing a bird.
Tracey Emin, Vanity Fair, 2013

In 1999 Emin was nominated for the Turner Prize. Despite receiving a huge amount of media attention for her piece My Bed, it was actually Steve McQueen who went on to win the Turner Prize 1999 for his film and video works.

Aside from this notorious artwork, Emin is known by many for her giant tapestries with honest and provocative words sewn onto them. She has also produced a large body of drawings, many of which show women masturbating or having sex.

Tracey Emin
Self-Portrait as a Small Bird 2002
Appliqué blanket
Photo: Stephen White. Courtesy Jay Joplin/White Cube, London

Tracey Emin My Bed 1998

© Tracey Emin. All rights reserved, DACS 2014
Photo credit: Courtesy The Saatchi Gallery, London / Photograph by Prudence Cuming Associates Ltd

Tracey Emin
Everyone I Have Ever Slept With 1963-95 1995Appliqued tent, mattress and light
122 x 245 x 215 cm
Photo: Stephen White. Courtesy Jay Joplin/White Cube, London

html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"

Other perspectives on Emin

Is she a great artist?

In this article originally published in Tate Magazine issue 1, Something's wrong sees Melanie McGrath set out to discover Emin.

Emin at the Venice Biennale 2007

As only the second British female artist to have a solo exhibition in the British Pavilion, this film canvassed opinion as the doors opened on her new show:

Emin on Emin

Early life

Starting with the opening message on the answerphone of the Tracey Emin Museum, listen to Emin's reasons for establishing the museum and how she feels it puts a roof over her own creativity, whilst formalising and making visible a practice that includes ephemeral, flimsy and time-based, rather than solid and monumental elements.

At the time of the recording Emin was displaying a series of drawings which referred to the period of her life between thirteen and fifteen years old, when she lived in Margate. This recording ends with a monologue by the artist recounting her early life in Margate:

On writing a book

In this 1994 interview from the Cologne Arts Fair, Emin discusses Exploration of the Soul - a work that comprises framed sheets of blue A4 notepaper on which Emin has written a poetic text recounting significant moments in her life up until the age ofthirteen. Emin begins talking around 6.30 minutes into the recording:

Working with Sarah Lucas

The Shop was a project created in 1993 for Emin and Sarah Lucas to use to market their work. For six months they rented a space where they made and sold solo and collaborative work.

Art shaped by family experiences

In this interviewed by William Furlong in May 1997 during Emin's exhibition I Need Art Like I Need God, this recording sees Emin elaborating on the title of the exhibition - relating the work to early family experiences in Margate and responding to issues raised of spirituality, mysticism and every-day experience. Other themes explored during the interview include: continuing references to her own body, the importance of personal friendships and writing as the backbone in my work:

Emin on gender equality in the art world

You've got more female artists now, who have much higher profiles. But that's only been over the past 50 years, so we need another 150 years to get the same situation and it'll be equal for men and women in the art world.
Tracey Emin, Stylist.co.uk, 2015

Which artists does she admire?

Emin has often expressed her admiration for artist's Egon Schiele and Edvard Munch:

I fell in love with the paintings of Edvard Munch, because he made a painting called Jealousy that was about himself. I thought it was an incredibly open, self-effacing and defiant thing for a man in the early 20th century to do. By openly displaying his weakness it empowered him and gave him strength.
Tracey Emin, The Independent, 2009.

Published in Tate Etc. Summer 2005 issue, Frida on my mind sees Emin directly discuss Frida Kahlo 's work.

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Tracey Emin is a British artist known for making works that convey experiences and events from her own life by using a range of media, from needlework and drawing, to sculpture and installation.

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The Struggle for Recognition: Female Artists and their Place in the Art Market

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Female artists have long struggled for recognition and representation in the art market. Despite their immense talent and contribution to the art world, women have historically been marginalized and undervalued in the male-dominated art world. The struggle for female artists to achieve the recognition and success they deserve continues to be a pressing issue in…

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Since changing my career and working arrangements, I have a growing interest in poetry and writing. I think it was always there but it seems to have surfaced in recent years.

My mum was a great letter, story and poetry writer. I was not regarded for my writing skills in my family, more for logic and numeracy! I was educated in a period/school where grammar and spelling was not necessarily corrected, self expression was more important, my mum never approved! I suspect I also have a mild dyslexia, hence I was not really encouraged in this area. Working life meant it became a necessity to be better and I have had to do a lot of functional writing as part of my work-life.

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Climate change is a long-term change in the average weather patterns that have come to define Earth’s local, regional and global climates. These changes have a broad range of observed effects that are synonymous with the term. Changes observed in Earth’s climate since the mid-20th century are driven by human activities, particularly fossil fuel burning, […]

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I spend a lot of time with the Radio on and Radio 4 in particular. They have many interesting programs including Art, news , Science and general interest

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Listen live to BBC Radio 4 on BBC Sounds

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Love to listen to this especially when being creative and need to feel calm.

I'm obsessed with Max Reicher re-composition of Vivaldi's Four Seasons

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Max Richter - The New Four Seasons – Vivaldi Recomposed: Spring 1 (Official Video)

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I have followed Paul Weller and his music through many years. I have a broad appreciation of music having lived key years through 70/80/90s and beyond. I use it to evoke emotions and have fond memories of painting in the art room to the group favourite music of Kate Bush ( the first time round)

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Hilma af Klint 1862- 1944 & Piet Mondrain

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Hilma af Klint 1862- 1944 & Piet Mondrain

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I found Hilma through one of Jennifer Heggie's books "The Other Side" and then through the exhibition at the Tate in 2023 of Hilma af Klint and Piet Mondrain. I am drawn to spirituality and connecting to the after life, these bring art and spirituality together for me

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1862
Hilma af Klint is born on 26 October at the Karlberg Palace in Solna outside Stockholm.

1879
Participates in her first séances, probably in painter, photographer and medium Bertha Valerius's circle. Studies at the Technical School, Stockholm and meets Anna Cassel, who also studies art. Aakes courses at Kerstin Cardon's private art school, also in Stockholm.

1880
Her sister Hermina dies at the age of ten.

1882-1888
Studies at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Stockholm.

1886-1914
Shows conventional paintings in more than two dozen exhibitions, most of which were organised by the Swedish Association for Art (Sveriges Allmänna Konstförening).

1888
Awarded a prize at the Academy for painting from the human model, probably for her oil painting Andromeda at the Sea, which she submitted to the Academy's competition.

1888-1908
Participates regularly in group exhibitions, and travels to Germany, Norway, Holland, Belgium and Italy.

1891
Receives messages from spiritual beings for the first time.

1896
Becomes a member of the spiritual circle the Edelweiss Society (Edelweissförbundet). During a séance the spiritualistic group The Five (De Fem) is founded, consisting of Sigrid Hedman, Cornelia Cederberg, Mathilda Nilsson, Anna Cassel and Hilma af Klint.Their meetings are recorded in notebooks with texts and automatic drawings.

1899
Moves with her mother to Brahegatan 52 in Stockholm.

1900-1901
In collaboration with Anna Cassel, illustrates a book on horse surgery written by John Vennerholm, the director of the Veterinary Institute in Stockholm.

1902-1908
Rents a studio at Hamngatan 9, Stockholm.

1903
Travels to Germany with Anna Cassel and most likely visits Italy during the same trip.

1904
First receives predictions, from the spiritual being Ananda, about the execution of "astral paintings". Joins the Theosophical Society in May.

1906
In January, the spiritual being Amaliel offers her a commission, which she accepts immediately. After a period of preparation, in November she commences the cycle The Paintings for the Temple with its first series Primordial Chaos.

1907
Paints the series Eros, The Great Figure Paintings and The Ten Largest. She also works in a shared large studio at Hamngatan 5, Stockholm, above Blanch's Café.

1908
The Five undergoes a crisis and dissolves in early 1908. The Group of Thirteen emerges instead over the years. Hilma af Klint paints three more series, including The Evolution. By April, the first section of The Paintings for the Temple comprises 111 paintings. Her mother goes blind and Hilma af Klint gives up her studio. Meets Rudolf Steiner in Sweden for the first time, at his March 1908 lecture about his new Rosicrucian teachings. Starts to develop a lifelong interest in Rudolf Steiner's teachings.

1908-1912
Takes a four-year break from her work on the commission.

1910
Probably in January 1910, she shows Rudolf Steiner works belonging to The Paintings for the Temple. Steiner gives a series of lectures in Stockholm (3-15 January) and a course on the Gospel of John. Af Klint joins the Association of Swedish Women Artists (Föreningen Svenska Konstnärinnor) and was the secretary until 22 April 1911. Paints portraits of physicist Knut Ångström and linguist Johan August Lundell.

1912
Resumes working on the cycle The Paintings for the Temple with preparatory studies, and on A Female Series. Attends the Pentecost conference of the Theosophical Society in Norrköping from May 28-30, where Rudolf Steiner lectures. By the end of the year, Steiner is expelled from the Theosophical Society and founds the Anthroposophical Society in early 1913.

1913
Buys the lake house Furuheim on the island of Munsö. Paints the US Series and begins the Tree of Knowledge Series. Exhibits seventeen spiritual paintings in an art exhibition organised by the Theosophical Society in Stockholm in June, in which Anna Cassel also participates.

1914
Exhibits a naturalistic academic painting in the Baltic Exhibition in Malmö. The First World War breaks out and af Klint begins her series The Swan. Rents various studios in Stockholm, including at Eriksbergsgatan (1914-15) and at Ynglingagatan (1915-16).

1915
Completes The Tree of Knowledge and The Swan. Her series The Dove follows, then Altarpieces - completing the cycle The Paintings for the Temple, which now comprises 193 paintings.

1916
Wassily Kandinsky comes to Stockholm and exhibits. Af Klint creates the series Parsifal.

1917
The building of the studio house on Munsö is completed. Paints the series The Atom. In a two-thousand-page volume, Studies of the Life of the Soul (Studier över Själslivet), she describes her thoughts on spiritual life.

1918
Moves to Munsö, together with her mother and nurse Thomasine Andersson, who becomes her lifelong friend and partner.

1919
Begins the creation of Flowers, Mosses and Lichen in German, in collaboration with Thomasine Andersson.

1920
Her mother dies. She creates Series II, a group of works on different world religions. In October she takes her first trip to Dornach, Switzerland, together with Thomasine Andersson - by 1930 they will have undertaken eight more such journeys. Af Klint becomes a lifelong member of the Anthroposophical Society on 20 October . During one of her sojourns in Dornach she shows the ten Blue Books to Steiner and notes down his comments. The books contain a watercolour miniature of all her works from Paintings for the Temple, each paired with a black-and-white photograph of the painting.

1922
Paints almost exclusively in watercolour using the wet-on-wet technique, completing over four hundred works by 1941. On New Year's Eve, the Goetheanum in Dornach burns down.

1924
Writes to Rudolf Steiner on 24 April asking for advice on where her paintings could be of use. According to her notes for a lecture at the Anthroposophical Society in Stockholm on 9t December 1924, Steiner tells her she should not destroy her paintings as they could be of use. Steiner dies in spring 1925.

1926
Moves to Uppsala with Thomasine Andersson. Begins editing and revising her old notebooks.

1927
Travels to Amsterdam in November. Donates her notebook Flowers, Mosses and Lichen and the series Tree of Knowledge to the Goetheanum in Dornach.

1928
Travels to London in July and exhibits works from the cycle The Paintings for the Temple at the World Conference of Spiritual Science, organised by the English Anthroposophical Society.

1931
Develops sketches for a spiral-shaped temple building, which is intended to be built on the island of Ven in Öresund. Over the years many more sketches and notes on this project follow. Moves to Helsingborg in southern Sweden with Thomasine Andersson.

1932
Hilma af Klint marks many notebooks, including the Blue Books that contain the Paintings for the Temple with an X, indicating that they may not be opened until twenty years after her death. She writes on her plan to construct "a museum to show what lies behind the forces of matter" and paints the watercolours The Blitz over London and The Outbreak of War in Spain and the Naval Battles in the Mediterranean.

1934
Paints the thought-forms of spiritual beings Ananda, Gregor, Georg and Amaliel. Moves to Lund with Thomasine Andersson.

1937
Lectures at the Anthroposophical Society in Stockholm on 16 April, asking them to make use of her paintings. Argues for the legitimacy of her mediumistic method and insists that it is compatible with Steiner's teaching. Anna Cassel dies.

1938
Erik af Klint (1901-1981) visits her on 20 August. She shows The Paintings for the Temple and her other works in the studio on Munsö and explains their meaning.

1940
Thomasine Andersson dies.

1943
Declines an offer by artist Tyra Kleen to keep the The Paintings for the Temple in a new building of the Protestant Sigtuna Foundation. "To put it into hands of people not anthroposophical inclined" would not be possible, she writes to Tyra Kleen. Af Klint is called a "mystic" by her spiritual ambassadors.

1944
Moves in August to her cousin Hedvig af Klint at Ösby, Djursholm, a suburb of Stockholm. Hilma af Klint dies on 21 October after a streetcar accident. Her nephew Erik af Klint inherits her work some 1300 paintings and 124 notebooks comprising more than 26,000 handwritten and typed pages.

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About Hilma af Klint (1862-1944) is one of Sweden's most esteemed artists. Today she is celebrated all over the world. Born in Stockholm, Hilma af Klint studied at the city's Royal Academy of Fine Arts, graduating with honours in 1887. She established herself as a respected artist in Stockholm, exhibiting figurative paintings and serving briefly [...]

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I really like Gregory Porters voice and music and often listen to it when working on art

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George Popescu one of my FDAD teachers pointed me to Walter Sickert.

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Artist page for Walter Richard Sickert (1860–1942)

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Henry Moore Studios & Gardens in Hertfordshire is currently closed for winter, reopening in April 2025.

Henry Moore Institute in Leeds will be closed over Christmas from 23 to 26 December and 30 December to 1 January (library and archive closed from 23 December to 1 January).

Discover & Research

Introduction

Henry Moore pioneered a new vision for modern sculpture, becoming a global star within his own lifetime.

He is best known for his monumental bronze sculptures but he also made carvings, drawings, prints and designed textiles and tapestries.

Inspired by the human body and natural forms, Moore often made work on the subjects of the mother and child, the reclining figure and internal / external forms.

Explore an interactive timeline of Henry Moore's life, featuring important artworks and exhibitions, biographical information and life events, and Moore's interactions with other artists.
Timeline of Henry Moore's life

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Henry Moore's story | Henry Moore Foundation

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An introduction to the live of sculptor Henry Moore, who pioneered a new vision for modern sculpture and became a global star within his own lifetime.

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I chose a course with Amy during my FDAD 21-24 , having seen her exhibition in the West Dean Foyer. Amy using ancestral photographs to create new interpretations in her work and these create for me a social narrative www.amydrury.com

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www.arabellabrooke.com

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Bethany Milam Fine Artist/Art Tutor, engaging with a broad range of media including; installations, mixed media, painting and drawing. Offering art workshops and tuition in acrylic, egg tempera, pastels, ink, charcoal, mixed media painting and drawing. Paintings and Artworks for sale and comissions are welcome.

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Christopher Gilvan-Cartwright - West Dean College

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Chris Gilvan-Cartwright, aka The Baron Gilvan, is a painter, performer and animator. Graduating from Central St Martins he won the Royal Overseas League bursary to paint in India and Nepal. He designed the BBC Proms…

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Kelly is the second Tutor that i starting working with at Making Space after Peter was unable to continue teaching ( back injury). Kelly it a great Tutor and I have since shared some space with her in her studio whilst she has taught me more about ceramics

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Welcome My name is Kelly and I am a ceramicist and mixed media craftsperson working on the south coast of England. I take my inspiration from folklore and myth, blending forms and colours from...

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Welcome back to Instagram. Sign in to check out what your friends, family & interests have been capturing & sharing around the world.

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Sustainability Research and Ecological Approach

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Peter was my first Tutor for ceramics at an organisation called Making Space in Havant Hampshire. I started to attend ceramics courses here as I wanted to know more about ceramics following a course with Arabella Brookes during my FDAD. Peter does not have much of a social media presence

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Each tiny object is carefully modelled and painted by hand and encapsulated in resin. After several further processes this is finally polished to give a glass clear view into another world. For pieces which are currently available, please check shop section.

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At the epicentre of this devastating family drama is Gisèle Pelicot, a diminutive 72-year-old woman, drugged by her former husband and abused for a decade by dozens of strangers he had recruited online.

Watching her entering the court in Avignon and giving evidence, it was staggering to imagine the amount of abuse her body sustained.

But as other members of her family have taken the stand, it has become painfully clear that no-one has emerged unscathed from the storm unleashed by the actions of the Pelicot patriarch.

The damage to this family is clear. Individually, they have described the destructive force that engulfed them in November 2020 as a "tsunami" that left nothing but ruin in its wake.

Dominique Pelicot was finally caught after an alert security guard caught him filming under women's skirts.

But it took weeks for police to discover the full truth that ultimately tore his family apart.
Warning: This story contains details some readers may find disturbing
For years, he had been drugging his wife and recruiting men online to rape her while she was unconscious.

He filmed the abuse and neatly classified each visit in folders on his hard drive. Faced with the evidence, Dominique Pelicot admitted the rape charges against him.

Alongside obscene language describing his videos, he added captions with the men's names. Fifty other men have been on trial with him and only a handful admit rape. More than 20 others could not be identified and are still at large.

Gisèle Pelicot has attended almost all of this trial. She waived her anonymity and allowed the public to see what she had endured.

The videos leave no doubt that the sex acts were not consensual. Ms Pelicot can be seen lying on the bed, snoring, as her husband whispers instructions to various men to touch her, prod her, use her.

Artificial sleep affords her mind a degree of protection, but her body becomes an object.

She was, in her own words, treated "like a rag doll, like a garbage bag".

"I am 72 now and I don't know how much time I have left," she told the court last week.

'You will die lying'

The magnitude of Dominique Pelicot's betrayal and crimes is such that the aftershocks have rippled far beyond his ex-wife.

The Pelicots' middle child, Caroline Darian, now 45, screamed her anguish at her father in court as she demanded to know the truth about photos found on his computer. Entitled "My naked daughter", the images show her semi-naked and, she says, clearly drugged.

Mr Pelicot has offered various and at times contradictory explanations for the pictures, although he has denied abusing his daughter. "I never touched you," he pleaded with her.

But his duplicity has been abundantly exposed during this trial, and he has clearly lost the right to be believed by his daughter.

"You are a liar," she shouted back at him. "I am sick of your lies, you are alone in your lie, you will die lying."

Fighting back tears, she accused her father of looking at her "with incestuous eyes".

Caroline Darian has told the court she feels she is the trial's "forgotten victim" as, unlike her mother's case, there is no record of the abuse she is convinced was inflicted on her.

She has founded a charity to highlight the dangers of drug-induced assault and published a book in 2022 detailing her family's trauma. In it, she hinted at a rift with her mother, who she found had dropped off a bundle of warm clothes for her father in jail, weeks after his crimes came to light.

"I couldn't believe it," Caroline wrote. "She was still looking after the person who got her raped for a decade."

That apparent rift was exploited by a combative defence lawyer who suggested Gisèle Pelicot had chosen her former husband over her daughter by not demanding the truth about the photos of Caroline. Gisèle shook her head, but Caroline cracked a slight smile, appearing to acknowledge the lawyer's description.

When Caroline's brothers David and Florian took the stand they made repeated references to the pain she was going through, urging their father to tell the truth.

Stifling sobs, Florian, 38, the youngest of the family, turned to face Dominique Pelicot sitting in a glass box to his left and said: "If you have any dignity and humanity - you don't have anything left to lose anyway - tell Caroline the truth."

He also spoke of his longstanding suspicion he was the product of an affair his mother had in the 1980s, which was compounded by a faint but lifelong feeling that his father loved his siblings more than him.

In a desperate search for answers, he wondered out loud whether he could be the "motive" for his father's crimes. He said he would seek out a paternity test, adding it would be a "relief" not to be Dominique Pelicot's son.

Through tears, Florian painted a desolate picture of what his life had become. His marriage to the mother of his three children, Aurore, has not survived revelations that Dominique Pelicot also surreptitiously took photographs of her.

Despite their separation, this slight, softly-spoken woman has frequently attended the trial and said it had exposed the "banality" of abuse.

Aurore, herself a survivor of incest, is having to live with the regret of not having listened to her instincts regarding Mr Pelicot. "If she had, she may have been able to alter the course of events," her lawyer said.

'My childhood has disappeared'

The eldest of the Pelicot children, David, is a burly man of 50 who bears a striking resemblance to his father.

Taking the stand this week, he described how he had grown closer to Dominique Pelicot when he had himself become a father.

Then, his voice growing more anguished and clutching the stand as if to steady himself, he recalled the harrowing detail the night his mother told him of his father's arrest. "All of us know where we were when the tsunami hit," he said.

Naked photographs of his wife Celine, pregnant with their twin daughters, were also found among Mr Pelicot's files. She was in the bathroom, snapped with a hidden camera.

His voice heavy with emotion, David described watching his mother, frail and lost, standing on a train platform, her life reduced to her dog and a suitcase.

Recalling the birthday parties his parents used to throw for him and his siblings, to the envy of their friends, he said: "My childhood has disappeared; it was erased."

The trauma rippling through this family seems without end. David's son, now 18, wonders what really happened when Dominique asked him to "play doctor" as a child.

His young siblings, the family's lawyer said on Wednesday, "will have to find their place in a family in which their grandmother, their mother, their brother and their aunts have all been victims of their grandfather."

Caroline's young son is still profoundly shaken by the carefully worded revelation, four years ago, that his beloved grandfather hurt his grandmother.

"This is just a sample of the depth of the suffering caused by a rape in the family," lawyer Stéphane Babonneau said in his closing arguments.

A verdict is expected on 20 December. Mr Pelicot is facing 20 years in jail - the maximum sentence for rape in France.

And for the rest of his family the trauma will live on. Because none of them will ever know for certain what he may or may not have done.

In one of the shaky phone videos shown in court, a tall naked man stands in the middle of a dark bedroom. Another man sits on the bed, smiling, next to an unconscious woman lying on her side, lightly snoring.

Behind her, on a chest of drawers, is a photograph, clearly discernible despite the low lighting.

It is the Pelicot family, huddling close on a beach on a sunny day, and beaming at the camera.

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French mass rape trial: Abused Pelicot family torn apart in public

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Gisèle Pelicot, 71, is the woman at the centre of this trial, but no-one has emerged unscathed in her family.

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Its not if, its when

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Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health

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The next pandemic: not if, but when | Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health

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As new cases of bird flu and other infectious diseases continue to raise concern, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health researchers share their perspectives on recognizing, preparing for, and managing future outbreaks.

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Birds and Flowers of the Four Seasons (1573-1615) Momoyama Period - Japan

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Birds and Flowers of the Four Seasons (1573-1615) Momoyama Period - Japan

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Mary Griggs Burke. "Loan to Mrs. Jackson Burke," January 13, 1988-January 14, 1988.

Tokyo. Asahi Shinbun. "Screen Paintings of the Muromachi Period," March 28, 1989-May 7, 1989.

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Seasonal Pleasures in Japanese Art (Part One)," October 12, 1995-April 28, 1996.

Kyoto National Museum. "The Kano School in the Muromachi Period," October 15, 1996-November 17, 1996.

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "The Resonant Image: Tradition in Japanese Art (Part Two)," April 27-September 27, 1998.

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Blossoms of Many Colors: A Selection from the Permanent Collection of Japanese Art," March 21-August 9, 2000.

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Great Waves: Chinese Themes in the Arts of Korea and Japan I," March 1-September 21, 2003.

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Birds, Flowers, and Buddhist Paradise Imagery in Japanese Art," February 14-June 13, 2004.

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "A Sensitivity to the Seasons: Spring and Summer," December 17, 2005-June 4, 2006.

Kyoto National Museum. "Kanō Eitoku, Momoyama Painter Extraordinaire," October 16, 2007-November 18, 2007.

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Animals, Birds, Insects, and Marine Life in Japanese Art," June 26-November 30, 2008.

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Birds in the Art of Japan," February 2-July 28, 2013.

Philadelphia Museum of Art. "Ink and Gold: Art of the Kano," February 12, 2015-May 10, 2015.

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Celebrating the Arts of Japan: The Mary Griggs Burke Collection," October 20, 2015-May 14, 2017.

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Kyoto: Capital of Artistic Imagination," July 24, 2019-January 31, 2021.

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Birds and Flowers of the Four Seasons | Japan | Momoyama period (1573-1615) | The Metropolitan Museum of Art

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Mary Griggs Burke. "Loan to Mrs. Jackson Burke," January 13, 1988-January 14, 1988. Tokyo. Asahi Shinbun. "Screen Paintings of the Muromachi Period," March 28, 1989-May 7, 1989. New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Seasonal Pleasures in Japanese Art (Part One)," October 12, 1995-April 28, 1996. Kyoto National Museum.

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Katsushika Hokusai 1760-1949 The Great Wave off Kanogawa

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Katsushika Hokusai 1760-1949 The Great Wave off Kanogawa

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"The Great Wave Off Kanagawa" Katsushika Hokusai - An Analysis

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No one wants to be at sea and see a great wave about to crash onto them, toppling their boat. This is the moment the Japanese artist, Katsushika Hokusai, has pr

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Habiballan of Sara - Iranian - The Concourse of Birds c1600

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Habiballan of Sara - Iranian - The Concourse of Birds c1600

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Four Folios from the Mantiq al-tair

Farid al-din 'Attar's epic poem the Mantiq al-tair (Language of the Birds), composed about 1187, is a parable about the desire for union with God that is couched in the terminology of sufism. It describes a physical and spiritual journey through seven valleys by a group of birds that move from their initial quest (talab) to their final goal of annihilation of the self (fana) through unity with God. The stages of their journey are explained through the use of anecdotes.

This copy is notable for its high-quality illustrations produced in two distinct periods and places.[1] The earlier phase, in which most of the text and four of the paintings were executed, is linked to the city of Herat (folios 63.210.28, .35, .44, .49). Its colophon (63.210.1), signed by Sultan 'Ali al-Mashhadi, dates the work to the first day of the fifth month of the second year of the last ten years preceding 900-that is, to A.H. 892/April 25, 1487 A.D. The later phase occurred about 1600, when the manuscript was refurbished, probably for Iran's ruler, Shah 'Abbas I (r. 1587-1629). Elements from this phase include the binding, the illuminated opening folios signed at Isfahan by Zain al-'Abidin al-Tabrizi, and four of its pictures, one of which is signed by Habiballah (folios 63.210.4, .11, .18, .22). In 1609 Shah 'Abbas donated this manuscript to the ancestral tomb of the Safavid family at Ardabil.

Sultan 'Ali al-Mashhadi is known to have worked for Herat's contemporary ruler, Sultan Husain Baiqara (r. 1470-1506), and for one of its leading intellectuals, Mir 'Ali Shir Nava'i, whose interest in the theme of this text is signaled by the fact that he composed an analogous poem in Turki titled Lisan al-tair (The Speech of the Birds).

All of the subjects to be illustrated in this copy of the Mantiq al-tair were determined at the time of its copying by Sultan 'Ali al-Mashhadi in the late fifteenth century, but the manuscript's first four scenes were not completed until about 1600 in Isfahan. Three of these are frequently depicted in other copies of 'Attar's text: the initial gathering of the birds at the onset of their quest (63.210.11) and two scenes from the story of a sufi, Shaikh San'an, who loved a Christian maiden (63.210.18, .22). These pictures seem to have a clear connection to major themes in 'Attar's text, although Habiballah, the artist who signed the "Concourse of the Birds" on a small rock at the center of the picture, has added the superfluous figure of a man holding a rifle.

Two of the manuscript's remaining four paintings, made toward the end of the fifteenth century in Timurid Herat, present more oblique references to 'Attar's text. Both "The Son Who Mourned His Father" (63.210.35) and "The Drowning Man" (63.210.44) have been interpreted as sufi allegories.[2] The other two fifteenth-century paintings (63.210.28, .49) appear to be more illustrative than symbolic. Yumiko Kamada has suggested that these more subtle paintings reflect the appreciation of textual and pictorial intricacy in late fifteenth-century Herat.[3]

Priscilla P. Soucek in [Ekhtiar, Soucek, Canby, and Haidar 2011]

Footnotes:

1. For an overview of publications about this manuscript through 2010, see Kamada, Yumiko. "A Taste for Intricacy: An Illustrated Manuscript of Mantiq al-Tayr in the Metropolitan Museum of Art." Orient: Reports of the Society for Near Eastern Studies in Japan 45 (2010), pp. 129-75.

2. I bid., pp. 136-40, and Kia, Chad. "Is the Bearded Man Drowning?: Picturing the Figurative in a Late-Fifteenth-Century Painting from Herat." Muqarnas 23 (2006), p. 97.

3. Kamada 2010 (footnote 1), pp. 144-49.

The Concourse of the Birds

The manuscript from which this painting comes was produced in 1483 at the Timurid court of Sultan Husayn Baycara at Herat. It contains four illustrations that may or may not be by the hand of Bihzad, the most famous artist of that era, but represent his innovative, perfectionist style. For some reason, although the scribe, Sultan 'Ali Mashhadi, apparently left spaces for more illustrations, they were not completed in the fifteenth century. Following the Safavid conquest of Iran in the early sixteenth century, Bihzad was appointed director of the royal kitab-khaneh. Additionally, the Safavids took control of Herat and the royal Timurid library came into their possession. What remains unknown is whether this manuscript was somehow kept in Herat and entered the library of Shah 'Abbas when he was living there in the 1570s and 1580s or whether it was already in the Safavid royal library in Qazvin when he became shah in 1587. In any event, the manuscript was one of those that Shah 'Abbas donated to the Ardabil Shrine in 1607-8. How it left the library of the shrine is unclear, since it aparently was not one of the 166 manuscripts that were acquired by Count Suokhtaline in 1828 and are now in the Russian National Library in St. Petersburg.

This painting illustrates a point in 'Attar's mystical manuscript when the birds assemble to discuss their journey in search of a king. Here the hoopoe standing on a rock at the right addresses the other birds as one initiated into the 'way of spirital knowledge', and urges the birds to seek the Simurgh, their true king.[1] At the upper right a man holding a musket with a large barrel gazes at the scene from behind the rocks. The composition, with the different species of birds silhouetted on a blue ground, jutting rocks above and at the lower left, a towering plane tree extending into the margin, and a gold sky, is extremely rich in detail and color harmonies.

Both the musket, which is of a type made only from the late sixteenth century, and the signature of the artist, Habib Allah, on a rock between the duck and the geese confirm that this is one of the Safavid additions to the manuscript.[2] According to the contemporary biographer and historian Qadi Ahmad, Habib Allah of Saveh lived in Qum where he presumably came to the attention of the governor Husayn Khan Shamlu. In 1606 Qadi Ahmad added that Husayn Khan Shamlu 'attached him to his person when he went to Herat, but the felicitous Prince took him away from the khan and now he is in the capital Isfahan, employed by the court department as a painter'.[3] Anthony Welch has interpreted this as meaning that Habib Allah joined Husayn Khan Shamlu by 1578 and then transferred to the service of the seven-year-old Prince 'Abbas before 1581, when 'Abbas was taken to Mashhad by Murshid Quli Khan.[4] However, this explanation confuses Husayn Khan Shamlu with Sultan Husayn Khan Shamlu, who was governor of Qazvin but was murdered in 1580-81. As Barbara Schmitz has noted, the more likely sequence of events is that Habib Allah went to Herat in 1598 when Husayn Khan Shamlu became governor. Probably in 1601, but certainly before 1606, the artist joined the service of Shah 'Abbas.[5] Since the reference to Habib Allah working in Isfahan comes from the 1606 recension of Qadi Ahmad's text, the artist could have added his illustrations to the Mantiq al-Tayr at any point between 1598 and 1606.

The Safavid additions to this manuscript are painted in a conservative style, not the new mode that was introduced at Isfahan by artists such as Riza-yi 'Abbasi and Muhammad Qasim. Grube and others have suggested that the commissioning of Safavid illustrations that incorporate the figural groupings and scale of Timurid painting in this manuscript reflects a broader interest in emulating the Timurids that is found in manuscript illumination and architecture as well as painting.[6] Shah 'Abbas may have recalled the Timurid buildings of Herat from his childhood and the reputation of artists such as Bihzad and sought to replicate these monuments and luminaries in his own era. However, simultaneously his artists and architects were creating a new style that would come to be identified with Shah 'Abbas and by extension with the brilliance of his reign.

Sheila R. Canby in [Canby 2009]

Footnotes:

1. Attar, Farid ud-Di. The Conference of the Birds, trans. C.S. Nott, Boulder, CO, 1971, 11-12.

2. Grube, Ernst J. The Language of the Birds: The Seventeenth-Century Miniatures. Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, new series, vol. 25, no. 9, 1967, pp. 339-52.

3. Qadi Ahmad, Calligraphers and Painters: A Treatise by Qadi Ahmad, Son of Mir Munshi (circa A.H.1015/A.D. 1606), trans. V. Minorsky, Washington, D.C. 1959, p. 191.

4. Welch, Anthony, 'Painting and Patronage under Shah 'Abbas I'. Studies on Isfahan, Part II. Iranian Studies, summer-autumn, 1974, vol. VII, nos. 3-4, pp. 482-3.

5. Schmitz, Barbara. 'Habib Allah', Ecyclopaedia Iranica, Encyclopaedia Iranica Foundation, New York, 2003, vol. XI, pp. 283-4. Shah 'Abbas visited Herat in 1601. The only problem with this analysis is that 'Abbas is referred to as 'Prince' rather than 'Sah, but this is a minor inconsistency.

6. Grube 1967 (note 2), pp. 244-6; Welch 1974 (note 4), pp. 483-4; Anna Contadini, 'Travelling pattern: a Qur'anic illumination and its secular source', in Safavid Art and Architecture, ed. Sheila R. Canby. London 2002, pp. 60-61.

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Painting by Habiballah of Sava | "The Concourse of the Birds", Folio 11r from a Mantiq al-tair (Language of the Birds) | The Met

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Four Folios from the Mantiq al-tair Farid al-din 'Attar's epic poem the Mantiq al-tair (Language of the Birds), composed about 1187, is a parable about the desire for union with God that is couched in the terminology of sufism.

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Between Heaven and Earth - El Anatsui Ghanaian Born 1944

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Between Heaven and Earth - El Anatsui Ghanaian Born 1944

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Title: Between Earth and Heaven

Artist: El Anatsui (Ghanaian, born Anyako, 1944)

Geography: Nigeria, Nsukka

Medium: Aluminum, copper wire

Dimensions: H. 86 3/4 in. × W. 10 ft. 8 in. × D. 8 in. (220.3 × 325.1 × 20.3 cm)

Classification: Miscellaneous

Credit Line: Purchase, Fred M. and Rita Richman, Noah-Sadie K. Wachtel Foundation Inc., David and Holly Ross, Doreen and Gilbert Bassin Family Foundation and William B. Goldstein Gifts, 2007

Accession Number: 2007.96

Rights and Reproduction: ©El Anatsui. Courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York

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El Anatsui | Between Earth and Heaven | The Met

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Title: Between Earth and Heaven Artist: El Anatsui (Ghanaian, born Anyako, 1944) Geography: Nigeria, Nsukka Medium: Aluminum, copper wire Dimensions: H. 86 3/4 in. × W. 10 ft. 8 in. × D. 8 in. (220.3 × 325.1 × 20.3 cm) Classification: Miscellaneous Credit Line: Purchase, Fred M. and Rita Richman, Noah-Sadie K.

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Ai Weiwei (Chinese: 艾未未; pinyin: , English pronunciation ; born 28 August 1957 in Beijing) is a Chinese contemporary artist and activist. His father's (Ai Qing) original surname was written Jiang (蔣). Ai collaborated with architects Herzog & de Meuron as consultant on the Beijing National Stadium for the 2008 Summer Olympics. As an activist, he has been openly critical of the Chinese Government's stance on democracy and human rights. He investigated government corruption and cover-ups, in particular the Sichuan schools corruption scandal following the collapse of "tofu-dreg schools" in the 2008 Sichuan earthquake. In 2011, following his arrest at Beijing Capital International Airport on 3 April, he was held for 81 days without charge; officials alluded to allegations of "economic crimes".

Since being allowed to leave China in 2015, he has lived in Berlin, Germany, with his family, working and traveling internationally.

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Ai Weiwei (Chinese: 艾未未; pinyin: , English pronunciation ; born 28 August 1957 in Beijing) is a Chinese contemporary artist and activist. His father's (Ai Qing) original surname was written Jiang (蔣). Ai collaborated with architects Herzog & de Meuron as consultant on the Beijing National Stadium for the 2008 Summer Olympics.