Constantin Somov

Konstantin Andreyevich Somov (November 30, 1869 — May 6, 1939) was a Russian artist associated with the Mir iskusstva. Born into a family of a major art historian and Hermitage Museum curator, he became interested in the 18th century art and music at an early age.
Somov studied at the Imperial Academy of Arts under Ilya Repin from 1888 to 1897. While at the Academy, he befriended Alexandre Benois, who would introduce him to Sergei Diaghilev and Leon Bakst. When the three founded the World of Art, Somov liberally contributed to its periodicals. Somov was homosexual, like many of the World of Art members.
Inspired by Watteau and Fragonard, he preferred to work with watercolours and gouache. For three years he worked upon his masterpiece, Lady in Blue, painted in the manner of 18th-century portraitists.
During the 1910s, Somov executed a number of rococo harlequin scenes and illustrations to the poems by Alexander Blok. Many of his works were exihibited abroad, especially in Germany, where the first monograph on him was published in 1909.
Following the Russian Revolution, he emigrated to the United States, but found the country “absolutely alien to his art” and moved to Paris.
He was buried at the Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois Cemetery.

Self portrait
Oil on canvas
The Russian Museum
St. Petersburg, Russia ▼

Spring. Martyshkino, 1896
Oil on canvas, Private collection ▼

Landscape in the evening. Martyshkino, 1896
Charcoal, pastel on paper
The Russian Museum
St. Petersburg, Russia ▼

Portrait of A.I. Somov, the artist’s father, 1897
Oil on canvas
The Russian Museum
St. Petersburg, Russia ▼

Lady in blue. Portrait of the Artist Yelizaveta Martynova (1868-1904), 1900
Oil on canvas
The Tretyakov Gallery
Moscow, Russia ▼

Self portrait, 1898
Watercolor, pastel, pencil on paper
The Russian Museum
St. Petersburg, Russia ▼

In the nursery, 1898
Watercolor, gouache, pencil on paper
The Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, Russia ▼

In the bosquet, 1899
Watercolor, gold paint, and varnish on cardboard
The Russian Museum
St. Petersburg, Russia ▼

Enchantment, 1900
Watecolor and gouache on paper
The Russian Museum
St. Petersburg, Russia ▼

Portrait of the artist A. Ostroumova, 1901
Oil on canvas
The Russian Museum
St. Petersburg, Russia ▼

Firebird, 1907
Watercolor, gouache, bronzing on paper pasted on cardboard
The Tretyakov Gallery
Moscow, Russia ▼

Portrait of Eugine Lanceray, 1907
Pencil, crayons, whiting on paper
The Tretyakov Gallery
Moscow, Russia ▼

Portrait of Alexander Blok, 1907
Pencil, crayons, gouache on paper
The Tretyakov Gallery
Moscow, Russia ▼

Harlequin and death, 1907
Watercolor and gouache on paper
The Tretyakov Gallery
Moscow, Russia ▼

The theater, 1907
Watercolor, pen and ink, and brush, heightened with white
The Tretyakov Gallery
Moscow, Russia ▼

Portrait of the artist M. Dobuzhinsky, 1910
Pencil, sanguine on paper
The Tretyakov Gallery
Moscow, Russia ▼

Winter. Skating rink, 1915
Oil on canvas
The Russian Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia ▼

Portrait of the composer Sergey Rahmaninov, 1925
Oil on canvas
The Russian Museum
St. Petersburg, Russia ▼

Amedeo Modigliani

Amedeo Clemente Modigliani (July 12, 1884 – January 24, 1920) was an Italian artist who worked mainly in France.
Modigliani was born into a Jewish family in Livorno, Italy. A port city, Livorno had long served as a refuge for those persecuted for their religion, and was home to a large Jewish community. His maternal great-great-grandfather, Solomon Garsin, had immigrated to Livorno in the 18th century as a refugee.
Modigliani was the fourth child of Flaminio Modigliani and his French wife, Eugenia Garsin. His father was a money-changer, but when his business failed, the family lived in poverty. Amedeo’s birth saved the family from ruin, as according to an ancient law, creditors could not seize the bed of a pregnant woman or a mother with a newborn child. The bailiffs entered the family’s home just as Eugenia went into labour. The family protected their most valuable assets by piling them on top of her. Modigliani had a close relationship with his mother, who taught him at home until he was ten.
In 1906 Modigliani moved to Paris, then the focal point of the avant-garde. In fact, his arrival at the centre of artistic experimentation coincided with the arrival of two other foreigners who were also to leave their marks upon the art world: Gino Severini and Juan Gris. He settled in Le Bateau-Lavoir, a commune for penniless artists in Montmartre, renting himself a studio in Rue Caulaincourt.
In 1920, after not hearing from him for several days, his downstairs neighbor checked on the family and found Modigliani in bed delirious and holding onto Hébuterne who was nearly nine months pregnant. They summoned a doctor, but little could be done because Modigliani was dying of the then-incurable disease tubercular meningitis.
Modigliani died on January 24, 1920. There was an enormous funeral, attended by many from the artistic communities in Montmartre and Montparnasse.

Self portrait, 1919
Oil on canvas, 100 x 64.5 cm
Museu de Arte Contemporanea da Universidade
San Paulo, Brazil ▼

Head of a young woman, 1908
Oil on canvas, 57 x 55 cm
Musée d’Art Moderne
Villeneuve d’Ascq, France ▼

Female nude with hat, 1908
Oil on canvas
Private collection ▼

Study for the cellist, 1909
Oil on canvas, Private collection ▼

Standing nude, 1912
Oil on cardboard, 82.8 x 47.9 cm
The Nagoya City Art Museum
Nagoya, Japan ▼

Caryatid, 1913
Pencil and watercolor, 33.5 x 27.3 cm
Private collection ▼

Caryatid, 1914
Pencil, pastel and watercolor on paper, 53 x 43.8 cm
Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris
France ▼

Caryatid, 1914
Pencil and tempera on paper, 90 x 70 cm
Private collection ▼

The red bust, 1913
Oil on canvas, 81 x 46 cm
Private collection ▼

Portrait of Diego Rivera, 1914
Oil on cardboard, 100 x 79 cm
Museo de Arte, Sao Paolo, Brazil ▼

Portrait of Beatrice Hastings, 1915
Oil on canvas, 55 x 46 cm
Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, Canada ▼

Antonia, 1915
Oil on canvas, 82 x 46 cm
Musée de l’Orangerie, Paris, France ▼

Portrait of the spanish painter Celso Lagar, 1915
Oil on canvas, 35 x 27 cm
Private collection ▼

Portrait of Juan Gris, 1916
Oil on canvas, 55.5 x 38 cm
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
New York, USA ▼

Portrait of Pablo Picasso, 1915
Oil on cardboard, 34.5 x 26.5 cm
Private collection ▼

Portrait of the painter Moïse Kisling (1891-1953), 1915
Oil on canvas, 37 x 28 cm
Pinacoteca di Breta, Milan, Italy ▼

Portrait of Chaim Soutine, 1915
Oil on panel, 36 x 27.5 cm
Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart, Germany ▼

Beatris Hastings, 1915
Oil on canvas, 81 x 54 cm
Private collection ▼

Madam Pompadour (Portrait of Beatrice Hastings), 1915
Oil on canvas, 61 x 50.4 cm
Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, USA ▼

Bride and groom, 1916
Oil on canvas, 55.2 x 46.3 cm
The Museum of Modern Arts
New York, USA ▼

Portrait of the art dealer Paul Guillaume, 1916
Oil on canvas, 80.5 x 54 cm
Civico Museo d’Arte Contemporanea
Milan, Italy ▼

Renée the blonde, 1916
Oil on canvas, 61 x 38 cm
Museo de Arte, Sao Paolo, Brazil ▼

Lalotte, 1916
Oil on canvas, 55 x 35.5 cm
Centre Georges Pompidou
Paris, France ▼

The sculptor Jacques Lipchitz and his wife Berthe Lipchitz, 1916
Oil on canvas, 80.2 x 52.5 cm
Art Institute of Chicago, USA ▼

Seated nude, 1916
Oil on canvas, 92.4 x 59.8 cm
Courtauld Institute Galleries
London, UK ▼

Portrait of Jean Cocteau, 1916
Oil on canvas, 100 x 81 cm
The Art Museum Princeton University
Princeton, NJ, USA ▼

Portrait of a girl (Victoria), 1917
Oil on canvas, 81 x 60 cm
Tate Gallery, London, UK ▼

Madame Zborowska on a sofa, 1917
Oil on canvas, 130 x 81 cm
The Museum of Modern Arts
New York, USA ▼

Reclining nude with blue cushion, 1917
Oil on canvas, 60 x 92 cm
Collection of Mr. Nathan Cummings, NY, USA ▼

Portrait of a girl, 1918
Oil on canvas, 46 x 29 cm
Private collection ▼

Nude looking over her right shoulder, 1917
Oil on canvas, 89 x 146 cm, Private collection ▼

Portrait of Elena Pavlowski, 1917
Oil on canvas, 64.8 x 48.9 cm
The Phillips Collection
Washington DC, USA ▼

Portrait of Chaim Soutine seated at a table, 1917
Oil on canvas, 91.7 x 59.7 cm
The National Gallery of Art
Washington DC, USA ▼

Portrait of Leon Bakst, 1917
Oil on canvas, 55.3 x 33 cm
The National Gallery of Art
Washington DC, USA ▼

Seated nude, 1918
Oil on canvas, 81 x 65 cm
Private collection ▼

Woman with read hair, 1917
Oil on canvas, 92.1 x 60.7 cm
The National Gallery of Art
Washington DC, USA ▼

Nu couche de dos, 1917
Oil on canvas, Barnes Foundation
Lincoln University, Merion, PA, USA ▼

Marcelle, 1917
Oil on canvas
Private collection ▼

Seated nude with necklace, 1917
Oil on canvas, 92 x 60 cm
Private collection ▼

Seated nude, 1917
Oil on canvas, 73 x 116 cm
Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten
Antwerp, Belgium ▼

Seated nude on divan, 1917
Oil on canvas, 100 x 65 cm
Private collection ▼

Sleeping nude with arms open (Red nude), 1917
Oil on canvas, 60 x 92 cm
Gianni Mattioli Collection, Milan, Italy ▼

Reclining nude with left arm resting on forehead, 1917
Oil on canvas, 65 x 100 cm, Private collection ▼

Nude with necklace, 1917
Oil on canvas, 73 x 116 cm
Guggenheim Museum, New York, USA ▼

Girl in a green blouse, 1917
Oil on canvas, 81.3 x 46 cm
The National Gallery of Art
Washington DC, USA ▼

Cafe singer, 1917
Oil on canvas, 92.4 x 60.3 cm
The National Gallery of Art
Washington DC, USA ▼

Portrait of woman in hat (Jeanne Hébuterne in large hat), 1917
Oil on canvas, 55 x 38 cm
Private collection ▼

The Zouave, 1918
Oil on canvas, 63 x 48.3 cm
Private collection ▼

Man with pipe (The notary of Nice), 1918
Oil on canvas, 92 x 60 cm
Private collection ▼

Portrait of Blaise Cendrars, 1918
Oil on cardboard, 61 x 50 cm
Private collection ▼

Girl with braids, 1918
Oil on canvas, 60 x 45.4 cm
The Nagoya City Art Museum
Nagoya, Japan ▼

Re haired young woman in chemise, 1918
Oil on canvas, 100 x 65 cm
Private collection ▼

Standing nude – Elvira, 1918
Oil on canvas, 92 x 60 cm
Kunstmuseum, Berne
Switzerland ▼

A blond woman. (Portrait of Germaine Survage), 1918
Oil on canvas, Musée des Beaux-Arts
Nancy, France ▼

The young apprentice, 1918
Oil on canvas 100 x 65 cm
Guggenheim Museum
New York, USA ▼

La belle Epicière, 1918
Oil on canvas, 100 x 65 cm
Private collection ▼

Little girl in blue, 1918
Oil on canvas, 116 x 73 cm
Private collection ▼

Girl in a white chemise, 1918
Oil on canvas, 73 x 50 cm
Private collection ▼

Portrait of Jeanne Hébuterne (1898 -1920), common-law wife of Amedeo Modigliani, 1918
Oil on canvas, 100 x 65 cm
Norton Simon Art Foundation
Pasadena, USA ▼

Jeanne Hébuterne in a yellow sweater, 1919
Oil on canvas, 100 x 64.7 cm
Guggenheim Museum
New York, USA ▼

Portrait of Lunia Czechovska, 1919
Oil on canvas, 46 x 33 cm
Private collection ▼

Jeaune fille au corsage a pois, 1919
Oil on canvas, Barnes Foundation
Lincoln University, Merion, USA ▼

Landscape, 1919
Oil on canvas, 61 x 46.5 cm
Galerie Karsten Greve, Köln, Germany ▼

Gypsy woman with child, 1918
Oil on canvas, 115.9 x 73 cm
The National Gallery of Art
Washington DC, USA ▼

Seated woman with child, 1919
Oil on canvas, 130 x 81 cm
Musée d’Art Moderne
Villeneuve d’Ascq, France ▼

Giorgio de Chirico

Giorgio de Chirico (July 10, 1888 – November 20, 1978) was a pre-Surrealist and then Surrealist Greek-Italian painter born in Volos, Greece, to a Genovese mother and a Sicilian father.
After studying art in Athens and Florence, De Chirico moved to Germany in 1906 and entered the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich, where he read the writings of the philosophers Nietzsche and Arthur Schopenhauer, and studied the works of Arnold Böcklin and Max Klinger. In July 1911 he spent a few days in Turin on his way to Paris.
De Chirico is best known for the paintings he produced between 1909 and 1919, his metaphysical period, which are memorable for the haunted, brooding moods evoked by their images. At the start of this period, his subjects were still cityscapes inspired by the bright daylight of Mediterranean cities, but gradually he turned his attention to studies of cluttered storerooms, sometimes inhabited by mannequin-like hybrid figures.
De Chirico met and married his first wife, the Russian Ballerina Raissa Gurievich in 1924, and together they moved to Paris. In 1928 he held his first exhibition in New York City and shortly afterwards, London.
In 1930 De Chirico met his second wife, Isabella Pakszwer Far, a Russian, with whom he would remain for the rest of his life. Together they moved to Italy in 1932, finally settling in Rome in 1944.
He remained extremely prolific even as he approached his 90th year. In 1974 he was elected to the French Académie des Beaux-Arts. He died in Rome on November 20, 1978.

The enigma of the hour, 1911
Oil on canvas, Private collection ▼

Nostalgia of the infinite, 1913
Oil on canvas
The Museum of Modern Arts
New York, USA ▼

The awakening of Ariadne, 1913
Oil on canvas
Private collection ▼

The Great Tower, 1913
Oil on canvas, 123.5 x 52.5 cm
Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen
Düsseldorf, Germany ▼

Le rêve transformé, 1913
Oil on canvas, 63 x 152 cm
Saint Louis Art Museum, St. Louis, USA ▼

The soothsayer’s recompense, 1913
Oil on canvas, The Philadelphia Museum of Art
Philadelphia, USA ▼

Piazza d’Italia, 1913
Oil on canvas, Art Gallery of Ontario
Toronto, Canada ▼

Love song, 1914
Oil on canvas, 73 x 59.1 cm
The Museum of Modern Arts
New York, USA ▼

Portrait prémonitoire de Guillaume Apollinaire, 1914
Oil on canvas, 81.5 x 65 cm
Centre Georges Pompidou
Paris, France ▼

Torino printanière, 1914
Oil on canvas, 124 x 99.5 cm
Private collection ▼

L’Angoisse du départ, 1914
Oil on canvas, 85 x 69 cm
Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, USA ▼

Mystery and melancholy of a street, 1914
Oil on canvas, 88 x 72 cm
Private collection ▼

Le duo, 1915
Oil on canvas, 81.9 x 59 cm
The Museum of Modern Arts, New York, USA ▼

Hector and Andromache, 1917
Oil on canvas
Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna
Rome, Italy ▼

The disquieting muses, 1918
Oil on canvas
Private collection ▼

The prodigal son, 1922
Oil on canvas
Museo d’Arte Contemporanea
Milan, Italy ▼

Nicolas Poussin

Nicolas Poussin (15 June 1594 – 19 November 1665) was a French painter in the classical style. His work predominantly features clarity, logic, and order, and favors line over color. His work serves as an alternative to the dominant Baroque style of the 17th century. Until the 20th century he remained the major inspiration for such classically-oriented artists as Jacques-Louis David and Paul Cézanne.
He spent most of his working life in Rome, except for a short period when Cardinal Richelieu ordered him back to France to serve as First Painter to the King.
Poussin was born near Les Andelys in Normandy and that he received an education that included some Latin, which would stand him in good stead. Early sketches attracted the notice of Quentin Varin, a local painter, whose pupil Poussin became, until he ran away to Paris at the age of eighteen. There he entered the studios of the Flemish painter Ferdinand Elle and then of Georges Lallemand, both minor masters now remembered for having tutored Poussin. He found French art in a stage of transition: the old apprenticeship system was disturbed, and the academic training destined to supplant it was not yet established by Simon Vouet; but having met Courtois the mathematician, Poussin was fired by the study of his collection of engravings by Marcantonio Raimondi after Italian masters.
After two abortive attempts to reach Rome, he fell in with Giambattista Marino, the court poet to Marie de Medici, at Lyon. Marino employed him on illustrations to his poem Adone (untraced) and on a series of illustrations for a projected edition of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, took him into his household, and in 1624 enabled Poussin (who had been detained by commissions in Lyon and Paris) to rejoin him at Rome. Poussin was thirty when he arrived in Rome. At first he lodged with Simon Vouet. Through Marino, he had been introduced to Marcello Sacchetti who in turn introduced him to another of his early patrons, Cardinal Francesco Barberini. Financial difficulties arose with the departure to Spain of Barberini, accompanied by Cassiano dal Pozzo, the antiquarian and the Cardinal’s secretary, who later would become a great friend and patron. However, their return from Spain in 1626 stabilized Poussin’s position, with renewed patronage by the Barberini and their circle.

Self portrait, 1650
Oil on canvas,
Louvre Museum, Paris, France ▼

The victory of Joshua over amorites, 1626
Oil on canvas,
The Pushkin Museum of Fine Art, Moscow, Russia ▼

The battle of Joshua with amalekites, 1625
Oil on canvas,
The Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia ▼

Acis and Galathea, 1628
Oil on canvas,
National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin, Ireland ▼

Mars and Venus, 1628
Oil on canvas,
The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, USA ▼

Renaud and Armide, 1628
Oil on canvas,
Dulwich Picture Gallery, London, UK ▼

Parnasus,1635
Oil on canvas,
Museo del Prado, Madrid, Spain ▼

The shepherds of Arcadia, 1627
Oil on canvas,
The Duke of Devonshire
and the Chatsworth Settlement Trustees,
Chatsworth, UK ▼

The lamentation over Christ, 1627
Oil on canvas,
Alte Pinakothek, München, Germany ▼

St. Cecilia, 1628
Oil on canvas,
Museo del Prado, Madrid, Spain ▼

The death of Germanicus, 1628
Oil on canvas,
The Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Minneapolis, USA ▼

Echo and Narcissus, 1628
Oil on canvas,
Louvre Museum, Paris, France ▼

The triumph of Flora, 1628
Oil on canvas,
Louvre Museum, Paris, France ▼

Andrians or the great Bacchanal with woman playing a lute, 1628
Oil on canvas,
Louvre Museum, Paris, France ▼

Venus lamenting over Adonis, 1628
Oil on canvas,
Musee des Beaux Arts, Caen, France ▼

The martyrdom of St. Erasmus, 1628
Oil on canvas,
Museum of Vatican ▼

The inspiration of the poet, 1628
Oil on canvas,
Louvre Museum, Paris, France ▼

The Virgin of the pillar appearing to St. James the Greater, 1630
Oil on canvas
Louvre Museum, Paris, France ▼

Helios and Phaeton with Saturn and the Four Seasons, 1630
Oil on canvas,
Gemaldegalerie, Berlin, Germany ▼

Tancred and Erminia, 1630
Oil on canvas,
The Hermitage Museum,
St. Petersburg, Russia ▼

The triumph of David, 1630
Oil on canvas,
Museo del Prado, Madrid, Spain ▼

Diana and Endymion, 1630
Oil on canvas,
The Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, USA ▼

Midas and Bacchus, 1630
Oil on canvas,
Alte Pinakothek, München, Germany ▼

Descend from the Cross, 1630
Oil on canvas,
The Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia ▼

The sleeping Venus and Cupid, 1630
Oil on canvas,
Alte Meister Gallerie, Dresden, Germany ▼

The plague of Ashdod, 1631
Oil on canvas,
Louvre Museum, Paris, France ▼

The garden of Flora, 1631
Oil on canvas,
Gemaldegalerie, Berlin, Germany ▼

Apollo and Muses, 1632
Oil on canvas,
Prado Museum, Madrid, Spain ▼

Bacchanalia, 1633
Oil on canvas,
National Gallery, London, UK ▼

Tancrede and Erminia, 1634
Oil on canvas,
The Trustees of the Barber Institute of Fine Arts,
The University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK ▼

The rescue of Pyrrhus, 1634
Oil on canvas,
Louvre Museum, Paris, France ▼

Queen Zenobia found on the banks of the Arax, 1634
Oil on canvas,
The Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia ▼

St. John Baptizing, 1635
Oil on canvas,
Louvre Museum, Paris, France ▼

Triumph of Neptune and Amphitrite, 1634
Oil on canvas,
Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, USA ▼

Pharaoh’s daughter finds baby Moses, 1638
Oil on canvas,
Louvre Museum, Paris, France ▼

The shepherds of Arcadia, 1638
Oil on canvas,
Louvre Museum, Paris, France ▼

The assumption of the Virgin, 1638
Oil on canvas,
The National Gallery of Art,
Washington DC, USA ▼

Landscape with St. Matthew, 1640
Oil on canvas,
Gemaldegalerie, Berlin, Germany ▼

The noble deed of Scipio, 1640
Oil on canvas,
The Pushkin Museum of Fine Art, Moscow, Russia ▼

The marriage of the Virgin, 1640
Oil on canvas,
The Trustees of Rutland Trust,
Belvoir Castle, Grantham, UK ▼

The confirmation, 1640
Oil on canvas,
The Trustees of Rutland Trust,
Belvoir Castle, Grantham, UK ▼

The ordination, 1640
Oil on canvas,
The Trustees of Rutland Trust,
Belvoir Castle, Grantham, UK ▼

The last supper, 1640
Oil on canvas,
The Trustees of Rutland Trust,
Belvoir Castle, Grantham, UK ▼

The rape of the sabines, 1640
Oil on canvas,
Louvre Museum, Paris, France ▼

The destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, 1640
Oil on canvas,
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, Austria ▼

Esther before Assuerus, 1640
Oil on canvas,
The Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia ▼

Gathering of Manna, 1640
Oil on canvas,
Louvre Museum, Paris, France ▼

The ecstasy of St. Paul, 1643
Oil on canvas,
Louvre Museum, Paris, France ▼

Landscape with three men, 1650
Oil on canvas,
Prado Museum, Madrid, Spain ▼

The baptism of Christ, 1647
Oil on canvas,
National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh, UK ▼

Moses turning the Aaron’s staff into a serpent, 1647
Oil on canvas,
Louvre Museum, Paris, France ▼

Landscape with the cinders of Phocion, 1647
Oil on canvas,
Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, UK ▼

Eliezer and Rebecca, 1647
Oil on canvas,
Louvre Museum, Paris, France ▼

Landscape with funeral of Phocion, 1650
Oil on canvas,
National Museum of Wales, Cardiff, UK ▼

Landscape with Diogen, 1648
Oil on canvas,
Louvre Museum, Paris, France ▼

The holy family on steps, 1648
Oil on canvas,
The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, USA ▼

The judgment of Solomon, 1649
Oil on canvas,
Louvre Museum, Paris, France ▼

Moses striking the rock for water, 1649
Oil on canvas,
The Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia ▼

The assumption of the Virgin, 1650
Oil on canvas,
Louvre Museum, Paris, France ▼

Christ and the woman taken in adultery, 1653
Oil on canvas,
Louvre Museum, Paris, France ▼

St. Peter and St. James cure the lame man, 1655
Oil on canvas,
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA ▼

The annunciation, 1657
Oil on canvas,
Bayerische Staatsgemaldesammlungen, München, Germany ▼

Landscape with the blind orion looking for Sun, 1658
Oil on canvas,
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA ▼

The spring. Adam and Eve in Paradise, 1664
Oil on canvas,
Louvre Museum, Paris, France ▼

Summer. Ruth and Boaz, 1664
Oil on canvas,
Louvre Museum, Paris, France ▼

Autumn. The grapes from the promised land, 1664
Oil on canvas,
Louvre Museum, Paris, France ▼

Winter. The deluge, 1664
Oil on canvas,
Louvre Museum, Paris, France ▼

The crucifixion
Oil on canvas,
Wadsworth Athenaeum, Hartford, CT, USA ▼

Spy Factory

The National Security Agency is a cryptologic intelligence agency of the United States government, administered as part of the United States Department of Defense. Created on November 4, 1952 by President Harry S. Truman, it is responsible for the collection and analysis of foreign communications and foreign signals intelligence, which involves cryptanalysis. It is also responsible for protecting U.S. government communications and information systems from similar agencies elsewhere, which involves cryptography. As of 2008, NSA has been directed to help monitor U.S. federal agency computer networks to protect them against attacks. The NSA is directed by a lieutenant general or vice admiral. NSA is a key component of the U.S. Intelligence Community, which is headed by the Director of National Intelligence. The Central Security Service is a co-located agency created to coordinate intelligence activities and co-operation between NSA and U.S. military cryptanalysis agencies. NSA’s work is limited to communications intelligence. It does not perform field or human intelligence activities. By law, NSA’s intelligence gathering is limited to foreign communications, although there have been numerous reports that the agency does not always abide by these laws.

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The Pathfinders

The Mars Pathfinder later called The Carl Sagan Memorial Station was launched on December 4, 1996 by NASA aboard a Delta II just a month after the Mars Global Surveyor was launched. After a 7-month voyage it landed on Ares Vallis, in a region called Chryse Planitia on Mars, in the Oxia Palus quadrangle, on 4 July 1997. During its voyage the spacecraft had to accomplish four flight adjustments on 10 January, 3 February, 6 May and 25 June. The lander opened, exposing the rover called Sojourner that would go on to execute many experiments on the Martian surface.

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Oceans and Seas

The seas, which cover a large part of the Earth are an indispensable part of the equilibrium in the world. Many events in the atmosphere, from rain to the formation of wind to the climate, are made possible by the existence of the seas. Furthermore, the seas play host to billions of forms of life. This variety, which reigns hundreds, or even thousands, of meters under the sea, is just as astounding as that on the surface. These beauties in the undersea world spread Gods incomparable creation, with all its systems, out before our eyes.

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Blitzkrieg

Blitzkrieg is “a military doctrine of an all-mechanized force concentrating of tanks, infantry, artillery and air power, concentrating overwhelming force and rapid speed to break through enemy lines, and once the latter is broken, proceeding without regard to its flank.” While the term “Blitzkrieg” was not widely used until after the start of the war, German tank general Heinz Guderian is generally accepted to have outlined the principles.
During the interwar period, aircraft and tank technologies matured and were combined with systematic application of the German tactics of infiltration and bypassing of enemy strong points. When Germany invaded Poland in 1939, Western journalists adopted the term Blitzkrieg to describe this form of armored warfare.

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Part 5

The Nazi Expedition – The Thule Society

The Thule Society was originally a “Germanic study group” headed by Walter Nauhaus, a wounded World War I veteran turned art student from Berlin who had become a keeper of pedigrees for the Germanenorden (or “Order of Teutons”), a secret society founded in 1911 and formally named in the following year. In 1917 Nauhaus moved to Munich. His Thule-Gesellschaft was to be a cover-name for the Munich branch of the Germanenorden, but events developed differently as a result of a schism in the Order. In 1918, Nauhaus was contacted in Munich by Rudolf von Sebottendorf (or von Sebottendorff), an occultist and newly-elected head of the Bavarian province of the schismatic offshoot, known as the Germanenorden Walvater of the Holy Grail. The two men became associates in a recruitment campaign, and Sebottendorff adopted Nauhaus’s Thule Society as a cover-name for his Munich lodge of the Germanenorden Walvater at its formal dedication on 18 August 1918.
Sebottendorff later claimed that he originally intended the Thule Society to be a vehicle for promoting his own occultist theories, but that the Germanenorden pressed him to emphasize political, nationalist, and anti-Semitic themes. The fact that this claim was made while the Nazis were in power and Sebottendorff had little to gain by denying anti-Semitism lends credibility to this claim.

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Part 5

Face to face with Carl Jung

Carl Gustav Jung ( 26 July 1875 – 6 June 1961) was a Swiss psychiatrist, an influential thinker and the founder of analytical psychology (also known as Jungian psychology). Jung’s approach to psychology has been influential in the field of depth psychology and in countercultural movements across the globe. Jung is considered as the first modern psychologist to state that the human psyche is “by nature religious” and to explore it in depth. He emphasized understanding the psyche through exploring the worlds of dreams, art, mythology, religion and philosophy. Though not the first to analyze dreams, he has become perhaps the most well known pioneer in the field of dream analysis. Although he was a theoretical psychologist and practicing clinician, much of his life’s work was spent exploring other areas, including Eastern and Western philosophy, alchemy, astrology, sociology, as well as literature and the arts.

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