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20th September
Bawdy Phallic Plate Heads for Oxford.
On eclecticism, thanks to iconomy.

St. Barbe Museum and Art Gallery. Hampshire heritage. 'St. Barbe Museum & Art Gallery tells the special story of the coastal strip between the New Forest and The Solent and hosts a changing programme of high quality exhibitions.'
The artist's New Forest, 1750-1950.
Marine painting in Britain in the 18th century.

Laka. Artist from Togo.

Sitti Amah Xavier. Artist from Togo.

Arts India. Contemporary Indian art and design.
Online exhibits.

Cantonese Opera Costumes. Via the Bay Area Cantonese Opera.

Paul Feeley. 'Artist and head of the Bennington College Art Department during the 1950s and early 1960s. Paul Feeley was an instrumental figure in the rise of Bennington, Vermont as a cultural outpost for the New York art world.'
Gallery.

Al Hansen. American artist. 'Al Hansen was born in Richmond Hill, Borough of Queens, New York City in 1927. He joined the US Air Force, served his country as a paratrooper in World War II and was honorably discharged. During his time with the Army Of Occupation in Frankfurt, Germany, he pushed a piano off the top of a 5 story bombed out building. Later, back in New York City and all over the world, he performed this act many times. He later titled it "Yoko Ono Piano Drop" after his friend and contemporary ... '
Gallery.

An Edward Hopper Scrapbook. 'This scrapbook, compiled by the staff of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, offers a glimpse into Hopper's life, his friends, and the paintings that have fascinated art lovers worldwide ever since Hopper first came to prominence during the mid 1920s.'

Billboard Liberation Front.

The First Human Male Pregnancy.

Akayism. Swedish artist Akay and street art.
Related Adbusters article.

P22 Mail Art. 'A correspondence between Daniel Farrell and Richard Kegler.'
'Between 1990 and 1996, over 200 pieces were sent to/from P22. From altered junk mail to minimally cryptic addressing, Each piece has some purpose to both test the post office and also keep an artistic discourse going between its collaborators. The postal service almost always came through. Recently, because of the desire to completely automate, even the slightest variations from standard Postal Rules gets the piece either returned or lost forever. This page is a testament to the golden age of P22 postal art. Mail Art has no commercial value. To our knowledge, none of our mail art has ever sold ... '
P22 mail art gallery.

All the Names of God.

Nanofiction. Very short stories.

Kensington Alive. A pictorial history of Kensington Market in Toronto.

The Stanford Prison Experiment.
'Welcome to the Stanford Prison Experiment web site, which features an extensive slide show and information about this classic psychology experiment. What happens when you put good people in an evil place? Does humanity win over evil, or does evil triumph? These are some of the questions we posed in this dramatic simulation of prison life conducted in the summer of 1971 at Stanford University. '
'How we went about testing these questions and what we found may astound you. Our planned two-week investigation into the psychology of prison life had to be ended prematurely after only six days because of what the situation was doing to the college students who participated. In only a few days, our guards became sadistic and our prisoners became depressed and showed signs of extreme stress. Please join me on a slide tour of describing this experiment and uncovering what it tells us about the nature of Human Nature. '

The Stanford Prison Experiment: Still Powerful After All These Years. 'I was sick to my stomach. When it's happening to you, it doesn't feel heroic; it feels real scary. It feels like you are a deviant. '

Great Serpent Mound. 'Effigy mounds, earthworks in the shape of animals and birds, were raised in North America in areas that now correspond to parts of Wisconsin, Minnesota, Illinois, Iowa, and Ohio. The profile images, seldom more than six feet high, include felines, bears, and deer, and they suffered considerably with the increase in farming settlements in the nineteenth century, when many ancient Native American mounds were plowed under. Fortunately, the extraordinary size and recognizable depictions saved many of the effigy mounds from such a fate. The grandest of the representational mounds is the depiction of an undulating snake, perhaps a stylized rattlesnake, in Adams County, Ohio, known as the Great Serpent Mound ... '

From Time Immemorial: Tsimshian Prehistory. Native Canadian history.
'This virtual exhibition presents findings of the North Coast Prehistory Project, carried out by the Museum to uncover archaeological information and tie it in with research done earlier by Harlan Smith, Marius Barbeau and William Beynon. Tsimshian prehistory is presented in a setting that includes an archaeological dig (reconstructed from a site near Prince Rupert harbour), an environment of forest and petroglyphs, and a display area rich in artifacts from the Tsimshian peoples of the north coast of British Columbia ... '

Inuit Dolls.

Mirrors of the Heart-Mind. Tibetan art.
Adi Buddhas - Shakyamuni Buddha - Jina Buddhas - Arhats - Tara - Protective Deities - Bodhisattvas.
(Word of warning - site seems to be up and down a fair bit recently).

Sonam Gyatso (Third Dalai Lama). 'The sculpture of the Third Dalai Lama, one of the prominent historical figures of Medieval Tibet, is a rare example of portrait sculpture in Tibetan art. Soon after his birth Sonam Gyatso was announced as an incarnation of the abbot (died in 1542) of the monastery of Braibun, the largest monastery in Tibet. Gradually he became an outstanding religious figure in Tibet ... '

Mandala: Buddhist Tantric Diagrams.

Noh Mask of a Young Woman.

The Gullah Creole Language. 'Virginia Mixson Geraty lived for over fifty years in the Edisto Island area near Charleston, South Carolina, where she studied the language and culture of the Gullah people. She is the one of a very few people in the country who can speak, read and write this unique, English-derived creole language ... '

Gullah Language & Culture. Spoken in islands off the coast of South Carolina.
'The Gullah language, a Creole blend of Elizabethan English and African languages, was born of necessity on Africa's slave coast, and developed in the slave communities of the isolated plantations of the coastal South. Even after the sea islands were freed in 1861, the Gullah speech flourished because access to the islands was by water only until the 1950's ... '

A Primordial Quasar.

Copper Moon, Golden Gate.

Moonrise over Seattle.

Daniel Melim: Lost Art. Via gmtPlus9.

Indecent Images 'is a gallery of evocative pre-Raphaelite paintings, with commentary and background by Steven William Rimmer.' Via neurastenia.

Tack-o-Rama. Via neurastenia.

Gertrude Hamilton. 'Hamilton´s drawings and watercolours of botanical and animal subjects transcend easy categorization. Working on antiqued paper, she creates works that reflect influences as diverse as Pompeiian frescoes, Piero della Francesca and Durer ... '
Via neurastenia.

Human Chess. Via MeFi.
link

19th September
A Manx Note Book. 'These web pages reflect my various interests, mainly archival, in things Manx.'
Illustrated London News Isle of Man articles.
Manx fairy tales.

Charles Kamangwana. Zimbabwean artist.

Modibo Doumbia. Artist from Mali.

Lama Mi Pham Phun Tsog Shes Rab.

Crowned Buddha.

The Gallery of China. Commercial gallery.

Historic Architecture of Oregon. 'Oregon has an amazing variety of interesting and well-preserved examples of historic architecture - many are the original homes, schools, churches and businesses established by the state's earliest settlers.'

The Bridges of Portland, Oregon.

Mary Lou Zeek Gallery. Oregon artists.
Cheryl Cohen's glassware.

Leo von Klenze: Landscape with the Castle of Massa di Carrara.

Rembrandt: An Old Man in Military Costume. With x-ray views.

Jan Mytens: Portrait of a Woman.

Rembrandt: St. Bartholomew.

Peter Lely: Portrait of Louise de Keroualle, Duchess of Portsmouth.

Portrait of Louis XIV.

A History of UK Punk Rock. Via MeFi.

Deliberately Concealed Garments. 'Whilst gutting and rebuild their housee 22 years ago, the Maynards found a group of objects concealed in and behind one of the bedroom walls. These comprised a velvet waistcoat, a stomacher and some paper patterns and also a cat skeleton. '
Via art for housewives.

Victorian Art - And Water. Via Bifurcated Rivets.

North: An Intuitive Arctic Exploration. 'This site offers a variety of small subjects, more or less related to the Arctic region. '

The Robert Opie Collection. British nostalgia and advertising memorabilia. 'Welcome to the official site of the world´s largest collection of British advertising imagery. Featured many times in the media, the Collection now numbers over half a million items, and is continually expanding ... '

Sixties British Pop Culture.

Golly Corner. 'James Robertson & Sons, the U.K. preserve manufacturers founded in 1864, used Golly as their trademark. In the 1920s they started to issue brooches (also called pins or badges) carrying the Golly image and continued to do so until 2002. This site, created in 1996, was inspired by my own Golly brooch collection. '

Visual Poetry: Painting and Drawings from Iran. 'Hidden within the pages of scientific, historical, or poetic texts, intricately designed images have formed an integral part of Persian manuscripts since at least the thirteenth century. They illustrate particular moments in the narrative and enhance the overall visual beauty of a work ... '

Cave as Canvas: Hidden Images of Worship Along the Ancient Silk Routes.
'Buddhism reached Chinese Central Asia (modern Xinjiang) from India around the first century A.D., brought by missionaries via the ancient Silk Routes. By the third century A.D., this new religion was flourishing in all the oasis kingdoms in the Tarim Basin (the Taklamakan Desert), also known as eastern Turkestan. As the Buddhist religion took hold and piety increased, the Indian tradition of excavating caves to serve as Buddhist sanctuaries proliferated in this region. In many of the Central Asian states, monasteries and temples were hewn out of the cliffs in secluded river valleys. With the patronage of local rulers, the elite, and wealthy merchants, these institutions gradually became major Buddhist centers. They continued to grow and prosper until the advent of Islam. Today, such Buddhist rock-cut cave complexes are some of the finest, if little known, monuments preserved in Chinese Central Asia ... '

Eleventh Hour Stories. 'This is a call to gather the true stories of war, too many of whice have not been spoke, and have not been heard.'
'At this time, wars and battles are being threatened that would rival Dresden, Hiroshima and the Death Camps. We are in a swirl of dreams madly intoxicated by Armageddon and apocalypse. These dark visions that could destroy the planet have many causes, including the refusal to know what the realities of war and violence truly are. We have refused to hear and feel the agony of war and violence from the perspective of the young soldiers who are being called to commit the unthinkable. From the perspective of the civilians, children, women, the aged who will suffer it. From the perspective of the earth that will be destroyed by it if we do not together as a global community say: "No"' '

Iraqi Faces and Surfaces 2002-2003. Photo-essays.

Pictures from Montenegro.

Pictures from Pristina, Kosovo.

Mordillo. 'Humour is the tenderness of fear'. A great Argentine cartoonist.
Gallery.

The Censored Cartoons Page. 'The following is a guide to the cuts and edits which have been rendered to the classic cartoons of Warner Brothers, MGM, Paramount, and other studios when broadcast on television (unless noted otherwise) ... '

Iranian Cartoons.

Haida Gambling Sticks. 'This set of gambling sticks was kept in a painted deerskin bag. Collected at the Nass River village of Gitlaxdimiks in 1905 by Charles F. Newcombe. '
More on the Haida of British Columbia.

Tibetan & Himalayan Collections. Art, culture, history.

Transits of Venus: Historical Observations and Global Expeditions. Observing the 1639, 1761, 1769, 1874 and 1882 transits of Venus.

Mystery Object. From the Science Museum, London.
link

18th September
Sir John Soane's Museum. 'Soane was born in 1753, the son of a bricklayer, and died after a long and distinguished career, in 1837.'
'Soane designed this house to live in, but also as a setting for his antiquities and his works of art. After the death of his wife (1815), he lived here alone, constantly adding to and rearranging his collections. Having been deeply disappointed by the conduct of his two sons, one of whom survived him, he determined to establish the house as a museum to which 'amateurs and students' should have access. '

Kudzi Yaoh Papisco. Artist from Togo.

Angelo Sanougah. Artist from Togo.

Vajradhara. Tibetan art.

Gold Lacquered Wood Figure of Avalokitesvara. Chinese art.

A Tibetan Thangka of Buddha Sakyamuni.

Chinese Stucco Figure of Guanyin.

American Cartoonists on the War in Iraq.

Worldwide Cartoonists on the War in Iraq.

So Where is Saddam Now? Cartoons.

Bush and the Corporate Crooks. Cartoons.

Paedophile Priests. Cartoons.

9/11 Anniversary. Cartoons.

Correggio (1489-1534). Online gallery.

Yves Tanguy. French Surrealist artist.

Anatole and Mathilde: The Story of Their Marriage.

Constantin Somov. Russian artist.

Piero di Cosimo: Frescoes in the Sistine Chapel.

Piero di Cosimo: Allegorical and Mythological Paintings.

The Ghosts of 9-11. Via newthings.

Polish Propaganda Posters. Via newthings.

Photos of the English Countryside. Via newthings.

The NeoWhig Party. Nice bit of satire. Via MeFi.

A History of Teapots.

Art Crimes: The Writing on the Wall. Massive online graffiti collection.
War art.

Pre-Columbian Collection, Dumbarton Oaks.
'The history of the Robert Woods Bliss Collection of Pre-Columbian Art began in Paris in 1912, when Royall Tyler took Bliss to see a group of Pre-Columbian objects at the shop of the collector Joseph Brummer. Within a year of that visit, Bliss acquired a jadeite figure of a standing man, produced by the Olmec culture on the Gulf Coast of Mexico. Bliss would subsequently go on to collect objects made in Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Mexico, Panama, and Peru all produced before the Spanish conquest of the New World. The Olmec jadeite remains one of the finest pieces in the collection. By the mid-1940s, Bliss' collection had assumed such importance and had attracted so much public interest that in April 1947 it was placed on exhibition at the National Gallery of Art, where it remained until July 1962 ... '
Teotihuacan - Olmec - Maya - more Maya - Veracruz - Intermediate and early Andean - Andean - Aztec & Mixtec - Andean textiles

Saskatchewan Indian. A collection of selected full text articles, 1970 - 2002.A searchable index of 20 Aboriginal newspapers, journals, and magazines (including the Saskatchewan Indian).

The Shape of Life. 'A revolutionary eight-part television series that reveals the dramatic rise of the animal kingdom through the breakthroughs of scientific discovery.' Great website, too.

Upptown Graffiti. Graffiti from Uppsala, Sweden.

The Urban Writer. Graffiti from Toronto.

Graffitinet.

Portraits by Carl Van Vechten. 'The Carl Van Vechten Photographs Collection at the Library of Congress consists of 1,395 photographs taken by American photographer Carl Van Vechten (1880-1964) between 1932 and 1964. The bulk of the collection consists of portrait photographs of celebrities, including many figures from the Harlem Renaissance. A much smaller portion of the collection is an assortment of American landscapes. '
Browse.

Chinese Poems. 'This site presents Chinese, pinyin and English texts of poems by some of the greatest Chinese poets. Most of the featured authors are from the Tang dynasty, when culture in China was at its peak, but writers from other periods are also included.'

Pathless Path, Nameless Name: Translating Laozi. 'The tradition says that the book called Laozi was written around the 5th century BC by an ancient Chinese philosopher called Laozi (sometimes spelled Lao-tzu). The book is also refered to as the Book of the Way and Virtue (Dao-de-jing) or some other similar rendition. As it turns out, it is the most frequently translated Chinese book into Western languages. There is over 300 translations of this text and the number is constantly rising. Why? Apparently, all translators think that they can add something new what the ones before them were not able to convery into a foreign language. Well, to be honest, the text is difficult not so much grammatically as conceptually ... '

The Face of the Beast - Taotie Images. 'One of the great mysteries of ancient China is the origin and meaning of the terrifying animal faces on Shang ritual vessels. These faces look down on us from the distance of 3,000 years but are just as awe and terror-inspiring as they were during the bloody sacrifices of the Shang. Although the patter occurs on virtually all bronze vessels, almost nothing is known today about them, except their name: taotie. A later source reveals that the taotie is man-eating beast that harms people. The ferocious look of the face would seem to confirm this hypothesis ... '

Li Po. English translations.

A Simple Story. 'For three months, Molly never stayed at the office for a single minute after half past five. She didnt have time. '

Annunciation. 'There was, as might be imagined, considerable consternation when the angel appeared and declared that henceforth Birmingham would be the religious capital of the entire world.'

In the Vicinity of the Cone Nebula.

Cone Nebula Close-Up.

The Moons of Earth.
link

17th September
Yale Centre for British Art. Good collection.

Bongo Toons. Cartoons and comics in Tanzania.

The Ghotul System of Education. 'The author writes about the fascinating system of education prevalent among the tribals of Central India, known as Ghotul. The young ones of the tribe are taught the ways of life from their early years. Among some tribal sects, the male and female are not distinguished from each other in their upbringing and they grow up in perfect harmony, in preparation for perfect relationships. The social life of a Ghotul (gho-two-ll) is both interesting and exotic ... '

Weddings in India.

New Chinese Art. 'New Chinese Art was established in 1999 as a centre for contemporary Chinese art. The website is a good resource for people worldwide to view art by Chinese artists. New Chinese Art allows Chinese artists from throughout China to display their art for free.'

John White Alexander. American painter and illustrator.
Gallery.

Jennie Augusta Brownscombe. 'She has been called "a kind of Norman Rockwell of her era." In fact, the skillful drawing, attention to detail, and nostalgic moods of her paintings make the comparison between Jennie Augusta Brownscombe and the popular American illustrator seem quite apt.'
Portfolio.

Mary Cassatt. 'Mary Cassatt grew up in an upper-middle-class household in Pennsylvania. Cassatt's training began in 1861, when she enrolled in the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. In 1865 she took a four-year trip to Europe, traveling and studying in Paris, Rome, and Madrid. In 1868 her painting A Mandolin Player became Cassatt's first work to be accepted by the Paris Salon.'
Portfolio.

Lila Cabot Perry. 'As a member of a distinguished Boston family who received her first formal art training at age 36, Lilla Cabot Perry was unlikely to become a professional painter, let alone a devotee of the French movement known as impressionism. Yet she did precisely that, developing a solid reputation during her lifetime as a painter and a poet, helping to promote impressionist art in the United States and Japan.'
Portfolio.

Georgia O'Keeffe: Alligator Pears in a Basket.

Frida Kahlo: Self-Portrait Dedicated to Leon Trotsky.

Rosalba Carriera: America.

Marguerite Gerarde: Prelude to a Concert.

Elisabeth-Louise Vigee-Lebrun: Portrait of Princess Belozersky.

Rachel Ruysch: Roses, Convolvulus, Poppies and Other Flowers in an Urn on a Stone Ledge.

Clara Peeters: Still Life of Fish and Cat.

Hari-e. 'A traditonal japanese craft of tearing, coloring and gluing paper to make a picture.' Via art for housewives.

The Galileo Space Probe. Due to crash into Jupiter over the weekend. Via MeFi.

National Geographic: Blues Highway. 'For ten weeks in 1997 I discovered and photographed the blues for NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC. My photographs appear in the April 1999 article Traveling the Blues Highway. It was the most enjoyable assignment Ive ever had. I could have easily spent three or four years shooting, listening to blues, and traveling the highway that millions of blacks took as they migrated from the South toward Chicago. I hope my photographs capture some of the light and color of this great American art form.'

The Blues Foundation.

Three Perfections: Chinese Calligraphy.

Three Perfections: Chinese Painting.

Photo Japan: John Dowling. Historic photos taken in Kyushu, 1884.

Photo Japan: John Konno. "I am particularly drawn to offbeat images and the simple aesthetic of the country."

Thirty-Seven Paintings of the Mewari School. Indian art.

Kangra Paintings. Indian art.

The Coelacanth: More Living than Fossil. 'The first living coelacanth (seel-a-canth) was discovered in 1938 and bears the scientific name Latimeria chalumnae. The species was described by Professor J.L.B. Smith in 1939 and was named after its discoverer, Miss Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer. Until recent years, living coelacanths were known only from the western Indian Ocean, primarily from the Comoros Islands, but in September 1997 and again in July 1998, coelacanths were captured in northern Sulawesi, Indonesia, nearly 6,000 miles to the east of the Comoros. The Indonesian discovery was made by Mark V. Erdmann, then a doctoral student studying coral reef ecology in Indonesia ... '

Old Goats in Transition. 'Along the craggy limestone ridges of the Zagros Mountains that run through western Iran and northeastern Iraq, the relationship between humans and goats dramatically changed around 10,000 years ago. New research by Dr. Melinda Zeder, Curator of Old World Archaeology & Zooarchaeology at the National Museum of Natural History, and Dr. Brian Hesse of the University of Alabama at Birmingham, shows that goats, hunted in the region since the time of Neanderthals, were now being bred and herded instead. Their findings on this historic shift, which forever changed both the societies of human herders and the ecology of regions where goats and other livestock animals lived, were reported in the March 24, 2000 issue of Science ... '

Is Spring Springing Earlier? (2000) 'NMNH Botanist Stanwyn Shetler and colleagues Mones Abu-Asab, Paul Peterson, and Sylvia Stone Orli have analyzed 30 years of observations about the first dates of blossoming for 100 species of plants common to the Washington, DC area. They have found that the rise in the region's average minimum temperatures is producing earlier flowering in 89 of the 100 species observed. On average, the plants are blossoming 4.5 days earlier in 2000 than in 1970 - and for Washington's famous cherry trees, this means that the cherry blossoms are now arriving a week earlier than 30 years ago ... '

Discovery of a New Plant Genus. (2001) 'NMNH Botanist W. John Kress and his colleague Kai Larsen, University of Aarhus, Denmark, have named a new genus of ginger. Discovery of a new plant genus is unusual, unlike the more frequent naming of a new species. The new genus Smithatris, in the plant family Zingiberaceae, joins 50 other genera and over 1,200 species ... '

Ancient Insect-Plant Relationship Persists Through Time. 'Smithsonian researchers and their collaborators have turned back the geologic clock on the well-known herbivore-host interaction between beetles and the leaves of gingers, heliconias and their relatives in the Zingiberales, a taxonomic order of flowering plants. Their paper "Timing the Radiations of Leaf Beetles: Hispines on Gingers from the Latest Cretaceous to Recent" was published in the July 14 issue of Science magazine. They discovered damage characteristic of particular beetles, known as rolled-leaf hispines, in 11 fossil specimens of gingers dated at the latest Cretaceous (66 million years ago) and early Eocene (52-53 million years ago) of North Dakota and Wyoming ... '

The Euahlayi Tribe: A Study of Aboriginal Life in Australia. Published 1905. An absolutely fascinating book, although by contemporary standards, more than a little reactionary.

Australian Legendary Tales. Published 1897. Ditto.

Fine Art: Nude. 'This site is dedicated to promoting the non-pornographic depiction of the human form, as well as promoting all sensual art.'

Consortium News. Independent, alternative US news zine.

Dissent. 'Independent social thought since 1954.'

The Monastery of Christ in the Desert. 'The Monastery of Christ in the Desert, Abiquiu, New Mexico, U.S.A., was founded in 1964 by Fr. Aelred Wall, OSB, with monks of Mount Saviour Monastery in New York state. In 1983 the Monastery of Christ in the Desert was received into the English Province of the Subiaco Congregation as a Conventual Priory and in 1996 became an autonomous abbey. From its beginning the monastery has followed the Benedictine life with no external apostolates, but maintains a guesthouse for private retreats where men and women can share the Divine Office and Mass in the abbey church with the monks. Besides maintaining the guesthouse, the monks engage in agriculture, craft, maintenance and computer work at the monastery. A gift shop is also part of the monastery's income, which includes a mail-order department of books and other religious items in the gift shop. '

George Melies: A Trip to the Moon (1902). 'A Trip to the Moon is a satire in which the innate conservatism of the scientific community is overcome by the convictions of a lone charismatic figure (played by the filmmaker himself). This one-reel film spared no effect or expense in bringing to life Mlis's intensely personal vision. Astronauts prepare for a rocket-launching, take off, land on the moon (hitting it in the eye), and finally splash down back on earth. '

Lois Weber and Phillips Smalley: Suspense. 'The story of Suspense, a one-reel thriller, is a simple onea tramp threatens a mother and child, while the father races home to their rescuebut the techniques used to tell it are complex. Weber and Smalley employ a dizzying array of formal devices. The approach of an automobile is shown reflected in another car's side-view mirror. We catch our first glimpse of the menacing burglar from the same angle as the wife doesfrom directly over him while he glares straight up. Three simultaneous actions are shown, not sequentially but as a triptych within one frame. '

D.W. Griffith: Intolerance. 'Intolerance is one of the cinema's earliest formal masterpieces. Its ambitious scale and lavish productionexemplified by the enormous, if historically inaccurate, set for the court of Babylonwere unprecedented at the time. The film was to serve as a mighty sermon against the hideous effects of intolerance; in it, Griffith proposed his view of history and myth. Intolerance interweaves his unfinished work, "The Mother and the Law,"a contemporary melodrama about the hypocrisy of well-off do-gooders set in the United States, with three parallel stories of earlier times: Christ at Calvary, the razing of Babylon by Persians, and the persecution of the Huguenots in France.'

Robert J. Flaherty: Nanook of the North. 'In undertaking to shoot a narrative-based film that would demonstrate the character and majesty of the Inuit people of the Hudson Bay, Canada, Flaherty chose as his protagonist a revered hunter. He accompanied the man, named Nanook in the film, and his extended family for a year from igloo to igloo, from kill to kill ... '

For Cities Lost. 'This was inspired by looking at photos of old cities destroyed in WW2.'

Between a Flat-line and a Beep. Somewhat disturbing poem.

The Information Warfare Site 'is an online resource that aims to stimulate debate on a variety of issues involving information security, information operations, e-commerce and more. It is the aim of the site to develop a special emphasis on offensive and defensive information operations. Since our launch in December of 1999 IWS has been redesigned and continues to add key texts. We aim to be an essential research centre for every group interested in information security and information operations. In adherence to its founding principles IWS has developed a discussion forum and mailing lists to enable a more interactive debate.'
link

16th September
Witness to Genocide: The Children of Rwanda. Children's art.

The Development of the English Castle. 'Perhaps the first issue to be dealt with is an answer to the question, "what is a castle?" The English Medieval castle, like its counterparts in Europe, is a unique phenomenon. Most buildings are created to fulfil a single, specific purpose: a church, a house, a factory, a school, a bank, a hotel etc. A castle, depending upon the status of the man who occupied it, could be variously, a military base, a seat of government, a court and a stronghold for the surrounding region. It could be any or all of the above but it was principally the private residence of its owner, his family and his dependents ... '

The National Palace Museum, Taipei. 'The National Palace Museum collects, preserves, and promotes the essence of Chinese art and crafts. Accumulated over a thousand years by Chinese emperors and royal families, its collections include ceramics, porcelain, calligraphy, painting, and ritual bronzes. In addition, the Museum also possesses many fine examples of jade, lacquer wares, curio cabinets, enamel wares, writing accessories, carvings, embroidery, rare books. The quality of its collections remains unparalleled anywhere throughout the world in the field of Chinese Art. The Museum was first established in 1925 at Beijing and finally relocated at Taipei, Taiwan after WWII. The Museum is now one of the most important museums as well as research institutions through out the world, and it is also a "must-see" for foreign visitors ...'

Buddhist Art: Treasures in Monasteries. 'The few surviving monasteries of the 11th century bring to light important aspects of the development of Buddhist art in the Himalayan region and its deep connections with the philosophy and art of eastern India and Kashmir.'

The Wheel of Life. 'The Wheel of Life illustrates in a popular way the essence of the Buddhist teachings, the Four Truths: the existence of earthly suffering, its origin and cause, the ending or prevention of misery and the practice path to liberation from suffering. '
'The Wheel of Life describes the cause of all evil and its effects, mirrored in earthly phenomena just as it is experienced by everyone from the cradle to the grave. Picture by picture it reminds us that everyone is always his or her own judge and responsible for their own fate, because, according to Karma, causes and their effects are the fruits of one's own deeds. '
'The circular composition of the Wheel of Life guides the viewer from picture to picture along the black path or the white path. It leads one through the twelve interwoven causes and their consequences to rebirth in one of the so-called Six Worlds. Projected on one plane, they fill the whole inner sphere the Wheel of Life. But the meaning of this painting is to show the way out of all these worlds of suffering into the sphere beyond. '

AFSC WWI German Feeding Program's Artwork. Art by children.

Bosnian Children's Art Project.

Michael Sweerts: Head of a Woman. 'A woman, her thin hair tightly wrapped in a white scarf, looks out at the viewer with teary eyes and a toothless smile. The urban poor of Rome and the peasants of the neighboring countryside inspired Michael Sweerts during his stay in Italy in the mid-1600s. The practice of painting the lower classes was relatively new at the time, and pictures of the poor were often derisive caricatures. Sweerts, however, treated his subject with compassion, vividly capturing the woman's inner beauty while accurately recording her external appearance: the loose skin, thinning hair, and wart on the left side of her face. '

Jacob Adriaensz. Backer: Portrait of a Woman. A woman poses in front of a parapet, over which an Oriental carpet hangs. She wears a dress of luxurious, heavily brocaded fabric with a daring neckline. Strings of pearls wrap across her shoulders, wrist, and around her headpiece. Her face and chest are brightly lit, and she looks out at the viewer with an assertive gaze. Although her identity is unknown, she is obviously a woman of status and wealth. Jacob Adriaensz. Backer derived the woman's pose from Rembrandt, whose work greatly influenced him.'

Jasper Johns: A Retrospective. 'The life's work of an artist who has had a profound influence on American art was featured in this, the first full retrospective of Jasper Johns's work since 1977. Included in this comprehensive chronological survey were more than 225 paintings, drawings, prints, and sculptures. These works, many from private collections including Johns's own, span more than forty years; a number of the recent images had never before been shown publicly. '
'Johns's art unites mastery, mystery, simplicity, and contradiction. His methodical working process combines intense deliberation and experimentation, obsessive craft, cycles of revision and repetition, and decisive shifts of direction. Johns also frequently borrows images from other artists, which, ironically, only underscores the originality of his own vision. '
'The exhibition opened with work from the mid–1950s: paintings of flags, targets, and numbers that seemingly sounded the death knell for Abstract Expressionism. Although Johns has been hailed as the father of Pop art and Minimalism, the loosely gestural abstractions of 1959–60 and the moodier gray imagery of the fragmented human form in 1961–64 reflect the choice of a different path. '
Gallery.

Cartoon Sex Encyclopaedia. 'Presenting Daryl Cagle's TRUE Sex Fact Cartoon Encyclopedia. Nothing too nasty here, just the jarring truth about sex --from the syndicated cartoon, TRUE!'

Confederate Flag Cartoons.
This flag symbolises...

Sex behind the veil. Via Dr. Menlo.

Buckminster Fuller: Thinking Out Loud. "Whenever I draw a circle, I immediately want to step out of it." - R. Buckminster Fuller.

Stephen Hawking. His website. 'Everything you could ever want to know about Stephen Hawking . . . Well, almost! '

Flowers Underfoot.
'The Metropolitan Museum of Arts on-line exploration of Indian carpets of the Mughal era was created in conjunction with the international exhibition "Flowers Underfoot" (November 20, 1997 - March 1, 1998). Examples from the collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art illustrate the exceptionally high artistic achievement of Indian carpet weaving during the late sixteenth through the eighteenth century. The painterly skill and sensitivity of the carpet weavers is evident in the pictorial and floral designs of magnificent carpets created for palaces and tents ... '
Seven Mughal carpets.

Incarnations of Visnu in art.

Rama's Exile in the Forest.

Shiva and His Consort.

The Three Cornered Gallery. Art from the Wallace Collection, Wolverhampton Art Gallery and the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts.

Milton Ulladulla Budawang Aboriginal Tribal Group and Families.

The Kalkadoon Aboriginal Tribe of the Mount Isa Region. 'Most Australians grow up knowing the story of Gallipoli - few are told the story of the "Kalkadoons" heroic stand on a hill known to this day as Battle Mountain. The largest, pitched battle between black and white, in Australia, took place on this boulder-strewn hillside ... '

Photo Japan: Mark Hemmings. Photography of geisha and Japanese traditional arts.

Photo Japan: Nic Cleave. A more contemporary view.

A Confession in Light Blue. Love poem.

A Desperate Time. Another love poem.

A Doubt.

Sex Scolls. Light-hearted tidbits of sexual history.
Mardi Gras.
Lady Godiva.
Sheela-na-gig.

Christopher Dresser: Watering Can, 1876.

J. & J. Kohn: Child's Cradle, c. 1895. Most unusual - and interesting!

Joseph Hoffmann: Sitzmaschine Chair with Adjustable Back, c. 1905.

Ludwig Hohlwein: Zoologischer Garten Munchen, 1912.

Egon Schiele: Girl with Black Hair.

Pablo Picasso: Guitar.

Change Links. Progressive newspaper and calendar.

Conscious Choice. Socially responsible business and consumer magazine.

Color Lines. 'The nations leading magazine on race, culture, and organizing.'

Lingering Lunar Eclipse.

A Lucky Lunar Eclipse.

A Skygazer's Full Moon.

The Personality Forge.
'The Personality Forge is the world's first community of living people and artificial intelligence entities called bots. Come on in, and chat with bots and botmasters, then create your own artificial intelligence personality, and turn it loose to chat with and form emotional relationships with real people and other bots. '
'Personality Forge bots are pushing the envelope of artificial intelligence by incorporating memories and emotions into their makeup. True language comprehension is in constant development. Transcripts of every bot's conversations are kept so you can read what your bot has said, and see their emotional relationships with other people and other bots. See if you can tell who is real! Then discuss your successes and failures in our forums. '
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