The Fairy Tells

Have a break, have a kit cat

afruj — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 12:08:17 +0000

100 FANTASY FILMS

afruj — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 08:30:41 +0000

A

B

B cont.

C

D

E

F

F cont.

G

H

I

J

Just Like Heaven (film)

L

M

N

No Such Thing (film)

O

P

R

S

T

U

V

The Devil’s Envoys

W

Greek Mythology Part1

afruj — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 08:22:11 +0000

Achaia (a-KEE-a)

The Cave of the Lakes. Kastria Kalavryta, Achaia,

Achaia is a region of Greece. The name goes back to the Heroic Age, as do the local legends. It was in Achaia’s “Cave of the Lakes” that the daughters of the king of Tiryns took refuge when driven mad by the goddess Hera. They had been roaming the countryside thinking they were cows when the seer Melampus cured them of their mania. It was only in 1964 that the people of Kastria discovered the inner recess of the cave, which is unique for its string of cascading pools.

Acheron (ACK-uh-ron)

The Acheron, Epirus, Greece

The Acheron was one of the rivers of the Underworld. It was at the confluence of the Acheron and the river Styx that the hero Odysseus dug a pit and poured sacrificial blood into it to summon the ghosts of the dead. Odysseus needed to question the shade of the blind prophet Teiresias in order to find his way Home again after the Trojan War. Acheron is also the name of a river in modern Greece, still reputed to give access to Hades.

Achilles (a-KILL-eez)

Achilles was the best fighter of the Greeks besieging Troy in the Trojan War. When the hero Odysseus journeyed to the Underworld to seek the advice of the dead prophet Teiresias, he encountered the shade of Achilles. This hero had slain the Trojan hero Hector in single combat and had himself been brought down only by the connivance of Apollo. The god guided the arrow of Hector’s brother Paris to the only vulnerable spot on Achilles’ body – his heel.Achilles would not have been vulnerable even in this part of his body had his mother, the sea-goddess Thetis, been allowed to protect him as she intended. When he was an infant, she rubbed him each day with godly ambrosia, and each night she laid him upon the hearth fire. Unfortunately, Achilles’ father was unaware that this procedure would make his son immortal. And when he unexpectedly came Home one night to find his wife holding their baby in the flames, he cried out in alarm. Thetis was offended and went home to her father, the Old Man of the Sea, leaving Achilles to his mortal fate.

Another version of the myth has Thetis attempting to protect her infant by dipping him in the river Styx. The infernal waters indeed rendered Achilles’ skin impervious to the likes of any mere Trojan arrow. But Thetis forgot that she was holding him by the heel during the dipping process, so that part was unprotected.

Acrisius (a-KRISS-ee-us)

Acrisius was the king of Argos and the brother of King Proetus of Tiryns. Acrisius was warned by an oracle that he would be killed in time by a son born to his daughter Danae. So he promptly locked her up in a tower and threw away the key. But the god Zeus got in, disguised as a shower of gold, and became the father of Perseus.

Acropolis (a-KROP-a-lis)

The Acropolis towers over Athens and the tall columns of the Temple of Olympian Zeus.

The Acropolis was the citadel of Athens. According to one version of the myth, it was from the Acropolis that King Aegeus hurled himself to his death believing that his son Theseus had been killed by the Minotaur. The Acropolis was still serving as a defensive stronghold in 1687, when the Venetians, bombarding the Turks, inadvertently exploded a store of gunpowder inside the Parthenon.

Aeetes (ee-EE-teez)

King Aeetes was the brother of Circe, the father of Medea and the taskmaster of Jason. Aeetes was king of Colchis, a barbarian kingdom on the far edge of the heroic world. Here, in the sacred grove of the war god Ares, hung the golden fleece of a magical flying ram, object of a quest by the hero Jason and the Argonauts. Aeetes did not take kindly to Jason’s request for the fleece and set the hero a daunting series of tasks before he would hand it over. He secretly had no intention of doing so, and it was only because his daughter Medea fell in love with Jason and came to his aid that the hero’s quest was achieved.

Aegean Sea (i-JEE-an)

The sea between the Greek mainland and Asia Minor (the Asian portion of modern Turkey). Some derive the name from King Aegeus, who in one version of the myth flung himself from a promontory into its depths. The king had arranged that his son Theseus should hoist a white sail on his return from Crete if he survived the terrors of the Labyrinth. Theseus survived but forgot to hoist the sail.

Aegeus (EE-joos)

King of Athens, father of the hero Theseus. When young Theseus arrived in Athens after proving himself a hero by clearing the coast road of bandits, Aegeus did not recognize him. The king’s wife, Medea, persuaded him to serve Theseus poison wine at a banquet. The hero might have died had his father not noticed the distinctive pattern on his sword. It was the very sword that Aegeus had hidden beneath a boulder years previously for his son to find.

Aegeus was legendarily king of Athens, although be lived well before the time when its citadel was crowned by impressive monuments like the Parthenon in this picture.

Aethra (EE-thra)

Theseus admires the sword from beneath the boulder. The distinctive pattern on its hilt would later save his life. Scene from Wrath of the Gods.

Princess of Troezen and mother of the hero Theseus. When Theseus came of age, Aethra took him to a forest clearing and challenged him to prove himself by lifting a boulder. Aethra knew that beneath it he would find the sword and sandals of his father, King Aegeus of Athens. Aegeus had left Troezen for Athens before Theseus was born, but he left these tokens for his son to find if he was worthy.

I like all types of mythology. So I start with Greek Mythology First.

Source: http://www.mythweb.com/

My favorit paintings

afruj — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 08:01:58 +0000

Olivia-1880

Daydream with the “Figaro” – Date unknown

Good News- Date unknown

Source: http://www.erasofelegance.com/arts/gallery/

Everyone wansts more money, more power.

afruj — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 04:37:01 +0000

Everyone wansts more money, more power. No one cares about a tree or flower:

The above lines means that most of the people in our country wants to earn a large amount of money and wants to be powerful but no one cares about plants and trees.

We cannot survive without plants and trees. There are many different species of plants and trees. They provide us with lots of useful and important things like they provides us food such as delicious fruits like apple, orange, pineapple, mango, grape, pomegranate, many different kinds of berries, etc. A plant also provides us with medicine, which we get from the leaves and flowers and from many other parts of a tree. With these herbal medicines, we can prevent many dangerous and major diseases.

We can also use plants and trees as a decoration piece. We can decorate our house, our garden and even our environment with beautiful plants and trees. Large trees such as banyan, pine, mango, etc provides shelter for humans and animals. They form a great shelter for the travelers by protecting them from the sunlight in the hot summers. Trees leaves form a dense canopy and protect the soil beneath from erosion. Huge trees form a great storm shelter for the birds and animals.

Plants and trees provides us with timber which can be used for many useful things such as for firewood, for building houses, for making furniture, for ship-building, for lighting fire and for lots of other important things. Plants and trees save us from flood and cyclone. They also balance our environment. The most important work that the plants do is that they produce oxygen. Without oxygen, humans and animals cannot survive. Plants breaths out oxygen which humans and animals takes in and takes in carbohydrate, which humans and animals breathe out.

We can also get flowers from the plants and trees, which is also a very important and useful resource to humans and animals. Flowers are very beautiful. There are many different kinds of beautiful flowers in this world such as rose, water lily, orchid, peony, daffodil, sunflower, lotus, tulip, dahlia, night-queen, etc. Flowers are the symbol of beauty, purity and intellectuality.

Flower is also a very important and useful resource. It soothes our mind. We can make very good perfumes with the fragrance of the flowers. We can also use flower to decorate our house, our garden and even our environment. We can also make ornaments out of flower like necklace, bracelets, etc.

Flowers are also a very useful resource for the insects, animals and birds. Tiny birds such as the Humming birds feed on the nectar of the flower. Some insects also feed on the nectar of the flower, which they collect from the flowers. Bees collect nectar from the flowers and store it in their hives.

Now days, people are cutting down trees. This leads to the growth of pollution in our environment. People want more money and power but they do not care about plants and trees although without which they cannot survive. More money and power means more danger. Too much money only increases our wanting for money and power. Money and power takes us away from our nature of life. We must take care of the plants and trees. If there would be no trees, the whole world will be in great danger.

(570 words)

LEONARDO DA VINCI

afruj — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 04:30:34 +0000

Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci

was a Tuscan polymath; a scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, painter, sculptor, architect, botanist, musician and writer. Born at Vinci in the region of Florence, the illegitimate son of a notary, Piero da Vinci, and a peasant girl, Caterina, Leonardo was educated in the studio of the renowned Florentine painter, Verrocchio. Much of his earlier working life was spent in the service of Ludovico il Moro in Milan where several of his major works were created. He also worked in Rome, Bologna and Venice, spending his final years in France at the home given him by King François I.

Leonardo has often been described as the archetype of the “Renaissance man” or universal genius, a man whose seemingly infinite curiosity was equalled only by his powers of invention.^[1] He is widely considered to be one of the greatest painters of all time and perhaps the most diversely talented person ever to have lived.^[2]

It is primarily as a painter that Leonardo was and is renowned. Two of his works, the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper occupy unique positions as the most famous, most reproduced and most parodied portrait and religious painting of all time, their fame approached only by Michelangelo‘s Creation of Adam.^[1] Leonardo’s drawing of the Vitruvian Man is also iconic. Perhaps fifteen paintings survive, the small number due to his constant, and frequently disastrous, experimentation with new techniques, and his chronic procrastination.^[b] Nevertheless these few works, together with his notebooks, which contain drawings, scientific diagrams, and his thoughts on the nature of painting, comprise a contribution to later generations of artists only rivalled by that of his contemporary, Michelangelo.

As an engineer, Leonardo conceived ideas vastly ahead of his own time, conceptualising a helicopter, a tank, concentrated solar power, a calculator, and the double hull, and outlining a rudimentary theory of plate tectonics. Relatively few of his designs were constructed or even feasible during his lifetime,^[c] but some of his smaller inventions, such as an automated bobbin winder and a machine for testing the tensile strength of wire, entered the world of manufacturing unheralded.^[d] As a scientist, he greatly advanced the state of knowledge in the fields of anatomy, civil engineering, optics, and hydrodynamics.

Biography

Leonardo was born on April 15, 1452, “at the third hour of the night”^[al] in the Tuscan hill town of Vinci, in the lower valley of the Arno River in the territory of Florence, and lived for his first five years in the nearby hamlet of Anchiano.^[3] He was the illegitimate son of Messer Piero Fruosino di Antonio da Vinci, a Florentine notary, and Caterina, a peasant.^[4][5] There is some evidence that Caterina may have been a slave from the Middle East,^[e] but many experts question this evidence.^[6] Leonardo had no surname in the modern sense, “da Vinci” simply meaning “of Vinci“: his full birth name was “Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci“, meaning “Leonardo, son of (Mes)ser Piero from Vinci.” Little is known about his early life, which has been the subject of historical conjecture by Vasari and others.^[7][3] At the age of five, he went to live in the household of his father, grandparents and uncle, Francesco, in the small town of Vinci, where his father had married a sixteen-year-old girl named Albiera, who loved Leonardo but unfortunately died youngLeonardo was later to record only two incidents of his childhood. One, which he regarded as an omen, was when a kite dropped from the sky and hovered over his cradle, its tail feathers brushing his face.^[8] The second incident occurred while he was exploring in the mountains. He discovered a cave and recorded his emotions at being, on one hand, terrified that some great monster might lurk there and on the other, driven by curiosity to find out what was inside.^[8]

Vasari, the 16th century biographer of Renaissance painters, tells the story of how a local peasant requested that Ser Piero ask his talented son to paint a picture on a round plaque. Leonardo responded with a painting of snakes spitting fire which was so terrifying that Ser Piero sold it to a Florentine art dealer, who sold it to the Duke of Milan. Meanwhile, having made a profit, Ser Piero bought a plaque decorated with a heart pierced by an arrow which he gave to the peasant.

Professional life, 1476–1513

It is assumed that Leonardo had his own workshop in Florence between 1476 and 1481. Court records of 1476 show that, with three other young men, he was charged with sodomy,^[i] of which charges all were acquitted.^[15] From this date there is no record of his work or even his whereabouts until 1478.^[16]

In 1478 he was commissioned to paint an altarpiece for the Chapel of St Bernard and in 1481 by the Monks at Scopeto for The Adoration of the Magi. In 1482 Leonardo, who Vasari tells us was a most talented musician, created a silver lyre in the shape of a horse’s head. Lorenzo de’ Medici was so impressed with this that he decided to send both the lyre and its maker to Milan, in order to secure peace with Ludovico il Moro, Duke of Milan.^[17] At this time Leonardo wrote an often-quoted letter to Ludovico, describing the many marvellous and diverse things that he could achieve in the field of engineering and informing the Lord that he could also paint.^[18][10]

Between 1482 and 1499, when Louis XII of France occupied Milan, much of Leonardo’s work was in that city. It was here that he was commissioned to paint two of his most famous works, the Virgin of the Rocks for the Confraternity of the Immaculate Conception, and The Last Supper for the monastery of Santa Maria delle Grazie.^[8] While living in Milan between 1493 and 1495 Leonardo listed a woman called Caterina as among his dependants in his taxation documents. When she died in 1495, the detailed list of expenditure on her funeral suggests that she was his mother rather than a servant girl.^[

For Ludovico, he worked on many different projects which included the preparation of floats and pageants for special occasions, designs for a dome for Milan Cathedral and a model for a huge equestrian monument to Francesco Sforza, Ludovico’s predecessor. Leonardo modelled a huge horse in clay, which became known as the "Gran Cavallo". It surpassed in size the only two large equestrian statues of the Renaissance, Donatello’s statue of Gattemelata in Padua and Verrocchio’s Bartolomeo Colleoni in Venice.^[10][j] Seventy tons of bronze were set aside for casting it. The monument remained unfinished for several years, which was not in the least unusual for Leonardo. In 1492 the clay model of the horse was completed, and Leonardo was making detailed plans for its casting.^[10] Michelangelo rudely implied that he was unable to cast it.^[8] In November 1494 Ludovico gave the bronze to be used for cannons to defend the city from invasion under Charles VIII.^[10]

The French returned to invade Milan in 1499 under Louis XII and the invading French used the life-size clay model for the “Gran Cavallo” for target practice. With Ludovico Sforza overthrown, Leonardo, with his assistant Salai and friend, the mathematician Luca Pacioli, fled Milan for Venice. In Venice he was employed as a military architect and engineer, devising methods to defend the city from naval attack.^[8][4]

Returning to Florence in 1500, he and his household were guests of the Servite monks at the monastery of Santissima Annunziata and were provided with a workshop where, according to Vasari, Leonardo created the cartoon of The Virgin and Child with St. Anne and St. John the Baptist, a work that won such admiration that “men and women, young and old” flocked to see it “as if they were attending a great festival”.^[9][k] In 1502 Leonardo entered the services of Cesare Borgia, the son of Pope Alexander VI, acting as a military architect and engineer and travelling throughout Italy with his patron.^[4] He returned to Florence where he rejoined the Guild of St Luke on 18th October 1503 and spent two years involved in designing and painting a great mural of The Battle of Anghiari for the Signoria,^[4] with Michelangelo designing its companion piece, The Battle of Cascina.^[l] In Florence in 1504, he was part of a committee formed to relocate, against the artist’s will, Michelangelo’s statue of David.^[20]

In 1506 he returned to Milan, which was in the hands of Maximilian Sforza after Swiss mercenaries had driven out the French. Many of Leonardo’s most prominent pupils or followers in painting either knew or worked with him in Milan,^[8] including Bernardino Luini, Giovanni Antonio Boltraffio and Marco D’Oggione.^[m] However, he did not stay in Milan for long, as his father died in 1504, and in 1507 he was back in Florence trying to sort out problems with his brothers over his father’s estate. By 1508 he was living in his own house in Milan, in Porta Orientale in the parish of Santa Babila

Old age

From September 1513 to 1516, Leonardo spent much of his time living in the Belvedere in the Vatican in Rome, where Raphael and Michelangelo were both active at the time.^[4] In October 1515, François I of France recaptured Milan.^[21] On 19th December, Leonardo was present at the meeting of Francois I and Pope Leo X, which took place in Bologna.^[8][22][23] It was for Francois that Leonardo was commissioned to make a mechanical lion which could walk forward, then open its chest to reveal a cluster of lilies.^[9][n]In 1516, he entered François’ service, being given the use of the manor house Clos Lucé^[o] next to the king’s residence at the royal Chateau Amboise. It was here that he spent the last three years of his life, accompanied by his friend and apprentice, Count Francesco Melzi, supported by a pension totalling 10,000 scudi.^[4]

Leonardo died at Clos Lucé, France, on May 2, 1519. François I had become a close friend. Vasari records that the King held Leonardo’s head in his arms as he died, although this story, beloved by the French and portrayed in romantic paintings by Ingres, Ménageot and other French artists, has been shown to be legend rather than fact.^[p]^[24] Vasari also tells us that in his last days, Leonardo sent for a priest to make his confession and to receive the Holy Sacrament.^[9] In accordance to his will, sixty beggars followed his casket. He was buried in the Chapel of Saint-Hubert in the castle of Amboise. Melzi was the principal heir and executor, receiving as well as money, Leonardo’s paintings, tools, library and personal effects. Leonardo also remembered his other long-time pupil and companion, Salai and his servant Battista di Vilussis, who each received half of Leonardo’s vineyards, his brothers who received land, and his serving woman who received a black cloak of good stuff with a fur edge.^[25]

Some twenty years after Leonardo’s death, François was reported by the goldsmith and sculptor Benevenuto Cellini as saying: “There had never been another man born in the world who knew as much as Leonardo, not so much about painting, sculpture and architecture, as that he was a very great philosopher.”

Leonardo’s most famous painting of the 1490s is The Last Supper, also painted in Milan. The painting represents the last meal shared by Jesus with his disciples before his capture and death. It shows specifically the moment when Jesus has said “one of you will betray me.” Leonardo tells the story of the consternation that this statement caused to the twelve followers of Jesus.

Paintings of the 1500s

Among the works created by Leonardo in the 1500s is the small portrait known as the Mona Lisa or “la Gioconda”, the laughing one. The painting is famous, in particular, for the elusive smile on the woman’s face, its mysterious quality brought about perhaps by the fact that the artist has subtly shadowed the corners of the mouth and eyes so that the exact nature of the smile cannot be determined. The shadowy quality for which the work is renowned came to be called “sfumato” or Leonardo’s smoke. Vasari, who is generally thought to have known the painting only by repute, said that “the smile was so pleasing that it seemed divine rather than human; and those who saw it were amazed to find that it was as alive as the original”.^[9][s]

Other characteristics found in this work are the unadorned dress, in which the eyes and hands have no competition from other details, the dramatic landscape background in which the world seems to be in a state of flux, the subdued colouring and the extremely smooth nature of the painterly technique, employing oils, but laid on much like tempera and blended on the surface so that the brushstrokes are indistinguishable.^[t] Vasari expressed the opinion that the manner of painting would make even “the most confident master…despair and lose heart.”^[9] The perfect state of preservation and the fact that there is no sign of repair or overpainting is extremely rare in a panel painting of this date.^[4]

In the Virgin and Child with St. Anne (see below ^[StAnne]) the composition again picks up the theme of figures in a landscape which Wasserman describes as “breathtakingly beautiful”^[21] and harks back to the St Jerome picture with the figure set at an oblique angle. What makes this painting unusual is that there are two obliquely-set figures superimposed. Mary is seated on the knee of her mother, St Anne. She leans forward to restrain the Christ Child as he plays roughly with a lamb, the sign of his own impending sacrifice.^[10] This painting, which was copied many times, was to influence Michelangelo, Raphael, and Andrea del Sarto,^[4] and through them Pontormo and Correggio. The trends in composition were adopted in particular by the Venetian painters Tintoretto and Veronese.

Mona Lisa

The Virgin and Child with St. Anne (c. 1510)—Louvre, Paris, is a masterly figure composition.

My drawing

afruj — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 01:33:42 +0000

girl

Its a new gift for you in Mothers day

afruj — Thu, 15 May 2008 06:55:07 +0000

Hi Orchi,

Its from mom as a new mothers day gift. Wish u best of luck.

Mom.

Hello world!

afruj — Thu, 15 May 2008 05:41:16 +0000

Welcome to WordPress.com. This is your first post. Edit or delete it and start blogging!