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T H E A R T S P O R T A L

The arts are a wide range of human practices of creative expression, storytelling, and cultural participation. They encompass multiple diverse and plural modes of thinking, doing, and being, in an extremely broad range of media. Both dynamic and a characteristically constant feature of human life, they have developed into innovative, stylized, and sometimes intricate forms. This is often achieved through sustained and deliberate study, training, and/or theorizing within a particular tradition, across generations, and even between civilizations. The arts are a vehicle through which human beings cultivate distinct social, cultural, and individual identities while transmitting values, impressions, judgements, ideas, visions, spiritual meanings, patterns of life, and experiences across time and space.

Prominent examples of the arts include:

visual arts (including architecture, ceramics, drawing, filmmaking, painting, photography, and sculpting)
literary arts (including fiction, drama, poetry, and prose)
performing arts (including dance, music, and theatre)

They can employ skill and imagination to produce objects and performances, convey insights and experiences, and construct new environments and spaces.

The arts can refer to common, popular, or everyday practices as well as more sophisticated, systematic, or institutionalized ones. They can be discrete and self-contained or combine and interweave with other art forms, such as the combination of artwork with the written word in comics. They can also develop or contribute to some particular aspect of a more complex art form, as in cinematography. By definition, the arts themselves are open to being continually redefined. The practice of modern art, for example, is a testament to the shifting boundaries, improvisation and experimentation, reflexive nature, and self-criticism or questioning that art and its conditions of production, reception, and possibility can undergo.

As both a means of developing capacities of attention and sensitivity and as ends in themselves, the arts can simultaneously be a form of response to the world and a way that our responses and what we deem worthwhile goals or pursuits are transformed. From prehistoric cave paintings to ancient and contemporary forms of ritual to modern-day films, art has served to register, embody, and preserve our ever-shifting relationships to each other and to the world. (Full article...)

Outline of performing arts
Outline of the visual arts

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Main façade

The Marciana Library or Library of Saint Mark (Italian: Biblioteca Marciana, but in historical documents commonly referred to as Libreria pubblica di san Marco) is a public library in Venice, Italy. It is one of the earliest surviving public libraries and repositories for manuscripts in Italy and holds one of the world's most significant collections of classical texts. It is named after St Mark, the patron saint of the city.

The library was founded in 1468 when the humanist scholar Cardinal Bessarion, bishop of Tusculum and titular Latin patriarch of Constantinople, donated his collection of Greek and Latin manuscripts to the Republic of Venice, with the stipulation that a library of public utility be established. The collection was the result of Bessarion's persistent efforts to locate rare manuscripts throughout Greece and Italy and then acquire or copy them as a means of preserving the writings of the classical Greek authors and the literature of Byzantium after the fall of Constantinople in 1453. His choice of Venice was primarily due to the city's large community of Greek refugees and its historical ties to the Byzantine Empire. The Venetian government was slow, however, to honour its commitment to suitably house the manuscripts with decades of discussion and indecision, owing to a series of military conflicts in the late-fifteenth and early-sixteenth centuries and the resulting climate of political uncertainty. The library was ultimately built during the period of recovery as part of a vast programme of urban renewal aimed at glorifying the republic through architecture and affirming its international prestige as a centre of wisdom and learning. (Full article...)
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Portrait by Johann Georg Ziesenis (1763)

Frederick II (German: Friedrich II.; 24 January 1712 – 17 August 1786) was the monarch of Prussia from 1740 until 1786. He was the last Hohenzollern monarch titled King in Prussia, declaring himself King of Prussia after annexing Royal Prussia from the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1772. His most significant accomplishments include his military successes in the Silesian wars, his reorganisation of the Prussian Army, the First Partition of Poland, and his patronage of the arts and the Enlightenment. Prussia greatly increased its territories and became a major military power in Europe under his rule. He became known as Frederick the Great (German: Friedrich der Große) and was nicknamed "Old Fritz" (German: der Alte Fritz).

In his youth, Frederick was more interested in music and philosophy than in the art of war, which led to clashes with his authoritarian father, Frederick William I of Prussia. However, upon ascending to the Prussian throne, he attacked and annexed the rich Austrian province of Silesia in 1742, winning military acclaim for himself and Prussia. He became an influential military theorist, whose analyses emerged from his extensive personal battlefield experience and covered issues of strategy, tactics, mobility and logistics. (Full article...)
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Nuffield College, facing New Road, with the library tower topped by a flèche. The main entrance to the college is in the middle of the building to the left of the tower.

The buildings of Nuffield College, one of the colleges of the University of Oxford, are to the west of the city centre of Oxford, England, and stand on the site of the basin of the Oxford Canal. Nuffield College was founded in 1937 after a donation to the University by the car manufacturer Lord Nuffield; he gave land for the college, as well as £900,000 (approximately £246 million in present-day terms) to build and endow it. The architect Austen Harrison, who had worked in Greece and Palestine, was appointed by the University to design the buildings. His initial design, heavily influenced by Mediterranean architecture, was rejected by Nuffield, who called it "un-English" and refused to allow his name to be associated with it. Harrison reworked the plans, aiming for "something on the lines of Cotswold domestic architecture", as Nuffield wanted.

Construction of the second design began in 1949 and was finished in 1960. Progress was hampered by post-war building restrictions, and the effects of inflation on Nuffield's donation led to various cost-saving changes to the plans. In one change, the tower, which had been planned to be ornamental, was redesigned to hold the college's library. It was the first tower built in Oxford for 200 years and is about 150 feet (46 m) tall, including the flèche on top. The buildings are arranged around two quadrangles, with residential accommodation for students and fellows in one, and the hall, library and administrative offices in the other. The chapel has stained glass windows designed by John Piper. (Full article...)
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The Widows of Culloden (Scottish Gaelic: Bantraich de cuil lodair) is the twenty-eighth collection by British fashion designer Alexander McQueen, made for the Autumn/Winter 2006 season of his eponymous fashion house. It was inspired by his Scottish ancestry and is regarded as one of his most autobiographical collections. It is named for the widows of the Battle of Culloden (1746), often seen as a major conflict between Scotland and England. Widows makes extensive use of the McQueen family tartan and traditional gamekeeper's tweeds, as well as other elements taken from Highland dress. Historical elements reflected the fashion of the late Victorian era and the 1950s.

The collection's runway show was staged on 3 March 2006 during Paris Fashion Week. It was dedicated to Isabella Blow, McQueen's friend and muse. The show marked a return to theatricality for McQueen, whose shows in the preceding two seasons had been comparatively conventional. Widows was presented on a square stage with a glass pyramid at its centre. Fifty-one ensembles were presented across roughly three phases, ending with a Pepper's ghost illusion of English model Kate Moss projected within the glass pyramid. (Full article...)
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Tracing of an engraving of the Sosibios vase by John Keats. The figures of "Ode on Indolence" are described as similar to those from an urn.

The "Ode on Indolence" is one of five odes composed by English poet John Keats in the spring of 1819. The others were "Ode on a Grecian Urn", "Ode on Melancholy", "Ode to a Nightingale" and "Ode to Psyche". The poem describes the state of indolence, a word which is synonymous with "avoidance" or "laziness". The work was written during a time when Keats was presumably more than usually occupied with his material prospects. After finishing the spring poems, Keats wrote in June 1819 that its composition brought him more pleasure than anything else he had written that year. Unlike the other odes he wrote that year, "Ode on Indolence" was not published until 1848, 27 years after his death.

The poem is an example of Keats's break from the structure of the classical form. It follows the poet's contemplation of a morning spent in idleness. Three figures are presented—Ambition, Love and Poesy—dressed in "placid sandals" and "white robes". The narrator examines each using a series of questions and statements on life and art. The poem concludes with the narrator giving up on having all three of the figures as part of his life. Some critics regard "Ode on Indolence" as inferior to the other four 1819 odes. Others suggest that the poem exemplifies a continuity of themes and imagery characteristic of his more widely read works, and provides valuable biographical insight into his poetic career. (Full article...)
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Boulez in 1968

Pierre Louis Joseph Boulez (French pronunciation: [pjɛʁ lwi ʒozεf bulɛz]; 26 March 1925 – 5 January 2016) was a French composer, conductor and writer, and the founder of several musical institutions. He was one of the dominant figures of post-war contemporary classical music.

Born in Montbrison, in the Loire department of France, the son of an engineer, Boulez studied at the Conservatoire de Paris with Olivier Messiaen, and privately with Andrée Vaurabourg and René Leibowitz. He began his professional career in the late 1940s as music director of the Renaud-Barrault theatre company in Paris. He was a leading figure in avant-garde music, playing an important role in the development of integral serialism in the 1950s, controlled chance music in the 1960s and the electronic transformation of instrumental music in real time from the 1970s onwards. His tendency to revise earlier compositions meant that his body of work was relatively small, but it included pieces considered landmarks of twentieth-century music, such as Le Marteau sans maître, Pli selon pli and Répons. His uncompromising commitment to modernism and the trenchant, polemical tone in which he expressed his views on music led some to criticise him as a dogmatist. (Full article...)
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Folio 14v: The Virgin in a church with Mary of Burgundy at her devotions

The Hours of Mary of Burgundy (German: Stundenbuch der Maria von Burgund) is a book of hours, a form of devotional book for lay-people, completed in Flanders around 1477, and now in the National Library of Austria. It was probably commissioned for Mary, the ruler of the Burgundian Netherlands and then the wealthiest woman in Europe. No records survive as to its commission. The book contains 187 folios, each measuring 225 by 150 millimetres (8.9 in × 5.9 in). It consists of the Roman Liturgy of the Hours, 24 calendar roundels, 20 full-page miniatures and 16 quarter-page format illustrations. Its production began c. 1470, and includes miniatures by several artists, of which the foremost was the unidentified but influential illuminator known as the Master of Mary of Burgundy, who provides the book with its most meticulously detailed illustrations and borders. Other miniatures, considered of an older tradition, were contributed by Simon Marmion, Willem Vrelant and Lieven van Lathem. The majority of the calligraphy is attributed to Nicolas Spierinc, with whom the Master collaborated on other works and who may also have provided a number of illustrations.

The two best known illustrations contain a revolutionary trompe-l'œil technique of showing a second perspective through an open window from the main pictorial setting. It is sometimes known as one of the black books of hours, due to the dark and sombre appearance of the first 34 pages, in which the gilded letter was written on black panels. The book has been described as "undoubtedly [...] among the most important works of art made in the late middle ages...a milestone in the history of art and one of the most precious objects of the late middle ages". Given the dark colourisation and mournful tone of the opening folios, the book may originally have been intended to mark the death of Mary's father, Charles the Bold, who died in 1477 at the Battle of Nancy. Midway through its production, it is thought to have been recommissioned as a gift to celebrate Mary's marriage to Maximilian. Tonally, the early pages change from dark, sombre colours to a later sense of optimism and unity. (Full article...)
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Plate 3: Lo mismo (The same). A Spanish civilian about to kill by decapitating the head of a French soldier with an axe.

The Disasters of War (Spanish: Los desastres de la guerra) is a series of 82 prints created between 1810 and 1820 by the Spanish painter and printmaker Francisco Goya (1746–1828). Although Goya did not make known his intention when creating the plates, art historians view them as a visual protest against the violence of the 1808 Dos de Mayo Uprising, the subsequent cruel war that ended in Spanish victory in the Peninsular War of 1808–1814 and the setbacks to the liberal cause following the restoration of the Bourbon monarchy in 1814. During the conflicts between Napoleon's French Empire and Spain, Goya retained his position as first court painter to the Spanish crown and continued to produce portraits of the Spanish and French rulers. Although deeply affected by the war, he kept private his thoughts on the art he produced in response to the conflict and its aftermath.

He was in poor health and almost deaf when, at 62, he began work on the prints. They were not published until 1863, 35 years after his death. It is likely that only then was it considered politically safe to distribute a sequence of artworks criticising both the French and restored Bourbons. In total over a thousand sets have been printed, though later ones are of lower quality, and most print room collections have at least some of the set. (Full article...)
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Getting It: The Psychology of est, a non-fiction book by American clinical psychologist Sheridan Fenwick first published in 1976, analyzes Werner Erhard's Erhard Seminars Training or est. Fenwick based the book on her own experience of attending a four-day session of the est training, an intensive 60-hour personal-development course in the self-help genre. Large groups of up to 250 people took the est training at one time.

In the first section of Fenwick's book, she recounts the est training process and the methods used during the course. Fenwick details the rules or "agreements" laid out by the trainers to the attendees, which include not talking to others or leaving the session to go to the bathroom unless during an announced break period. The second section is analytic: Fenwick analyzes the methods used by the est trainers, evaluates the course's potential effects, and discusses Erhard's background. Fenwick concludes that the program's long-term effects are unknown, the est training may not be appropriate for certain groups of people, and that a large proportion of participants report perceived positive effects. (Full article...)
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From Russia, with Love is the fifth novel by the English author Ian Fleming to feature his fictional British Secret Service agent James Bond. Fleming wrote the story in early 1956 at his Goldeneye estate in Jamaica; at the time he thought it might be his final Bond book. The novel was first published in the United Kingdom by Jonathan Cape on 8 April 1957.

The story centres on a plot by SMERSH, the Soviet counter-intelligence agency, to assassinate Bond in such a way as to discredit both him and his organisation. As bait, the Russians use a beautiful cipher clerk Tatiana Romanova and the Spektor, a Soviet decoding machine. Much of the action takes place in Istanbul and on the Orient Express. The book was inspired by Fleming's visit to Turkey on behalf of The Sunday Times to report on an Interpol conference; he returned to Britain by the Orient Express. From Russia, with Love deals with the East–West tensions of the Cold War, and the decline of British power and influence in the post-Second World War era. (Full article...)
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The Neuer Hauptbau and the Blooming Baroque gardens from the south

Ludwigsburg Palace, nicknamed the "Versailles of Swabia", is a 452-room palace complex of 18 buildings located in Ludwigsburg, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. Its total area, including the gardens, is 32 ha (79 acres) – the largest palatial estate in the country. The palace has four wings: the northern wing, the Alter Hauptbau, is the oldest and was used as a ducal residence; the east and west wings were used for court purposes and housing guests and courtiers; the southern wing, the Neuer Hauptbau, was built to house more court functions and was later used as a residence.

Eberhard Louis, Duke of Württemberg, appointed Philipp Joseph Jenisch to direct the work and construction began in 1704. In 1707, Jenisch was replaced with Johann Friedrich Nette, who completed the majority of the palace and surrounding gardens. Nette died in 1714, and Donato Giuseppe Frisoni finished much of the palace façades. In the final year of construction, Eberhard Louis died and the Neue Hauptbau's interiors were left incomplete. Charles Eugene's court architect, Philippe de La Guêpière, completed and refurbished parts of the New Hauptbau in the Rococo style, especially the palace theatre. Charles Eugene abandoned the palace for Stuttgart in 1775. Duke Frederick II, later King Frederick I, began using Ludwigsburg as his summer residence in the last years of Charles Eugene's reign. Frederick and his wife Charlotte, Princess Royal, resided at Ludwigsburg and employed Nikolaus Friedrich von Thouret to renovate the palace in the Neoclassical style. Thouret converted much of Ludwigsburg's interiors over the reign of Frederick and later life of Charlotte. As a result of each architect's work, Ludwigsburg is a combination of Baroque, Rococo, Neoclassical, and Empire style architecture. (Full article...)
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Wodehouse in 1930

Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse, (/ˈwʊdhaʊs/ WOOD-howss; 15 October 1881 – 14 February 1975) was an English writer and one of the most widely read humorists of the 20th century. His creations include the feather-brained Bertie Wooster and his sagacious valet, Jeeves; the immaculate and loquacious Psmith; Lord Emsworth and the Blandings Castle set; the Oldest Member, with stories about golf; and Mr Mulliner, with tall tales on subjects ranging from bibulous bishops to megalomaniac movie moguls.

Born in Guildford, the third son of a British magistrate based in Hong Kong, Wodehouse spent happy teenage years at Dulwich College, to which he remained devoted all his life. After leaving school he was employed by a bank but disliked the work and turned to writing in his spare time. His early novels were mostly school stories, but he later switched to comic fiction. Most of Wodehouse's fiction is set in his native United Kingdom, although he spent much of his life in the US and used New York and Hollywood as settings for some of his novels and short stories. He wrote a series of Broadway musical comedies during and after the First World War, together with Guy Bolton and Jerome Kern, that played an important part in the development of the American musical. He began the 1930s writing for MGM in Hollywood. In a 1931 interview, his naive revelations of incompetence and extravagance in the studios caused a furore. In the same decade, his literary career reached a new peak. (Full article...)
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An 1870 oil painting by Ford Madox Brown depicting the play's balcony scene

Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare early in his career about the romance between two Italian youths from feuding families. It was among Shakespeare's most popular plays during his lifetime and, along with Hamlet, is one of his most frequently performed. Today, the title characters are regarded as archetypal young lovers.

Romeo and Juliet belongs to a tradition of tragic romances stretching back to antiquity. The plot is based on an Italian tale written by Matteo Bandello and translated into verse as The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet by Arthur Brooke in 1562 and retold in prose in Palace of Pleasure by William Painter in 1567. Shakespeare borrowed heavily from both but expanded the plot by developing a number of supporting characters, in particular Mercutio and Paris. Believed to have been written between 1591 and 1595, the play was first published in a quarto version in 1597. The text of the first quarto version was of poor quality, however, and later editions corrected the text to conform more closely with Shakespeare's original. (Full article...)
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Romances is the twelfth studio album by Mexican singer Luis Miguel, released on 12 August 1997, by WEA Latina. It is the third album of the Romance series, in which Miguel covers Latin songs from 1940 to 1978. Aside from Miguel, the production also involved arranger Bebu Silvetti, and Armando Manzanero, who directed all of Miguel's Romance albums. Romances consists of twelve cover versions and two new compositions by Manzanero and Silvetti. Recording took place in early 1997 at the Ocean Way recording studio in Los Angeles, California.

Romances has sold over 4.5 million copies and received platinum certifications in several Latin American countries, the United States and Spain. Miguel promoted the album by touring the United States, Latin America and Spain. Upon its release, Romances received generally positive reviews from music critics. They mainly praised his vocals and production of the album although few reviewers found the arrangements to be repetitive and the record too similar to its predecessors. The album earned Miguel several awards, including the Grammy Award for Best Latin Pop Performance in the United States. Six singles were released: "Por Debajo de la Mesa", "El Reloj", "Contigo (Estar Contigo)", "De Quererte Así (De T'Avoir Aimee)", "Bésame Mucho", and "Sabor a Mí". (Full article...)
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"Squeeze" is the third episode of the first season of the American science fiction television series The X-Files. It premiered on the Fox network on September 24, 1993. "Squeeze" was written by Glen Morgan and James Wong and directed by Harry Longstreet, with Michael Katleman directing additional footage. The episode featured the first of two guest appearances by Doug Hutchison as the mutant serial killer Eugene Victor Tooms, a role he would reprise in "Tooms". "Squeeze" is the first "monster-of-the-week" episode of The X-Files, unconnected to the series' overarching mythology.

The show's main characters are FBI agents Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson), who work on cases linked to the paranormal, called X-Files. Mulder is a believer in the paranormal, while the skeptical Scully has been assigned to debunk his work. In this episode, Mulder and Scully investigate a series of ritualistic killings by somebody seemingly capable of squeezing his body through impossibly narrow gaps. The agents deduce that their suspect may be a genetic mutant who has been killing in sprees for ninety years. (Full article...)

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Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal panel

Comic: Zach Weiner

A panel from Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal, a webcomic by Zach Weiner first published in its current iteration in 2002. This daily comic features no recurring characters or storylines, and has no set format; some strips may be a single panel, while others may go on for ten panels or more. Recurring themes include atheism, God, superheroes, romance, dating, science, research, parenting and the meaning of life.

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Did you know...

... that Marilyn Monroe posed naked in 1948 to raise US$50 to pay the rent for her room at the Hollywood Studio Club (pictured)?
... that Circle of Chalk, a Yuan Dynasty play, is still being performed in European versions set in 14th-century China, Soviet Georgia and East Germany?
... that Penelope Boothby was painted by Henry Fuseli and sculpted by Thomas Banks, as well as being the subject of a book of poetry by her grieving father Sir Brooke Boothby, Bt?

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In this month

9 April 2000 – Jackie Evancho is born. At the age of 10, she becomes the youngest singer in history with a platinum album, O Holy Night.
10 April 1900 – Scottish soprano Mary Garden makes her professional debut singing the title role in Gustave Charpentier's Louise at the Opéra-Comique in Paris
11 April 1869 – Norwegian sculptor Gustav Vigeland, designer of the Nobel Peace Prize medal, is born near Halse og Harkmark
12 April 1937 – Abdülhak Hâmid Tarhan, an early 20th-century Turkish playwright and poet who was one of the leading lights of the Turkish Romantic period dies in Istanbul
23 April 1616 – William Shakespeare (pictured), often considered the greatest English playwright, dies in Stratford-upon-Avon at the age of 52
29 April 1968 – Hair, which defined the genre of the "rock musical", has its Broadway premiere at the Biltmore Theatre

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André Kertész (1894–1985) was a Hungarian-born photographer distinguished by his photographic composition and by his early efforts in developing the photo essay.

In the early years of his lengthy career, his then-unorthodox camera angles, and his unwillingness to compromise his personal photographic style, prevented his work from gaining wider recognition. Even towards the end of his life, Kertész did not feel he had gained worldwide recognition. The first photographer to have an exposition devoted to his work, he is recognized as one of the seminal figures of photojournalism, if not photography as a whole.

Dedicated by his family to work as a stock broker, Kertész was an autodidact and his early work was mostly published in magazines. The imminent threat of WWII pushed him to immigrate to the United States, where he had a more difficult life and needed to rebuild his reputation through commissioned work. He would take offense with several editors that he felt did not recognize his work. In the 1940s and '50s he stopped working for magazines and began to achieve greater international success. Despite the numerous awards he collected over the years, he still felt unrecognized, a sentiment which did not change even at the time of his death.

His career is generally divided into four periods – the Hungarian period, the French period, the American period and, towards the end of his life, the International period. (Full article...)

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